With the Masters on this weekend I thought this would be an ideal time to answer a question that I get on a regular basis when Sam and I get injured Golfers come into the clinic for treatement.  Why condition golfers?  It's an easy sport that people play in their leisure time to unwind and relax isn't it.  You hit a ball, take a walk, hit a ball again, easy right?

Wrong!  The forces generated in long game shots are easily as high as any of those required for sports that are commonly regarded as far more physically demanding.  Studies of electrical activity in the muscles of golfers driving the ball have shown that this shot takes as much muscle activation (effort) as lifting a load in the gym that is so heavy you can't lift it more than four times!  That is an incredibly heavy lift!  Your gym instructor would have a heart attack if a novice lifter came into the gym and proceeded to try that lift!  Yet that's exactly what most golfers do.

Strains and injuries to the arms, particularly the wrist and elbow, are frighteningly common in golf today.  In this article I'm going to try and help solve that problem for anyone who suffers with this.  Now the focus is on golf due to that being my specialist subject but this information applies equally to any sport involving expression of force through the arms such as tennis, squash, cricket etc.

As part of our offering at On the Bench we have a comprehensive range of Golf Biomechanics services.  These include everything from work to correct swing faults and injuries to professional standard conditioning to improve performance.