Speaker 1: For members only. Golf Smarter number three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: published on December fourth, twenty twelve.
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Speaker 3: Many of us are walking around with an imbalance in
Speaker 3: our forearms. You know, we tend to be stronger on
Speaker 3: the underside of our forearms because we're gripping things all day.
Speaker 3: So the muscles on the underside tend to be stronger
Speaker 3: than the muscles on the top part of our forearm,
Speaker 3: the expensers, which are responsible for kind of spreading out
Speaker 3: our fingers.
Speaker 1: Oh, when you say top part of the forum, you
Speaker 1: mean the side of the back of your.
Speaker 3: Hand, the back of yes, okay. And so because we
Speaker 3: have that in balance with the flectors being stronger than
Speaker 3: the extensors, that can lead to issues in the risk, elbow,
Speaker 3: and even shoulder. Carpa tunnel. A lot of people have
Speaker 3: carpa tunnel because of that in balance, and again, it's
Speaker 3: something that a lot of people just don't realize that
Speaker 3: they have. It just develops. Again, We're gripping doorknobs, we're
Speaker 3: gripping chairs, We're gripping, gripping, gripping, and we really don't
Speaker 3: do anything to balance out that strength by providing a
Speaker 3: resistance to the extensors. I mean, how many times do
Speaker 3: you have a resistance when you are going from a
Speaker 3: closed fist to an open finger position? Hardly ever, so
Speaker 3: you don't really get a chance to work those extensor
Speaker 3: muscles as.
Speaker 1: Much dealing with and overcoming golf injuries with Bob Forman.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 4: Each week we tap the best minds in golf to
Speaker 4: help lower your scores with tips, drills, insights and advice
Speaker 4: in conversation with course pros, architect authors, players, teaching gurus
Speaker 4: and coaches.
Speaker 2: Here's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Golf Smarter for members only.
Speaker 3: Bob, Hey, it's pleasure being back, and thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you spending some extra time talking about this
Speaker 1: because I wanted to go back for a minute about
Speaker 1: you were talking about the C curve and the S curve,
Speaker 1: the different postures that the golfers are suffering through. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it was you who mentioned this
Speaker 1: or somebody else, but it was an epiphany for me,
Speaker 1: and that was my posture at address bending at the
Speaker 1: hips versus bending at the waist. And can you expand
Speaker 1: on that? Because I found that when I'm if I
Speaker 1: have this right, the bending at my hips so a
Speaker 1: little bit, you know, about four or five inches below
Speaker 1: my waist, I'm in better position to get a good turn.
Speaker 1: It just seems to make a difference when I focused
Speaker 1: on keeping my posture starting you know, at my at
Speaker 1: my hip joints and bending there versus just bending over
Speaker 1: and hunching over the ball.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the hip hinge if they technically call
Speaker 3: it is. You know, it's definitely much better when you
Speaker 3: do hinge from the hip because that will allow you
Speaker 3: to have a much straighter spine. I mean spines, not straight,
Speaker 3: but you know what I'm talking about. When you look
Speaker 3: at somebody from the side, you want to see their
Speaker 3: back relatively flat as they're addressing the ball. When you
Speaker 3: bend over at the waist, what happens is you tend
Speaker 3: to get more into that rounded bode back posture, that
Speaker 3: sea posture. So yeah, you know, between the two, you
Speaker 3: definitely want to focus on more of the hip flex
Speaker 3: inflection a hip hinge. And a lot of times people
Speaker 3: have difficulty with that because their hamstrings are tight. And
Speaker 3: we talked about the tight hamstrings in the first part
Speaker 3: there a little bit, and when in some cases, I mean,
Speaker 3: the hamstrings are really tight, and in that case it's
Speaker 3: going to prevent you or it's going to hold you
Speaker 3: back really from efficiently hinging from the hip because the
Speaker 3: hamstring won't allow that hip bone to rotate as you
Speaker 3: are bending forward, so you tend to bend more at
Speaker 3: the waste and get into that sea posture. So tightness
Speaker 3: in the hamstring is a big factor for allowing you
Speaker 3: to get into a good hitting position or a good
Speaker 3: address position over the ball.
Speaker 1: And now I think this is a good lead in
Speaker 1: to talk about injuries, golf injuries and what causes them,
Speaker 1: what we need to do about them. And I hate
Speaker 1: asking multiple questions at once, but the things that I'd
Speaker 1: like to cover about golf injuries are how do we
Speaker 1: deal with them? Should we stop playing golf?
Speaker 2: How long?
Speaker 1: Or play through it? Be tough, be a guy, be
Speaker 1: a man, you know, I mean, like, what injuries are
Speaker 1: we talking about that you see most of the time
Speaker 1: for golfers. And I apologize for asking too many questions
Speaker 1: at once.
Speaker 3: I don't like doing that. Well, I mean, you've definitely
Speaker 3: got to be a man to play through it. Back
Speaker 3: injuries tend to be number one, and there are multiple
Speaker 3: reasons why that's so. Just having muscle tightness in specific
Speaker 3: areas like the hamstrings, the muscles in the back of
Speaker 3: the thighs, or the hip flexers, the muscles in the
Speaker 3: front part of the hip, that alone can lead to
Speaker 3: muscle low back discomfort and low back pain. Forget about
Speaker 3: playing golf, just every day you know, living those particular
Speaker 3: muscle deficiencies can enhance your incidence of low back discomfort. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, a simple way to test for hamstring tightness
Speaker 3: is just to stand up, place your feet together, keep
Speaker 3: your knees locked and nice and easy, bend forward at
Speaker 3: the hips, and reach down towards the floor with your
Speaker 3: fingers as far as you can go until you feel
Speaker 3: that stretch in the back of the leg. Now, the
Speaker 3: goal there to pass that assessment that we do with
Speaker 3: golfers is they would need to be able to touch
Speaker 3: the floor with their fingertips, and if they can't, it
Speaker 3: means that their hamstrings are tight, and the further away
Speaker 3: from the floor they are, the tighter the ham strings,
Speaker 3: and the greater the risk of developing low back discomfort
Speaker 3: and pain. Now you combine that with the action of
Speaker 3: swinging a golf club, you know, twisting the body and
Speaker 3: exploding in the down swing, and it's like a perfect storm.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just you know, you're just waiting for
Speaker 3: that back to get blown out. So in that situation,
Speaker 3: you really want to make sure you focus on stretching
Speaker 3: those ham strings, and there are specific stretches to do
Speaker 3: so that you can enhance the flexibility of the ham strings,
Speaker 3: and then a lot of times that alleviates the back issues.
Speaker 3: Another issue that I see a lot, or another cause
Speaker 3: for low back discomfort that I see quite a bit,
Speaker 3: and it actually stems from the mid back, the thoracic
Speaker 3: spine area. Now the thoracic spine. You know a lot
Speaker 3: of people think that they get their rotation in the
Speaker 3: golf swing from the lower back, and really the lower
Speaker 3: back is geared more for stability strength, and it's really
Speaker 3: the mid back area, right kind of where the ribcage
Speaker 3: is and stuff is really where rotations should come from.
Speaker 3: And the higher up you go in that mid back
Speaker 3: area towards the neck, the more rotation you should be
Speaker 3: able to get. Now, there is an assessment that we
Speaker 3: do with golfers to test to see whether or not
Speaker 3: their mid back is tight, and many golfers fail that
Speaker 3: test and come out with having tightness in that area.
Speaker 3: And when you're tight in that mid back thoracic spine area,
Speaker 3: what's going to happen is as you start to turn
Speaker 3: the upper bodies start to rotate the body back in
Speaker 3: the backswing and bringing the club back. If the mid
Speaker 3: back is tight, it's not going to allow you to
Speaker 3: really rotate as far as you'd like to in order
Speaker 3: to get a good shoulder turn and a good backswing.
Speaker 3: And so you get to a certain point and those
Speaker 3: tight muscles are saying, you know, we're not going to
Speaker 3: let you go, but you still want to go back further.
Speaker 3: So what has to happen is you have to recruit
Speaker 3: the lower back in the rotation, and the lower back
Speaker 3: just doesn't like that. And so again you're swinging a
Speaker 3: golf club, you know, hundreds of times during the round
Speaker 3: of golf. And if you're in that situation where your
Speaker 3: mid back is tight and you're recruiting that lower back
Speaker 3: into the rotation, that's going to start putting some stress
Speaker 3: on the lower back, and over time you're going to
Speaker 3: injure the lower back. So it's interesting how you know,
Speaker 3: tightness in the mid back and tightness down below the
Speaker 3: hip and the hamstrings and or the hip flexers can
Speaker 3: create low back injury and low back pain.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised we've never really talked about the
Speaker 1: mid back and what kind of injuries pains are we
Speaker 1: going to have with mid back issues.
Speaker 3: Well, well, I mean, like I say, you know, the
Speaker 3: mid back is a big precursor in the mid mid
Speaker 3: back is a big precursor for the low back discomfort.
Speaker 1: Is actually okay, so it's going to translate there, But
Speaker 1: I think it also translates if you know where you
Speaker 1: were saying, where the turn comes from, it's going to
Speaker 1: translate in your distance, your accuracy, your ball striking ability.
Speaker 3: Right oh yeah, well yeah, you know again, you know,
Speaker 3: if the the if you don't have that ability to
Speaker 3: get the club back, you know, and the club he
Speaker 3: doesn't travel as far in the back swing, it's not
Speaker 3: going to be able to travel as far in the downswing,
Speaker 3: so you're basically robbing yourself of clubhead speed and that
Speaker 3: inevitably cuts back on your distance. It also can cause
Speaker 3: you to go into other types of swing faults that
Speaker 3: can cause back discomfort. You know, the two most common
Speaker 3: swing faults, I should say the two top swing faults
Speaker 3: that lead up to back injury are reverse spine. And
Speaker 3: basically what that is is your upper body is leaning
Speaker 3: back towards the target as you bring the club back
Speaker 3: into the back swing, I mean i.
Speaker 1: Auto back swing. You're now your back your back is
Speaker 1: to the target, and you're leaning in that towards that direction.
Speaker 3: And you're leaning back towards the target. Yeah, ideally when
Speaker 3: you get over the ball, all right, For our right
Speaker 3: handed golfer, let's say your right hand is going to
Speaker 3: be lower on the club than your left hand, so
Speaker 3: that automatically gets your right shoulder a little bit lower
Speaker 3: and your spine angling away from your target. All right,
Speaker 3: that's your secondary spine angle left to right. Your primary
Speaker 3: spine angle is your front to back right, So your
Speaker 3: spine angle angling away from the target. Now, when you
Speaker 3: bring the club back into the backswing. Ideally, you want
Speaker 3: to keep that spine angle angling away from the target
Speaker 3: because that's going to set you up at the top
Speaker 3: of the backswing in a good position so that you
Speaker 3: can initiate the downswing and the proper hitting sequence. And
Speaker 3: that's starting with the hips, then the body, then the arms,
Speaker 3: then the club. A lot of golfers, unfortunately, will go
Speaker 3: into reverse spine, where as they bring the club back,
Speaker 3: the spine angle now goes from facing away from the
Speaker 3: target to leaning back towards the target. All right, So
Speaker 3: can you picture that in your mind? So what happens is,
Speaker 3: number One, you're in a bad hitting position to initiate
Speaker 3: the down swing and the proper hitting sequence. So your
Speaker 3: arms tend to take over the down swing versus your hips,
Speaker 3: So you tend to become an upper body swinger and
Speaker 3: you swing with the arms. You when you swing with
Speaker 3: the arms, you tend to come over the top, and
Speaker 3: you tend to cast the club out early in the
Speaker 3: down swing. So because you come over the top, you're
Speaker 3: going to have a slice, because you're going to cut
Speaker 3: the ball, and because you're throwing the club out too
Speaker 3: soon in a down swing, you tend to increase the
Speaker 3: loft of the club, and you tend to have more
Speaker 3: trajectory upwards, so you lose distance and so you're not
Speaker 3: a happy camper. But the other thing is is that
Speaker 3: that reverse spine puts a lot of pressure on the
Speaker 3: lower back as you come back down into the down swing.
Speaker 3: It's actually the number one swing fault for low back discomfort. Interesting,
Speaker 3: the other swing fault that leads to back injury and
Speaker 3: back discomfort is called early extension. And what early extension
Speaker 3: is and that deals with the hips. Now, when you're
Speaker 3: standing over the ball and your arms are down hanging
Speaker 3: down towards the ball, you have a pretty good space
Speaker 3: there that you've developed from bending at the hips, you know,
Speaker 3: the hiphinge. And as you bring the club back and
Speaker 3: then you start your downswing, what happens in early extension
Speaker 3: is that your hips will start moving towards the ball
Speaker 3: and actually kind of closing down on that nice space
Speaker 3: that you had before you started the backswing. And so
Speaker 3: as the hips move forward as the arms are coming
Speaker 3: down through the ball, they're basically getting cramped in there
Speaker 3: and you don't have as much room, so you tend
Speaker 3: to block and push the ball out to the right,
Speaker 3: and so a lot of golfers, you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of the smarter golfers will say, okay, well I got
Speaker 3: to throw more wrists into my shot, and they start
Speaker 3: hitting the duck hooks. So characteristics of early extent scenario
Speaker 3: either tend to push the shout out to the right
Speaker 3: all the time or you start hitting these duck hooks.
Speaker 3: But the act of that hip moving towards the ball
Speaker 3: again starts to put pressure on the lower back and
Speaker 3: that's usually the second biggest swing fault that leads up
Speaker 3: to low back issues. Now, early extension, there's a strong
Speaker 3: correlation between tightness and the hamstrings, and there you go.
Speaker 3: There's you know the low back yeah end, or tightness
Speaker 3: in the calves end, or weak glutes your buttocks as
Speaker 3: far as Gump would say. And weak glutes are also
Speaker 3: a factor just by themselves for low back discomfort because
Speaker 3: they tend to be they should be the strongest muscles
Speaker 3: in the body. I mean, those are your power muscles
Speaker 3: in your golf swing, and they also will impact you know,
Speaker 3: your ability, or I should say, we'll have an influence
Speaker 3: on your back when you're standing. So weak loots, tight hamstrings,
Speaker 3: you know, just like I said, factors for for back issues,
Speaker 3: and then you combine it with some of these poor
Speaker 3: swing faults, and you know that's that's why Well, back
Speaker 3: injuries number one.
Speaker 1: And what about number two? And now we've been very
Speaker 1: focused on the back, I was curious to also talk
Speaker 1: about elbows, shoulders, knees, Yeah, what other what other barts?
Speaker 1: Swing faults are going to create problems there?
Speaker 3: Well, elbows, let's let's talk about tendonitis in the elbows.
Speaker 3: A lot of gods have pendinitis, and you know you'll
Speaker 3: see them out there with the straps on their forearms
Speaker 3: to try to spread out the uh, you know, the
Speaker 3: stress to the from the impact and the ball to
Speaker 3: to the greater area in the forearm. But in a
Speaker 3: lot of cases, the tendinitis develops because of lack of
Speaker 3: range of motion in the shoulder and especially external shoulder rotation.
Speaker 3: And there's a way you can measure that and determine
Speaker 3: how much range of motion a golfer has. And ideally,
Speaker 3: you know, we want to try to get the golfer
Speaker 3: to about one hundred and ten degrees. I mean, when
Speaker 3: you think about somebody doing the boy scout signal, you know,
Speaker 3: with their arm out to the side and then the
Speaker 3: elbow bent at ninety degrees.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm doing it.
Speaker 3: If you start in that position and then from there
Speaker 3: you just rotate back your hand in your forearm, that's
Speaker 3: external rotation in the shoulder.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, how far should I be able to go
Speaker 1: before it starts hurting?
Speaker 3: Well, you're going to start at ninety degrees, and you
Speaker 3: should be able to go back at least another twenty
Speaker 3: degrees okay to have sufficient external shoulder rotation. Now, some
Speaker 3: golfers have difficulty getting just the ninety degrees. That's a
Speaker 3: big issue anywhere between a ninety and one hundred and ten.
Speaker 3: We want to start to work on some range of
Speaker 3: motion exercises to increase that arrangement. Because what happens when
Speaker 3: you're swinging the golf club on the trail side, which
Speaker 3: would be the right side for a right handed golfer.
Speaker 3: As you're bringing the golf club back, you're going to
Speaker 3: externally rotate that right shoulder in order to get the
Speaker 3: club back. If you have limited range of motion there,
Speaker 3: what's going to happen is you tend to either limit
Speaker 3: your back swing or you tend to throw the elbow
Speaker 3: out and have that flying elbow, or you'll change your
Speaker 3: swing plane. You'll start on kind of a rotational swing
Speaker 3: and then go vertical with the swing plane, or you
Speaker 3: go into reverse spine. So see one thing. A lot
Speaker 3: of times one thing leads to another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just gonna say that it sounds like everything's
Speaker 1: interconnected here, that this begets this, begets this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And if it's on the target side, so left
Speaker 3: side for a right handed golfer, as you're coming down
Speaker 3: to the all through impact, you want to be able
Speaker 3: to kind of extend out towards the target. But if
Speaker 3: you lack range emotion in that target shoulder, that left
Speaker 3: shoulder for oriented golfer, what's going to happen is you'll
Speaker 3: see the characteristics is the elbow will kind of hug
Speaker 3: the body as you go around on the follow through
Speaker 3: as opposed to being able to extend out towards the target.
Speaker 3: So you basically kind of shorten the arc of the
Speaker 3: follow through swing. And like I say, in either case,
Speaker 3: and that's called the chicken wing by the way, swing fault.
Speaker 3: And in either case, you know you're putting a lot
Speaker 3: of stress on the elbow and that tends to lead
Speaker 3: to inflammation tendonitis in the elbow. So again it's kind
Speaker 3: of interesting where you know, one part of the body
Speaker 3: will influence a different part of the body. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I mean exercises to help increase range emotion in the
Speaker 3: shoulder joint are definitely warranted in that regards. Again, you know,
Speaker 3: with a little time and a little consistency, you'd be
Speaker 3: surprised what a difference that can.
Speaker 1: Make interesting lower lower body, lower half, knees.
Speaker 3: Ankles, knees ankles, you know.
Speaker 1: Are those golfer the golfers complain about stuff like that,
Speaker 1: not as much.
Speaker 3: You know, it depends again, a lot of it is
Speaker 3: is kind of mechanics in that regards. If you see
Speaker 3: that a golfer, well, let's take the lead leg, you know,
Speaker 3: on a golfer, the target leg again, a left knee
Speaker 3: for a right handed golfer. You know, if you have
Speaker 3: an injury to the left side of the body, for
Speaker 3: a right handed golfer, it tends to be a lot
Speaker 3: worse than the right side because that's where all your
Speaker 3: weight ends up. And obviously for a lefty golfer would
Speaker 3: be on your right side. And a lot of times
Speaker 3: what you'll see with with the knees. Is that if
Speaker 3: a golfer has excessive movement in the down swing where
Speaker 3: they tend to slide the hips excessively.
Speaker 1: And that's very common, right, there's so much, so many
Speaker 1: people that I notice, and I'm guilty myself of just
Speaker 1: left to right hip movement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you tend to see it quite a bit. And
Speaker 3: again there's there's various reasons why that occurs. But if
Speaker 3: it's excessive in the down swing, excuse me. A lot
Speaker 3: of times you'll see kind of that knee, that left
Speaker 3: knee kind of buckle out a little bit, if you
Speaker 3: can kind of picture that so so on a.
Speaker 1: Right handed golfer on the back swing. And this is
Speaker 1: something that we've talked about a lot with like Tony Manzoni,
Speaker 1: at least I learned it from him. So many golfers
Speaker 1: they'll on their back swing, they lift their left heel
Speaker 1: on their back swing, and then their left knee points
Speaker 1: too hard. Well, it doesn't pointing towards the ball. It
Speaker 1: should be pointing towards the ball, right, it should be
Speaker 1: out that No, it like cuts across their body.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep. And then on the downswing what happens is
Speaker 3: the knee the hips will start to shift laterally and
Speaker 3: the knee actually starts pointing out towards the target, So
Speaker 3: it's almost like your legs in a sideways V shape,
Speaker 3: and it tends to put a lot of pressure on
Speaker 3: the knee joint I mean, and that that slide move
Speaker 3: I mean the swing flats called a slide where basically,
Speaker 3: you know, your left side of the body for a
Speaker 3: rained golfer is moving too much laterally. It puts a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure on it can put a lot of
Speaker 3: pressure on the knee and a lot of times, you know,
Speaker 3: golfers do that because either they have lack of range
Speaker 3: of motion in their internal hip rotators. So as they're
Speaker 3: coming down through the ball and they're starting to that
Speaker 3: lateral movement, there should be a slight lateral movement in
Speaker 3: the hips, and then you want to start to rotate
Speaker 3: the hips, but they can't rotate because their internal hip
Speaker 3: rotators on that side are tight and in some cases
Speaker 3: extremely tight, so that's not allowing that freedom of movement
Speaker 3: in the hip. So as the golfer is bringing a
Speaker 3: club down, they start the lateral movement, but then they
Speaker 3: can't stop it, so they keep moving laterally, so that
Speaker 3: tends to lead to that slide move and a lot
Speaker 3: of times that tends to lead to that knee just
Speaker 3: kind of pointing out towards the target. And again, you know,
Speaker 3: you do that over and over and over again, and
Speaker 3: you start putting a lot of pressure on that knee,
Speaker 3: especially if you know the ligaments on both sides of
Speaker 3: the knee. Uh, and it just takes a toll after
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 1: Do you ever see issues that? And again, a very
Speaker 1: common occurrence on the backswing when you have that left
Speaker 1: knee for a right handed golfer, the left knee cutting
Speaker 1: across the body, pointing, you know, behind you versus pointing
Speaker 1: in front of you, the right knee tends to lock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's a very common mistake that I'm learning. Actually,
Speaker 1: when I don't lock my knee, when I make sure
Speaker 1: that I keep someflection, Is that the right word in
Speaker 1: my in my knee, that I tend to hit the
Speaker 1: ball straight or I tend not to hook the ball
Speaker 1: as much?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, Because when you lock that back knee, that
Speaker 3: that trail knee, you tend to over rotate your hips,
Speaker 3: to be honest.
Speaker 1: With it, Oh, okay.
Speaker 3: And that can lead to a whole host of things.
Speaker 3: You know, if you tend to over rotate, it's going
Speaker 3: to take you longer to come back with the hips.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we're talking a whole different subject here,
Speaker 3: but so that that can impact you know, your your
Speaker 3: consistency and your golf swing definitely for sure. I Mean
Speaker 3: another big injury area.
Speaker 1: Is the wrists, right, That's where I was headed next.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, and a lot of that is more
Speaker 3: because you know, you want to be a hero and
Speaker 3: you hit your shot out of the woods and you
Speaker 3: didn't realize there was a root there or something like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, so that you know, that takes an impact.
Speaker 3: And when you you know, when you really think about
Speaker 3: slamming a club into the ground, I mean even when
Speaker 3: you're out in a fair way, I mean that that
Speaker 3: sends a joel up through the club into the wrists
Speaker 3: and the forearms and elbow and stuff, and that can
Speaker 3: also take a toll on wrists and elbows and shoulders well.
Speaker 1: And to get a divot, you're supposed to get that
Speaker 1: clubhead down into the ground so the smash, smash the
Speaker 1: ball into the ground and.
Speaker 3: Get that divot exactly. But the other thing is that
Speaker 3: a lot of us. Many of us are walking around
Speaker 3: with an imbalance in our forearms. You know, we tend
Speaker 3: to be stronger on the underside of our forearms because,
Speaker 3: you know, the flexers, because we're gripping things all day,
Speaker 3: So the muscles on the underside tend to be stronger
Speaker 3: than the muscles on the top part of our forearm,
Speaker 3: the expensers, which are responsible for kind of spreading out
Speaker 3: our fingers.
Speaker 1: Well, when you say top part of the forearm, you
Speaker 1: mean the side of the back of your hand, the
Speaker 1: back of yes, so your forearm versus okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay. And so because we have that in balance
Speaker 3: with the flexors being stronger than the extensors, that can
Speaker 3: lead to issues in the wrist, elbow, and even shoulder.
Speaker 3: You know, carpal tunnel. A lot a lot of people
Speaker 3: have carpal tunnel because of that imbalance. And again it's
Speaker 3: something that a lot of people just don't realize that
Speaker 3: they have. It just develops because of the fact. You know,
Speaker 3: again we're gripping door knobs, we're gripping chairs, we're gripping, gripping, gripping,
Speaker 3: and we really don't do anything to balance out that
Speaker 3: strength by providing a resistance to the extensors. I mean,
Speaker 3: how many times do you have a resistance when you
Speaker 3: are going from a closed fist to an open finger position.
Speaker 3: Hardly ever, so you don't really get a chance to
Speaker 3: work those extensor muscles as much. So then you take
Speaker 3: a sport like golf, which kind of gets your your
Speaker 3: wrists and you know into kind of a what's called
Speaker 3: an action abduction, you know, multiple plane type movement as
Speaker 3: you're swinging the golf club and you have this imbalance
Speaker 3: in your forearm that just leads up to increase risk
Speaker 3: for injuries in the risk and the al bow and shoulders.
Speaker 3: So what you need to do is you need to
Speaker 3: balance that out. And I'm a big proponent any way
Speaker 3: of forearm strength and the golf swing. I think that
Speaker 3: really helps in terms of being able to hit better
Speaker 3: shots and to as we talked about in the first segment,
Speaker 3: get more power and distance into your golf swing. But
Speaker 3: you really got to get some balance into the forearm.
Speaker 3: And there's a real great exercise you can do a
Speaker 3: simple little exercise to help the ex It's called a
Speaker 3: rubber band expensive exercise, and all as you do is
Speaker 3: you just take a rubber band and wrap it around
Speaker 3: your first you put your fingers together with your thumb,
Speaker 3: and you take the rubber band and you wrap it
Speaker 3: around the first knuckle, and then you just open and
Speaker 3: close your fingers against the rubber band. And you can
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: You know they're reaching and reaching my drawer hand pulling
Speaker 1: out a rubber band.
Speaker 3: Okay, So so put your fingers together with your thumb
Speaker 3: and then wrap the rubber band or around the first knuckle, okay,
Speaker 3: with the knuckle closest to the fingernails, and then just
Speaker 3: basically open and close, open, close, open, close, And if
Speaker 3: you do that about twenty twenty five times, you'll start
Speaker 3: to feel the burn, especially in the the the top
Speaker 3: of your forearm, yeah, the backside of your hand. But
Speaker 3: that's a great exercise to really isolate those expensers so
Speaker 3: that you can get balance into the forearm, so that
Speaker 3: you can reduce the risk of injury in the wrist,
Speaker 3: elbow and shoulders.
Speaker 1: Does it matter how I hold my hand wrist arm?
Speaker 1: I mean, should I be hand down, elbow bent anything
Speaker 1: like that or just no? Oh good, because you know
Speaker 1: I'm I'm getting tired, I'm ready for a nap. This
Speaker 1: is a lot of work for.
Speaker 3: Me both sides.
Speaker 1: Oh god, you're really pushing me now, buddy.
Speaker 3: Balance remember balance?
Speaker 1: Yeah right, okay, but you do that.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty five times a couple of times during the day,
Speaker 3: and then when that gets easy to do, you get
Speaker 3: a thicker rubber band and so that you have more
Speaker 3: resistance and then you use that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, this is good. I'm definitely feeling it. I'm definitely
Speaker 1: feeling it.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: So you've told us all about all these different issues
Speaker 1: that we have and what causes these issues and how
Speaker 1: to change it so we don't recreate these issues or
Speaker 1: continue with these issues. But I'm in pain right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: I just got off the golf course. My lower back
Speaker 1: is killing me, and I you know, what.
Speaker 3: What do you.
Speaker 1: Prescribe for us to what's the best thing to do
Speaker 1: when we get these eggs and pains?
Speaker 3: Well, if the umilienside. Ideally when you get off bak golf,
Speaker 3: of course, if you can ice the area down, you know,
Speaker 3: for about fifteen minutes or so, you get an ice
Speaker 3: pack and put a thin cloth between you and the
Speaker 3: ice pack. You don't want to you know, you don't
Speaker 3: want to have frostbite on the skin. And leave it
Speaker 3: on there, like you said, for about fifteen minutes or so.
Speaker 3: That's going to help reduce or prevent excessive inflammation in
Speaker 3: the area.
Speaker 1: And do we target the ice pack just where we
Speaker 1: feel the pain or if or you know, if it's
Speaker 1: low back, should I be targeting on my hamstrings?
Speaker 3: A right? No? No, in the low back area.
Speaker 1: Okay, where you where the pain is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, for about fifteen minutes. Good. And then you know,
Speaker 3: if you're not allergic to like an advil, just take
Speaker 3: a of advil anti inflammatory and that will help again
Speaker 3: keep the inflammation down because the more the inflammation, the
Speaker 3: more inflammation you get, the longer the healing processes have
Speaker 3: to take. So that's why you know, if you're active
Speaker 3: and you've got to pain, you want to ice it
Speaker 3: right after the activity. And now if the injury is
Speaker 3: kind of prolonged, you know it's more than say three
Speaker 3: or four days, you want to start going with moist heat,
Speaker 3: not dry heat. Moist heat because dry heat basically will
Speaker 3: just heat the surface of the skin, and especially for
Speaker 3: the low back area and a lot of the other
Speaker 3: areas of the body. You know, the pain is kind
Speaker 3: of deep into the body or into the joint. So
Speaker 3: the dry heat really doesn't do all that much, So
Speaker 3: you want to get the moist heat because the moist
Speaker 3: heat will penetrate.
Speaker 1: And do we rotate the heat nice yep, yep, you could.
Speaker 3: You know, especially after the first few days, you would
Speaker 3: definitely want to go with the ice to keep the
Speaker 3: inflammation down and then you can start going with the
Speaker 3: you know, the ice at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: You know, because during the day you're going to be
Speaker 3: moving around and so you're going to kind of place
Speaker 3: some stress to the area. So if you go with
Speaker 3: some ice initially and then later on moist heat would
Speaker 3: be good. If you don't want to do both. If
Speaker 3: it's been three or four days, I would go with
Speaker 3: the moist heat.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about moist versus dry heat, I
Speaker 1: just want to make sure that I understand what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Dry heat, in my mind, is a heating
Speaker 1: pad that you plug in. Moist heat would be one
Speaker 1: of those pillows you wrap around those I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: call it a pillow you wrap around your neck. You
Speaker 1: put them in the microwave for a minute and a half.
Speaker 1: Is that Is that more of a moist heat?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, and what I like to do is
Speaker 3: just take a towel. Okay, it wet, the towel, ring
Speaker 3: it out, put it in the microwave for a couple
Speaker 3: of minutes, and then, uh, you know, put a plastic
Speaker 3: bag on the floor so that you don't get the
Speaker 3: floor wet, put the towel on it, and then uh,
Speaker 3: you know, gently lay on the towel or apply it
Speaker 3: to the area the shoulder, the elbow, the knee.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: But it's got to be tolerable hot, and you got to, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you gotta experiment with your microwave because I mean, in
Speaker 3: some cases two minutes may be you know, you may
Speaker 3: be too long. So yeah, so I know the microwave
Speaker 3: who we have here at the house, you know, two
Speaker 3: minutes is good. Yeah, but you got to experiment with
Speaker 3: your microwave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're at a minute fifty.
Speaker 3: But then you know it's it'll probably start to cool
Speaker 3: off in about eight to ten minutes. So do it
Speaker 3: a second time and you'd be surprised, you know what
Speaker 3: I tell people that, especially again when you've got this
Speaker 3: discomfort that's lasted for a few days or weeks. Once
Speaker 3: you go to the moist tea It's amazing what a
Speaker 3: difference it can make.
Speaker 1: Boy, we saved the best moment for last. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: the best tip of all. And also on the anti inflammatory,
Speaker 1: make sure that it doesn't mess with your stomach because
Speaker 1: because some of those some of those pills will give
Speaker 1: you stomach issues. So make sure that you're eating and you.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I mean, if you're not sure, you'll
Speaker 3: definitely talk to your physician. Yeah. Yeah, But the and
Speaker 3: the inn exlammatory is basically you know, obediate you know,
Speaker 3: the first to the first day or as soon as
Speaker 3: you injure it, you want to take it again to reach.
Speaker 1: And it's not a blood level thing that you want
Speaker 1: to take every four hours all the time or every
Speaker 1: six hours.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean you can, but like I say, you're
Speaker 3: three and four days of days out, you kind of
Speaker 3: want to stop taking those.
Speaker 1: Things, right, and you talk to your doctor. Yeah awesome,
Speaker 1: Hey Bob, thank you you finally answered all my questions
Speaker 1: at least for this time around.
Speaker 3: Enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you're going to be back and the
Speaker 1: uh and again and we have talked about more subjects
Speaker 1: since up, but this has really been helpful again for everybody.
Speaker 1: If they want to see what Bob has to say
Speaker 1: in his writings his blog, go to golf Fit Carolina
Speaker 1: and it's only one f golf Fit Carolina or golf
Speaker 1: it Carolina dot com. And if you have any specific
Speaker 1: questions for Bob, if you're not in the area, you're in,
Speaker 1: which part you're in, Which part of Carolina.
Speaker 3: You're I'm in the Greensboro area.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, high Point, North Carolina. Is that what? That's
Speaker 1: what I've written here? There you go. So if you're
Speaker 1: not in that area and you'd like to communicate with Bob,
Speaker 1: please send me an email, click on a Hey Fred
Speaker 1: button and let me know that you want to ask
Speaker 1: questions and I will get you guys together. That would
Speaker 1: be fine. Bob, thanks so much for joining us and
Speaker 1: giving all this great advice and insight. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: My pleasure,