6 Mobility Exercises For Golfers Over 60

I've worked with thousands of golfers over the age of 60 in the past 15 years of training .

And the top three things that they all struggle with is number one mobility , having the flexibility to be able to get a full shoulder turn and then separate and get , use their hips on the down swinging .

The other thing is , is stability .

So being able to really stay stable in that lower body and then swing hard and be able to maintain and control that .

And then the last thing is balance , just being able to stand on one leg is tough for most .

But when you add that lack of mobility , lack of stability and you're trying to swing harder , you're gonna lose your balance .

So we want to make sure that you can control that swing and have the balance .

And I'm gonna give you the top five things that I work on with all those clients .

So let's address the first thing and that's mobility or we'll look at shoulder turn because if you can't make a full shoulder turn , chances are you're either gonna stand up in your swing , you're gonna go , you're gonna lean over or you're trying to make , uh , you're gonna try to feel like you're turning your shoulders or you're just not gonna turn your shoulders .

It's gonna lead to an over the top because you don't make a full back swing .

So , we're gonna do these two exercises here .

First one is called Open Books and it's one of my favorites .

It feels good .

Clients enjoy it and it's easy to do .

But if it's gonna make a huge impact in your swing , so you're gonna lay , we'll call it the hook line position or the fetal position .

So you're gonna lay on with your knees pulled up as high as you can , then you're gonna put your , you're gonna stack your hands like this .

And then from here , what we're gonna do is we're gonna take our top hand and you're going to follow it with your eyes , keep your elbow bent and go back as far as you can go .

You should try and keep your knees together .

If you , if you feel like your knee is coming up , that means you're really tight .

And , and number two , you want to hold it down with this right arm and you're going to go back as far as you can go and follow that hand with your eyes , hold it for about three seconds and then we'll bring it back as far as you can reaching all the way here .

Follow with your eyes this whole time .

You're getting that whole shoulder turn .

So you're stretching all through here , that thoracic spine .

It's a great exercise to get that shoulder turn that you're gonna need in your swing .

All right .

So we'll do 10 to 15 on each side of that .

The next one we're gonna do is swim your hands and knees and all you're gonna do is put your hand behind your head just like this .

You're gonna take your elbow , go down to your opposite knee and then come up as high as you can go .

Just like that .

The main thing that I see with my clients is their hip tends to kick out .

So when they get up here , their hip goes way out like this , you want to maintain that stability in that lower body there and keep that hip stable and then go up as high as you can come all the way down and then back up as high as you can go .

Really working on that thoracic turn that's going to help you to get more shoulder turn in your golf swing .

Ok .

Next , let's talk about stability and what stability is basically is keeping your body from moving too much side to side forward to back , being able to control that mobility or lack of mobility .

So what we want to do is we can't talk about stability without talking about .

Number one , the glutes , the glutes are the biggest stabilizer in the lower body and most people , I'm gonna say 99% of people can't fire them when they need to , especially in the golf swing .

And then the number two is the core .

So the core being that , that muscle that goes all the way around the stomach , not just your abdominals , but there's , there's muscles that go all the way around the stomach that hold that , that whole body basically hold it stable .

That's your foundation , that's the center of your body .

So let's go two exercises .

They're gonna work your glutes and your core .

So what you're gonna do is you're gonna lay down on your back and from this position here , there's a thing called the pelvic tilt .

And if you watch the strings in my pants here , we're gonna try .

So we're gonna try and take the strings towards my chin by lifting my butt slightly off the ground , pushing my back into the ground .

And then from here , I'm gonna push the strings away from my chin by arching my back so I can get my hand underneath my lower back if I needed to .

And now I'm gonna come back , same position going towards the chin and I'm just going to hold the butt squeeze .

I'm pushing through my heels , I'm squeezing the glutes arms off the floor just so you don't have that added stability from the arms .

You want the glutes to do all the work here and we're just going to lift as long as you're feeling that in your butt cheeks , we're going to hold it for 60 seconds .

If you start to feel it more in your lower back or you start to feel it in the back of your leg here , which is common .

It just means you don't have that control over the glutes .

So from there , if you're , if you're feeling that we're gonna add , we're gonna just go legs straight .

Same thing , we're gonna squeeze the butt cheeks and then just hold from there .

It's a lot easier to hold the butt cheeks , squeeze here .

But it's more effective if you could do it with your knees bent .

So again , if you can get this one and you feel it in your glutes , we're gonna hold it for one minute .

You can do three sets of this and the whole time your mind is learning how to use those glutes again .

And then if you having trouble , if you're feeling it here , you can come back down here and then just squeeze your glutes with your legs straight .

Biggest tip I can give you on this one here is just push through your heels or the back part of your foot .

If you do feel it here in this hamstring .

All right .

And then we look at the core .

So next one for the core , we're just gonna raise the legs up just like this .

We're gonna pull the lower back flat .

So we're pulling the lower back into the ground by tightening the stomach , pulling the belly button in .

And then from here , we're gonna put arms up just like this .

You can lay your head down flat and we do what's called dead bugs .

So you're gonna drop your arm and your opposite leg at the same time not touching the ground .

The biggest thing here is you got to keep that back flat , keep the back flat , keep the back flat that way .

And we're gonna go opposite 10 times each side , making sure you're keeping the back flat and not touching the ground with your arms or your feet .

It's a great way to get more stability in your swing .

All right .

So I focused on mobility for the shoulders , stability mainly for the lower body , but having that core and glutes engaged , the last thing is balance .

And if you think about it , if you don't have the mobility to take a big back swing and then you don't have the stability to control it , you're gonna be like , man , I don't have the balance , but it could be that you don't have the mobility or you don't have the stability .

And once you get to moving better , you're gonna be stronger with the stability to be able to control it .

But we still want to work on your balance when we work on balance .

We want to just work on balance exercises .

So what does balance , balance means being able to control your body through space So , the first thing I want you to do is just , you should have a club in your hand and just try to stand on one leg .

You're gonna bend forward slightly as if you were in a driver posture .

And that is gonna shift your weight to your butt cheek or your glute muscle .

And that's again where we , where all that stability is .

So you've done those blue butt squeezes .

Now you're gonna put them to use .

So all we're gonna do is you're gonna stand on one leg balance using that glute .

Once you feel like you can do that , the reason you have the club in your hand is if you need it for extra support , just don't break the shaft if you're using a driver .

So we're going weights into the heel .

We got that .

I want you to be able to hold it for 15 seconds before you move on .

If you feel like you can hold it for 15 seconds , next thing you're gonna do is just take the club like this and you're just gonna make little movements side to side .

You'll notice my shoulders are moving , not really my lower body because I'm using that of the lower body to control my shoulder movement or do the same thing on the other leg .

You always want to be able to do the same thing .

You might find that one leg is better than the other .

That's very common .

But once you can hold it 15 seconds without the club on the ground .

We're going again , add , just add that little shoulder turn .

And then as you get better with this , you can start to take like a full swing .

If you're right handed , golfer , take a full back swing , it's going to be easier to turn into the leg than it is away from the leg because once you start going away from the leg is when the hips start to move .

So you can , you can see the hips will start to move a little bit and they'll throw you off .

So master those 2 , 15 seconds , just standing on a leg and then be able to make some good turns and then you can move on to other balance exercises .

All right , you worked on your balance .

You got that , let's say you don't have a master , but you're working on it .

Now , we're gonna add this one in .

So you're gonna take your golf club , you're gonna put your hands on each side .

It doesn't necessarily have to be a driver .

It's probably actually better with a shorter club .

So what you're gonna do is start feet together .

You're gonna step backwards with 1 ft and then you're going to rotate over your front leg and then you're gonna alternate .

So you're gonna do the other leg and you're gonna rotate over the front leg .

So you're always rotating into the front leg .

A couple of things with the , with the lunge is you want to step back .

Not too far , not too close , just like a little like a normal what feels to a normal step .

Your heel is never gonna go to the ground and you're gonna drop your knee , this knee here , you're just gonna drop your knee down and then you're gonna turn away from the back leg into the forward leg .

So , so it's gonna look like this .

Let's do two reps .

So you're gonna go back , turn , come together , back turn .

So you're switching legs each time back turn , keeping a good shoulder playing , keep that club down , back turn .

That's gonna add a little bit more stability to the lower body as you're moving through movement .

And you really could , once you get better at it , you can actually try and throw yourself off by turning faster and seeing how much stability and mobility you've built up .

All right .

So that's it .

Six exercises if you're over 60 if you can master those things , I guarantee it's gonna improve your golf game .

I've seen it happen over 1000 times with my clients in here .

It just helps to get more mobile , get more stable and it will improve your balance .

It will allow you to swing faster .

It'll give you more confidence while you're on the tee box that says you're going to hit the ball the same every time or close to the same .

And I know the struggles that a lot of my clients have gone through and just trying to get better and trying to move better and just with those six simple things , it's definitely gonna improve .

So , good luck .

I hope you hit it farther as you get older and someday you're going to shoot your age .