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Through my experience working with golf athletes over the past 10 years, I have come to appreciate the importance of what I call the "key" muscle group for golf, the hip flexors. In both function and in performance, this group is a must target when it comes to designing golf-specific programs.

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Hip Flexor Half Kneeling

The hip flexor group consists of 5 muscles; the psoas major, psoas minor, iliacus, sartorius and rectus femoris. As their name suggests they are strong and powerful flexors of the hip joint as well as key stabilizers as we bend forward over the golf ball at address.

It is this muscle group's secondary function, rotation, which makes targeting this group so important to each and every golfer. With direct connections between the low back, pelvis and lower extremities length in these muscles allows the golfer to separate and coil between these "key" segments of the body. Unfortunately, the starting position of each golf swing, the address, helps to facilitate its dysfunction in most golfers. Firstly, the address position itself tends to shorten these muscles as we hinge and maintain our spine angle. In addition, most individuals sit way too much in their daily lives and jobs, adding to the epidemic in the general population. For the professional golfer, who travels week-to-week, additional prolonged shortening can occur.

With this chronic pattern of shortening and a direct link between the low back, pelvis and lower body, all conditioning specialist and medical professionals working with golfers need to become more effective and efficient at opening this area up and restoring this group's function.

I am successful at targeting this area of the body because I use a combination of hands-on techniques with active self stretching. I typically jump start the process by manually stretching and releasing the anterior hip and pelvis. To target the group, the clinician needs to understand that this group comes under tension as we posterior or backwards tilt the pelvis. As we place the golfer into a posterior rotated position most easily in a prone position off the edge of a table, we can quickly and most effectively target these muscles (i.e. see image above).

Once I release this group manually through a variety of angles and slight variations of this prone starting position, I send each golfer home with an exercise that will properly isolate and target this group between sessions. The position, I have been most successful with, is the ½ kneel position (i.e. see attached exercise). Once the golfer stacks the down side knee, hip, shoulder and ear I give the golfer the pelvic tilt exercise. As length is achieved in this area variations of this stretch are introduced to specifically target each muscle in this group.

Make targeting the hip flexor a priority in your golf-specific conditioning program. Success will be guaranteed!!!