Week 7: Strengthen your wrists, straighten your drive

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How critical are your wrists in your golf swing?

The media often focuses on the importance of knee and back health in maintaining proper golf form, while the role of the wrist is ignored. How critical are your wrists in your golf swing? A crucial but often overlooked element, there are a couple of roles that the wrists play:

1. Controlling the club throughout the golf swing. This means staying on plane and maintaining proper clubface alignment.

2. Providing power through impact or the "hitting zone."

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If your wrists are weak, it will be very difficult to accomplish these actions. Your wrists need to be firm to control the club throughout your swing. In order to help strengthen your wrists and improve your ball striking, try the following drill:

• Stand erect with your arm at your side hanging long. Hold a short iron in your hand with the club head on the ground. This puts your wrist in the uncocked position. Now, without moving your arm at all, raise the club head upward as high as you can, using only your wrist and forearm.

• Slowly lower it back down and repeat 15 times. Switch arms and sides, and do 15 with the other arm. If you do this exercise correctly, you will get a burning sensation in your forearms. If not, you may need a longer iron because you are likely using more than just your wrist for the movement.

What this movement does is replicate the movement of your wrist cock during your golf swing. Doing this simple golf exercise 2-3 times a week will make a huge difference in your power, with strong wrists through impact. The result of this will be consistently crisp iron shots and more greens in regulation.

Another good way to focus on your wrists is to perform wrist-strengthening exercises. Wrist strength is very important during the impact phase of the golf swing. To strengthen wrist rotation, sit in a chair with the rubber tubing under your left foot and running along the inside of your left leg. Hold the tubing in your left fist with your thumb facing up. Slowly turn your hand and wrist until your palm is facing upward and then return to the starting position. Next, with the tubing along the outside of your leg and your hand in the same thumb-up starting position, turn your hand and wrist until the palm faces down. Repeat with your right arm.

If it's not your wrists but your knees giving you trouble while golfing, and you're experiencing knee pain while out on the course, you might be suffering from osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. If you are living with OA, various treatments do exist, such as ORTHOVISC®, which provides up to six months of knee pain relief. Made from ultra-pure natural hyaluronan, which is found in healthy joints, ORTHOVISC® is injected into the knee joint where it acts to replace your natural joint fluid, to help cushion, protect and lubricate your knee.

Talk to your doctor to see if ORTHOVISC® is right for you.

Or visit our website at www.orthovisc.com for more information on how to maintain your knee health to help you keep playing the game you love.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

ORTHOVISC® is for patients who do not get adequate pain relief from simple pain relievers like acetaminophen or from exercise and physical therapy. ORTHOVISC® is not for use in people with known allergy to hyaluronate preparations, to gram bacterial proteins, with infections or skin diseases in the area of the injection site or joint. Common side effects include joint pain, back pain, headaches and pain or redness at the injection site.

This is a paid placement by DePuy Mitek, Inc. The opinions expressed below are those of DePuy Mitek, Inc. and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the PGA TOUR.