YOGA FOR GOLFERS
Yoga and golf have a lot in common, and they require many of the same characteristics.
Yoga requires flexibility, strength, and balance, no matter what level you’re at. This can be seen by the slow and steady movements that gradually increase in difficulty throughout a yoga flow, loosening muscles that may be tight from other forms of activity. Yoga also works to strengthen muscles through continuous bodyweight formations, increasing endurance.
Golf, similarly, requires flexibility, mental stamina, strength, and endurance. While the sport is not considered fast-paced, the amount of walking and standing can create a feeling of fatigue (which often impacts an individual’s posture). With experience or endurance training, this fatigue becomes less frequent. When a golfer has strong endurance, their game is benefited.
Health Benefits
There are many positive benefits for golfers when they start incorporating a regular yoga routine into their training regimen.
Flexibility
Yoga routines feature poses that are gentle and held for a certain amount of time or breaths. This allows the muscles and tendons in the body to safely settle into the pose in order to loosen and lengthen. This increased flexibility can help improve the range of motion on each golf swing and can lead to a more powerful overall golf swing. Flexibility, in particular, can allow your body to endure strain without being permanently injured or in pain. In golf, there is increased activity on the spine, so added flexibility can help relax the muscle around the spine.
Increase Fitness
Improved flexibility can lead to multiple benefits, including a reduction in aches and pains. Tight hips can affect the alignment of the thigh and shin bones, causing knee pain knees. Tight hamstrings flatten the lower spine, which can cause back pain.
Many yoga asanas build muscle strength as well. You can grow stronger and maintain muscle mass using just the weight of your body.
While Flow or Ashtanga classes can get your heart rate up, even gentler yoga exercises improve cardiovascular fitness. Studies have found that yoga lowers the resting heart rate, increases endurance, and can improve your maximum uptake of oxygen during exercise.
Strength and Balance
Yoga requires intense activation of your core to set and hold many movements. This increases your main core strength and can help improve your balance. These are both extremely important for activities, such as golf, which requires both leading up to and following through with a golf swing. Yoga can also help strengthen back and shoulder muscles, which are heavily utilized during a golf swing. Yoga through its standing poses is the answer to acquire upper body strength which is so important for a Golfer .
Mental Focus
Yoga and golf are both solo activities, which leads to a decent amount of solo training and time spent thinking through strategy and focus for the task at hand. A consistent yoga practice can help connect the mind to the activity and help direct your full attention to the moment you’re currently engaged in. A strenuous 18 hole game could be at times a fight of the mind over the body . Through the practice of Pranayam , one attains mental focus and neutrality of the mind , which is very essential during a 18 hole game .
Usage of Breath
The optimal usage of the breath is least considered during a game of Golf . the breath is the tranquiliser which co-ordinates the activity of the Body and Mind thus bringing about a co-ordinated existence of the Body Mind Breath which is quintessential to a Golfer . Pranayam helps the golfer attain the balance of the BODY MIND BREATH
