IMPROVE MY GAME
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Can manual therapy fix your golf swing ?
Sat Dec 29, 2012 by Dave Phillips
Golf is a repetitive movement sport and at some point you may incur a soft tissue injury, due to over use. When muscles are over used they can change in three important ways:
- acute conditions (pulls, tears, collisions, etc),
- accumulation of small tears (micro-trauma)
- not getting enough oxygen (hypoxia).
Each of these factors can cause your body to produce tough, dense scar tissue in the affected area. This scar tissue binds up and ties down tissues that need to move freely. As scar tissue builds up, muscles become shorter and weaker, tension on tendons causes tendonitis, and nerves can become trapped. This can cause reduced range of motion, loss of strength, and pain. If a nerve is trapped you may also feel tingling, numbness, and weakness. Any of these conditions will sap the power from your golf swing and if left untreated can cause long term injury. The good news is their are a variety of manual therapy techniques that can help your golf game tremendously.
A short list of manual therapy techniques that are used by many tour golfers include:
- A.R.T
- Graston Technique
- Massage Therapy
- Physical Therapy
- Chiropractic
- Dry Needling
One I have tried and like is called ART. ART stands for Active Release Technique and is a patented, state of the art soft tissue massage technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. Headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, knee problems, and tennis elbow are just a few of the many conditions that can be resolved quickly and permanently with ART.
So if you are having pain in your body and you think it may be from an over use injury, then find yourself a manual threapist. Most of our TPI Certified Medical experts are trained in manual threapy and can help you improve quickly. Visit our Find an Expert tab to find some help today.