As you’re undoubtedly already aware, regular physical activity has been proven to deliver many benefits including reducing the risk of suffering from heart disease, diabetes, many cancers, dementia, Alzheimer’s, depression, ageing, osteoporosis and musculoskeletal disorders like back pain, and arthritis. Tennis is a fun and social (as well as competitive) way to add to your weekly activity goals.

How can you enjoy the wonderful game of golf while reducing your risk of injury?

The simple answer is through purposeful and consistent conditioning.  Golf requires strength, endurance, and flexibility to create the power in order to play the game well - and not hurt yourself in the process.

How much and how often depends on you the individual. For example, I had a caseload of golf clients (using the Titles Performance Institute program) at one point that was 90% recreational, occasional golfers. The other 10% were juniors or low handicappers that played in some level of tournaments. Almost all the recreational golfers were just poorly conditioned at the basic level. So after very intricate, comprehensive golf fitness evaluations, their golf conditioning programs had to be stripped down versions of the more elaborate golf-specific programs. From there we built off of those clients strength and flexibility gains to develop more detailed programs related to their swing faults and mechanics.

So start simply by finding relief from nagging aches and pains. Build yourself up. Once you have established a nice individualized exercise program, then tailor your conditioning more specific to your golf swing. That’s when you will really see a difference in a golf targeted program.

Do you get an excruciatingly sharp pain in your shoulder when you brush your hair, put on clothes or tuck in your shirt?

How about when golfing or surfing or playing with the kids?

Yes? Then stop wearing clothes, stop doing everything you love and tell the kids they are on their own.

OR read on…

You might have a condition called Shoulder Impingement Syndrome (SIS), where the tendons of the rotator cuff muscles that stabilize your shoulder get trapped as they pass through the shoulder joint. Impingement happens with repeated pinching and irritation of rotator cuff tendons and the bursa (the padding under the shoulder bone) which can lead to injury and chronic pain. Shoulder complaints are the third most common musculoskeletal problem after back and neck disorders. The highest incidence is in women and generally people aged 45–64 years. Of all shoulder disorders, shoulder impingement syndrome (SIS) accounts for 36%, making it the most common shoulder injury. The big issue is it can lead to worse problems.

One treatment for pain relief that you may not have heard of is known as Shockwave Therapy. While this might sound quite extreme, it’s actually a very non-invasive type of treatment that has been shown to work on an extremely wide range of conditions, from chronic pain to tennis elbow. In this post we’ll break down what Shockwave Therapy is, how it works, and aim to offer some guidance on whether it could be an effective treatment for you.