Reformer Pilates is an excellent addition to your fitness regime to help improve your performance, whatever your sport or fitness goals. In this series of blog posts, we’ll look at the benefits of Reformer Pilates for specific sports and lifestyles. We’ve already looked at General Fitness and Running, next up is the benefits for Golf.

Reformer Pilates for Golf

Reformer Pilates is arguably a more effective way of increasing flexibility, strength and stability for golfers than traditional free weights, machines and static stretches. Controversial? Read on!

Any golfer, whatever your handicap or playing level, knows that the game of golf relies on correct alignment, speed, timing, balance, coordination, good postural awareness, core strength and rotation of your body. That’s why it can be so unpredictable…there is a lot going on that all needs to happen together.  It requires the integration of many major and minor muscle groups through different phases of the swing, something you can only train with dynamic movements like what can be achieved in a reformer session.

Here are our top 5 ways reformer Pilates helps golfers improve their swing, and handicaps.

Reformer Pilates

1. Rotation

If you’re a golfer, no doubt you’ll have watched the pros and analysed their swing. Rotation is one of the biggest factors in a powerful swing. It is all about rotation – think Rory and Dustin Johnson for example. You want your torso to rotate to at least 90 degrees, to both sides, at speed. The largest amount of rotation in our spine comes from the thoracic spine. However, due to the amount of time we spend bent in unnatural positions in front of laptops, phones, tablets, you name it, the thoracic spine is often very stiff. Reformer Pilates focuses on thoracic spine mobility, which includes rotation, therefore has a significant effect on your mobility and rotation ability in your golf swing.

Rotation in Rory McIlroy’s golf swing

2. Hip Disassociation

No we’re not talking about some crazy body contortion. The golf swing requires a significant amount of separation between the upper half of your body and the lower half. You need to propel power and speed through your hips while remaining stable through your legs. Increasing the flexibility in your hips through reformer Pilates, increases your ability to use the power in your legs as a solid base of support, which allows you to drive that power into your swing.

3. Balance

Weight transfer is another important aspect of the golf swing. You need to be able to shift your weight smoothly from one leg to the other as you move through your swing. All while swinging a club, trying to remember all the other elements of the swing and trying to make the club connect with the ball. This all requires balance. And concentration. But we can help with the balance. Exercises performed in Reformer Pilates classes improve gluteal strength (we know all about those glute exercises!) and strong glutes are required for improving balance, to shift weight evenly and ultimately improve your swing and handicap.

Reformer Pilates Improves Balance

4. Core Control

Core stability and strength through the abdominal and pelvic muscles are the key to generating power through the golf swing. Poor core strength leads to common golfing injuries such as lower back pain, shoulder pain as well as elbow and wrist pain. So while Reformer Pilates helps to improve your golf fitness, it also helps to prevent injury and keep you on the course more often than not.

Reformer Pilates improves core strength and balance

5. Flexibility

If you are not flexible through your spine, hips and shoulders, no matter how hard you try or how much you practice, you simply will not have the ability to rotate the shoulders away from the hips to generate the required force to hit a golf ball. Reformer Pilates focuses on dynamic flexibility which will not only help improve your mobility for your golf swing, but your overall physical health too.

Reformer Pilates for Golf

While any of our reformer Pilates classes works on all of the above and will help your golf fitness, we also offer golf specific classes. These focus on exercises that specifically benefit and enhance your mobility and flexibility for golf. These can be booked as private group classes for members of your club. Get in touch here for more details.

Move Better, Feel Better, Live Better. ProPhysioNI.