10 Simple Golf Stretch Exercises Everyone Can Try

Golf fitness guru, Jamie Greaves, explains how you can improve your game with these ten simple golf stretch exercises. Here are his 10 simple golf stretch exercises everyone can try. Once you've mastered these you can move onto the the 10 best golf exercises to improve your strength and speed!

1. Aeroplane

How To Do It
Start on one leg - nice and grounded. You want to feel some pressure in the heel and into the hamstring and glute. Then, press with the arm into the wall to create a little bit of a stretch down through the lat. 

From here, keep the arm that's pressed into the wall and the leg that's grounded nice and stable, and rotate everything away. So, you're rotating through the foot and ankle, and you open up through the hip, trunk and head.

How It Helps Your Golf
It's a great exercise for golf because it opens up our hips, trunk and shoulders - plus we get that stability through the ankle, knee and hip on the standing leg. In golf, not everything is working all at once - we have certain segments that we need to be moving and certain segments that we need to be stabilising.

2. Half Kneeling Side Bend

How To Do It
I'm performing this exercise with a stick, but you can use a golf club. Get into a half kneeling 90-90 position (ankles, knees and hips creating 90° angles on both legs). With your club over your head, you should feel a bit of a shoulder stretch.

Stay nice and tall through the trunk, and tilt as far as you can one way. Pause and take a big breath out, and see if you can go a little bit further. Then, go as far as you can the other way, all the while making sure you stay stable through the body.

How It Helps Your Golf
This exercise is really going to help open up the lat muscles, which are so important in the golf swing. It's a really effective move, as it's going to stretch that lead lat on the backswing.

3. Banded Golf Rotation

How To Do It
With the band sitting on the top half of the chest, simply pull it as far apart as you can. Your shoulders should feel engaged.

Hinge over into a golf-like posture, and work into a rotation, turning through the trunk and loading into the glute and hip.

You should get a little rotation through the hips. Ensure that you keep the band pulled apart, and try not to come out of your golf posture as you move. This is a good stretch to compliment any lower back exercises for golf you are doing.

How It Helps Your Golf
You're replicating the golf posture and rotating as much as you can, which will have obvious benefits when you're actually out on the course swinging a club.

4. Cats And Dogs

How To Do It
Start as rounded as you can, so belly button towards the ceiling, like you're trying to make an n-shape through the spine.

The wrists should be stacked directly under the shoulders, and the knees stacked directly under the hips.This is what we call the all fours position. Hold in this position for a couple of seconds before slowly working from the tailbone up. As the belly button goes down towards the floor, work on arching through the chest trying to get as much extension as you can. Hold for a couple of seconds and work from low to high, tucking under, the belly button going towards the floor with the chin tucking in.

How It Helps Your Golf
This exercise is a great way to get some mobility into our spine.The spine is like everything else in the body - it's designed to move. Given the amount of stress that we put on the spine during the swing, it's crucial that we keep it mobile.

5. Standing Hip Hurdle

How To Do It
With one hand on the wall, bring your knee up.

Imagine there's a hurdle to your side, and the aim is to go up and over one way, and then up and over the other way. Make sure you maintain the gap between you and the wall. All the motion should be happening in the hip, and you should try to come up and over as high as you can.

How It Helps Your Golf
It's another great exercise for opening up the hips.

6. Wall Reach Through

How To Do It
Start with one hand up pressed up against the wall, nice and high so you get a good stretch through that side.

With the other arm, the aim is to reach through and up as much as you can. Pause for a few seconds and then return to your start position. Be mindful to keep your hips fairly stable; they will rotate a little but the intent is to try and create that rotation from the upper body.

How It Helps Your Golf
As you do this, you'll get some rotation through the spine, as well as extension and side bend, plus it works the shoulders, which is all extremely useful for the golf swing. As humans, we spend a fair bit of time seated, so this is really going to help you open up the upper body and make a bigger turn in the swing.

7. Half Kneeling Trunk Rotation

How To Do It
Set up in a half kneeling position. Here, I'm using a roller to keep my lower body locked in place.

Keeping one arm near the wall, simply open up your trunk as much as you can and let your head go with it.Take a nice breath out and then return to the middle. Think less about dragging the arm back and more about trying to rotate through the trunk.

How It Helps Your Golf
A lot us spend a fair amount of time seated, and we don't get enough motion through our trunk. The golf swing requires a good amount of trunk rotation, so this exercise will help enormously.

8. Diagonal Band Pulls

How To Do It
Pull the band nice and wide apart, and squeeze, while keeping one hand higher than the other each time.

The idea is to be quite random, so you're not working at the same angle all the time. So, move around and explore different angles. The narrower you grip it, the harder it is, and you'll start to feel the shoulders burn. The shoulders like angles, so explore a variety, bringing the band back to the middle each time.

How It Helps Your Golf
This is a fantastic warm-up for golf. I believe a few minutes of dynamic and resistance based exercise prior to playing golf is crucial - it's such a low hanging fruit. With this exercise, you get a little bit of mobility, plus some stability out of the shoulders.

9. Frog Stretch

How To Do It
Start with your knees nice and wide. The idea is to remain tall through the trunk as you gently pulse back and forth - so the hips go back towards the heels.

So, the hips go back towards the heels, then there's a slight pause before going back forward. You don't want to be excessively extending, but neither should you be too rounded.

If you want to perform a harder version, keep the shins parallel to each other and the heels down towards the floor, which will set you a little bit more in internal rotation.

How It Helps Your Golf
This is one of my favourite exercises for opening up the hips. So many amateur golfers struggle with this, particularly where internal rotation is concerned.

10. Half Kneeling Hip Opener And Trunk Mobility

How To Do It
Start by getting into a half kneeling position, so the ankles, knees and hips create a 90° angle.

You want to feel as though you stay nice and tall through the trunk. Place your hand down on the inside of your front leg. From here, you get that stretch through the front hip and also the front side of the back leg. Then, you open up your trunk. 

Be mindful of staying stable through the lower body. I'm not just bringing the arm up, I'm actually thinking about the centre of my chest turning. To make this exercise a little bit harder, grab your front foot and ease the front knee out, which is going to stretch the hip a little more. If you want to make this exercise more comfortable, you might want to put a cushion under your knee.

How It Helps Your Golf
This exercise works both hip mobility and also trunk mobility, which are crucial when we swing the golf club.

These are just 10 simple golf stretch exercises. To find out how you can move better, get stronger and swing faster, visit jggolffitness.co.uk