Tennis (pickle ball/racquet ball) and golf are some of the most popular rotational sports for aging athletes. Rotational sport refers to the idea that the main movement component is rotating in the transverse plane around the body. Unfortunately, most aging athletes don’t have the requisite movement capacity to play their respective sport without some layer of compensation or pain. It’s no surprise that both of these sports have elbow injuries named after them (tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow).
During winter months, aging athletes should be using this time to prep for the upcoming season, working on strengthening the hips, shoulders, and core. Unfortunately, athletes don’t have the wherewithal to do so and end up jumping head first into the spring season, setting themselves up for poor performance at best and injury at worst.
There are three main areas that I focus on when working with athletes that require the rotational components of these sports:
Shoulder/Trunk Rotation- In order to swing a club or racquet efficiently, you must be able to rotate and load the shoulders, then rotate and unload the shoulders. Most athletes that I work with have a super flat upper thoracic spine (between shoulder blades) preventing them from rotating the shoulders properly. This leads to downstream affects in the wrist and elbow. To address these insufficiencies, breathing exercises inspired by the Postural Restoration, Zac Cupples, and Bill Hartman are my go to. A basic exercise like rock back breathing can help immensely when it comes to improving shoulder and trunk rotation. It’s just a start but it will surely get you going in the right direction.
Core-Obliques and transverse abdominis must be trained frequently for rotational athletes in order to connect the lower and upper body. Without a strong and coordinated core, athletes are left relying on the extension of the lumbar muscles in order to stabilize the rotation of the spine. When athletes this core, they think crunches and sit-ups which further exacerbates the problem of too much flexion from the spine. Due to the sheering nature of an overextended spine, the vertebrae are left vulnerable to injury. My go to exercises for training the core are planks and crawling variations. If you are able to hit these movements with good capacity, not only will you create safer movement, you will also increase performance.
Hips-Rotation of the hips is extremely important for proper form in tennis players and golfers. Specifically internal rotation of the hip. Most athletes who rely on sagittal plane exercises (moving forwards and backwards) will have a hard time rotating the hips due to the extension compensation that most utilize with bilateral squatting and hinging movements. My advice to improve hip rotation is to focus on deadlifting, lunging, and squatting (and even rowing and pressing) from a single leg, split stance, or rear foot elevated position. This will allow you to train one leg at a time and drive better hip rotation.
There is so much to unpack to create progress, and the needs are usually individualized. Scott Hagnas and I go into great lengths on how we train aging athletes in the off season for tennis and golf. Click the link below to listen!
If you are looking to add velocity to you serve, yards to your drive, or just to play pain free, I’d love to help! Click the link below to set up a free assessment today. We’ll have you playing better in no time!