Serious golfers know that full hip flexibility and rotation is a must for a powerful, dynamic, and accurate swing! Faulty swings will twist and disrupt the ability to keep ones eye on the ball.
One of the reasons (possibly among many) lots of golfers struggle with their golf swing is because they knowingly, or unknowingly, suffer from a tight psoas major muscle. Releasing the psoas is key to developing and maintaining healthy hips.
The psoas major is an important muscle that sits within the well of your hip and lower spine. The psoas major is the only muscle in the human body connecting the upper body to the lower body.
It is an important muscle because a functioning psoas muscle does so many things for our body that can relate to our overall movement. Any minor issues can cause a multitude of implications. It creates a neutral pelvic alignment, stabilizes the hips, supports the lower spine and abdomen, supports the organs in the pelvic and abdominal cavity and gives you greater mobility and core strength.
Psoas major muscle
The psoas major is a large, powerful muscle that helps move the upper leg (femur) and the torso closer together in a flexion movement. The psoas major muscle attaches on the lower spine (lumbar vertebrae) and passes in front of the hip-joint, underneath the inguinal ligament and to the top of the femur.
The psoas major forms part of a group of muscles called the hip flexors, whose action is primarily to lift the upper leg towards the body when the body is fixed, or to bring the body towards the leg when the leg is fixed.
The psoas major also plays an important role in rotating the thigh at the hip.
The role of the Psoas Major in the golf swing
During the downswing, the obliques and psoas major are highly activated, creating a crunch-like position as your hips extend and your pelvis tilts while your chest remains over the ball.
The psoas major is an important part of your core, working to maintain posture, generate power, stabilize the body, and to decelerate the lower body for efficient energy transfer as you club face is coming into impact with the ball.
Strengthening the psoas major is very important if you struggle with maintaining posture through the downswing and impact. This is especially important with the longer clubs, where the greater length of the club’s shaft increases the forces that must be absorbed by the body.
Your hip flexors (including the psoas major) attach from your spine to your legs. When they are weak, they are not able to withstand the high forces of the longer clubs and are unable to hold your spine angle. This results in early extension as the hip flexors lengthen under high loads, resulting in a loss of spinal posture before impact.
How to fix a tight psoas muscle
By simply following a combination of dynamic stretches, core stability and mobility exercises on almost a daily basis, you can not only feel results within days, but also see results on the golf course too.
The problem with trying to stretch the psoas is that it is very difficult to stretch on its own. It often takes the treatment from a massage therapist to target this muscle.
There is, however, a great tool that can allow you to work this muscle on your own and wherever you’d like. It’s called the PSO-RITE, and it’s a great little invention that many wrestlers and kick-boxers have come to love (as their sports create a higher prominence of tight psoas muscles). Joe Rogan is also someone who cannot get enough of the PSO-RITE and has mentioned it during his popular podcast several times.
There is, however, a great tool that can allow you to work this muscle on your own and wherever you’d like. It’s called the PSO-RITE, and it’s a great little invention that many wrestlers and kick-boxers have come to love (as their sports create a higher prominence of tight psoas muscles). Joe Rogan is also someone who cannot get enough of the PSO-RITE and has mentioned it during his popular podcast several times.
The PSO RITE is a small plastic device that has little nodules on it that you can use to dig into your psoas, or any other part of your body for that matter. The concepts of a healthy Psoas and a neutral core is essential for everyone and specifically to the golfer. The PSO-RITE just might be the solution you’ve been looking for to correct your golf course woes. Click here to get 10% off when you use promo code BMT10.