RAMPing up for Golf - a high value warm-up for all levels

Pre-round mobility

I have seen many golfers in clinic in London and Dublin, and have been fortunate to treat a few professional players on the European tour - most notably the South African George Coetzee. I see the value in an effective warm-up in order to prepare the player physically and mentally for the round. It is essential. The best players on the planet are vigorous in readying themselves before walking to the first tee box. If you have ever attended the Open or the any major pro golf event, watch and study what players like Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas do before they take that initial swing.

A methodical structured approach to a warm-up should serve 4 main purposes: physical readiness, mental setting, injury prevention and performance enhancement. One of the best ways to warm-up involves 4 main elements: raise, activate, mobilise and potentiate (RAMP).

Raise involves movements and drills somewhat specific to the activity you will perform - think of using a tool or golf aid like an orange whip, or a weighted club. The goals are to raise body temperature, heart rate, respiration rate, blood flow and joint viscosity.

Activate involves prepping the muscles that will need to be fired up before you play the round of 18. Glute bands and therabands are often used at this point to target and recruit the key stabilisers and muscles around the lumbo-pelvic area and the scapular-thoracic regions. Once the key muscle groups for golf are prepped pre-round it sets them up well to avoid injury; it builds soft tissue, tendon and joint resiliency.

Mobilise involves pushing joints through the range of motion required for the game - for the swing, for the walking, picking up a ball, etc. Think of motion as lotion. Joints like to move. It keeps them healthy and lubricated. Opening up the back and hip flexors are key during this stage of the warm-up. Everyone can be more mobile - John Daly is mobile which gives him an ability to drive the ball far from the tee; world number 1 Rory McIlroy is also very mobile; it is one of the reasons he can endure a long season and maintain high levels of performance without breaking down physically.

Potentiate involves increasing the intensity of the warm-up to a comparable level that the player is about to perform in; we want to prime the nervous system now having recruited the muscular system adequately already in the previous phases. Now it is about taking real practice swings with the pitching wedge, the 7 iron and a wood. Start in early range and then get to the full swing. You are now lighting the whole body up to ready it for action. It’s game time now. “Make par not war”, as the trendy and culty golf lifestyle brand Linksoul proclaims.

This complete RAMP warm-up should take 10-12’, investing approx. 3’ per element. It is worth banking on this.

If you want more specific details on each part of this please don’t hesitate to contact me.

I will follow this up in a few weeks with advice on screening for mobility deficiencies, and how we can improve mobility bespoke for golf, based on the course I have undertaken with the Titleist Performance Institute.