As we launch our new business in the Florida Keys, I've decided to repurpose some of the content from our old website in New Jersey. While the topics may not be specific to the Keys, I hope you'll find the information helpful and informative.
Here at Island Sports Chiropractic & Joint Center, we treat a lot of golfers for hip and back-related pain. Here's a quick screen you could do right at home or on the athletic field, the golf course for my swing athletes, golf, and baseball, to determine if your hip rotation is lacking and may be impacting, not only causing you pain in your hip or your low back but also impacting your athletic performance. So, you're going to take your tool, in my case, it's a golf club. You could use a baseball bat too if that's what you have.
The first thing you're going to do is you're going to take a measurement of one-foot length from the inside of your other foot. You're going to place the golf club right there and then the other foot right on the outside of that. Then I'm going to lay the golf club down right in the center of my two feet. And I'm going to brace my hips just like this.
So as I'm bracing my hips, I'm not going to allow my body to turn with my foot. I'm going to keep my hands right nice and steady. And I'm going to lift my toes off the ground, heels on the ground. I should be able to touch the inside of that golf club with my toes. If I can't do that, and that's important, is that means I'm lacking internal rotation of the right hip. And if you think about why that's important, especially with a golf swing or a baseball swing, especially if it's your back hip, you need a good amount of internal rotation to kind of drive that swing forward and generate power through that swing.
So again, if you're lacking internal rotation with that test in your back, your plant foot, so your back foot. If you're a righty in golf or baseball, it will be your right leg. If you're a lefty, it will be your left leg, if you're lacking internal rotation, that can not only cause you pain, things like low back pain for compensation, but it can also cause a decrease in your performance or decrease in your ability to generate power through that.
Jesse J. Suess, DC CCSP®
Seaside Chiropractic
Key Largo, FL