If you’ve ever watched tour pros on the range, you’ve probably noticed a crucial part of their pre-round routine: a proper warm-up. These key moves often help to boost their mobility, rotation and prime the “golf muscles” for a demanding day on the course.
While each of their moves is designed to activate different areas and muscles in the body, today we’re going to get into one of the lesser known (but highly important) areas of focus for pros: the shoulders.
According to Marty Jaramillo, a sports injury and performance expert, amateurs often neglect their shoulders during their warm up. Likely because they don’t realize how important they are to the golf swing.
Healthy shoulders provide the mobility, strength and stability needed to generate power in your swing. Without proper shoulder function, players are prone to injury and might even sacrifice power, consistency and overall performance.
But Jaramillo says you can prevent all of that by simply training this key area of the body once a week with three easy exercises:
1. Shoulder circles
Stand with your feet together, arms stretched wide with your hands at shoulder height. You should form a “T”. From here, start making small circles forward. Once you hit 10, reverse the move and make 10 small shoulder circles in the opposite direction.
“There are 17 muscles that attach around the shoulder blade,” Jaramillo says. “All working together to provide you stability [in your swing].”
These shoulder circles are going to help with your basic range of motion and activate all of those key muscles in your shoulder blade.
2. Straight-arm band pull aparts
You’ve probably seen tour pros stretching brightly colored bands across their chest on the range, wondering: what are they doing?
Straight-arm band pull aparts are a great exercise to activate and strengthen the key muscles that attach at the shoulder, creating more stability in your swing.
So, how do you perform this shoulder activation exercise pros swear by? Start by grabbing a long exercise band, one that allows you to fully extend your arms fully across your chest while still offering a bit of resistance.
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, knees relaxed, yet athletic. Hold the band with both hands straight out in front of you at chest height. Slowly pull your arms apart until the band stretches flat across your chest, engaging key muscles in your shoulders and upper back. Your hands should end up in line with each other at shoulder height.
From there, bring your hands in slightly, then extend them back out to the sides, keeping the movement controlled and intentional. Repeat the motion, adjusting your hand position slightly between reps to target different areas of the shoulder. Aim for 6–10 slow, controlled repetitions, depending on your strength and mobility level.
“You can also then go above your head and start expanding,” Jaramillo says.
This is a great option for golfers who are looking for a more challenging variation of the move.
3. Bent-arm band pull aparts
The last exercise you can use to build healthy shoulders is a bent-arm band pull apart. For this one you’ll need a smaller exercise band with more resistance. A good rule of thumb is to pick a band you can only pull apart slightly, a few inches at most.
With that band in hand, stand with your feet shoulder width apart and arms bent at a 90-degree angle, elbows tight to your body. From here, you’re just going to open up and release.
“You’re going to keep repeating it until you feel that burn,” Jaramillo says, “which is the beginning of fatigue.”
The key for this exercise, Jaramillo says, is to keep your moves slow and controlled.
Once you’ve completed all three moves, your shoulders are primed and ready to swing. Incorporating this routine into your pre-round warm ups and weekly workouts is an easy way to keep your shoulders strong and healthy all season long.
