Short on time before your round? These moves will have you warmed up in minutes

Are you a golfer who runs straight from the parking lot to the first tee without warming up? I can relate — that was me for most of my adult golfing life. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized the importance of a good warm-up. I still don’t always hit balls and putt before a round, but it’s possible — and recommended! — to prepare your body in other ways.

In a video posted to the LPGA Professionals YouTube channel, Karen Jansen, a Master LPGA professional, believes a solid warm-up is a key to success, and delivers a series of moves that you can perform that will warm up your body for the rigors of the round ahead, even if you only have minutes to spare before teeing off.

“Our bodies need to be prepared to do the big movements that you need in the golf swing,” Jansen says. To get started, grab a club. The first goal: increasing blood flow throughout the body.

Cross-crawl

This move involves a steady march coupled with a back-and-forth motion, like a washing machine, with the arms.

Arm bicycle

Use this move to prepare the upper body, gripping the club at its ends and cycling your arms both forward and backward.

Squats

“Squats are really important,” Jansen says. “You’re activating almost your entire body with this motion here, so this is really going to help you move better when you start swinging.”

Instruction

Anchored rotation

Once your heart rate is up, Jansen says you can focus on golf swing-specific stretches, like this easy rotation. Place your club on the ground and turn and reach for the sky with one arm while the other holds the top of the club.

“This would represent my backswing,” she says. “I’m really stretching, trying to get full range. And then, go ahead and do the other side.”

Hamstring stretch

Point your toe toward the sky as you lean forward with each leg.

“The hamstrings are important in the golf swing,” Jansens says. “They help us keep our posture. So you can just hold this once you’re warmed up and then feel a nice stretch in the back of your legs.”

Core rotator

This move mimics the feel you want to have when you hit your shots.

“Just loop your club behind your back, stay centered, and really practice making a good turn on the backswing, keeping your head centered, adding a little weight shift, and then practice pivoting off your back foot, finishing in balance,” Jansen says.

Shoulder rotator

“Use your club to help you wind your shoulders, make sure you’re in a good backswing, and then practice your weight shift and finishing in balance,” Jansens says. “And then as you get warmed up, you do it smoother and faster.”

By the end of the warm-up, you should be practicing your swing motion at full-speed, leaving your body fully prepped for the round to come.

“If you start swinging and your muscles are tight, your swing is going to be short and choppy and then you start to make swing compensations,” Jansen says.

Give Jansen’s advice a try before your next round to set yourself up for success. Check out a video of Jansen’s full tutorial above.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.

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