TPI Assessment: Pelvic Tilt Test

Last week, we talked a little bit about TPI golf fitness assessments and how they can predict your specific golfing abilities and weaknesses.  This week, I want to show you one of these assessments and talk a little bit about corrective exercise.

There are 16 basic physical screenings that can determine your weaknesses as a golfer, and the first one I’d like to share is called the “Pelvic Tilt Test.”

Let me show you:

The objective here is to test the mobility of your hips and lumbar spine, and your ability to control the position of the pelvic posture.  The ability to move and control the position of the pelvis is important for optimizing power transfer from your lower body to your upper body during the golf swing.

If you can’t perform this test without shaking, and with minimal knee and leg movement, here are some corrective exercises:

Quadruped Pelvic Tilt (Cats and Dogs):
Get down on your hands and knees with your thighs and arms perpendicular to the floor.  Without bending your elbows, try to bend your spine so that your stomach gets closer to the floor, making yourself sway-backed like a dog.  Then, lift your spine up into an arch, like a cat.  Repeat this back and forth and then find the middle or neutral position.  Hold this neutral position for two breaths.

Supine Pelvic Tilts to Neutral:
Lie flat on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor.  Try to tilt the pelvis back and forth (arch the back and flatten the back), trying to simultaneously limit any chest or upper body movement.  Make sure when flattening the back, the abdominals are braced.

Torso Backswing:
For a right-handed player, stand facing the mirror.  Cross your hands across your chest like I do in the video.  Get into a good golf posture.  Rotate the shoulders in a clockwise direction and resist hip rotation.  Reach maximum rotation but don’t force a stretch.  Hold the position for one second.  Rotate the shoulders back to neutral position.

These are just a few exercises you can do to increase pelvic mobility.  It’s important not only to do this on your own, but also to have a TPI certified trainer help you with them.  There are some posture quirks that this test can reveal to the trained eye, and we can get much more specific in terms of what can be corrected.

If you know anyone who could benefit from this information, please share it using the buttons on the left!

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