Is it Friday yet?  I just sat down for the first time in three days if I don’t count the hour and a half commute home on Monday night.  This week has been crazy between new golfers coming in, problem solving knee pain, helping some of my junior golfers plan out their workout schedules around tournaments and I managed to play 18 holes today!

When the week gets busy like this, it’s so easy for me to gloss over the need to make sure my body is functioning at it’s best.  So for Warm Up Wednesday I wanted to share with you one of my favorite exercises at getting everything synced up and firing on all cylinders.

This one comes courtesy of the awesome Jason Glass.  He did this with me a few years ago and since then I have added a few other variations on it.  The idea is to not only challenge your balance, but also the ankle, core and shoulder stability, posture and glutes.

The Up and Over One Leg Balance

A few Keys:

• First make sure you can keep your balance on one foot.  If not, an easy regression is to just place your other toe on the ground for stability
• Bring the free leg up to 90 degrees
• Focus on feeling the glute on your standing leg
• As you reach the ball into the air, feel your shoulder blades dropping into your back pockets
• Trade the ball at the very top and lower slowly to the other side
• The slower you go with this the better!
• For an extra challenge, try this in your bare feet
• As an alternative, reach the ball straight out to the side keeping the ball in your peripheral vision and feeling the shoulder blades engage
• Start with 10 reps each leg and go from there!

-S