Get Your Swing Back
Whether swinging with pain or just looking to maximize your golf potential, the TPI-certified physical therapists at UAMS Health Therapy & Sports Performance are here to help. Our physical therapists use their advanced training to assist with pain and injury prevention, recovery support, and performance enhancement. When injuries occur, golf therapy can get you back in the game while golf performance can optimize performance while minimizing your risk of injury.
What is Golf Therapy and Performance?
Golf Therapy
Golf therapy is specialized physical therapy, utilizing your insurance, designed specifically for the individual golfer to:
- Prevent injuries common to the sport (e.g., low back pain, shoulder impingement, golfer’s elbow, etc.)
- Improve biomechanics, flexibility, and swing mechanics
- Aid recovery post-injury or post-surgery with a return-to-golf program
- Boost performance by increasing mobility, strength, and core control
Golf Performance
Golf performance is specialized physical therapy, utlizing a cash pay model, designed specifically for the individual golfer to:
- Generate speed and power
- Improve swing consistency and repeatability
- Identify and correct injury-inducing swing mechanics
- Improve endurance over 18 holes or multiple rounds
It involves mobility, stability, strength, coordination, and balance—all key physical components that influence your swing.
Treatment Methods
What is Swing Catalyst?
Swing Catalyst is a complete golf swing analysis system allowing us to identify injury-inducing swing mechanics and primary power contributors within the swing itself. Forces precede motion, and forces from in the golf swing originate from the ground. Swing catalyst records the application of ground reaction forces through both the lead foot and trail foot separately, allowing one to see if their contributions are optimal. By looking at these numbers, we are not only looking at the magnitude of the forces, but also the sequencing of the forces themselves. Roughly 80% of tour pros follow a specific order with the initiation of these forces that allows for consistency and optimal efficiency of the golf swing. While no two swings look exactly the same, the forces that initiate and carry out the swing look almost identical between the top players in the world.
What is the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI)?
The Titleist Performance Institute, TPI, is the world’s largest educational organization dedicated to studying body function and how it relates to the golf swing. The organization has studied and created a database on both the top golf professionals and amateurs. By utilizing this data, TPI discovered how a properly functioning body allows a player to swing the club in the most efficient way possible. Contrary, TPI discovered how physical limitations will limit the player in their swing and potentially lead to injury. The term the Body-Swing Connection was coined to encompass this discovery.
TPI developed a screen that is taught to every TPI certified provider that quickly evaluates a player’s physical capabilities and how they will affect the golf swing. From the results of the screen, a plan unique to the golfer will be developed to improve the limitations found in the screen with the goals of the player at the forefront. There are an infinite number of ways to swing a golf club. However, there is one most-efficient way for each player to swing a club, and it is based on what they can physically do.
Golf Therapy
If pain is a limiting factor, services may be covered by insurance. These services are designed to get you out of pain as quickly as possible and back into the game. Rates may vary depending on your insurance provider, but most insurance companies allow direct access to physical therapy services without a physician referral.
