Today’s topic is an overview of the upper body muscles which are most active during the golf swing. This information is largely pulled from the article cited below. Now you don’t need huge biceps like me for a good golf swing; not only am I just using this as yet another opportunity to exaggerate about my huge biceps, but also as you’ll see below these are one example of a muscle group that is actually not a prominent part of the golf swing at all. If you are training and exercising for your golf game, the emphasis should be on the most important functional movements and muscle groups.

This publication gathered information from a literature review on studies from 1965-2005 which analyzed muscle activity during the golf swing. The golfers who were analyzed were all right-handed and mostly below a 5 handicap. The method for measuring muscle activity was electromyography (EMG), which uses a small recording needle that is inserted into the muscle to record muscle activity as a percentage of maximal exertion. 9 adequate studies were analyzed and included in this publication. Among these studies there were 17 muscles tested, so not every muscle was tested and reported on but these studies do include most of the major ones. One particular group of muscles under-represented in these studies were basically any of the forearm muscles.

Information was further broken down by the phase of the golf swing. The swing phases were broken down as the Backswing (ball address to the top of the backswing), Forward Swing (top of backswing to club at horizontal), Acceleration (club at horizontal to impact), Early Follow Through (impact to club at horizontal), and Late Follow Through (club at horizontal to completion of golf swing).

Without further ado, here is a breakdown (caveats mentioned above) of the 1st and 2nd most active muscles during the golf swing as measured by percent of maximal possible exertion, in reference to a right handed golfer, and broken down by phases of the swing:

Interesting stuff! The pectoralis major (“pecs”) are quite active on both sides and during multiple phases. Biceps, triceps, and deltoids didn’t crack the top 2 anywhere. It would be nice to see how some of the muscles in the forearm, such as finger flexors (active when gripping), wrist extensors and flexors, and pronators are firing during the swing in the same subjects. Doing some push-ups and working the rotator cuff muscles, especially with internal rotation and external rotation exercises with a dumbbell or resistance band should get you pretty far. And don’t forget to stretch!

That’s all for now, some anatomy pictures are below for your perusing pleasure.

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Source:

Mchardy A, Pollard H. Muscle activity during the golf swing. Br J Sports Med. 2005;39(11):799-804.