Knee pain crippling your golf swing? Stop letting it dictate your game!

This isn't just another podcast episode; it's your roadmap back to the green, pain-free. We're diving deep with Lauren Mueller, PT, DPT, a TPI-certified physical therapist, who's about to drop some serious knowledge on how physical therapy and cutting-edge regenerative treatments are revolutionizing recovery for golfers battling knee pain. Forget the generic advice—we're talking targeted strategies to regain your power, perfect your swing, and leave those nagging aches behind.

If you're ready to ditch the limitations and rediscover the joy of golf, you can't afford to miss this. We're not just offering solutions; we're offering your game back. Tune in now and reclaim your dominance on the course before another shot is lost to pain.

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About Lauren Mueller, PT, DPT

Dr. Lauren Mueller is a Phoenix-native physical therapist specializing in sports medicine, orthopedics, and rehabilitation. As a certified Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) instructor, she helps golfers optimize their swings by addressing physical limitations. A former athlete herself, she brings firsthand experience and expert knowledge to injury recovery and performance training. When she’s not working with clients, she enjoys golfing, fitness classes, and exploring new restaurants with her husband and their dog.

Want to work with Dr. Lauren Mueller and take your golf performance to the next level? Connect with her and the Streamline Performance Physical Therapy team today!

Visit their website, Streamline Performance Physical Therapy, to learn more about their services, or follow along on Instagram and Facebook.

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Golfers, are you held back by nagging knee

pain? It's not just discomfort. This is limiting your swing,

your power and consistency. Today, I'm joined by Lauren

Mueller, PT, DPT. Lauren is a TPI certified instructor, a

physical therapist, and she helps golfers move better. Swing

smoother and play pain free. Today, we're going to break down

how your body's limitations impact your game and how a

combination of physical therapy, targeted and cutting edge

regenerative treatments can get you back on the course faster

and stronger. Whether you're a weekend golfer or a serious

player, this is a game changer. Let's dive in. First. Welcome

Lauren. It is a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I have been

thinking about this episode for quite some time, because you

know golfers. I know golfers. I think it's going to be a perfect

combination, where they can see how these two things come

together and keep people back on the course. I mean, right now is

prime golf season. So please introduce yourself to everybody.

Tell us kind of your background, what your passions are, and then

we'll dive into some topics.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Dr Penhollow, for

having me like you said. I'm Dr Lauren Mueller. I'm a physical

therapist here in the Valley, Phoenix, Arizona, Paradise

Valley area, and I have been a PT, practicing PT for about 10

years now. I went to a school here down at the U of A for

undergrad. I went to NAU for their PT graduate program. And I

am super passionate about golf. I've grown up golfing, and I

decided that's going to be a passion of mine to bring into my

clinic and gym as well. So I've gotten TPI certified, which is

through the title is Performance Institute, and that just helps

me understand, personally, my swing a little bit better, but

also helps me understand how the swing affects the body

physiologically, kinetically, and how we can kind of help use

those different cues to break it down and figure out the best

pathway to healing for you is so that's one of my golf focused

and passions that I like to combine together.

Wonderful. Thank you for explaining what

TPI is, and I know that people who play well know Titleist,

they know all about instructors, and they seek that out. So I

know this creates quite a special niche for you. You have

active golfers that are in an acute probably maintenance, and

maybe more of they just kind of call you up when things happen,

nagging injury. So kind of paint the story. If somebody does play

golf and they specifically want somebody to help them with their

golf game, tell me what it would entail.

What it looks like. So being in Phoenix,

Arizona, we have beautiful weather most of the time of the

year, but that means I have clients who fly in just for

temporary visits. Whether it's just a short term stay, they're

here for a month, maybe six months, kind of depending on

what that looks like. Or I have my year round clients that I see

all year round, what that looks like for my treatment. It

depends on if we are an acute injury. Hey, we just I have a

torn meniscus, whether I have been coming off of a knee

replacement, whether it's we're talking about knees today here.

So I'm kind of focusing on that. Yes, there's a lot of back pain

with golfers, but today we're going to really focus on knees.

So I have clients who are dealing with sharp shooting,

actual pain that I really like to focus on calming that down,

strengthening them through the program, and making sure that

they're strong enough on the other side, and not actually

having to continue to play with that pain. So that progression

is super important. Especially here at streamline, we like to

focus on not just getting you pain free, but keeping you pain

free so that you can keep enjoying your hobbies for as

long as possible. So with golfers, I see you guys, as the

season starts picking up and the weather gets really nice that we

start ramping up on how often everybody's being able to get

out there, a little bit more so a lot more injuries come at the

end of December, January, February, at this prime time of

the year, it could be anything all over. So I hope I was

answering your question right. But the clients can be

maintenance program. I have a lot of clients who specifically

are golf servers, who come in once a month. They come in, they

keep their body they want to make sure that they are

maintaining proper body work, keeping their mechanics right,

making sure that they know how to if you guys have gone down

the TPI worlds, you know how to work your upper body completely

different than your lower body, as well as, like being able to

control the various dynamics with a swing keeping the lower

body strong, as well as engaging your upper body. So we have a

lot of maintenance clients, a lot of pain clients, and a lot

of kind of right in between. Hey, I've had this chronic thing

going on. It's kind of flaring up right now. We work on trying

to get through that and that those clients are really great

clients. They like to share with Dr Penhollow, because she can

help with some of that regenerative medicine there as

well.

So thanks for breaking down the kind of the

life cycle of the patient as they work in. A few times you

mentioned maintenance. We also talk about prevention so that

they don't get injured. They've already had that injury. So a

lot. Of it is focusing on the core, focusing on the upper body

as well as the lower body. It's so hard to just say that if

you've got a knee injury, that it's just gonna focus that, you

know, we've gotta look at the whole kinetic chain. I've

mentioned the kinetic chain before, but let's say a person

has during their swing, they just go to kill the ball on a

drive. They've planted that foot. It's a planted twisting

injury. They feel like your pull. We're suspecting that

there's some kind of a soft tissue injury. What type of

things are you going to do at the initial consultation and

kind of set that through with all the way into getting them

back on the course?

Yes. I just had someone like this comment two

weeks ago. Unfortunately, usually that presents fairly

similar to a meniscus injury. If you have any sort of rotation

injury, that's what I see most often. You can anytime there is

a an acute injury. I break things down to my clients. I

really like to dumb it down because I don't expect anybody

to know. We dumb it down to we've got muscles and we've got

bones. We're going to start that low. Muscles are our blood

pumps. They are strength, they're endurance, they keep us

going. Bones are our structure. So things that really help with

that to kind of help keep people in mind, ligaments and then

tendons are two other scary things that people hear about.

So ligaments are what we have that keep bones together. So

those are also structured. Those are not going to be damaged,

unless you have some sort of trauma or injury along those

lines. So I have somebody coming in and they said, Oh, I just had

I heard a pop. I did this. It now hurts. It's usually swelling

that tells me it's more of a ligament or meniscus injury.

Something happened acutely. You're getting something that's

injured. And then you have tendons. Tendons tendons are

what connect muscles to bone, and so that works a lot on

actual movement over use. So that's my client who, hey, I

haven't been golfing because I've been stuck in really crappy

winter weather. I'm now just moved back here to Arizona for a

couple of weeks, and I started ramping things up, and now I'm

having issues. So that tells me it's a little bit more of an

overuse injury. It's something that has kind of slowly ramped

up that's going to lead me into the tendon world or more

muscular world, versus I know that we're going to have either

a direct meniscus or we're going to have an acute ligament

injury, stuff like that. So when I have somebody come in, I

always explain that. I know it seems simple and anatomy of 101,

but I think that's important for people to understand. And then

that's kind of what guides my treatment. From there, if it's

going to be an acute injury with, let's say, a meniscus

tear, most importantly, you want to work on reducing the pain. So

first of all, we say, All right, what do we got? Do we have to do

some sort of like effleurage. We're doing some soft tissue

mobilization or deep tissue massage. What I can do there. I

have a lot of tools my toolbox that I like to use, whether it's

dry needling, which is a type of acupuncture that goes into the

actual muscle or tendons that are inflamed surrounding that

area, that can kind of help increase that purposeful trauma

and get a good inflammation response to help flush that out.

We do cupping, which has been really helpful, especially if

you have some of that really acute swelling there, or that

muscle tension that just goes with the guarding of a new

injury. I have a really awesome device called the shock wave,

which I'm sure maybe Dr penhala has gone into what shock wave

therapy is before in previous podcasts, but that's been a

like, close to a magic button tool that I love to use, and

then I do if it's an issue. And I know, hey, some people really

want that peace of mind. They want an MRI. That want a

diagnostic. I always encourage that. That's not going to change

my treatment plans. I just want to make sure that we are

treating what they want to be treated, and kind of being able

to build up from there and then, when you have a traumatic injury

like that, the most important thing that you can do is keep

this vessel surrounding that injury really strong, because a

lot of what you hear is just rest. Give it a rest for like,

four to six weeks. In my mind, that's the worst thing that you

can do. Because I really want to make sure that you guys can keep

that muscle pumping and, like, keep your body strong. You're

going to atrophy if you don't do that. And then after that, four

to six weeks, you're like, Oh, I'm not feeling so bad. You're

going to go out there, it's going to be atrophied, it's

going to be painful, and it's just got to be what you want. So

those are some of my first attempts of what I would kind of

do with that.

Wonderful and the fact that we talk about, you

know, it used to be Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. The

whole RICE thing, really, it's not like you want to go out and

play 27 holes on it the next day. There is that form of rest,

but it's not laying around, because we now know about

sarcopenia. And even in the most well conditioned athlete, that

after five days of no activity, we've already got a significant

amount of muscle loss. So thank you for touching on that. Can we

also talk about, say that it's a injury, same injury, maybe the

meniscus tear, but it is a degenerative one. It's because

the person has the degree of it could be a two, it could be a

three, it could be a four. In terms of the grade of

osteoarthritis, do you treat that any differently?

The answer that I used to hate all my professors

giving me was it depends, but it does very much depend on the

client, the population, and you said, the severity of that

injury, osteoarthritis is a. Unfortunately, extremely common,

especially if you have had previous knee injuries in the

past, or even surgeries that's more likely to lead to an

advanced stage of OC arthritis. Arthritis does not necessarily

mean that you need to have a knee replacement immediately.

Various cases there, I think that could be very beneficial

and could be helpful. There are cases where people just don't

want to commit to that right away. And I think there's a lot

of preventative care that you can do on that site as well. I'm

sure Dr Penhall, you can talk on injections or different types of

like, more conservative aspects of treatment. For me, I look at

that is, if you're going to be bone on bone, which we hear all

the time, what keeps us from being bone on bone is that

muscular system that supports it. So when I see somebody who

says, I'm super bone on bone. How do we unload that? If we

teach you how to properly engage your quads, your hamstrings,

your glutes, your hips, your calves, you support every muscle

surrounding that knee joint, you're going to have a lot less

of that, like deep compression, aching, bang, and you're going

to know how to use your body a little bit better out and on the

course, out on the field, or on whatever you may be trying to do

out there. So I really encourage a general strengthening program,

whether it's before or during or after you do that, you replace

that journey.

Absolutely. Thanks for touching on that. And

notice that you said the muscles above and the muscles below. We

talked about the calf, we talked about the hams and quads. So

that's fantastic. So we kind of dove into the accommodations

post injury that we're talking about strengthening. We're

talking about removing the inflammation, whether that be

the effleurage, which is kind of the milking of the lymphatic

system. And make the special techniques you have, let's talk

about, specifically, the accommodations post operatively.

So I want to have two different things. One is somebody came in

they had maybe a meniscal repair, or they had an ACL

repair, they got these specific restrictions from their

orthopod. And then after we do that, let's talk about the

person after a TK or a total knee replacement. We can then

extrapolate to total hip replacement and to spinal

fusion, because we're going to marry that up in the kinetic

chain. So let's go perfect. It's something that's not they don't

have hardware yet, or they might have a screw, or they might have

cadaver into Yeah, what the ACL is, or whatever. Tell me about

the accommodations you make for a golfer who wants to get back

on the course after they've had something like that.

Yeah. So golfing is a lot of rotation on whether

it's your lead leg or whether it's on the back leg. You do

have a lot of compression rotation, and like as you're

pulling through in your hips, you just need to be able to

understand what that's going to look like, what that shearing is

going to look like on the joint. A lot of it is from glute

strength. And then people always forget it's not necessarily just

always about the swing. It's about bending over and getting

your goals or lining it up when you're putting. That is

something I have a lot of golfers complain about, because

they might be able to piecemeal together some sort of swing that

might not be my personal favorite, but bending over at

the end on the green and trying to line up the ball, lining up

their putts, that's when they're trying to get in that deep, deep

deflection and kind of assessing what their putting line is going

to look like. So that's also super important. I always like

to touch on that, because that once we get to knee

replacements, you got to get that deep knee selection back in

there. So let's take it. In my mind is something as simple as a

meniscus. Yes, there is a variation of different types of

meniscus repairs that you need to look at, but most likely

that's going to be your least invasive knee surgery that you

may have. Some of it might be our nos, COVID. Some of it might

be a little bit a little bit more invasive, but still, it's

not going to require as long of a rehab journey. I just had a

gal who is here just had a meniscus repair. Her goal was to

be able to walk the waste management, because she

volunteers and is a sign holder for the waste management every

year for the different golfers. And so she is a personal golfer,

and she also is a fan of golf, so she needed to be able to walk

18 and I know I did it that this year, and I followed a golfer

who was a friend playing, and I walked over 14 miles. So you've

got to be ready to rock with that. So with her, a lot of

it's, first of all, you need to get your range of motion back.

This is generally for any knee injury that I'm going to look

at. Post operatively, you need to make sure that you can get

that full knee flexion, full knee extension. You're going to

have a lot more limited knee flexion when you have a total

knee replacement, but you can get past that 120 depending on

who your surgeon was, how hard you're working, what your pain

skills look like. So that's going to be your first thing.

Next thing is you really need to learn on like get back to learn

knowing how to balance, knowing how to step, knowing how to not

be scared of different movements, single planar, multi

plane, kind of transitioning into that. I really like to dumb

it down. Make sure everybody understands lower muscles, upper

muscles, anterior muscles, posterior muscles, all these

things I really want you guys to focus on. So if you have, I have

a client, and they're like, so tell me what I need to do. I've

given them 1000 exercises at the end of the day. I need you to

know, as long as you're working your quads on the front, your

glutes that are in your booty, your hamstrings that are on the

back, you're working your calves and even that anterior tip, and

find the balance in between your feet, if you're focusing on

something like that, you're going to be helping set yourself

forward. But finding a progression of what your knee

can tolerate is going. To be really important. So that's kind

of a general and meniscus, you just work on strength. I love to

use I have all different tools in my toolbox. I love the blood

flow restriction, which is great. You're able to work on

strengthening your muscles a whole lot faster with less

tension and with less weight bearing and with less loading.

That's going to help you increase that muscle mass a lot

faster. And ACL, a whole other journey that, respectfully, I

think requires about a year, and a lot of professional athletes

and a lot of doctors will just say it's anywhere between four

to nine months. I really do, truly think that it is more of a

12 to 14 month recovery. I think it's just so important to make

sure that you are testing and understanding what it looks like

when you're recovering from a ligament injury that is just a

whole lot more intense. And I can have an entire three hours

talking about that, but I would really make sure if you're in my

ACL recovery phase, we need to demonstrate equality between

your affected limb and your non affected limb up to about 80%

before I'm gonna let you go rotate and whack the ball out on

the driving range or even on the course. So ACL is a little bit

more intense. I just want to make sure that we aren't doing

anything wrong there. And then, if we have a total knee injury,

a total knee replacement, that is very common, especially out

here in Phoenix and Scottsdale area, it is very painful up

front, but the recovery is worth it, and everybody is so grateful

that they've done it. Once they've done it, the walking is

better. You're able to walk 18. You're able to go up and down

hills. Really focusing on balance, really understanding

rotational strength is going to be really important. Being able

to load the glute and loading the hip is really important.

That's going to be something that, long term, is going to

affect your golf swing. Anyways, if you have a stronger glute and

stronger hip, you're going to have further power, and that's

going to drive your ball farther if you're able to start using

that better. So I really want to make sure that with that total

knee replacement, that clients are understanding that, yes,

it's a journey. It's first things, first getting range

motion back. While we're doing that, we're also building our

first rank and then making sure that our balance stays there.

Because when we have a total knee replacement, you're taking

your bone away from your balance, you need to relearn how

to balance on that. You need to relearn what your proprioception

looks like. And then, like I was kind of talking about, I need

you to get that deep deflection so that you can get down on

there, and you can start setting your ball, understanding where

it's going to be on your put and you can kind of line that up a

little bit better. So range of motion is huge. Strength is so

so, so important. That is something that we really,

really, really, like to hammer here at streamline, but keeping

you strong and ready and prepared, and then a lot of

times, is, yes, you might be feeling great. It's like, okay,

let's not go ahead at 18. Let's start on the driving range.

Let's not hit a large bucket. Let's hit a smaller, medium

bucket. And then we'll see how it feels. Like, if you're going

to go out there and hit a large bucket, 10, like, I don't know

it's about 100 balls. You're not hitting 100 balls, even on 18,

hopefully you're not and but some of us are. So you just need

to understand, like, the repetition and how much that

really is going to be. So learning what that looks like,

understanding, I'm going to give you an inch. Don't take the

whole football field. Just know that there is a gradual process

to getting back and healing, and that's going to be something

that will help get you back out there for faster. So I hope I

went through some of those. Spinal fusion is going to be a

little bit different. And a total hip work back up. You got

turtle hip. Those repairs, shockingly, a whole lot easier

than a total knee. My clients love them. They hate them, not

leading up to it, but at the end of the day, they're like, Wow,

that really helped. My mother in law was playing Pilates. Gosh,

she's back doing Pilates in four weeks. So if you have a total

hip and you know what you're doing, I personally think PT

really helps to speed that up, but knowing how to really load

your glute get stronger in that posterior chain, that's going to

be beneficial for you. And then a spinal fusion, also fairly

common with golf, you get a lot of rotation. So if we want to

dive into the back world, I really can. But a lot of what

happens is, if you need a spinal fusion, most often, you probably

don't have enough movement in your upper thoracic spine, so in

your upper back, you're probably rotating down at that lower

lumbar area, and that is and if you are a golfer, you are

rotating a ton, like I said, Let's just give the average

golfer about 100 swings, and if you're doing that 100 times,

what else do you do 100 times a day? That's kind of a lot of

load, and you're adding various points of impact on that. So

your body needs to understand how strong your core is on that,

how strong your glutes are on that, how strong your like all

your back muscles are, how strong your posture is. But you

need to have proper range of motion, like, I say, in your

upper thoracic spine and your mid thoracic spine and in that

low lumbar. So keeping your hips with good mobility, keeping your

low back with good mobility, but also really focusing on that

upper thoracic is super important, as I have clients get

back into the golfing world. But with that dynamic core strength

is so important. Even if you're just a menifcus athlete, your

core strength is so so, so important. There's a lot of

studies that go into the benefits of core strengthening.

I wouldn't do this, but if you just solely strengthen the core,

the outcomes of how your knees have improved. So I correlate

that with lower leg strengthening and core

strengthening, and that will get you what I think the magic sauce

is getting better faster.

Oh, it is. I've heard you talk about core

stability. I've heard you talking about the posterior

chain and the anterior chain and even the thoracic all the way

through. In the ideal world, that buzzword that I love pre

hap if somebody knows that they're getting ready to have a

knee replacement, or that they are heading down that spinal

fusion pathway, isn't the ideal time to see you well before the

injury happened. But the ideal time to see you is actually to

do some prehab before even the surgery.

Yeah, I think I like to speak on like any point

of phase that you are, if you're open to making sure that your

body knows what's coming up is going to be the most important

thing. So you can if you know you're going to have surgery

coming down the lines, teaching somebody what they need to do

when they're at home postoperatively, before they

even have like, I'm in pain. I don't feel great. I don't go to

a PT for two weeks until what do I do in that period of time that

is this kind of like purgatory? I don't know. Can I do anything?

Can I not do anything? A lot of my clients are just like, they

get so nervous. So in prehab, not only are we working on

strengthening and showing you what you can do right after that

surgery, it could also be like, let's talk through this. What

does your house look like? What are going to be some of your

different obstacles that you have at home? Whether it's, are

you living alone and Are you single? And do you need to meal

prep, some stuff do you have, like, what is it gonna look like

you're gonna need a shower after you have a knee replacement?

Like, are you able to get in and out of those bathtubs? Is it

upstairs? Is it downstairs? Like, a lot of those

conversations that feel hard I have in those like two sessions

right before you actually have that surgery, but leading up to

that, we've made sure that you know how to engage your glutes

appropriately. You know a couple exercises that are safe to do in

your home, you learn some great stuff that you can do to avoid

having surgery. So a lot of clients are like, Oh, maybe this

is pre gap. They're like, I'm doing great. Actually, I really

just needed to learn how to rotate my upper thoracic spine a

whole lot more. Now my low back has no pain, and I've been

feeling great. And I'll have clients who, fortunately, I get

to do that, and that's awesome. Most of my clients don't need

surgery, so there's always people who do, and that's been

something that's either advanced arthritis or some severe

discrimination stuff. But there's a lot of things that you

can do, whether it is preventative for people who are

just like, You know what? Something's not right? I want to

learn, and that feels, I think, like a majority of my clients,

they're scared of what could happen down the road. They want

to make sure that they're staying a little bit more

proactive about it. They don't want to have a spinal fusion.

They don't want to heat replacement, and they learn how

to actually incorporate strength training and movement and

mobility. And that's going to be kind of the ticket to prolonging

that and keeping that game right. And who doesn't want a

little body work every once month, once a month, either that

also feels pretty good soft tissue wise, whether it's

something as simple as like cupping and just movements or

new stretches, it's not always just an exercise. Exercise.

Sometimes your body needs a little bit of like, Oh my gosh.

My muscles have been so tight this way, my lower QL because

I'm swinging and I'm right handed, my left side is just

grumpy and tight. Maybe we need to work on a little bit more

muscular balance. That way you're not overusing that

injury, and you're going to start hurting your low back. So

I do a lot of that too.

That's wonderful. A lot of stuff that

hopefully keeps them out of the operating room. But then you

know that if they do go to the or that there's going to be a

plan post operatively, too. I love that. So we've talked about

post injury, post fusion, post replacement, either the hip or

the knee. Can you just break it down? Because we've been

ignoring the elephant in the room. Yes, I wanted to focus on

knee, because so many people are knee, knee, knee, but it all

stems from the ground all the way up. So when you're working

with somebody, do you actually take him out on the course and

analyze their swing? And you talk about, Wow, your ankle,

you've got flat feet. Oh, your knee, you're not rotating, or I

see that you've got atrophy of the inside of your knee, and no

wonder the inside of your knee hurts. Tell me kind of what you

do, particularly with a golfer that's going to address this

entire from the ground up thing.

Yes, thank you for asking that. Yeah,

absolutely. I have gone to the range and I have watched people

swings. I am not a Swing Coach. I like to tell people that, so

don't come to me asking for get better. I'll just make you feel

better, and then you can swing better after that. But it is so

important. Yes, your feet are a huge component of your lower

kinetic chain. Absolutely, you have a drop that's going to put

a lot more pressure. I tell people, like, if you're sitting

at home, you're listening to this, you're watching this, let

your feet be lazy. What happens when you let those feet be lazy?

Your knees come in, and when those knees come in, you're

going to put a whole lot more pressure on that medial aspect

of your knee. And you're going to find out, Oh my gosh, my

butt's not really turned on. I'm not I don't have any glute med.

It's not activated, right? Okay, let's try to make those feet be

really strong. Push. Down through your toes, pull your

knees out and engage your outer hips. You're like, whoa. I can

actually feel those muscles. So I tell it's like my feet are

lazy. They're rotating in. Let's try to make them strong. Let's

pull those muscles and use them out. It's just learning what

that looks like. If it is a ankle issue, you have to look at

everything you can you break down. And that's kind of what

the TPI teaches you. You, I'm a physical therapist, and that's

kind of what I've been doing anyways. It's I have a shoulder

problem, like, is it just your shoulder? Do I look at your

neck? You kind of have to look at everything. So if it's a knee

problem, it could either be coming from your low back, for

sure, it could be coming from your hip, for sure. It could be

coming from your ankles, for sure. It could be coming from

the arch of your feet. For sure. It could just be a knee problem,

it could be any of these things. So you have to make sure that

you understand what exactly it's coming from. If you had an acute

injury, we're going to focus on the acute injury, and then we're

going to assess why we had that acute injury. Was it because our

glutes weak and we are throwing a force on that and that's not

able to withstand that along your knee? Or do we have insoles

that we've had insoles in for the last 15 years because

someone 15 years ago told you that's it. You haven't changed

them. We might need to reassess that. We might need to see

what's going on. We might need to see if that is the

appropriate insult for you anymore, or if it's more of just

a strength awareness. What I learned, we have a lot of motor

morons out there, and that's okay. It's just not knowing how

to turn on the appropriate muscles that you need when

you're looking at that, when you're going through a golf

swing, you're focused on just hitting the ball, right? That's

the first thing. But there's also a lot of other things that

you know focus on. As your core engaged, are you using your

glute? Are you rotating all the way through? Is your toe

pivoting? Like, where are we in the golf swing analysis? And

that's just in the golfers world, but any kind of exercise

that you're out there doing, yeah, you're doing crunches. Are

you actually using your core when you're doing this crunches,

you're doing a bicep curl. Are you focused on using your bicep

when you're doing your bicep curl? Are you just kind of going

through the motion? So if we're using momentum and going through

the motions with no exercise, that's going to be a whole lot

more detrimental than if you're more intentional about your

exercise, and you're going to really kind of keep that area of

focus going. So like you said, the whole kinetic chain is so

important. If I see knee pain, I know there's usually a hip

issue, and that's just usually a lot of glute weakness, knee

weakness, HIPAA, vector weakness. So we hammer some

glutes. We also make sure people's balance. And work on

balance. We're really working on your foot intrinsic so you

understand what muscles need to be focused when we're in weight

bearing on just one leg, and weight brown hair on two legs,

one and a half as we're in, like a transitional swing, it's just

really important to understand what each muscle is doing and

what your body is doing in a dynamic movement. So like a golf

swing, those are, yes, very important. Look at the whole

body.

Absolutely. So people don't think I'm crazy.

This is now the second time you've heard that when you come

in for your knee, your back's going to be looked at.

The spine is so important. And so often people

will have lateral, like, calf pain, and they're called, my

knees been killing me. It's like, I can guarantee you,

that's your low back. But we can go through the motions. I'll

look at your knee, but I'm gonna definitely assess your back,

anything that you have going down and like, it's just like

your shoulder. I'm gonna look at your neck, because your

shoulders below your shoulders below your neck, I'm going to

look at your hips and then look at your knees, and then look at

your feet. I'm also going to look at your back, just to make

sure that we can make sure that we're not having any ridiculous

issues. Maybe we're not having any sort of disc pathologies or

lumbar impingements, anything along those lines, because that

can be sending referral pain or radicular pain. Counting legs,

his knees as well. So very much. Always look at your back.

Good, excellent. What do you think

we've missed? What do you think we haven't touched on here?

Because I'm super excited for people who golf, just to kind of

get that idea of this is what I can do, pre emptive strike. This

is what I do if I get injured. And it's not a big injury. This

is what I do if I get so injured that I'm going to have surgery

that all is not lost, I can get back on the course. What else do

we need to talk about?

I think we've heard a lot. I mean, there's all

I can talk a whole lot more about how shoulders involved

with golf. We're going to talk a whole lot more about how back

involved in golf. But I think if you're not sure if you feel like

your body has some sort of limitation, like, oh my gosh, I

don't know why I'm not getting enough power. Is it because you

don't have enough rotation and you have your body? Is it

because your house shoulder range of motion restriction? Is

it because our hips aren't moving as much like there are

different assessments that you can do. I'll do a TPI assessment

when clients come in and make sure that their ankles are

moving right, their hips are moving right? They're core

stable enough and strong enough. They have enough quad stability.

Make sure that your lumbar rotation is great. Make sure

you're not over rotating there and like, you just work your way

all the way up the chain. And that's something that I think is

really important. If you're like, Hey, how is my body

working? Have somebody look at it. They can assess. They can

make sure that they know, or they can guide you in a couple

of movements, stretches, exercises, abilities, things

that can kind of unlock that game for you. Also warm up

before you go. Please. You're about to go do an activity for

four hours. Please, just try to do a little bit of something

active. Warm Up. Rotate your spine. Get your glutes involved.

Use your core. Please do that. That's something I don't think

it's harped on a gnash.

No, it's not. Kind of a lot of people act old,

or they'll just do a static stretch without a dynamic warm

up. And so we talk walking with the high knees, lifting those

knees, lifting those knees, and then maybe do the stretch, or

whatever it is, swing the arms like a windmill, then do the

stretch. Something like that gets above blood. Pumping first?

Yeah, I think it's, it's really motivational for people to say,

wouldn't it be nice if I can do this preemptively, if I can have

my swing analyzed before I even go out there, because then two

months later, when I've been playing two or three times a

week and I've got this nagging shoulder injury or my knee is

now hurting wouldn't have been nice to notice that I could have

probably prevented this if we'd caught early because my

mechanics weren't right.

Yeah, absolutely. There's something

simple as, Hey, you don't have, we don't have our time. Doesn't

align. Videotape it. Have the partner you're golfing with,

videotape it. Have do it from the back. Do it from the front,

do it from the side. See, don't do it from the front. Don't do

it from the in front of the swing, but just make sure that

you're able to assess it in different ways and we can go

over it together. I see golf swings all the time like, yes,

we are coming out of our swing a little early. That's nothing. A

whole lot more compression on that low lumbar spine. Let's

talk about how we can adjust that. Why are you doing that? So

definitely, I would say that's something that you can do

Wonderful. How do people find you? How do

people work with you? Go ahead and let us know, and we'll also

put it in the show notes. You don't have to have a pen and

paper if you're driving right now, but it'll all be there, and

we'll link to that. But please. How can we work with you?

Again, my name is Lauren Mueller from

Streamline Performance Physical Therapy. We are over up in

Paradise Valley, over off Cactus and COVID Valley, Parkway, near

Tatum in cactus. Feel free to give us a phone call. Feel free

to find us on Instagram, streamline. Feel free to give me

an email. Brittany is our front office manager, and she is

awesome. She will kind of help guide you. You can ask for me,

but I also have three other physical therapists that I work

with, and they are amazing. So Ryan is great. Nick is great,

and Krista is fantastic. So there's four physical therapists

here, and we really love working with golfers, active people, and

we can't wait to be able to help you figure out how you can help

yourself.

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Lauren, it

has been a true pleasure, and I look forward to a continued

working relationship with you and your team.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Dr Penhollow.

Thank you.

If you have knee pain and would like to learn more, I have a

worksheet called Five Things to Do Now to Reduce Your Knee Pain

Within a Week. Go to www.kneeboostnow.com to download

it for FREE. I'd love to hear from you, so please like,

subscribe and comment below so I can help you get out of your

knee pain.

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