Wk. 19: Strengthen your grip

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A stronger grip can do wonders for your golf game. It will allow you to transfer power more efficiently in your swing. It will also help your swing to be more accurate at the point of impact with the ball. While most people exercise to strengthen the muscles in their bodies, often very little is done to strengthen a person's grip. Here is how to rectify that situation and improve your game.

Yes, push-ups can indeed help your golf game.

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Overhead bar grab -- What kids have known instinctively for years, we have lost as adults. The monkey bars help strengthen your grip. If your gym has a chin-up bar, simply grab hold of the bar and lift your feet off the ground, so that your body weight is hanging from the bar. As an added bonus, your forearms will gain strength from this exercise as well.

Wrist curls -- While seated, hold a light dumbbell in your hand, with the top of your wrist resting comfortably on your knee. Slowly raise and lower the dumbbell, while keeping your wrist in contact with your knee, so that your wrist is curling the weight upward and downward. Try this 10 times. If the weight is too easy, move up to a higher weight. Then alternate hands.

Finger presses -- Press your index finger and thumb together as forcefully as you can for five seconds than release. Repeat this exercise with your thumb and each of your other fingers. Try this five times each for both hands.

Hand-gripper -- Many sporting goods stores sell these v-shaped devices that are designed to help strengthen your hands. The device is designed to allow you to continually squeeze it to improve your grip and even relieve stress. Many of the devices also allow you to change the tension to increase or decrease the difficulty of the exercise.

Open and close -- Spread your fingers out as widely as you can for five seconds. Then, quickly retract your fingers into a fist and hold that position for five seconds as well. Repeat this exercise 10 times.

Push-ups -- The oldest exercise in the book is actually quite helpful in improving your hand strength. Lie chest-down with your hands at shoulder level, slightly more than shoulder width apart. Then straighten your arms as you push your body off the floor. Your back should be as straight as possible while you do this. If you are at an advanced level of fitness, you can try the push up with just your fingers on the floor, instead of your palms. This will greatly improve your hand strength.

Strengthening your grip can help your golf game tremendously. But knee pain can derail your game for good. If knee pain is preventing you from performing at your best, you might be suffering from osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. Various treatments for OA do exist, such as ORTHOVISC®, which provides up to six months of knee pain relief. Made from ultra-pure natural hyaluronan, which is found in healthy joints, ORTHOVISC® is injected into the knee joint where it acts to replace your natural joint fluid, to help cushion, protect, and lubricate your knee.

ORTHOVISC® is a proud sponsor of PGATOUR.com. Talk to your doctor to see if ORTHOVISC® is right for you. Or visit our Web site at www.orthovisc.com for more information on how to maintain your knee health to help you keep playing the game you love.

Follow us on Twitter for up-to-date information on maintaining joint health and the prevention/treatment of knee pain due to sports-related injuries or the early symptoms of osteoarthritis.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

ORTHOVISC® is indicated in the treatment of pain in osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee in patients who have failed to respond adequately to conservative nonpharmacologic therapy and to simple analgesics, e.g., acetaminophen. In clinical studies, the most commonly reported adverse events were arthralgia, back pain and headache. Other side effects include local injection site adverse events.

ORTHOVISC® is contraindicated in patients with known hypersensitivity to hyaluronate formulation or known hypersensitivity (allergy) to gram positive bacterial proteins. ORTHOVISC should not be injected in patients with infections or skin diseases in the areas of the injection site or joint. Strict aseptic technique should be used. The effectiveness of more than 1 course has not been established.