11 years of hot yoga boiled down to what actually helps my golf game at 56
By Marino | February 2026 | MyGolfSwing.net
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Picture this. It’s 6-something in the morning in Palm Desert. Still dark out. I’m in the parking lot of Palm Valley Country Club, laying on foam tiles next to my car, eyes closed, breathing like a low-budget Darth Vader. Some guy walks past with his push cart and probably thinks I’m having a medical event.
Nope. Just doing yoga. In a parking lot. Before a golf tournament. Like I do every single time.
I’ve been practicing hot yoga for 11 years. Not on and off — consistently. In a room heated to 105 degrees, multiple times a week, for over a decade. And at some point I noticed that the days I stretched before golf, my body cooperated in ways it didn’t when I skipped it. My low back wouldn’t lock up on the back nine. My hips would actually let me rotate. I could swing through the ball instead of fighting my own body to get there.
So I built a pre-round yoga routine for golf. Pulled pieces from my yoga practice, kept what matters for golf, ditched the rest. It takes about 15 minutes. I’ve done it before every SCGA tournament I’ve played, including the one at Palm Valley where I shot 78, averaged 284 yards off the tee, and had 27 putts. I’m 56 years old. My body has no business performing like that without a warm-up.
Two Things in My Trunk
I travel light on this. A foam exercise puzzle mat and a foam roller. That’s the whole kit.
The puzzle mat is those interlocking foam tiles you’ve seen in home gyms. I keep one in my trunk permanently. People ask why I don’t just use my yoga mat. Because I’m not dragging my good mat through parking lot gravel and oil stains. The puzzle mat snaps together in seconds, cushions my knees on concrete, and when it gets trashed I replace it for like $15. That’s the whole decision-making process right there.
The foam roller is specifically for my back. Before I start any yoga poses, I lay down on it and spend a couple minutes just rolling my spine back and forth. After sitting in the car for 2.5 hours from San Diego to Palm Desert, my vertebrae feel like they’ve been spot-welded together. The roller unsticks them. By the time I’m done rolling, my back is ready to actually move.
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The Breathing Thing
OK so throughout this whole routine I breathe a certain way. Ujjayi breathing. Yoga people call it “ocean breath.” You breathe in and out through your nose but constrict the back of your throat a little bit, so it makes this soft hissing sound. It’s subtle. My wife says I sound like I’m sleeping. I’ll take it.
Why bother? Because it does something to your nervous system that regular breathing doesn’t. Slows your heart rate, dials down the adrenaline, puts you in this focused-but-calm state. I do the whole routine with my eyes closed, just following the breath. By the end, the pre-tournament nerves are gone. Not suppressed — actually gone. That headspace carries straight to the first tee.
Simple rule: one breath per movement. Inhale into one pose, exhale into the next. Hold each one 3 to 5 breaths. That’s it.
The Pre-Round Yoga Routine: Standing to Ground
The first chunk of the routine is three rounds of Sun Salutation A. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, you know this one. If you haven’t, it’s basically a loop: you start standing, fold forward, go down to the ground, come back up, and return to standing. Every major muscle group gets touched along the way.
I stand with my feet hip-distance apart in Mountain Pose. Eyes closed. Couple of breaths just to land. Then inhale, arms overhead. Exhale, fold forward and let the head hang. My hamstrings complain here, especially on the first round. They’ll get over it. Inhale halfway up to a flat back — this wakes up the spine. Exhale, step back into a half push-up position. Inhale, press into Upward Dog, which opens up the whole front of the body and stretches the hip flexors. That one alone is worth the 15 minutes if you’ve been sitting in a car.
Then push back into Downward Dog and just hang out there for a few breaths. Pedal the feet. Let gravity do the work on the calves and hamstrings. This pose decompresses the spine and honestly I could stay in it for five minutes and my back would be happy.
From there I step forward, fold, rise back up with arms overhead, and come to standing. That’s one round. I do three. The first round is stiff and mechanical. Second round things start moving. Third round I actually feel like an athlete and not a 56-year-old who just sat in a car since 3:30 AM.
Then I Get on All Fours and Argue With My Low Back
After the Sun Salutations I drop to hands and knees for Table Top pose into Cat-Cow. Knees under hips, shoulders over wrists. And then I just go back and forth: arch the back and lift the chest on the inhale (that’s Cow), then round the spine and tuck the chin on the exhale (that’s Cat). Slow. Controlled. Three rounds.
This is the single best thing I’ve found for my low back, and my low back at 56 has opinions about everything. The alternating arch-and-round motion hits every segment of the lumbar spine. After three rounds I can literally feel things loosening up that were locked a minute ago. If I had to pick one stretch to do before golf for the rest of my life and nothing else, this is the one. Not even close.
Pigeon Pose, a.k.a. Why Your Hips Are Limiting Your Swing
From Table Top pose, I push back to Downward Dog and then bring my left knee forward into Pigeon Pose. Left knee behind the left wrist, right leg straight back, hips sinking toward the ground. Hold it 3 to 5 breaths. It’s not comfortable. Especially the first side. The deep hip rotators and glutes are tight in basically everybody, and they’re even tighter if you’ve been sitting in a car.
Back to Downward Dog. Switch. Right side. Same hold.
Here’s the golf connection, and this one is not subtle. Your hips generate rotational power in the swing. When they’re tight, you can’t turn through the ball properly. Your low back tries to compensate for the rotation your hips won’t give you, and that’s how you end up sore or hurt. Open hips mean more turn, more speed, less strain. I’ve gained over 18 mph of swing speed through Stack System training, but the flexibility to actually USE that speed? That comes from stuff like Pigeon Pose.
If you’re curious about the Stack System, I wrote about my full experience with it and how I went from 89 to 107 mph at 56. It’s the real deal.
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Finish on My Back, Then on My Knees
Almost done. I lower down from Downward Dog and roll onto my back. Hug both knees into my chest and rock back and forth a few times. It’s basically using the ground to massage the low back. Feels ridiculous. Feels amazing. I do it 2 or 3 times.
Then I drop both knees to the left and stretch my right arm out for a Supine Twist. Hold it 3 to 5 breaths and switch sides. This twist is directly golf-related — it’s a deep rotation through the mid-back, which is exactly what a full shoulder turn requires. If you sit at a desk all day or you drove a couple hours to the course, your thoracic spine is basically a brick. This twist loosens it.
One more round of hugging the knees and rocking. Then I roll over to Table Top pose on my hands and knees and sit back into Child’s Pose — hips on heels, arms stretched forward, forehead on the mat. 5 to 10 long breaths. This is where everything comes together. Not the body stuff. The head stuff. I’m breathing slow, eyes closed, and I’m actively letting go of everything — the drive, the nerves, the scorecard I haven’t even started yet. The exhales get longer. The thoughts get quieter. When I finally stand up, there’s a stillness in me that the driving range never provides.
That’s it. Fifteen minutes, start to finish. Some days a little longer if my body is being stubborn. But the structure stays the same every time.
Cheat Sheet
Screenshot this or print it out. It’s the whole routine on one table.
| Part | What | Sanskrit Name | Hold |
| 1 | Mountain Pose | Tadasana | Start here |
| 1 | Arms Up | Utthita Hastasana | Inhale |
| 1 | Forward Fold | Uttanasana | Exhale |
| 1 | Half Lift | Ardha Uttanasana | Inhale |
| 1 | Half Push-Up | Chaturanga | Exhale |
| 1 | Upward Dog | Urdhva Mukha Svanasana | Inhale |
| 1 | Downward Dog | Adho Mukha Svanasana | 3-5 breaths |
| 1 | Half Lift → Fold → Up → Stand | (reverse back up) | 1 breath each |
| ↑ Do 3 rounds | |||
| 2 | Cow (arch) → Cat (round) | Bitilasana / Marjaryasana | 3 rounds |
| 3 | Pigeon Pose (left + right) | Kapotasana | 3-5 breaths/side |
| 4 | Knees-to-Chest (rock) | Apanasana | 2-3 rocks |
| 4 | Supine Twist (left + right) | Supta Matsyendrasana | 3-5 breaths/side |
| 4 | Knees-to-Chest again | Apanasana | 2-3 rocks |
| 5 | Child’s Pose | Balasana | 5-10 breaths |
Does This Actually Show Up on the Scorecard?
I can’t prove causation. I’m not running a clinical trial in the Palm Valley parking lot. But here’s what I know from my own experience.
When I skip the routine — and I have, out of laziness or running late — my first three or four holes feel like a completely different round than the rest. Tight. Restricted. I’m swinging at 80% because my body won’t let me go to 100. My low back starts talking to me around hole 5 or 6. By the back nine I’m compensating, using my arms more than my body, and leaving distance on the table.
When I do the routine, that doesn’t happen. Hole 1 feels like hole 10. My body is warm, my hips are open, my spine moves the way it’s supposed to. I can go after it from the first swing. At Palm Valley I averaged 284 yards off the tee and hit 86% of fairways. I’m not saying the stretching caused that directly. But I am saying my body was ready to perform from the jump, and that’s not always the case when I skip this.
If you want the golf-specific logic: the Sun Salutation warms up everything, head to toe. Cat-Cow mobilizes the low back so it can handle rotational force without seizing up. Pigeon opens the hips so you can actually turn instead of sliding. The twists prep the thoracic spine for a full shoulder turn. And Child’s Pose resets your mind so you’re competing from a calm place instead of an anxious one.
I didn’t design it that way on purpose, honestly. I just grabbed the poses that made my body feel good before golf and it happened to cover all the bases. Eleven years of yoga practice and 13 SCGA tournaments later, the routine hasn’t changed. Because it works.
You Don’t Have to Be Good at Yoga
I want to be clear about something. I’m not asking you to become a yogi. I’m not suggesting you sign up for hot yoga classes (although you should, it’s amazing). I’m telling you to throw a cheap foam mat and a roller in your trunk, show up to the course 20 minutes early, and spend 15 of those minutes doing these stretches.
You don’t need to be flexible. My first time doing Pigeon Pose 11 years ago, I couldn’t get my hip within a foot of the ground. Didn’t matter. You meet your body where it is. The poses still work even if you’re stiff as a board.
If you’re over 40, you’ll notice a difference the first time you try this. Your body will feel different on the first tee. Not warmed up like after a range session — actually loose. Actually ready. If you’re over 50 like me, honestly, it might be the single best thing you add to your game this year. And it’s free. Well, minus the $15 puzzle mat. Hot yoga has also become a key part of my recovery from plantar fasciitis — here’s how specific poses like Warrior 2 are helping me push through it.
More stuff like this at MyGolfSwing.net. Tournament recaps, training updates, and everything I’m figuring out about competitive golf at 56.
| About the Author Marino is 56 years old. He competes in SCGA golf tournaments, has practiced hot yoga for 11 years, and stretches in parking lots before rounds. He writes about all of it at MyGolfSwing.net because he figures if he’s going to obsess over this stuff he might as well share it. |