My first experience with Swing Oil was back in January at the PGA Merchandise Show. If you followed my daily coverage you know I was running around like a cheetah during the Show, and spent all day at Demo Day hitting clubs. I didn’t crack any ribs testing new gear like Rory, but there was no denying my body felt fatigued.
Well I drank one pack of Swing Oil on the second day of the Show and within an hour that stiff, aching feeling in my muscles was basically gone. Another one that evening before I went to sleep and the next morning I didn’t feel any delayed muscle soreness like I did the first two days.
Before I get into what I experienced and what I didn’t experience I have to say energy, supplemental, or nutrition drinks generally aren’t my thing. Sure I’ll drink Gatorade or water to rehydrate during a round, but I’m the kind of person who doesn’t think much about being sore after any activity.
You play golf, you get sore. You shovel snow, you get sore. You work out, you get sore. You do certain things and you’re supposed to get sore. I never really pay much attention to it other than maybe taking a few aspirin and grabbing a hot shower if it gets to the point of being singularly uncomfortable.
Still, I’ll admit that being tight and aching on the golf course affects my performance even if just a little bit. I like to walk rounds as much as possible, and midway through a round, I can sometimes feel that sluggish, jelly-like sensation taking over in my muscles, but I’ve always just chalked that up to being part of the game.
Swing Oil however had a clear effect on my body before, during, and after rounds, and that’s how I’ll break down this review.
PRE-ROUND
Most golfers who take the time to hit a bucket of balls before their round should be sufficiently loose once they step up to that first tee. However I’m not one who’s always going to hit the range before I play. Sometimes I’m at the course maybe half an hour before my tee time, and am just going to stretch a bit and take a few practice swings to get loose. And when that’s my routine, it does take a few holes to get completely loosened up and comfortable.
In one of my April rounds I drank a Swing Oil an hour before I started play, and while it wasn’t some miracle elixir that transformed me into a highly skilled ball striking machine like Jason Day, it almost made me feel like one. I clearly felt looser, more flexible, and even a bit stronger to start my round.
I don’t believe anything will loosen you up better than spending time on the range and working all your muscles prior to a round. But for golfers who don’t do that, and golfers with joint issues or general soreness who prefer not to do that, they’ll probably experience noticeable improvement in flexibility to start their rounds by drinking Swing Oil.
Now I know what you might be thinking, “Pete just said probably.” That’s a nice hedge word you see in too many golf reviews of all kinds to avoid being held to an absolute opinion. But that’s what you all want to know, absolute opinions, and you know I give them, so let me clarify.
Some of the ingredients in Swing Oil are medically proven to benefit both young and old people, and there are countless studies demonstrating the effectiveness of these supplements. Two such ingredients in Swing Oil include glucosamine and chondroitin.
You can do a google search on these ingredients for yourself, and I don’t want to go too deep into them and give this review more of a WebMD vibe than is necessary. But basically glucosamine and chondroitin are used as effective treatments for arthritis, pain, inflammation, stiffness, weakness, and poor flexibility. So Swing Oil nailed it including these ingredients.
Like any supplement or medicine on earth however, they’re not going to result in the absolute same experience for everyone. That would be a factually deficient claim. We all take different aspirins, different cold medicines, react differently to pain medicines, et al, and on and on. Some of these work for us, some of them don’t.
Still, even without a 100-percent success rate or guarantee for all, glucosamine and chondroitin are two of the best supplements with widespread success in response to stiffness, poor flexibility, and soreness.
In my own experience, each of the three times I drank Swing Oil before a round, I was definitely more limber and ready to go from the first swing than I was without drinking it. And being a little more flexible and a little more relaxed to start a round of course can mean a few better shots, a few longer drives, and maybe even shave a few strokes off the scorecard instead of waiting for your body to loosen up later on.
DURING ROUND
As I mentioned earlier, I generally don’t get sore until mid-round. And each of the three times I drank Swing Oil at the turn, it clearly reduced the onset of moderate stiffness and weakness I can sometimes experience.
We’ve all said it to our buddies towards the end of a round, “I’m getting tired,” or “I’m just tight all of a sudden.” Swing Oil definitely helped me avoid that degree of fatigue and discomfort.
The stiffness and weakness didn’t completely go away, and if anyone says otherwise I’d have a hard time believing it, that’s just now how the body works. But it was so insignificant that I wasn’t feeling sluggish, didn’t have that tired arms feeling, and best of all still felt extremely limber, strong, and flexible.
Now if there’s one claim Swing Oil makes that I didn’t experience it was increased focus. You can lose focus of course when you’re hurting or stiff, but from a purely mental standpoint I didn’t feel like anything made the neurons fire off more rapidly, or lock me in on particular shots any better.
I normally don’t drift off during a round one way or another however, so this claim isn’t something that would make or break the deal for me. If anything, I appreciate not having more adrenaline as I tend to get a bit hyper on the course to begin with.
POST-ROUND
This is one area where Swing Oil is my friend indeed. Even when I play a pain-free, comfortable, high-energy round, I’m almost always sore the next day. And waking up the next morning not feeling beat up is a giant “Oh hell Yes!”
Swing Oil positively sped up my recovery time and lessened next day ache and fatigue. Was it gone completely in the morning? Not quite. But taken down to levels so insignificant I almost feel like a hypochondriac even mentioning it. I felt extremely refreshed playing the next day, same pre-round and mid-round Swing Oil routine. And the only pain I was thinking about the rest of the day was the hurt I wanted to put on my rival-buddy playing partner.
CONCLUSION
Swing Oil was obviously beneficial for me. It kept me very flexible throughout my entire round, experiencing very little discomfort or aches I sometimes feel during and after a round, and my energy remained high. It didn’t give me more focus or calm any stress. But it definitely improved my recovery time.
The question is will it also be beneficial for you? As I mentioned earlier it definitely won’t be for some players. The most obvious being those who don’t need it. If you don’t have trouble sleeping, you’re not going to take a sleeping aid like melatonin, right?
The other side of that coin however is it definitely will be beneficial for others. Like Jason Day, the Swing Oil Ambassador. And if you sometimes to always experience at least moderate muscle or joint discomfort while playing, or have issues staying flexible and loose throughout a round, I’d wholeheartedly recommend giving Swing Oil a try.
For more information about Swing Oil you can check them out at swingoil.com and follow them on twitter @swingOIL and on instagram @swingoilofficial.
As always if you have any questions, drop me an email here on direct message on twitter or instagram.
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