Training for Golf
Golf is one of the most popular sports across the globe. Golfers are one of the most passionate groups of people, they love to work on their craft and many can’t even stop talking about the game. Whether they are professional, city league, or weekend player, they will all do anything possible to improve their game and lower their score. Of course, the equipment usually gets the most blame for missed shots and high scores. I mean, it can’t be the user, it has to be the equipment, right? (kidding) What if there was something that you could do to help improve your game and does not take hundreds of dollars just to see if that new driver will add a few more yards off the tee?
One thing that the everyday golfers don’t realize the more do on a consistent basis is working out. Resistance training is something that many amateur golfers over look that has a dramatic impact on their golf game. Let’s start where each golf hole starts, the tee. Everyone loves to hit bombs off the tee, added yards from the tee mean shorter clubs into greens which are often more accurate and thus leading to shorter putts and more likely lower scores. So, how does this happen through training? It all starts with increasing club head speed. Increased club head speed leads to increased ball speed leading to increased distance. The faster you can controllably swing your club, the further your potential to hit the golf ball is.
How does resistance training lead to this increase in speed and distance? Well it all starts with producing more force. When you work out, you are training the muscles to produce higher levels of force to move those heavy weights. Basically, the resistance requires the body to recruit more muscle fibers to work which allows you to stand up in a squat or push the bar away in a bench press. This recruitment ultimately leads to strength improvements and the ability to produce more force through increase size and performance of individual muscle fibers. Along with this increase in strength, you also increase the amount of potential power you can produce. What is power? It is essentially your ability to produce force over shorter periods of time. Which in golf means more speed in the swing. So with strength training and adding in a speed component to your lifts, you can increase power by produce force faster. What does this all mean for your golf game? An increase in your potential to hit the ball further with just some consistent resistance training.
While distance is probably the one universal quality every golfer wants to add, there are other great benefits to resistance training for golf. While it may not feel like it at the time, a round of golf or even a day on the driving range is taxing on the body. Golf is a repetitive sport. You repeat the same movement over and over and over again. This is stressing the same muscles continually with each swing. Training helps to combat the repetitive nature of the sport by building a strong base that those repeated movements can be performed against. It also combats the asymmetries of swinging by stressing muscles on both sides of the body. Unless you swing both left- and right-handed, you are creating asymmetries in your body each time you swing your golf clubs. Resistance training works both sides of the body, working to balance itself out from those asymmetries. This allows you to golf longer without experiencing those nagging aches and pains by being stronger and better conditioned for swinging a club.
Training is something that every golfer should do regardless of level because it not only allows you to have the potential to hit the ball further, but keeps you stronger and healthier so you can play more. Who wouldn’t want this two-for-one benefit? Resistance training has too many benefits for golfers to ignore. It puts the golfer’s body into a position that allows them to play the game they enjoy without over stressing their body. Ultimately, there are many different ways to train for golf but it starts with training in general. Just training with resistance will begin to show these benefits and in future articles, I will go into different parts of the body to train and exercises to perform that will help golfers achieve these great benefits!
In the meantime, get out there and add resistance training to your routine and take advantage of the remaining days in the golf season.
-Tyler Grisdale, MS, CSCS, RSCC, CES, TPI
