Over the last few years, golf fitness has been a hot topic. This is not just for professional players. You can find a lot of blogs, podcasts, and products that are focused on making your body golf-ready.
As we age, muscle tone, strength and flexibility naturally decrease. Most of us are in “movement-free jobs” because most of our time is spent at a desk. Both are not good for your game of golf.
You want to play your best golf. There are many ways to improve your flexibility and build stronger muscles. However, there is a right way and a wrong way. Golf doesn’t care about muscle strength such as the ability to lift heavy weights. A golf club weighs less than one pound. Golf conditioning is all about endurance and speed. Our muscles must be able to respond quickly and must have flexibility and range of motion. To be able to swing a strong, powerful golf swing, you need to use a wide range of motion as well as precise coordination of your body, arms, hands and wrists. This is how you increase your clubhead speed.
Let me start by giving my opinion about distance. A driver less than 4-5 years of age is unlikely to be available for purchase in the driver rack. The same applies to iron selection.
Your ability to improve your contact quality and strength train will help you achieve greater distance. It is simple: Practice and instruction lead to better fundamentals. Here are my top five exercises to help you improve your clubhead speed.
* Stretching. Stretching is good for all golfers, but especially for older players. It will help you improve your golf game. The torso muscles, as well as the large muscles of the legs and shoulders, are particularly important. You can find lots of information about stretching exercises that are specifically for golf swings if you research this topic. It only takes a few minutes each day to make a big difference.
* Core Training. Golf swing power is greatly enhanced by strengthening the core muscles. As I said, you want to achieve S-P-E–E-D, and not brute strength. There are many published exercises and techniques to help you build a stronger core. You can read and learn for hours with a simple internet search.
* “Off Side” Strength. * “Off Side” Strength. The golf swing must be driven by a strong “front” pull. This means that we need to rely on the power of our “off” hand. This means that you should bias your strength training towards your left side in order to achieve more balance for right-handed people. This is what I do. To increase my pull-through power, I use a weighted bar (there are many).
* Increase Strength. The key to a powerful golf swing is strong rotation of your hands and forearms in the impact zone. The wrists don’t create power by unhinging, they rotate the club through impact in harmony with the rotation of your body core. If your hand rotation is slow, it does not matter how fast you can develop core rotational speed. However, if your hands are fast and your core is slow, you will have limited power. To do simple rotation exercises, you can keep a dumbbell in your living room or office. It will pay off.
* Golf swing speed. This is a popular topic in golf fitness, and there are many speed trainers available. Swinging a weighted golf club is a great way to strengthen your swing. You can choose lighter weights and do more reps and faster with less weight. Weighing in excess and performing fewer reps can result in bigger muscles, fatigue, and post-workout soreness. This is not what you want. You can do fifty to 100 swings per day with these speed trainers. While you do those, be sure to focus on your fundamentals: posture, grip, extension back, through, rotation through impact. These are the things that will help build power and distance.
These are my top five tips to increase your bag distance and combat the natural effects that ageing has on your body. Isn’t it worth investing a few minutes each day to improve your golf health?
