The reason that exercise training for golf is important is that you must be fit to play the game. If you don’t believe that, or do not train and exercise for golf, then at some time your body will break down.
Not necessarily now, but you will find yourself less and less able to get round the course twice or thrice a week while on a golfing vacation, or even less able to complete a round with your muscles and joints aching.
It might come on as you get older, as you find yourself less able to play at all. Fitness is essential for the game, but not just any fitness. It must be golf-specific fitness.
A Few Stretches work Magic on your Game
You develop this type of fitness by carrying out exercises that have been specifically developed to train the muscles that you use when playing golf. Anybody who has found that their game magically improved after a few stretches will know where I coming from here.
Practice, practice, practice… That’s all you hear sometimes, but practice doesn’t get you fitter. You will know this if your game has gone off color lately, and you have practiced all the hours you have, yet your game is no better.
Your distance is dropping and you don’t seem to have the energy for the game anymore. It’s not practice you need, but exercise. It’s not weights you want to lift, but your game, and you will do that through a proper exercise schedule designed specifically for golfers like you that need to tone up these muscles that you use when swinging a golf club.
Your Backswing is a Coiled Spring
Your swing is an unusual body movement, where you wind your muscles up in the backswing and store up all that energy like a coiled spring. You then unleash it in one explosive dynamic twisting motion so that you have maximum speed and power applied to the club head as hits the ball and drives down the fairway. If those muscles are not flexible, and that spring is weak, then your explosion will be more like a damp squib.
Exercise training gets your body ready to play golf, and keeps it there. Regardless of your age, proper training using the twisting movements of your swing, and stretching exercise to free up these joints and enable you to stretch your muscles like a rubber band will improve your game more than any amount of practice.
Age does not matter, because you are not lifting heavy weights or doing anything that will stress out your muscles. Gentle stretching and swinging against a resistance, such as while holding a light weight, is all that you need.
The way you get club head speed is to rotate with your club as fast as you can. In physiological terms this means that you have to stretch these muscles out on the backswing then contract them as quickly as possible on the downswing and follow right through so that you do not begin to slow down before you hit the ball. Golf specific stretching exercises help you with the first part, the storing of power in your muscles on backswing.
A Fast Downswing also needs Power – Speed Alone is not Enough
The explosive part of the swing is developed by training the muscle fibers to contract as rapidly as possible: this is what gives you the strength and speed in your downswing and follow through so that your club head is moving at maximum speed and with maximum power, and transfers that speed and power to the golf ball.
There’s no point in having a fast downswing if the club is going to stop dead when you hit the ball, as if it hit a brick wall. Your strength and power make the ball move.
So now, what do you say? Do you still believe that
golf is all about practice, practice, practice? Or
is it about fitness, fitness, fitness, with a bit
of practice thrown in to keep you sharp? I know which
of the two I believe, and so do all the 70 and 80
year olds that are still hammering that ball down
the fairway as they carry out their exercise training
for golf.
I truly believe exercise is the missing link to better golf! Having a step by step plan will save time, frustration and money. Take a look at my golf exercise dvds as it is like having a golf trainer right in your home guiding and motivating you everytime!
For more Golf Exercise information , read the Perform Better Golf Blog, published daily by Mike Pedersen.
About the Author: Mike Pedersen is one of the top golf exercise trainers and conditioning experts in the country, author of the Ultimate Golf Fitness Manual, and founder of several online golf fitness and exercise websites.
Check out his golf exercise dvds, training programs, and workout products, and his new and proven Golf Fitness System, specifically designed to improve golf specific strength, flexibility, coordination, and overall golf swing mechanics!
