Do you feel that you have got just about as far in golf as you can? Have you tried everything to increase your distance but it just doesn’t work? What you need is a golf strength training program...
You will have more more power through the ball. It has been proved unequivocally that the distance of your drive is directly related to your handicap....
Train The Muscles You Use In Your Swing
It makes sense that the more strength you have in the muscles that use for your swing then you will put more power and speed on the club face as it drives through the ball. This will propel the ball farther than if you had less strength. However, strength training is not always enough. The training must be directed to those muscles that you use in your swing. Since it is unlikely that you will be able to exercise all of these muscles, large and small, individually, it makes sense to using a swinging motion as you exercise them.
It’s not just muscle strength, however, it is also related to the flexibility of your joints, and the best exercises a golfer can carry out are golf specific flexibility and strength exercises. How do you do that? How can you possibly exercise all the muscles that you use when playing golf? The answer is quite simple. Swing when exercising!
Take a dumb bell. It is fairly heavy and most people use them in a lifting or rotating motion. However, if you hold a dumb bell as if you were playing golf, and carry out a swing with it, you will be exercising all the muscles you use in your golf swing. You will do the same thing if you purchase a weighted golf club, and use that. What you are doing is to swing using your normal golf swing muscles, but with added weight that eventually will increase their strength.
Tubing Can Help
Get your hands on some exercise tubing, attach it to a door or a wall, and swing holding it. That will provide a lot of resistance to your swing, and therefore build up your muscles. You can get various grades of tubing, and as you go from one to another you will know that your strength is building. Not just any old strength, but strength in the muscles you use in your golf swing.
Do that in combination with some golf specific flexibility exercises and you will soon be banging that ball another 30 to 40 yards down the fairway. What else can you use? A medicine ball is useful. That is quite a heavy ball that you hold in your hand while you swing. If you can get your hands on a small cannonball it will do the same thing: or a bowling ball.
Anything with a bit of weight on it that you can make a golf swing with it in your hands – but keep away from greenhouses if it’s a bit large for your hand! Don’t forget to hold on to your bowling ball, and let it go down the alley! The cup is too small for it! Perhaps you’re best to stick to the medicine ball.
Lifting Weights Is No Substitute For Golf Specific Strength Training
There is nothing wrong with ordinary weight training, but it will not necessarily improve your strength in golf since it does not build the right muscles. Golf specific strength training does not make you muscle bound and reduce your flexibility. Instead it builds the arm, shoulder and back muscles you use in your swing. If you combine that with golf specific flexibility training, then your swing will improve by more than you can believe.
You will be able to drive farther, keep it going for longer, and do that for four rounds over four days without losing length or accuracy due to tired muscles. A golf strength training program will work for you in the same way that it works for all the tour professionals, and it will give you a definite advantage over all of your ordinary club colleagues.
You will be the envy of your foursome as you hit that golf ball straight down the fairway farther than you have ever done before – and all due to some simple exercises you can do at home or at the office.
For more Golf Strength Training information, take a look at the Perform Better Golf Blog, published daily by Mike Pedersen.
About the Author: Mike Pedersen is one of the top golf swing trainers and golf fitness 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 strength training dvds, workout and fitness products, and his best-selling Golf Fitness System, specifically designed to improve golf specific strength, flexibility, coordination, and overall golf swing mechanics!
