Specialists can help golfers customize their workouts for greater success on the greens.
By Michael Rowe
Let’s talk about the most important but most overlooked piece of equipment you use as a golfer. No, not the ball retriever your body. Contrary to what a lot of people believe, golf is a sport that requires the body to make a very athletic move the swing.
For a powerful, consistent swing, you need to have strength, flexibility and balance. Without the right combination of those three things, your body will compensate for your weaknesses, and that can lead to swing flaws and often injury. Just showing up on the first tee, taking out a club, twisting once to the left and once to the right then bending over to touch your toes (only reaching your knees) is not enough to prepare your body for a good swing. You really need a golf-specific workout routine before you hit the course and a simple, effective warm-up to swing your best.
You don’t have to take it to the level that Tiger and Annika do, but it’s important to realize that gym exercises and golf exercises are not the same thing. The golf swing is not a natural move and it can put a lot of stress on the body, especially as you get older. Even if you lack time or discipline, a few golf-specific exercises a couple of minutes a day will help you play better. And every weekend warrior should be analyzed by a fitness professional who specializes in golf before doing battle with the little white ball.
Beth Begelman at The Fitness Studio of Orlando isn’t interested in bulging biceps or buns of steel. When she trains her V.I.P. clients on the PGA Tour, she’s looking for things like range of motion and core strength. Walking into her studio, I immediately realized this wasn’t a mainstream gym. No heavy weights and big equipment. Other than a few treadmills, I found small dumbbells, balance boards, big rubber bands and yoga and Pilates equipment. But don’t let the unassuming room fool you. The battery of tests she put me through was tough.
Begelman is certified by the Titleist Performance Institute, which gives her access to a Health and Fitness Advisory Board made up of renowned doctors and fitness experts. She tests each client in more than a dozen areas and then sends the results to TPI. TPI then takes all of this information and determines a golf-fitness handicap. Mine was an embarrassing 16.1 and I’m a scratch golfer who works out five days a week. And that’s my point you may be fit, but are you golf fit?
My evaluation showed that I am tight in the quadriceps, which affects my posture during my swing, and I have limited movement in my right wrist (limited ulnar deviation to be exact), which could prevent me from releasing the club through impact. The tests also compared me to other PGA Tour players. The rotation in my right shoulder is only 70 degrees compared to the PGA Tour average of 110 degrees.
Based on the numbers, TPI sends a long, detailed list of exercises back to Begelman, who will customize a workout. Your 18-day program is available anytime on-line with video demonstrations of each exercise, which is great for the business traveler. But nothing compares to one-on-one instruction with a trainer like Begelman, who is also certified in yoga and Pilates, two of the hottest new trends in sports fitness.
Golf has become so popular that trainers at nearly every neighborhood gym have had to expand into sports-specific training. At American Gladiator Gym in Downtown Orlando, you’ll find Joe Callahan working next to the massive professional body builders pumping iron. His focus is overall body balance. He encourages golfers to do resistance training, but in conventional ways.
Callahan ditches the bench press in favor of a Swiss ball (the large, inflatable kind). Try lifting weights while constantly attempting to stabilize your body on a ball! You’ll use small muscles you never knew you had. Those are the same core muscles that will help you wind up tightly to unleash a powerful golf swing. Callahan admits this type of training can be a tough sell in the conventional gym world. The average golfer is not willing to step out of their comfort zone and do something they’ve never done! It takes time, commitment, and sometimes discomfort to get results from resistance training.
If you train with Kirk Gibson at the Sports Performance Center at the RDV Sportsplex in Maitland, you’ll never sit down. He believes athletes need more balance in their training, and learning to literally balance is a good place to start.
I don’t use sit-down machines that give false stabilization patterns. Most exercises are done standing, on one leg or moving he says.
Gibson has worked with both amateurs and pros and has found one thing to be true: golf is not historically a sport that has promoted big workouts, so it’s important for golfers to get help from a professional. Unfortunately, most golfers have little background in the weight room and can really do damage instead of good.
This brings us to the most important reason for golfers to start a regular exercise regimen preventing injury. Hitting the ball farther is nice, but so is not having to pop five ibuprofen tablets before each round. Scott Shepherd owns Plane Performance in Lake Mary. He’s the other TPI-certified instructor in town, but he’s also a physical therapist.
He says most golfers are everyday people with sedentary jobs that promote muscle weakness and tightness, which can affect the golf swing. Golfers are a diverse group, because the sport can be played regardless of body type, age or current fitness level.
In other words, any couch potato can pick up golf, and it’s Shepherds job to keep them from getting injured. So he shows up at his clients golf lessons to personally measure the physical limitations that might lead to swing faults. Where I come in is when the client turns to the pro and says, I just cant get in that position. I can teach the client to stretch or strengthen the right muscles to allow for the movement, and hopefully it becomes a win win for the golf professional and the client.
And it’s no surprise that Shepherd is also a big fan of a proper warm-up. If I can convince them that showing up a little earlier and performing a dynamic warm-up will help them have a more consistent round, then I have a client that gets it.
Remember, not all bodies are alike and every golfers needs are different. So finding a qualified trainer to give you the proper exercises is the first step. When looking for a trainer, make sure you communicate that your goal is to achieve better golf fitness. Get the daunting images of pumping heavy weights in the gym for hours every week out of your brain and realize that even just a proper stretching routine is well worth the effort. It will keep you playing golf better and longer.
Until you find a trainer, here on these pages are two strength-training exercises for home or the gym and three stretches that you can do as a warm-up right before you tee-off.
Comments