Strength Training For Golf
Strength Training For Golf
You often think that just because golfing requires swinging a light golf club, you don’t need strength. The thing is, you do need strength.
Begin by changing your mindset around strength. Recognize that strength also means high power output, impulse (force over time), being rotationally strong, and being able to use the hips at very high speeds.
In the sport of golf, the majority of the movements require high-speed action. Big hypertrophic gains aren’t the goal–you don’t want to alter the mechanics of your swing, but you do want to develop high-speed, aggressive swings and precise controlled swings to improve your golf on the course.
You can begin with blast impulse. As a golfer, everything occurs very quickly once the club is swung. Impulse training involves developing force/time. You have a short range of motion to apply force with the club in a short period. The movement occurs rapidly.
Blast impulse training focuses on .5 to 1 second of force production. You need to focus on neurological adaptations. As a golfer, you can achieve this by focusing on plyometrics. You can learn how to apply a ton of force into the ground, get that force back, and apply it to the club.
Performing unilateral plyometrics and side-to-side plyometrics helps you to recruit different motor units. The more neurological adaptations that transpire, the greater your capabilities of sending the ball down the fairway will be.
In addition to plyometrics, you want to focus on dynamic trunk control as you strength train to improve your golf game. Having your trunk all over the place will cause you to be unable to use the energy from the hips in the club.
Everything comes back to the hips, trunks, and shoulders. If you have good ground reaction forces traveling from the ground, through your hips, into your trunk, to your hands, and into the club, you will hit the ball further.
A great way for you to train dynamic trunk control as a golfer to better your power output from the club into the ball is by using a hydro weight. The hydro weight allows you to train specific rotational aspects of the golf swing. The hydro weight makes you more coordinated, more athletic, and more control over your stroke.
Golf is extremely fast. You don’t need massive hypertrophic gains. But because golf swings occur so rapidly, you do need to perform reflexive strength training movements to train your nervous system to react through different training positions as quickly as possible.
When you have greater neurological adaptations as a golfer, you can apply those neurological gains out on the course. Becoming more proprioceptive goes a long way to improving your handicap or shooting under par.
The last thing is based on impulse endurance. When you play 18 holes you get fatigued. If you are a pro, or on vacation, you may be playing 18 holes 3 days straight. You will begin to fatigue.
However, you can develop this endurance in the weight room by taking concepts from throwers. Throwers have rotational strength, stable trunks, and rapid power output that allows them to excel in their sport.
You as a golfer don’t need to be a big hulking thrower, but you do need to have that speed and replicate that speed consistently.
Doing reflexive strength work, plyometric work, and dynamic trunk control in conjunction with your playtime out on the course, you will find on the back 9 you are having more impulse endurance to crush those par 5’s.
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Yo, It's Dane
Welcome to the Garage Strength Blog, where it is my goal to provide you with the experience and knowledge I've gained in the strength and conditioning world over many years of learning from both successes and failures. I train elite-level athletes in a multitude of sports from the high school to professional levels, already producing 5 Olympics and 30+ National Champions. If you want to be the next champion I train, check out my strength programs below!
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