Golf specific workout

Boom_Boom

Hey guys I'm new to Boards as you can see. I've trying to come up with a workout routine for myself and I noticed this forum so I thought I would try here.

Basically I'm looking for a workout specific to golf. What I mean by this is I would like to have a reasonably high fitness levels for keeping my stamina up on long days on the course and to build my muscles for optimum endurance.

To show you what I mean I'll use Tiger Woods as an example and benchmark. As you can see from the picture he is a pretty big guy but not huge. He would have pretty decent fitness levels too so this is basically what I'm looking for.

What I have in mind for my routine is 60 minutes weights, 60 minutes cardio and around 45-60 minutes stretching and core work for each session. I plan to do a lot of work on my core with dead lifts, squats some benching and ab work but I need to work a lot on my back to prevent injury with the golf, does anyone have any suggestions for this?

So where do I need help? Well at the moment I'm not at all fit and my body fat levels would be somewhere around 20-25%. I want to lose a good bit of weight but put on muscle at the same time is this even possible? Should I lose the weight for a few months and then put on the muscle or can I do a bit of both together? If anybody would like to post some routine ideas I would be really grateful! I'm in college but off for the summer so I can pretty much go to the gym whenever I want. Thanks guys!

J-Fit

Boom_Boom wrote: »

Hey guys I'm new to Boards as you can see. I've trying to come up with a workout routine for myself and I noticed this forum so I thought I would try here.

Basically I'm looking for a workout specific to golf. What I mean by this is I would like to have a reasonably high fitness levels for keeping my stamina up on long days on the course and to build my muscles for optimum endurance.

To show you what I mean I'll use Tiger Woods as an example and benchmark. As you can see from the picture he is a pretty big guy but not huge. He would have pretty decent fitness levels too so this is basically what I'm looking for.

What I have in mind for my routine is 60 minutes weights, 60 minutes cardio and around 45-60 minutes stretching and core work for each session. I plan to do a lot of work on my core with dead lifts, squats some benching and ab work but I need to work a lot on my back to prevent injury with the golf, does anyone have any suggestions for this?

So where do I need help? Well at the moment I'm not at all fit and my body fat levels would be somewhere around 20-25%. I want to lose a good bit of weight but put on muscle at the same time is this even possible? Should I lose the weight for a few months and then put on the muscle or can I do a bit of both together? If anybody would like to post some routine ideas I would be really grateful! I'm in college but off for the summer so I can pretty much go to the gym whenever I want. Thanks guys!

As a golfer there is no need to deviate from the way any typical athlete would train. You need to include lots of mobility work such as foam rolling and static stretching, particularly for your hip flexors and shoulder prehab is also extremely important. That means plenty of wall slides and scap push ups. As a golfer, you need to have strong external rotators in the shoulders as well as a mobile upper spinal region (thoracic). Horizontal pulling (Single Arm Rows, Inverted Rows) should form a very firm basis for the programme and conventional bench pressing and overhead pushing should generally be avoided in the interests of shoulder health. Rotational power is also very important and med ball side throws are a fantastic exercise for this purpose and are fine for beginners. Strong glutes are a necessity and you can get them from single leg hip lifts/double leg hip extensions, single leg deadlifts, pull throughs etc. Anything that causes you to engage the glutes! As regards core work, my favourite golf exercises are things like high to low/low to high woodchops, paloff presses (google it) and anti-lateral flexion presses (do. and sorry for the jargon!). Don't get hung up on fat loss/muscle gain at this stage, just begin training and you'll see favourable changes in body composition. Some interval training useing a 30 secs hard, 1 min easy protocol for 20-25 mins will help your stamina. At this stage of the season I'd perform 2 strength sessions and at least one cardio. That's presuming golf is taking up 2/3 days per week. There's a bit there but I'll try and get back to put some structure to it! Bed time now.

Boom_Boom

J-Fit wrote: »

As a golfer there is no need to deviate from the way any typical athlete would train. You need to include lots of mobility work such as foam rolling and static stretching, particularly for your hip flexors and shoulder prehab is also extremely important. That means plenty of wall slides and scap push ups. As a golfer, you need to have strong external rotators in the shoulders as well as a mobile upper spinal region (thoracic). Horizontal pulling (Single Arm Rows, Inverted Rows) should form a very firm basis for the programme and conventional bench pressing and overhead pushing should generally be avoided in the interests of shoulder health. Rotational power is also very important and med ball side throws are a fantastic exercise for this purpose and are fine for beginners. Strong glutes are a necessity and you can get them from single leg hip lifts/double leg hip extensions, single leg deadlifts, pull throughs etc. Anything that causes you to engage the glutes! As regards core work, my favourite golf exercises are things like high to low/low to high woodchops, paloff presses (google it) and anti-lateral flexion presses (do. and sorry for the jargon!). Don't get hung up on fat loss/muscle gain at this stage, just begin training and you'll see favourable changes in body composition. Some interval training useing a 30 secs hard, 1 min easy protocol for 20-25 mins will help your stamina. At this stage of the season I'd perform 2 strength sessions and at least one cardio. That's presuming golf is taking up 2/3 days per week. There's a bit there but I'll try and get back to put some structure to it! Bed time now.

This post is actually really helpfull and gives me some research to do! Thanks J-Fit you seem to know your stuff!

Colm_OReilly

Great mobility warm up video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhHc7FbSUiY

BrianD3

IMO you should start off with a general strength training programme consisting of squats, deads, bench, overhead press, rows and chinups if you can do them. Even though there are no "golf specific" exercises in there, you could well start to see increased power/distance within a few weeks. After that you may find that diminishing returns principle applies.

Once you get experience with these basic lifts you could do some stuff which may be more applicable to golf
-unilateral work such as 1 legged deadlifts
-shovel dedalifts (one of my favourites)
-variations of olympic lifts such as 1 arm snatch, hang cleans etc.
-grip and wrist work such as sledgehammer levering, captains of crush etc.

Boom_Boom

Hey guys thank for all the great advice so far.

If I do a program like starting strength or do a lot of bench pressing or something along those lines, will I lose any flexibility?

J-Fit

Boom_Boom wrote: »

Hey guys thank for all the great advice so far.

If I do a program like starting strength or do a lot of bench pressing or something along those lines, will I lose any flexibility?

I wouldn't advise that but it depends. As I said, conventional benching and OH pressing are not a good idea for your shoulders as a golfer but if you were to incorporate shoulder prehab stuff, keep the pecs well stretched and do more pulling than pushing, you'd probably get away with it and have a nice carryover of strength to boot. Golfers don't need to bench press. They need a strong core, strong glutes and mobile hips. The powerlifts are great (I'm a powerlifter myself) but there are more efficient ways to get where you need to go. You need to work on balance, flexibility, strength and then power but in a way that is specific to golf.

Boom_Boom

J-Fit wrote: »

I wouldn't advise that but it depends. As I said, conventional benching and OH pressing are not a good idea for your shoulders as a golfer but if you were to incorporate shoulder prehab stuff, keep the pecs well stretched and do more pulling than pushing, you'd probably get away with it and have a nice carryover of strength to boot. Golfers don't need to bench press. They need a strong core, strong glutes and mobile hips. The powerlifts are great (I'm a powerlifter myself) but there are more efficient ways to get where you need to go. You need to work on balance, flexibility, strength and then power but in a way that is specific to golf.

Yeah I think you are right I seem to remember reading somewhere that Tiger only has a max bench of something like 100kg

token

My driving distances off the tee went up by about 30 yards from standard strength training. Squat, deadlift, powercleans, powersnatch, bench, press, pullups. I don't play much these days but might look into the specific exercises during the summer out of curiosity and see if they make a further difference.

J-Fit

token wrote: »

My driving distances off the tee went up by about 30 yards from standard strength training. Squat, deadlift, powercleans, powersnatch, bench, press, pullups. I don't play much these days but might look into the specific exercises during the summer out of curiosity and see if they make a further difference.

And so they should have because you focused your training on both ends of the force/velocity curve. There will be diminishing returns beyond a certain threshold however and that is when hip mobility and core control will have a more significant impact than standard strength training. Like I said, I love the powerlfits but there's no question that powerlifting/weightlifting protocols can compromise the joint mobility that is vital to golf and a more fine tuned approach that takes the best of several methods is the way to go. By the way, I have golfers doing deadlifts and squat variations and even clean and snatch grip high pulls so there is a place and a time!

Barry.Oglesby

BrianD3 wrote: »

Once you get experience with these basic lifts you could do some stuff which may be more applicable to golf
-unilateral work such as 1 legged deadlifts
-shovel dedalifts (one of my favourites)
-variations of olympic lifts such as 1 arm snatch, hang cleans etc.
-grip and wrist work such as sledgehammer levering, captains of crush etc.

Your justification for those being any more applicable to golf than any other exercise is..................................... (in no more than 20 words, terms and conditions apply)

jmesgolf

im going to say something you probably wont like...... go to a golf specific trainer if you want a golf specific workout!! check out mytpi.com or chek golf, they are the kind of people you need to talk to or your just going to get hurt.

plus theres no need to do 30 min of cardio if its for golf, that will slow your speed, you want fast explosive bursts, 30 secs hard as you can (bike, rower or running) 30 secs relax, do that 3 times you will not be able to do any more.

as for weights, just go to a trainer, you may be able to find out what to do on this, but trust me that does not mean how you do it is correct!!