Principles of strength training golfers need to know

The golf swing is a total body movement, similar to throwing a shot put or a discus.

Therefore, if you want the ability to hit longer drives, you should train the entire body for strength.

Unfortunately, many golfers and even those who are involved in golf fitness do not seem to understand this concept.

To increase your overall strength, there are a few principles to learn.

Stress, Recovery, and Adaptation

The first principle of strength training to understand is the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle.

In order to get stronger, you need to apply a training stress in the form of lifting weights.

You then need to rest in order to recover from that stress.

The body then adapts through a combination of increased muscle tissue, bone density and stronger connective tissues (ligaments, cartilage).

You are then ready to train the body again and apply more stress.

Over time, you will get stronger, as long as you apply more stress and allow yourself to recover.

In the initial phase of strength training you can add weight to each of your exercises each workout, as long as you start out with conservative weight.

As you get stronger it becomes more difficult to add weight each workout, and then the training goals must be adjusted to add weight each week, and then each month or even longer for more advanced lifters.

The vast majority of golfers will never become an advanced lifter, and that is fine.

Once you achieve your strength goals, you can simply change your longer term goals to maintenance.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the training gets easier.

Anyhow, someone new to strength training can make substantial strength gains in as little as a few months with consistent training.

The issue is this… in order to make strength gains, you’ll need to eventually lift uncomfortably heavy weight.

While you can certainly get stronger from lifting lighter weights, you can’t increase your strength as fast, and you will never achieve your strength potential that way.

Compound Movements

Overhead press in my garage

The best and fastest way to significantly increase your strength is with compound movements performed with barbells.

These include the squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press.

Training these exercises with barbells will allow you to improve your strength faster than with any other exercises because they can be loaded with more weight.

For instance, you will improve your leg strength much faster by training the barbell squat than with leg extensions.

The squat incorporates far more muscle mass and can ultimately be loaded with far more weight.

Even if you have some sort of restricted movement due to an old injury, or perhaps arthritis, you can still likely train at least one or two of the primary compound movements.

I personally have dealt with a back issue for over twenty years and I never started legitimate strength training until I was 55.

Now, this issue does prevent me from training as consistently as I would like with the squat and deadlift, and I will never set any records with these lifts.

However, I still train them to maintain decent overall strength.

Anyhow, the percentage of people who should avoid a particular exercise is actually pretty low.

With this in mind, do not just avoid these exercises because you are afraid of injury.  This is why we start with low weight so we can learn the proper form.

All these movements involve multiple muscle groups and joints, and therefore, involve far more muscle tissue compared to such exercises as dumbbell curls.

That is why performing these exercises with proper programming will allow you to build the most amount of strength over the shortest amount of time.

With that said, all of these exercises are somewhat technical, and as the weight gets heavier, you may need some coaching to continue your progress.

Five reps

How many sets and reps should you train to build strength?

This depends upon your training level, but we will focus on the novice trainee here.

To build strength, we need to expose our body to intensity, or heavy weight.  As a result, we tend to train with fewer reps.

Starting out, our focus is on five reps.

Here’s why…

Consider the two ends of the spectrum when it comes to training.

At the low end is 1 rep, and at the high end, we’ll use 20 reps.  20 reps is often employed by the bodybuilding community, which is focused on muscle hypertrophy.

Powerlifters train to have the ability to lift a maximum weight for a single rep.  This is effectively just a performance.

A true one rep maximum weight will likely require so much effort, that the rep may take 5 to 7 seconds to complete.

After completing that rep, it will be impossible to immediately complete a second rep at that weight.

At the other end of the spectrum is the 20 reps.

Now, after you’ve completed 20 reps, chances are, if you take a couple deep breaths, you can squeeze out another rep or two.

At this point, it is no longer maximum force production at work, but muscle endurance.

In between this rep range is a number that will result in the following training adaptations:

• Increased strength
• Increased muscle mass
• Improved conditioning

That rep range is right around five reps.

After you’ve been training for a couple months and the weight on the bar has increased quite a bit, you will find that pushing out the fifth rep will be quite difficult.

It may take you a few seconds to complete the rep, and once done, you will be huffing and puffing.

This is particularly the case with the squat and deadlift, since there is so much muscle mass involved.

In general, novice lifters will make significant gains in strength over the span of a few months simply by performing THREE working sets of FIVE reps.

The lone exception is that we initially only train one working set of five reps on the deadlift, since it puts more stress on the nervous system than the other lifts, due to the weight on the bar and the number of muscle groups involved in the lift.

When training in this manner, we typically train three days per week, with at least a day of rest in between each strength training session.

Final thoughts

Golfers should approach their fitness like any other athlete and avoid the “golf specific” fitness nonsense.

It is encouraging to see that some top tour players are starting to see the light and are rejecting “golf specific” fitness in favor of legitimate strength training.

They then work on their games at the golf course, not in the gym.

If you are new to strength training, you will be amazed at how quickly you can build strength.

This will translate into the ability to generate more power with your golf swing.

Now, get to work!

Author: Scott