Four Ways To Improve Golf Fitness

I was delighted when Mike asked me to write a guest article for him. I am excited because Mike has some great finishers that can be coupled with just about any workout plan – even golf fitness.

Burning fat is a must for most golfers, and finishers are a fantastic way to make a good workout a great workout.

The simplicity of adding finishers to your golf workout can make a big difference when it comes to adding distance and consistency to your golf game.

But before you can use a Workout Finisher, you need a workout…

What doesn’t work for improving your golf game

Fifty years ago, almost every professional touring golfer was lean even though they didn’t understand the importance of properly designed exercise plans and nutrition. I doubt any of them even exercised beyond walking the golf course.

The professional touring golfers of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s didn’t eat perfect, but they didn’t over eat either. Being overweight was never an issue.

However, they still were not performing to their full potential because a golf specific fitness plan was not being utilized.

Thirty years ago, fitness and golf went together like oil and water. The experts at the time spouted nonsense that exercise and diet had nothing to do with golf because it was a game of touch and feel.

Golfers refused to mix exercise and golf. And of course, nutrition was neglected.

Big Mac Attack

During the 70’s and 80’s, the proliferation of Big Mac’s grew faster than Craig ‘The Walrus’ Stadler’s belt size.

The underlying belief in the 60’s, 70’s 80’s and even early 90’s was that working out would make you muscle bound and unable to perform a golf swing. Even worse, these experts claimed it would wreck your golf swing if you were a good golfer. While body building was the prominent form of exercise at the time, it would not wreck your swing.

Gary Player was the only golfer and expert with a clue.

Gary has been preaching for decades that exercise was good for you. Gary can still do 100 pushups at 75 years old! It’s almost comical looking back now on the purveying thoughts of the time, minus Gary.

And while I do agree that some forms of fitness are not good for lowering golf scores (body building), a properly targeted and designed workout can bring great results.

I have determined four keys for golf fitness to gain distance, improve accuracy, increase longevity, and just plain feel better.

Key #1 Translation Training™

The golf workouts I design mimic the golf swing – building stamina, strength, flexibility and power. What I call Translation Training.

While you will get in shape performing typical bodybuilding movements such as bicep curls, it won’t help you hit the ball further.

Putting 2 and 2 together, you can likely deduce that the two things you want to avoid doing are bodybuilding exercises and training with heavy weights.

To avoid this problematic situation, follow this simple rule:

Use functional exercises that mimic golf stability and power = Translation training.

Of course, you may find some traditional bodybuilder exercises useful if used in the right context; just be sure these movements add to your stability, strength, or power.

To recap, here is the “approved” type of training:

Functional exercises that mimic golf stability and power.

Key #2 Muscle Confusion

Contrary to popular belief, the key to building a workout program that helps you improve your golf game is by changing your workouts in a scientific method. This is done in two different ways:

1.    Change your workouts routinely

2.    Change intensity levels routinely

For one, loads of research has shown that the body adapts to stressors placed on it. Basically, you hit a ROADBLOCK if you keep doing the same routine each week.

No more progress.

So keep your muscles guessing with the two Muscle Confusion techniques mentioned above.

Translation Training™ and Muscle Confusion are only two of the tools that you use to get your body primed for your best golf ever.

Translation Training should also combine Dynamic Stretching (DS) and Joint Mobility (JM). Using all four components together and you’ll be killing the ball like never before.

That’s THE BOMB. But there is one way you can still screw things up, and that’s not by periodically implementing my third technique: Increasing your metabolism.

Key #3 Increase Metabolism

If you are like most of the population and a victim of SAD (Standard American Diet) and carrying a bit more fat than normal.. read on.

This is the ONE thing that no one in golf really wants to talk about, because it doesn’t create money at the pro shop.

But still, it is perhaps the #1 reason people either fail or succeed when looking to increase distance in their golf game, especially in the long term.

What is it? Body Fat.

This is where Mike’s Workout Finishers comes in handy. Take care of strength, power, flexibility, and balance during your golf workout – then smash and burn fat with Mikes Workout Finishers.

It’s the 1…2.. punch needed for transforming yourself in to the golfer you’ve always known you were.

Key #4 Strategic Recovery

I talked briefly about how Translation Training should also combine Dynamic Stretching (DS) and Joint Mobility (JM).

We also mentioned that using all four components together ensure you are going to be a golf ball driving distance ninja.

The real secret is that strategic recovery can be used on your rest days and post workout. DS and JM are just acronyms, but highly important aspects of Translation Training.

Hey.. no one likes to stretch, but if you are serious about golf it’s a MUST!

Learning From The Golf Forefathers

Reading the first paragraph of this article you would think we have nothing to learn from our golfing forefathers.

They were wrong about diet.

They were wrong about exercise hurting your golf swing.

What they did give us was a fantastic baseline of research of what does NOT work – The golf forefathers were all tremendous players… but think about how good they would of been if they had the knowledge we know TODAY!

It’s hard to say for sure….  but I think the scoring averages would have been much lower..

There’s just too much science that proves me right.

Christian Henning, NASM-CPT, gfs
NASM Golf Fitness Specialist

About Christian And His Mission of 1 Million Healthy Golfers