I get asked this question one way or another a lot. Lots of golfers are looking for a fitness program that can help their game. They understand that fitness is part of the game now and that if they want to reduce their chance for injury and increase their chance to perform better, they need to add some kind of fitness to their golf improvement plan.
But the big questions remains: What kind of fitness program do you need?
Can you just do yoga or Pilates? Is P90X good enough? Do you need to lift weights? Is stretching and light weights the best thing for golf?
The answer to these questions lies in the answer to another question: Is there such a thing as golf-specific fitness?
I say yes and here's why.
It's all about priorities.
With any "sport-specific" program, we need to evaluate the needs of the sport. Once we establish these needs, we can then come up with priorities. We can then work on those priorities and maximize our time in the gym.
Let's take five completely different sports and compare their needs. Say we have a power lifter, a bodybuilder, a marathon runner, a basketball player and a golfer all in the same gym. Do their programs all look alike? Can they all do P90X and dominate their sports? I don't think so. (I am not picking on P90X. I think it's great that people are embracing fitness. I am just using it as an example because it's very popular)
The goals and priorities for these sports are all different.
A basketball player needs to be agile, jump high, be able to land without breaking an ankle and have unbelievable conditioning.
A Powerlifter needs to pick up a ton of weight.
A marathon runner needs the endurance to run 26.2 miles.
A bodybuilder needs to be muscular.
A golfer needs to be able to rotate through the hips and thoracic spine, have great flexibility but at the same time lots of stability, have strength to withstand incredible forces, be powerful for a greater swing speed, last for 18 holes and stay focused through the whole ordeal.
So in the very least, unless your program is addressing the needs specific to the game of golf, it is not the best program for you to be doing for your golf game.
Is something better than nothing? Yes, but it's not optimal. Some golfers might say "But I am not going on the Tour, so what do I care?" Don't you want to be the best you can be? Of course you do. You're lying if you say that you go out and don't care about your score.
Golf fitness is not only about getting better. It's about decreasing your potential for injury. Many times, swing faults are caused by physical limitations. If you have a physical limitation you will make a compensation in your swing. That compensation will cause poor movement patterns and in turn lead to injury. If your injured, you can't play!
The best thing you can do for your golf fitness program is to find a fitness professional that is working with a teaching professional. This is why I drink from the Titleist Performance Institute Koolaid. Dr. Greg Rose and Dave Phillips have set up an unbelievable system where fitness, teaching and medical professionals work as a team to help you improve your golf game. This is the ultimate approach to getting better because if you do not have the ability to get into the positions that your teaching pro needs you to get in, then you will never maximize your potential. That's where the fitness and medical pros come in. It's a great system unlike anything else out there.
You can keep doing your Pilates and yoga and P90X. Just make sure you go see a fitness or medical professional that understands the golf swing and can communicate with your teaching pro. They can evaluate you and help you come up with a plan to attack any physical limitations, assymetries or weaknesses that can cause swing faults and lead to injury and crappy golf. Have them talk to your teaching pro so they can decide what your priorities are and go from there. You can add some of the corrective exercises they give you to your warm up or workout, you don't have to change your whole program if you like what you are doing.
Just remember, it's all about priorities.
If you live in the White Plains area and would like to come in to Five Iron Fitness for a free assessment to find out what your priorities should be, give me a call at 914 948 3549 or shoot me an email to Train at FiveIronFitness.com. We have created a great team called The White Plains Golf Group and we can work together to help you get better. Beisdes myself, the team consists of teaching pro Paul Kenney (Scarsdale CC and TPI certified), teaching pro Jim Fatsi (Director of Golf at Motion Golf) and Sleepy Hollow Physical Therapy (consisting of Rich Giordano and Matt Contino, two TPI certified physical therapists).
