Why You Need a Golf Fitness Plan

For many years, way before the famous Tiger Woods, Phil Nickelson and Jack Nicklaus came into limelight, golf was mostly perceived as a retirement hobby. Even when played as a sport, not many paid attentions to ways of improving their performance using fitness plans. Today, it is gaining momentum as an important subject, not just for professional golf players, but leisure golfers as well.

Golf may seem like a casual sport or activity until you must swing for hours unend or walk from one end of the course to another. As a sport, golf requires (and enhances at the same time) your hand-eye coordination, balance, and core strength to perform at an optimal level. Generally, exercises are great for everyone; to keep fit, enhance performance, help prevent cardiovascular diseases and other weight-related conditions. When it does come to golf, you need to improve on your endurance and strength.

After we asked Maui golf instructor Chris Armanini why a golf fitness plan will help your performance, we camp up the following suggestions.

Benefits of having a golf fitness plan

When we talk about golf fitness, it may not necessarily be several hours in the gym. However, we cannot deny how important a regular routine can be for your golfing performance. Here are a few benefits to consider.

Reduced Fatigue

While it may be easy to tear up the front nine and strip it down the fairway quite effortlessly, hitting the back nine can be such a drag. Most times, that is when fatigue knocks you out. Your game begins to crumble because you feel drained and tired, physically, and mentally. A healthy golf fitness plan or routine like the deadlift will not only help you gain power and strength, but also improve your stamina and resilience.

Injury Prevention

A proper warm up and strengthening routine can help prevent injuries like strains and hamstrings that may affect you during a golf encounter. Imagine stepping on the golf course for the first time in 12 months. Just when you take the first swing, you feel your back-give in. It is normal for your joints to stiffen, especially if you have lived sedentarily for a long time. A regular fitness plan can help you stay in shape. Engaging in Lunges can help in this regard.

Maintained Mobility

Popular golf fitness trainers recommend mobility exercises like the A-Frame Stretch and the 90/90 Hip Stretch for increased mobility and stability as a golfer. In fact, spending just 15 minutes daily on a mobility training routine can increase your performance significantly. Mobility on the course is a huge part of the game and if there are ways to improve it, you should. A golf course usually spans several hectares in some cases. That, coupled with the swings and bends, requires lots of mobility.

Increased Swing Power

A lot of golf professionals will tell you that it is not exactly the strength in the swing but the technique that matters. However, we cannot deny the importance of a powerful swing during competitive golf. Whether it is a birdie or a putt, hitting the golf ball requires some level of strength and fitness routines like Planks can help your transverse abdominis. This does not only help your back during a swing, but it also supports the area in tightening the core.

Also, general strength building can help you achieve this target more naturally. If your overall strength is boosted, you are more likely to gain more swing speed and power.

Increased Power with Speed

For golfing, it is important that power meets with speed. That is what determines how far the golf ball travels and how closer you are to completing your holes. As you shift weight during a golf swing, you want to have efficiency and stability. These come with agility and speed both of which can be enhanced with proper fitness exercises.

Improved Joint Function

A lot of joint movement and stability is required as a golfer. When you swing, bend, hit and do other stuff, you may want to take note of the parts of your body (joints) that do all the motor movements and twists. Focusing on those areas and working on them will tremendously help your game. Furthermore, driving distance and performance can be enhanced dramatically with proper workouts.

Choosing a golf fitness plan

From lowering your handicap to losing stamina during the final swings, there is a lot that can go wrong with golfing if you fail to plan physically and mentally. Choosing a great fitness plan is one good place to start. Precisely, there are a few workout regimes you can take up, but we will see a particular one that has 9 workouts for different muscle areas. First, there are three ways to approach these workouts.

Strength Training:a weight can help here as all you are concerned about is strength building.

Circuit Training:here, there are 9 exercises (stations) that you must do to boost your endurance and not your strength. You may take a short break afterwards and repeat the procedure.

Cardio-weightlifting combination; here, you train a particular muscle group every day, and then do some cardio exercises pre-workout and post-workout.

The 9 exercises you can incorporate as a fitness plan involves the following exercises.