Training for golf this year? These 3 exercises are your starter kit
Training for golf comes in a lot of forms, ranging from simple cardiovascular exercises to improve stamina on the course to jumping to improve swing speed to stretching to improve your swing. There are so many things you can do, you might wonder where do you start?
Golf Digest Certified Fitness Trainer Justin Barr boils it down to three things. (1) Being able to purposely disassociate movement in the upper and lower body. (2) Getting the glute muscles to activate and contract forcefully. (3) Using the ground as leverage or a "trigger" to sequence the swing properly and provide it with explosiveness.
If you focus on those three fundamental goals (Barr calls it "FUNdamentals"), you're well on your way to making better golf swings. These goals are especially useful to beginner golfers as they start to understand the requirements for a proper golf swing.
Like any sport, the goal is to train "so that the effort is autonomous and completed without thinking," says Barr, who trains clients in the golf hotbed of Jupiter, Fla. With that in mind, he has three exercises to help you improve your sequencing and give you a power boost when you swing. These are great exercises to add to an existing workout program or to serve as a foundation for a new one.
Do these in order and follow Barr's prescriptions and it shouldn't take longer than five to 10 minutes to complete.
PANCAKES TO CUPCAKES
This exercise gets you to use your glutes to power the action in your swing by getting them to work independently, side to side. Lying on the ground flat like a pancake with your hands underneath your glutes, squeeze one side of your butt muscles hard and then rise off the ground quickly with your pelvis forming the shape of the top of a cupcake. Then slowly lower your pelvis back down using the glutes on the same side. Barr says to think of this rising-and-lowering motion like turning on a big, bright LED light to rise up, and then using the dimmer switch to slowly reduce the brightness on the way down. You should go from flat glutes to a rounded muscular contraction of those muscles. The goal is to do five reps with each side's glute muscles and each rep should take about six seconds to complete. One second up and five seconds back down.
WALL SUPPORTED T-SPINE ROTATIONS
This exercise trains you to move your torso independently of your lower body, which is key to loading in the backswing. Cross your arms across your chest and stand close enough to a wall or similar support so you can raise your left foot (right foot for lefty swingers) and prop it against the object. Keep your lower body as still as possible and rotate your upper body as if you were making a backswing. Do these for two minutes, alternating the foot that is against the wall and the direction the torso rotates (always toward the planted leg). Do five reps in each direction with the movement being slow and controlled.
LOAD AND EXPLODES (fast track the golf-swing feel)
This exercise is great for teaching the wind-up and release of power from backswing to through-swing. This move ideally should employ a resistance band around the lead leg and something soft under the lead foot you can push down on. You can also do it without these items. Barr calls them the "Clark Kent to Superman" transitions. Get into your golf address posture with the resistance band, trying to pull your lead leg forward as shown and your hands on your sternum as if you were getting ready to rip your shirt off from the center of your chest. While pressing into the item under your lead leg, simulate a backswing and then simulate a through-swing. Do 10 reps in each direction (switching the band and item under the foot). The goal is to hold the backswing "loaded" position for six seconds before "firing" into the through-swing position. If you do these without the band, pretend you are "Clark Kent turning to Superman," Barr says. Rotate back in control and then fire in the opposite direction as if you're ripping your shirt off and changing into the Superman costume. Do it with some gusto, he says, like this (below).
