SCRATCH GOLF, YOUR WAY
EXERCISE FOR GOLF PERFORMANCE
There's no substitute for strong, supple muscles and good cardiovascular conditioning when it comes to performance and stamina on the golf course. There are a lot of ways to get the cardiovascular part, like walking, running, treadmill, etc. so I'm not going to make any recomendation except to get off the couch and get your program going.
There are some simple quick and easy exercises you can do for the strength/suppleness part. These exercises are very effective and won't take up much of your time. They will speed up your club head. Of course, the better you're swinging the better your resuts in terms of solid shots and distance.
It's important for you to understand just where swing power and club head speed come from. You have probably observed that some 150 pound guys can hit it 300 yards and and some of the lady tour players have distance that most guys can't achieve. Granted; a lot of this is natural muscle quickness and timing but you can get some of this by exercising the right muscles correctly.
What are the right muscles? There's about 20 that are really important but I won't get technical; mostly they are the hip rotators, the glutes, spine rotators, lats, pecs, delts, triceps, forearm extensors, wrist extensors. If you properly condition the core muscles of your hips, butt and back you can't help but get the whole job done.
What is correct exercise for proper golf conditioning? Not weight lifting or stretch bands with repetitive motions; these will develop brute strength and bulk - they may or may not help some. What we're after, to speed up the club head, are quick strength and suppleness. It's a proven, but probably not well known, fact that isometric exercises using a stretch cord is the best way to develop muscle quickness. These cords, under various brand names are available at sporting goods stores and come with a set of instructions that you can discard, at least for our purpose. You just attach one end of the cord to a door jamb using an attachment that comes with the cord and stretch the cord to build resistance using the positions illustrated on John's Exercises page. There's something about the constant stretch resistance provided by the stretch cord that increases your proportion of "fast twitch" muscle fibers.
Click the link for JOHN'S EXERCISES to see the exercises that you should include in your golf fitness program. ALL 9 exercises are isometric, i.e. position and hold. The hold time should be about 12 seconds. Stretch the cord to about 75% of your strength. No repititions. Do 1 to 3 sets depending on your fitness level. More isn't better.
JOHN'S EXERCISES FOR GOLF PERFORMANCE