Golf Fitness

Do you need to be fit to play golf?

It’s fair to say that as sporting pastimes go – golf is one you can enjoy well into your later years. The good to average golfer does not need rippling muscles or super efficient cardio vascular fitness. However, improving your fitness; flexibility, coordination, balance and strength will have a positive affect on your game if done correctly. How fit you need to be depends on your goals and aspirations. Top professionals and many aspiring amateurs are working on specific Golf fitness programmes and use professional sports coaches. This article will introduce some simple and well established – even traditional Golf exercises. Golf like many outdoor activities, is good for you. There have been studies on the affect of playing Golf has on people’s life expectancy and health. These studies show (what most of us would take as common sense) that walking around outside enjoying a relaxing gentle exercise with friends is good for your mind, body and soul and has a positive impact on your health and life.

Why is Golf good for you?

Golf is a weight bearing exercise – when you walk you put your bones and muscles under a degree of stress which helps maintain and develop their strength.

Walking is good for the heart as it is a gentle cardio vascular exercise, it is clearly not as vigorous as running or jogging therefore you would need to do quite a lot of walking to feel any benefits. This is good news because Golf courses are usually in the order of 6000 yards long. There is also the distance between tees and greens and the walking we do to find errant golf shots, either ours or our partners.

It’s also good for the mind, humans are social animals and Golf is a social sporting pastime. People enjoy the competitiveness of the game – that can range from being your club champion, to seeing your handicap get lower, or even maintaining your handicap as you get older. Golf has an excellent handicapping system, enabling people of different abilities to compete against each other. People thrive when their minds are engaged and they interact positively with others. Golf is a great opportunity for socialising as well as exercising some of our natural competitive urges.

But do you need to be really fit to play better golf?

Clearly there are many factors in playing a good game of golf. Your physical strength, flexibility and endurance are important but entwined with your actual capability and level of skill. Hence why sportsmen and women taking up Golf generally start out like any beginner – their natural co-ordination may allow them to develop their Golf skills quickly compared to someone who is less well co-ordinated and “sporty” but they have to learn how to play. If your game has reached a plateau then improving your fitness may well improve your scoring.

If you are a member of a Golf Club then you will probably have a squad of players who compete in inter-club matches perhaps at a County or district level for example. These will generally be the best players at your club – go and take a look at them. They will be a range of ages, shapes and sizes. But I would expect a fair amount of players on the team will be young and athletic looking. You can look on with envy if you are a middle aged man or woman with an increasing mid-drift. You can also rest assured that time will catch up with some of them eventually or that you too looked like that once. In the meantime you can learn some lessons from observing these better players. Carrying excess weight is bad for you and it can also be bad for your golf swing. Losing a few pounds can improve your flexibility and improve your endurance – being less tired through carrying less weight around can improve your concentration and mental strength. You will maintain a better posture and be able to swing more freely.

You will benefit from having strong but relaxed flexible muscles – so you don’t need rippling big muscles to play well. You also need flexibility within your joints and tendons.

If you are weak in a particular body area then this might affect your Golf game adversely and make certain shots difficult. For example if you are unable to achieve a full 90 degree shoulder turn then you may not swing effectively or powerfully enough to hit the ball long distances. If your wrists are weak you may struggle to hit down and through the ball when playing from the fairway or out of long grass. If your hamstrings are tight and inflexible you may find it difficult to maintain a good posture throughout the Golf swing.

The Golf swing is a rotary movement, therefore stability and strength of the core muscles groups will help improve how fast you can swing under control. Your legs need to support your body and allow you to coil into your backswing. You need flexibility so that you can move freely and unimpeded and also to maintain your balance.

What should I work on?

i) Where are you starting from? You need to do an honest assessment of your current fitness, strength and flexibility.

Here is a link to Greg Norman’s website and an article about Golf Fitness Evaluation

http://www.shark.com/sharkwatch/fitness/fitness8.php

Also this article from Kelly Blackburn has a specific exercise test routine

http://www.kellyblackburn.com/gfa_pb_analyze.html

ii) Where do you want to end up – what is your golfing/fitness goal and aspiration?

You need to write these down – you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Sometimes, as I think you’ll learn if you watch Kung Fu Panda! it’s not always about the destination it’s also about the journey. So don’t limit yourself at this stage.

iii) Now take stock – how much time do you have, can you afford gym membership, do you have any health problems now or in the past – talk to your Doctor if you are not sure or haven’t exercised for a long time.

iv) Create a plan – there’s nothing like creating momentum. Start off gently and form good positive exercise habits. Little and often is better than a big session followed by weeks of no exercise. Even if creating momentum is simply looking up local gym's in your area - get started today.

Golf Exercises from greenseekergolf.com

See our recommended simple exercises aimed to improve your golf game.