Exercise is the best medicine.  There is no doubt about this.  The more active you are, the healthier you will be.

However, there is a big difference between exercise and training.

Quoting Jonathon Sullivan, author of The Barbell Prescription, “training is exercise that manipulates training variables as part of a long-term program aimed at the improvement of one or more general fitness attributes.”

Long distance runners train to improve their endurance.

Sprinters train to improve their power and speed.

Fighters train to improve their power, speed and endurance.

When you start out training, you start by building a foundation.

A strength athlete will go to the gym, start with conservative weights, and add weight to the bar each workout.

Over time, it becomes more and more difficult to add weight to the bar.  Training variables must now be manipulated more.

Someone who has trained for years will find it difficult to make new PRs more than every six months.

Their training is focused on attaining that level by continuing to build on their foundation, and then training to peak, possibly for a competition.

Endurance and other athletes are the same.

How often does a runner at any distance run a new PR fast time?

At the elite level, not very often.  Sometimes it takes years.

With that said, novice trainees will make a new PR EVERY workout for a few months, until the weight on the bar gets too heavy.

At this point, their training program is pretty simple… do 3 sets of five reps and add weight to the bar each workout.

Once that gets difficult, they may switch to doing five sets of three reps in order to continue to add weight to the bar.

Down the road, it will be necessary to have some “lighter” training sessions to help them recover both physically and mentally from their workouts.

However, they are continuing to train, rather than just show up at the gym to work out.

Training for Golf

So, what does this have to do with you, the golfer?

Well, a big reason why I wrote this post is that it’s clear to me that golfers, even tour players, do not know the difference between exercise and training.

How do I know this?

Because I see them performing a myriad of exercises, none of which will make them particularly strong.

I wrote about Scottie Scheffler’s workout routines the other day.

It’s wild how many different exercises I’ve seen him do, but I know why.

His trainers likely feel that they need to keep him from getting bored.  Thus, they are constantly creating new exercises for him to perform to keep him in shape.

That’s not training.  That’s exercise, which is fine.

However, Scheffler is 28 years old, and does not yet have to deal with issues related to aging.  He is only trying to stay free of injury.

Strength training will actually help you do that as well, but many personal trainers are unwilling to have their clients do squats and deadlifts for fear of injury.

What this says about them is that they have no idea how to coach those exercises.

You can get injured by simply picking a dumbbell up off the floor… been there done that!  This happens to those of us of a certain age with wear and tear on our bodies.

Fewer people will injure themselves when properly training a squat or deadlift.

Just ask the strength coaches who’ve coached thousands of students over the years.

But I digress.

If you want to have the ability to generate more speed in your golf swing AND continue to play golf at an advanced age, you need to train for strength.

This is the only way to hold off two age related processes that lead to less and less mobility over time… sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass) and osteopenia (loss of bone density).

Golfers like Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau have figured out that increased strength will keep them at the top of their physical abilities to compete on tour.

It’s time you understand that training for strength will provide you with the ability to stay near your peak for a lot longer than if you don’t.

Check out my Strength and Fitness Program to help you do just that.

Now, get to work!