Over the last 20 years or so, ever since Tiger Woods got totally jacked, golf fitness has exploded as an industry.
The trend really got into gear about 15 years ago when I started teaching.
What I noticed back then was many golf instructors signing up with MyTPI (Titleist Performance Institute) to get certified as a golf fitness instructor.
The idea is that many golfers just can’t improve their swings because they are being held back by a physical issue, such as a lack of shoulder or hip mobility.
The TPI professionals tend to focus on assessing mobility and then they prescribe a set of exercises to help improve that mobility.
In my view, this puts the cart before the horse.
Golf Fitness Priorities
Classic golf body… big belly and skinny legs
In my experience, most golfers are weak and this is particularly true of golfers over the age of 70.
My experience refers to my days as a competitive golfer and as a more active instructor. When I played competitively, most of my rounds were played with men who were 40 years old and up.
Looking back, I would categorize few of the golfers I played with as above average in strength.
Why?
The average age of golfers in the US is reported as 46, while the median age is 54.
Starting at about age 40 (give or take a few years), the process of sarcopenia, or loss of muscle mass begins.
With each passing decade, we lose 3% to 5% our muscle mass, and this process accelerates over time.
Furthermore, some people are susceptible to osteoporosis, or loss of bone density. Osteoporosis is quite prevalent among women post-menopause, but it also affects some men.
Combined with the lack of muscle mass, this condition leaves them quite weak.
Sadly, Jack Nicklaus appears to be afflicted with condition, as he is about the same height as Gary Player and Lee Trevino now when he used to be several inches taller than both.
It is notable that Trevino and Player still play and practice regularly while Nicklaus admittedly rarely plays anymore.
When I think back to many of the golfers I played and taught over the years, I would venture to guess that less than 20% were engaged in strength training.
However, the golf fitness industry has an intense focus on mobility, even for senior golfers.
As a result, most golfers are given exercises to help them improve their ability to get more rotation in their golf swings with a variety of stretching exercises and strengthening exercises that target small muscles.
But here’s the flaw in that thinking… improved mobility is far more difficult to achieve than improved physical strength, particularly when you get past 60 years old.
With this in mind, for the vast majority of golfers, strength training should be their number one golf fitness priority.
The Golf Fitness Industry Concept of Strength Training Is Wrong
However, if you do a Google search, or a search on Youtube for strength training for golfers, you’ll rarely find an exercise with a barbell being demonstrated.
What you find instead are numerous exercises performed with dumbbells, kettlebells and resistance bands.
Have a look at this image. It was literally pulled from a video titled “strength training for golfers.” In reality, this is mobility training, not strength training.
This is the content you will often find among golf fitness professionals.
Yet, the barbell is the single best training tool we have for building strength.
Why is the barbell avoided by the golf fitness industry?
Here are a couple of my thoughts…
First, strength training with the barbell eventually gets hard, and they may find that most of their clients don’t want to do hard stuff.
Second, their clients are afraid of getting injured, and the trainer really does not know how to teach the lifts properly to help them avoid injury.
I know this to be the case, as I’ve seen a top five LPGA golfer training in a gym performing a lousy squat. The video was posted by her trainer.
Nobody wants to get injured in the gym.
Therefore, it’s critical that we learn how to perform the movement patterns correctly.
Why the barbell is the best tool for building strength
This me, deadlifting in my garage
The barbell is the best tool for building strength because you can load a barbell with significant weight.
Also, the four main barbell movements… the squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press are based on normal human movement patterns.
These exercises train the most muscle mass, and as a result, when trained properly, you can achieve the most amount of strength over the shortest period of time.
The beauty of strength training with barbells is that you can actually reverse the conditions mentioned above (sarcopenia and osteoporosis).
Strength training increases muscle mass and improves bone density.
Strength training with these exercises will also help to improve your mobility and balance.
If you can perform a barbell squat with 200 pounds on your back without falling over, you have good enough balance to perform a golf swing.
The case of Bryson DeChambeau
A few years back, Bryson DeChambeau decided he wanted to hit it much further off the tee.
While he already had a swing speed of about 119 mph at the time, he recognized that he could gain a significant advantage by learning how to hit it even further.
So what did he do?
He hit the gym, gained 30 pounds of muscle and got strong.
Additionally, he incorporated power and speed training into his program.
The result?
He literally finished 2nd in the World Long Drive Championships in 2022.
And this year, he followed that up with a second win in the U.S. Open, proving that this foray into strength training didn’t adversely affect his game.
Golf Fitness Priorities as I see it
With all this said and done, these should be your golf fitness priorities going forward…
- Strength Training
- Mobility and Flexibility
- Conditioning
- Power and Speed Training
- Swing Speed Training
In fact, this is the order I present in my Strength and Fitness Program, which you should definitely check out.
In my view, strength should come first, since it is the easiest to achieve, with the right programming. This is especially true for golfers over 50 years old.
You can then enhance your new found strength with improved mobility, and then power training if you desire.
Now, get to work!
