Winter Golf Conditioning

The winter months are a great time to work on your golf fitness! This article is for you if you live in the northern states where golf is unplayable during the winter. After putting the clubs away for the next five months, now is the time to review any fitness conditions that may have hindered your golf game this past season. Do you occasionally have back, hip or shoulder pain? Do you find you cannot get your golf swing to stay balanced and consistent? Golf is hard on the body which is precisely why fitness training during the winter months is critical for your health and your golf game. A well-planned exercise routine will help to improve your stamina, flexibility, strength, reduce risk of injury, AND may help lower your golf scores! There are many ways to address the golf fitness paradigm. Trying to analyze and correct every physical weakness and flaw in your swing can be time-consuming, mentally exhausting, and frustrating when not seeing improvement. Golf has very specific torso rotational needs, complex hip and shoulder movements, and sequential neuro-conditioning needs. Since Golf is such a complex game, trying to create a fitness routine on your own can lead to injury and often more frustration. The approach I prefer to use is to strengthen and condition the body for the movements necessary to perform the golf swing at a high level without the occurrence of injury. Through a combination of Dynamic Flexibility and Movement, with Tabata, which is a form of HIIT(High-Intensity Interval Training), golfers can improve their balance, power, coordination, flexibility and overall fitness at the same time. Dynamic Flexibility and Movement utilizes functional movements involving the body's force and momentum to take a joint through its full range of motion. These same movements can also be used as a warm-up before an activity to best prepare the body for optimal performance. HIIT consists of alternating short periods of intense exercise with recovery periods of passive or mild-intensity movement. The intense exercise used in this type of workout includes specific movements to strengthen the golf-specific muscles such as the legs, hips, torso, back, and arms. A sample workout consists of twenty minutes of Dynamic Movements such as arm circles, back-bends, squats, and swimmer’s kicks followed by twenty minutes of Tabata workouts infused with Golf-specific movements. For more information on preparing a Winter Golf Conditioning Program to meet your specific needs, contact a Fitness Professional who is knowledgeable in the areas of Dynamic Movement and Tabata Training.