Golf requires you to be at your best when you go out there - especially when you've got a tournament coming up.
That's easy, until you try to incorporate strength training into your routine - which you should if you want to hit the ball further and play more effectively.
(Otherwise, what're you doing here reading this?)
A lot of golfers worry that they're going to be too tired or sore to play effective golf. It's important to know that a workout you're accustomed to shouldn't make you too sore, though you still may not be at your best in the following 24 hours. In this blog post we'll go through some recommendations that are generally effective, and some changes you may need to make to suit your schedule specifically. This includes setting up your program so that the frequency and intensity varies not just week to week, but also in-season versus off-season. Because the time demands of recreational and competitive golfers are so different, I've separated those two things out.
If you want to zip right to the part most relevant to you:
RECREATIONAL GOLFERS
As a recreational golfer, you probably have 1-2 days per week that you play.
And you want to be playing well when you go out... because that's the whole reason you enjoy going in the first place.
So the goals are always to be improving, be as fresh as possible for your rounds, and collect money from all your friends.
November through March is really your time to get better so your game can bloom with the spring flowers. We've all seen a golf course looking like this in the winter.
Your typical structure is pretty simple for a normal week:
Get 2-3 workouts per week for your full body.
Aim to get 8-12 sets per week for each body part at a medium to high intensity and you'll be well on your way.
If you can, do your workouts the day after a round rather than before so you're not feeling tired... but this is very optional.
Yep. It's that simple.
Don't know what exercises to do? My free golf fitness guide has links to exercise banks you can draw from to help you lay out your workout.
WHEN YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE CHANGES
If you have an important round coming up like a club championship or money game, you can make one of two changes to your routine:
Give yourself 1-2 days of rest prior to the tournament. So if you're playing Saturday, your last workout should be Wednesday or Thursday.
Keep your usual schedule (whether it's the day of or the day before), keep the same weight you normally use, but cut the volume (in this case the amount of repetitions in each set) by half.
Example: Before a Saturday tourney, you go work out on Friday. Normally you'd do 3 sets of 10 your squat or leg press with 175 pounds. Do 3 sets of 5 with 175 pound instead.
Make either of those changes and you should be feeling fresh and ready.
If you want to break it down more, you can follow the recommendations made below for competitive golfers, but it's often not necessary.
COMPETITIVE GOLFERS
OFF-SEASON
This is the time of year where you really get to make significant gains in strength and power and will decide the majority of what your game and body will look like during the coming season.
You can afford to wear yourself out and not worry about a short-term decline in performance affecting your tournament play. That means more frequent workouts and higher volume/intensity.
Junior golfers specifically have massive summer tournaments that can be 3-4 rounds long... at which point in time your workouts need to look like the structure a PGA tour pro would use. High school golf really ratchets up in the spring in the race for state.
So the best time for a junior golfer? September through February. That's a massive window of time to get better.
STRUCTURING YOUR WEEK
Most golfers will benefit from a full-body training program:
You don’t miss a body part if you miss a day and end up not training that area often enough
Heavily favors “compound” or multi-joint movements that are most important to your movement
You need to aim to get 8-12 sets per muscle group during the off-season and be training at a relatively high intensity. That would mean training to within a few reps of failure (1-3 reps in reserve; learn about reps in reserve here if you aren't already familiar).
Yes, you'll have some practice days where you don't feel like you're 100%. That's okay. Remember that once you acclimate to your workout and progress it at a reasonable pace... you shouldn't really find yourself getting very sore.
If you ARE playing an important round of golf during the off-season, you can follow the in-season recommendations below for those specific weeks.
IN-SEASON
You need to be at your best during tournament season. This isn't when you're trying to get stronger or faster - for the most part, that time has passed. At this point, you're trying to maintain all the gains you made in the off-season. Generally that's going to mean a few things:
Maintain your intensity - you won't be decreasing the amount of weight you're using, instead you're going to...
Lower your volume - Fewer reps and sets, not working as close to failure. You're going to want to hit at least 4 sets per week to make sure you're not losing what you worked so hard to gain.
STRUCTURING YOUR WEEK
To get your 4 sets in per week, you'll still need to get 2-3 workouts in.
But your strength work will be abbreviated so you don't wear yourself out, and you'll still be doing mobility, power, and speed work on a regular basis. If you've got a 2 day weekend tournament Saturday-Sunday, your workout days would be Monday-Wednesday or Monday-Thursday, with a short morning workout on Saturday or Sunday depending on how your body reacts to that.
4 day tournament? You're going to get work in on two tournament days. High intensity, very low volume... and you'll probably leave feeling a lot better than when you got there! That might mean 3 sets of 3 on squats with the same weight you'd usually use for 3 sets of 8. Just enough to make your body wake up and work, but not enough to tire you out. (Yes, PGA guys are working out on tournament days. Why do you think they have those fancy trailers?)
Summary
Follow these recommendations and you should feel a lot more comfortable scheduling your workouts around golf. It's not complicated, but it does require some planning - and you need to forgive yourself if it's not perfect.
If you need help setting up your program, schedule a free call with our Titleist Performance Institute fitness professional about how we can get you on the right path! We can help in a number of ways, including consulting on your current plan, building a new one from scratch, or doing individual or group training to make sure you're getting it right.
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