Core Exercises

[Brakkus]

Just an update on my training program. I have been using the bands now for going on 3 weeks. The result has been very surprising,when I started playing again I could only hit my 4 iron 150 yds. Now a lot of that was probably my swing mechanics needing honing again but I had lost power and I have passed middle age in years recently. Knew I had issues when I could only hit the 5 iron 150 yds. This was a 170 yd club for me 3 years ago.

Anyway after formulating a few exercises went to the range today and was pinging 6 irons out beyond the 150 marker. The easy power was there where before I felt I was having to work really hard to maintain all my angles through the swing. Getting into position was easier and the acceleration through impact which used to pull me up through impact meant I stayed down longer. I still think there is more to come and coupled with daily practice my ballstriking is getting better fast.

I would recommend anyone on here who doesn't combine golf specific exercise with their technical training to do so.

[Jhwarren]

Just an update on my training program. I have been using the bands now for going on 3 weeks. The result has been very surprising,when I started playing again I could only hit my 4 iron 150 yds. Now a lot of that was probably my swing mechanics needing honing again but I had lost power and I have passed middle age in years recently. Knew I had issues when I could only hit the 5 iron 150 yds. This was a 170 yd club for me 3 years ago. Anyway after formulating a few exercises went to the range today and was pinging 6 irons out beyond the 150 marker. The easy power was there where before I felt I was having to work really hard to maintain all my angles through the swing. Getting into position was easier and the acceleration through impact which used to pull me up through impact meant I stayed down longer. I still think there is more to come and coupled with daily practice my ballstriking is getting better fast. I would recommend anyone on here who doesn't combine golf specific exercise with their technical training to do so.

Congrats on the improvements. That's awesome. What exercises are you doing with the bands?

[Brakkus]

Originally Posted by Jhwarren

Congrats on the improvements. That's awesome.

What exercises are you doing with the bands?

I went on to youtube to see a range of exercises. There was some isometric exercises for 4 positions in the golf swing. Top of the swing hold for 10 seconds using roughly 60% of your strength. This took a little experimenting to find. Halfway down hold for 10 seconds,impact,and just past impact.

I also found a guy in canada with a whole bunch of videos under the name  Athletic Golf Training. I've mixed in some of his speed training and strength training. Stuff for the core mainly,one brilliant exercise is the pull punch drill with tubing. My lower back hurt like hell for the first couple of weeks, obviously wasn't strong enough. I had trouble in the transition from the top in my swing felt that's where it all went wrong for me on a bad swing.

Practice can groove a motion but I feel because of the training that my body can now do what I'm asking it to do. Including a warm-up and and main program I can do all my training in about 15mins. I do 5 days a week couple of days off depending on my schedule during the week.

Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/user/athleticgolftraining

[Ed Rooney]

Kettle bells. Check on YouTube for kettle bell workouts for golf.

[flyingzebra]

I have tried these these recommended exercises and they're pretty useful for core strength. am going to try the resistance bands too.

[vtrainers]

I own a chain of personal training studios in PA and Nj and we have alot of our golfers doing kettlebell exercises. The core is involved the whole time while working the other muscle groups. You can pick the ones that should be used for golf vs. the ones that are overall fitness although all will help. On my site we have a blog segment, scroll through past artiles and you will see the kettlebell link.  Here is our site http://www.vtrainersinc.com

Also remember that the rectus abdominis, or the abs in the front of the body do very little in a golf swing. They help to stabilize the body during the swing, but do nothing in terms of force generation. For that stick to transverse ab movements and obliques ( the twisting core muscles).

[Chas]

Yes, obliques should be a part of one's routine for golf.  I'm not sure how best to work them other than just holding a free weight in one hand and bending sideways.  Is there something better than that?

I'm finding that using free weights has greatly increased my wrist and forearm strength as a kind of secondary effect.  This seems to have reduced my tendency to overswing and to break down at the top (including regripping) - a very serious problem of course.

[saevel25]

Obliques do the following movements

Lateral Flexion (standing upright, tilting your upper body to oneside or the other)

Spine Rotation (if your sitting down, with out moving your legs, rotate your body around your spine)

Flexion (The standard crunch motion)

Obliques work more in the first two, but since they run diagonally across the midsection, there motion is in bending forward and backward, and side to side, as well as rotation because they wrap around our core which is elliptical.

So basically to work out these muscles you must move in how they move with resistance

Lateral Flexion - Side Bend, Side Plank

Spine Rotation - Russian Twist, Mountain Climbers (right knee to left elbow, and vice versa)

Flexion - Crunch, Plank, sit-ups

For me, i like to do Russian Twists with a 30lb weight, 20 times each side. I also use the cable, were i will put the pulley at navel height, keeping my arms extended from my body, taking an athletic stance, i will rotate my core.

[Dave2512]

Ouch those cable moves VJ does in the link above are brutal, he really goes at it. The machine I have at home only has cable attachments from just above head level and at the feet so I can't do all of them unless I go to the gym but I have been doing similar stuff. Doesn't take much resistance to tear me up pretty good. For the middle moves I just twist with a medicine ball. I don't do any of it on a day I am going to play, makes my swing too stiff.

[tmf9]

I love to just do situps till failure on a decline bench, another good one is get an tricep rope and attach it to the bottom of a cable machine and do weighted situps on an exercise ball.

[amac]

Great thread.  Congrats on sticking with your routine.  Not sure if you are doing this or if its been mentioned, but with every workout routine you should also incorporate STRETCHING.  There are simple back stretches, arm/shoulder joint stretches, wrist stretches, hip flexor stretches, hamstring, etc. all of which will improve your flexibilty.  The end result is a making easier turns back and through the golf swing.  When you build muscle, they tend to tighten.  I always end my workouts with stretching.

Also, be sure to check out the Titleist Performance Institute website.  They have a series of golf swing specific exercises and stretching routines.

[Jhwarren]

Yes, stretching is so important. I did end up joining a gym. They have this half-cage looking thing where you can do thousands of different stretches. It shows a picture of all these stretches and what part of the body it is working. It is awesome. It really showed me how tight I am, especially is my hips and hamstrings.

This may be a question for its own thread. I have started incorporating some free weight training into my routine. My plan is to work out with the weights three times a week. Originally, I was going to do arms (biceps, triceps and shoulders) one day, chest and back the next day, and legs the third day. A buddy of mine who I work with suggested that I do chest and triceps together because a lot of the exercises use both muscles. Then, he said do back and shoulders together for the same reason. And then finish it with legs and biceps.  Does this sound right? Or does anyone have any advice on a weight training program that I could do in three day a week cycles and hit everything? Thanks.

[saevel25]

Well when you do a pushup your Triceps help out. When you do pull ups or chinups, your biceps work out as well

Well if your doing 3x a week, you can fit in whole body each workout. If you go 4x a week, you probably want to split it upper,Lower,rest,Upper,Lower,Rest,Rest

If your doing 3x a week, you can really do some interesting mixing. But its usually Something like,

Monday: Weights

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: Weights

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Weights:

Saturday/Sunday: rest

From there you can go into something like, Monday: Upper (heavy weights), Lower (Endurance). Then do Heavy weights fro upper on Friday. So you can mess around a little on how specialize the weights. This is just some concepts.

As for full body exercises. Just try to hit each muscle group. I am a fan of complex movements.

Lower Body - Squats, Split Squats, DeadLifts

Chest - Push-ups, Bench Press, Chest Dips

Shoulders - Presses

Back - Rows

Lats - Pulldowns, pull ups, chin ups

Abs - Plank, Side Planks, RKC plank (normal plank on steroids :p), Crunches

Upper Arms - Tricep extensions, bicep curls

So something like this for upper lower

Squats

Push-ups

Dead Lifts

Row

Calf Raises

Shoulder Press

Crunches

Pull Ups

Bicep

Triceps

You can probably skip the bicep and triceps, they get worked out by the chest and lat exercises.

Or, what i like to do sometimes

Squats

Abs

Pushups

Abs

Dead Lifts

Abs

Rows

abs

Shoulders

Abs

Lats

Abs

Once you get the exercises down you can mix and match.

But, just search google for a lot of stuff. There is so much information out there on exercises you can do, and how to split them up. If you want a full body work out that will probably kill you. Try a complex. Meaning, instead of weighting a few minutes for the next set you go to the next muscle to exercise. So basically its circuit trianing with weights, non stop. Lets just say, you'll be on the ground wishing you never heard of complexes ever.

[Jhwarren]

Hahaha I don't know if I'm ready for complexes. Thank alot for the advice. Those seem like a good strategy.

P.S. I just googled RKC plank. Those are no joke. I did one in my office to try it out. I'm glad nobody walked in.

[saevel25]

I know, I am pretty good on the plank, if I am on my hands I can hold it for 2+ minutes. If I am on my elbows, slightly less. If I do the RKC plank I can go 30-40 seconds before I have to collapse

[RonTheSavage]

Gonna try the RKC's at home tonight. Too many nosey people or elso I would do one in my cubicle LOL

[Brakkus]

Well been keeping up my exercises with the tubing bands. My mid section is now visible after disappearing for a few years. Did fix some backswing issues with my swing too much arm lift but now I have my arms connected more to my body now seeing benefits of the workouts. Just an example before I started this I hit my hybrid around 165-170. Hit one into the wind 185 and with the trailing wind 230. At the range I couldn't carry the 200 marker with any club. I have carried that with all my longer clubs. Almost did it with the 4 iron a club I struggled to get past 150 some 10 months ago. Some of this is obvious swing work on my mechanics but the speed has increased. Even if the speed isn't massively increased my ability to hold my angles together is as it feels so much easier to produce my swing.

[Righty to Lefty]

This is my 8th month of crossfit (67 lbs gone off my frame) and I can honestly say that nothing that I have every done in my life has more positively affected my golf game.  That is because within any week (5 days on 2 off aside of stretching and mobility work) we hit all of the facets necessary to play powerful and efficient golf.  Flexibility (everyday), Core, Muscle that support power production (Squats, deadlifts), Power production (Power Cleans, snatch, clean and jerk, thrusters), Mobility (Everyday) ( flex band stretches, foam rollers, lacrosse ball to roll out muscles), Endurance ( light weight high reps), Stamina ( moderate weight, moderate reps), Cardio (Rowers and Tabata workouts), Recovery, and Nutrition.

We hit on everything every week yet the workouts are never the same. You never get used to it and I still get sore every week just like I did 8 months ago. I'm just faster at everything but the level of "suck" is still the same.  Crossfit is perfect for a golfer because it is not a bulk building workout regimine. It promotes attributes more associated with gymnasts who are supremely flexible and powerful. That is why I do it and will continue on with it because it is perfect for providing the template to give the golfer the best chance to play his/her best golf.

I'm not saying that you have to go join a crossfit box but I would for sure get ahold of the workouts, which are all over the net, and put them into your workouts.