Personal trainer and fitness columnist Shawn O’Neil on maximising returns and delivering bang for your buck
Let’s start with a simple truth – there isn’t a one size fits all programme for all golfers. So, how do we work out what is ideal, and how do we know it’s working?
When we look at world-leading golfers, they’re all doing vastly different things. For example – Ryan Moore works hard on mobility to fix and prevent ankle injuries; Bryson DeChambeau bulked up, strengthening his body to be able to handle and absorb elite speed without injury; while Matt Fitzpatrick increased speed through mainly overspeed training.
Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas are big advocates of gym work and what it has done for their performance through increasing clubhead speed, but those two – as well as Bryson – first turned to golf-specific fitness programmes to overcome back pain and lengthen their careers.
Not only are they doing different things to one another, they’re also changing what they do throughout their careers, which makes setting a programme a moving target.
That may make this pretty daunting to take your first steps into, but it doesn’t have to be.
Every programme begins the same way, with an assessment (see my November column on the Northern Golfer website for an in-depth look at one of these). During this session, we determine what your limitations are and what you should be doing.
The ideal scenario would be a combination of mobility and stability work taking note of any physical limitations for pain management and injury prevention as well as helping with swing flaws. We can then look into strength work, then into speed and power to increase clubhead speed and find performance gains.
If you’ve got time for that – fantastic! The reality is most golfers don’t have that kind of time to commit to their hobby. In this scenario, specific fitness and/or gym work will be built into your schedule to give the best bang for your buck in terms of time vs return on the golf course. By inputting the correct stimulus, results are guaranteed, while if your golf time is limited, you can also ensure you don’t miss any rounds through injury.
The ideal programme is one which identifies what you need to improve and then uses whatever time you have to work on it. By focussing on maximising return, your body and scores will both benefit from any programme.
