Off-Season Training for Golf: Improve Your Golf Game Now

Golf season is nearly here. If you’re a golfer, you know and you’re excited. If not, you certainly hear people talk about it at the gym. Golf is a great way to get a little light exercise, spend time outdoors, and be with friends. 

Whether you golf, or you just want to help your clients achieve all their athletic goals, it’s important to understand why pre-season training is important, and how to do it. 

The Importance of Training for Golf Season

Some people may joke that golf is more of a game than a sport, that you can be out of shape and still play it. The truth is that golf requires physical fitness. You need to be strong and flexible in order to play the game, or sport, and play it well. 

Improving your game is just one reason to start training for the season. Getting into good golf fitness shape will make the sport more enjoyable. Would you rather huff and puff to keep up with the rest of the foursome or be able to walk and play for a couple of hours with ease? 

Another good reason to focus on pre-season training is to prevent injuries. Golf may not be the most intense sport, but it can definitely injure you. Injuries and pain in golfers tend to plague the lower back, shoulders, knees, and elbows. The most important things you need for injury-free golf come from the right training: 

• Muscle strength. Good muscle strength improves your game, but it also prevents injury. This is true for any activity, not just golf. When your muscles are strong, they support safer movements. 

• Flexibility. If you aren’t flexible enough, your swing can be short and choppy, resulting in strained or pulled muscles. 

• Good posture. Good posture in everything, including your golf swing, keeps your neck and back from getting strained. 

• Endurance. Spending two or more hours on the course takes endurance. Regular fitness training will prevent you from getting fatigued, which can lead to poor form and injuries. 

An afternoon of golf can be a great choice for an active recovery day in the middle of a tough workout week. Learn more about active recovery here.

The Muscles That Power a Golf Swing

It clearly takes some muscle strength to whack a ball from the tee to the green, but which muscles do the job? While it’s important to build overall strength, these are the muscles to target for a better swing. 

According to researchers who have analyzed the golf swing, several muscles predominate at different stages of the swing: 

• On the back swing, you primarily use the trapezius and subscapularis. Your upper legs get in on the action a little bit, as do the oblique abdominals and erector spinae, the muscles along the spine. 

• The pectorals and gluteus maximus strongly power the forward swing with contributions from the rhomboid and trapezius, pectorals, and several muscles of the upper legs, including the vastus lateralis and adductor magnus.

• During acceleration, the transition from the back swing to the forward swing, your pectorals and back muscles do a lot of the work. The upper legs, again, contribute, as do the gluteus medius and oblique abdominals. 

A picture emerges here of the most important muscles for a good golf swing: the core, upper back, chest, glutes, and upper legs. 

Strength Exercises to Get Ready for Golf Season

Give your clients who golf a two- to three-day strength training plan that hits all the muscles associated with a golf swing. Make the core the main focus. Core strength is absolutely essential for good form and agility in all sports, and particularly in golf. 

Core Moves for Golf

Any comprehensive core workout will help your golfing clients, but here are some exercises that may be best for improving that swing: 

• Planks. Use a variety of plant positions and movements to really strengthen and stabilize the core. Include standard planks as well as side planks. Help your clients progress by adding in leg lifts, side dips, chest taps, and other challenging adaptations. 

• Russian twists. The obliques are among the most important muscles in the swing, so add in Russian twists. Make them more difficult with a medicine ball or kettlebell and by lifting the feet off the ground. 

• Woodchoppers. Add a squat to these to include obliques, glutes, and quads. You can increase the weight over time to progress. 

• Wall ball. This is another great move for the obliques and also improves functional twisting movements important in golf. Have your client stand with their side to a wall and throw a ball against it while twisting. Increase the weight of the ball as they progress. 

Strengthening the Erector Spinae

These small muscles along the spine are too often overlooked. They are important for every movement, not just golf, in improving posture and reducing injury. Include bird dogs, back extensions, prone superman, kettlebell swings, and dead bugs to strengthen these muscles. 

Upper Body Strength

The muscles of the upper back and chest engage big time when you swing the club. Make sure your clients get these muscles in shape in time: 

• Pull downs. Do a variety of pull downs, at face level and chest level, for instance, to hit multiple muscle areas in the upper back. 

• Rows. Also, add in a variety of rows. Do bent-over rows, standing rows, and squat rows to target traps, lats, rhomboids, and other back muscles. 

• Shrugs. This is a small movement but one of the best for activating the traps. Increase the weights over time. 

• Bent over Y. This exercise targets the lower traps. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, and knees in a shallow squat position. With the back straight and strong, bend at the waist, raise the arms up around the ears in a Y position, and hold. You can do this with and without weights. 

• Chest exercises. Don’t forget the pectorals, which golfers use in the swing. Simple exercises to target these big muscles are pushups and bench presses. 

Exercises for Glutes and Legs

The glutes power so many movements in everyday life, in sports, and in golf. Focus on glutes nearly as much as you do on core for your golfing clients: 

• Squat variations. Any kind of squat will promote glute strength, but really hit these muscles with variations, like single-leg squats. Hold a weight out in front of the body when doing standard squats to activate the glutes even more. 

• Single-leg deadlifts. Use any exercise that requires standing on one leg to improve glute strength. This move will target both the hamstrings and the glutes. 

• Glute bridges. These are great moves for targeting the glutes and for progression. You can make it more difficult by lifting one leg off the ground or adding weights. 

• Clamshells. Don’t forget the small but important gluteus medius. Clamshells target this side glute muscle. Add a resistance band around the knees to make it more challenging. 

Yoga is a great workout for golf preparation. It improves flexibility and strength. It can even boost your upper body strength for a more powerful swing. Find out more about yoga for upper body strength here. 

Other Important Pre-Season Golf Workouts

Strength training is necessary for a powerful golf swing, but your golfers also need to work on flexibility, power, and overall cardio fitness. 

Power Training for a Powerful Swing

Once your golfer has a good base of strength training, add in power workouts. These include explosive, fast movements with weight. They will help your golfers with a more powerful swing to send the ball farther. 

Focus on upper body moves, like hang cleans, wood chops, cable push pulls, and push presses. Do them with speed. Start with smaller weights and work on good form to make sure they don’t get injured. Provide plenty of recovery time between reps and sets. 

Exercises to Get Ready for Golf Season Must Target Flexibility and Mobility

Stretching isn’t just for the warm-up before a game of golf. Get your golfers in the habit of stretching and working on mobility daily to prepare for the season. Here are some good moves to try: 

• 90-90 knee drop. Take it slow on this one to start if your clients are not very flexible. Alternating back and forth between the two positions improves knee and hip mobility. 

• Back and shoulder stretches. Give your clients several back stretches to keep them mobile in the upper body. 

• Hip openers. Golfing requires a lot of movement in the hips, and most people fall victim to tight hips from sitting all day. Try things like runner’s lunge stretches and seated hip stretches. The yoga pigeon pose is also useful for the hips. 

• Wrist and shoulder stretches. These will help keep the joints mobile and prevent typical golf injuries. Stretch the wrists by pressing the hands up and down. Do the same with the forearm resting on a horizontal surface to get the elbows. 

Don’t Forget About Cardio

Your clients will spend hours walking the course, so encourage them to do cardio workouts two or three times per week. The best cardio routine for any client is the one they will stick with, so don’t be too picky about what they do. 

Because golf involves so much walking, any cardio that is similar is ideal. Brisk walks, jogging or running, and even hiking are great options for getting ready for golf season. 

Boost Your Expertise as a Certified Personal Trainer

Golfing is just more fun when you’re fit. It’s easier, you feel better, and best of all you get a better score and hit the ball farther. Help your golf-loving clients get in shape this spring to support their best golf season yet.

Being a personal trainer is all about helping clients meet their own unique goals. Learn how to do it and get certified at the same time. The ISSA’s Personal Trainer Certification program is online and self-guided, so you can complete it at your own pace.