In this post we discuss how you can use resistance training to improve power for golf without getting injured.
Movement fascinates me and the golf swing is certainly a fascinating movement.
How do you swing a long club back to the same place it started from with speed and accuracy?
And how do you do it multiple times, in different conditions, on different surfaces, all with a high degree of reliability?
It’s not easy.
In common with many popular sports, there’s plenty of nonsense that surrounds training for it.
This contributes to the physical issues that golfers frequently suffer from including back pain and shoulder problems.
Why you shouldn’t use exercises that look like golf
Let’s start by dispatching a key tenet of golf specific conditioning, the exercises you use to improve your performance for golf, shouldn’t look like golf.
In fact the closer they resemble the golf swing, the worse off you may be.
Let me ask you this, would you change your clubs on the day of an important competition?
Probably not right? You’d want to practice with them for a while before using them in a match.
The golf swing is so specific that even minor changes to the equipment you use may impact your performance.
So how does a gym exercise like swinging a stick with a cable attached to it transfer to the golf swing? It doesn’t.
Not only will this do little to improve the strength of the muscles involved, it may also interfere with the very skill you’re trying to train for.
Specificity
This approach comes from a confused interpretation of one of the principles of training, specificity.
The SAID principle states that a demand placed on the body will produce a specific adaptation in direct correlation with the demand imposed.
In other words if you do a bicep curl with a weight that causes fatigue in the biceps, your body will respond to that demand by creating specific changes to the biceps.
It won’t create changes to the muscles of your leg, or give you the ability to bicep curl twice as much weight the next time.
The very fact a weight has been added to something that looks like a golf swing provides the worst of both worlds.
It’s no longer specific enough to create a positive transfer to the golf swing and the demand is not great enough on any one muscle to stimulate a strength gain. You are simply moving around.
Speed
One of the questions that frequently arises with the golfers I train is why we don’t train using fast movements.
The golf swing is a rapid action after all. Intuitively it makes sense to perform resistance training exercises in the same way if you’re trying to develop more power.
Scroll through the exercise section of most golf websites and you’ll see many exercises which take place at speed and are claimed to improve power.
These include exercises like medicine ball slams and Olympic style weight lifting.
Here’s the thing though, power is not a particular exercise, it’s simply the rate of doing work.
It can be expressed as the amount of force you produce x the distance you move / time.
To improve power therefore, we need to improve how much force your muscular system can produce and how quickly it can do so.
Risks of using speed with resistance training
What’s the problem with moving weights fast I hear you say?
The main issue is risk of injury. The forces involved in resistance training increase markedly when you add speed to a movement.
Watch this demonstration by a colleague of mine using a simple luggage scale and a cable machine.
The number on the weight stack becomes almost meaningless when you begin to throw a weight around.
Most golfers want to use resistance training to get better at golf and avoid injury. They don’t want to give themselves an opportunity to get injured doing something else.
Training in this way doesn’t produce optimal gains in strength either. The target muscle has to deal with large peaks of force in some parts of its range, but very little in others. This may produce poor outcomes in terms of overall strength.
Lastly to actually move fast you also need to use a lighter weight. The heavier the weight, the slower you will move. Needless to say this will also impact strength gains.
Fast twitch motor units
Every muscle in your body has a mixture of what’s called slow and fast twitch motor units. A motor unit is made up of a motor neuron (nerve cell) and all the muscle fibres it innervates.
Fast twitch motor units have a rapid contraction velocity and can produce large amounts of force. These are the muscle fibres we need to stimulate in order to improve power in your golf swing.
There are two ways to do this.
- Use a resistance that brings about fatigue in the target muscles.
- Have the intention to move quickly.
Both methods will use fast twitch motor units but neither require you to actually move quickly.
Resistance training and intensity
Using a weight that is heavy enough to bring about fatigue in the muscles will recruit fast twitch motor units.
Henneman’s size principle states that your central nervous system (CNS) will preferentially recruit slower motor units at the beginning of an exercise, but if the exercise is continued to a point of fatigue it will recruit every motor unit at its disposal.
Training to fatigue is something you should progress towards however and not necessarily the best place to start. It is also best done using strength training machines to minimise the risk of injury.
Intend to move quickly but don’t
One of the key factors in improving power is something called rate of force development (RFD).
This is not just how much power your muscles can produce, but how quickly they can produce it.
PGA Tour professionals typically take less than a second to move from initiating the back swing to striking the ball. Just 0.25 seconds of that time is spent getting from the top of the backswing to the ball itself.
That’s 0.25 seconds to get as much force out of your muscles as possible. Not long.
Whilst the size and strength of the muscles involved play a vital role, how swiftly your central nervous system (CNS) can coordinate the action is important.
This can be improved without moving at all using isometric muscle contractions, or by using resistance training within the parameters discussed above.
It should also be noted that the golf swing itself can be used to train for speed. This might be the most productive place to do so given what we know about specificity.
Other factors to consider when training for golf
Deceleration
Whilst the muscles that produce acceleration are an important component to the development of power, the muscles that control acceleration aren’t always considered.
There’s no point in having a Ferrari if you have the brakes of a Fiesta however.
Your CNS is very much aware of your strengths and weaknesses so it won’t allow you to drive too fast if it thinks it can’t stop you.
Many golfers have large strength differences between the muscles they use to drive the ball and those who’s job it is to control that movement. These asymmetries may also place you at greater risk of developing physical issues like back pain.
Effective resistance training for golf should also focus on these muscles as well.
Joint range of motion
Do you ever feel like you’re playing golf with the brakes on permanently? And do the brakes seem to go on harder the further you get in a round?
When we think about muscle tightness we usually think of stretching as a solution.
There are several issues with stretching but the most pertinent to this post is its potential impact on everything we’re trying to improve. Most specifically RFD and power.
Stretching addresses the symptom but not the root cause of the issue which is likely to be weakness in the muscular system.
It’s rarely thought of in this way but resistance training applied with care will increase joint range of motion without the potential for negative consequences.
Putting it all together
- Resistance training for golf shouldn’t look like golf.
- Train with a resistance that brings about fatigue in the muscles you’re working.
- You can use the golf swing itself to work on speed.
- Focus on training the muscles that decelerate the swing.
- Train the edges of joint motion to improve range of motion rather than stretch.
Summary
The golf swing is a very specific skill. Use resistance training to optimise the performance of your muscular system, then practice your sport. Mixing the two will lead to substandard results in both areas.