Golf Fitness, what are you doing?

blufblufshuv · January 25, 2023

I'm 51 years of age, about 190 lbs. I lift fairly heavy doing powerlifting, at least for someone of my age/bodyweight.

I took up powerlifting in 2017 to help with back issues. I've had several long breaks from golf. One from the early 1990s until 2012 (played solid for 8 months) then from 2012 until November 2021.

Since returning to golf I've been playing a decent amount and have got my handicap down to 5.9, for me this is a success. What has helped me with a successful return to the game is a. the fundamentals I have ingrained in me from playing a lot as a kid. b. the incredible technology in clubs these days compared with the clubs of my youth (combined with all the great readily internet accessible info out there on the game) and c. a year-round commitment to compound lifting in the gym.

Not everyone can lift the way I do at my age but from my experience, getting in the gym for 90-120 minutes a time 3 times a week differentiates me from my peers. Literally everyone in my age bracket at my club, and many who are younger, are sarcopenic. Many have almost no muscle mass to speak of at all, and certainly no functional muscle mass in regards to golf. They can't work out how I'm able to out hit them by so far, but for me the answer is very simple, its the marriage of golf fundamentals and having the muscle mass to be able to send it.

If it were me designing a program for golfers to get them to hit the ball longer, it would revolve almost solely around adding muscle mass before getting into niche areas of "explosive drills" or whatever. There's no point doing said drills if you don't have the muscle mass to be explosive in the first place, and doing barbell curls or whatever isn't going to cut it, has to be compound lifts with progressive overload as part of the programming. Even a couple of extra kilos of muscle will make huge difference to your golf game if you have decent swing fundamentals. There's also a decently close proximity between learning lifting fundamentals and golfing fundamentals, so for example learning how to squat properly (if your body allows it) should not be hard to learn as a golfer.

I got my initial powerlifting programs from the Barbell Medicine people, I highly recomment them. One of them, Dr Jordan Feigenbaum, is an avid golfer who lifts very heavy.