As we transition into spring and summer it’s time to start adjusting your training schedule based on your playing schedule. Even if you don’t play tournaments you’re still in-season if you’re playing more regularly. In-season training should be slightly different from off-season training but there still has to be training!
*** Golf shouldn’t be your only exercise. If it is you will get injured at some point.
During the season is always a touchy subject for golfers and in my experience the first thing to fall off is the gym. It’s time to golf! I don’t need to workout….have you heard someone say that before? Have you said that before? Have you felt like you were getting weaker or losing endurance as the season progressed?
When deciding on what to focus on during the season you have to consider a few things:
- Tournament Schedule
- Practice Schedule
- Power and Speed
- Recovery
- Peak
In-Season Tournament Schedule
Depending on what level you’re at with your playing journey will determine how much you play. If you’re a competitive golfer then you should be able to figure out your playing schedule and determine a fitness schedule. If you’re a junior or amateur golfer then you don’t have a lot of control over when and where you play. The professional golfers get the luxury of picking and choosing what tournaments to compete in year in and year out. They pick the tournaments that fit with their families and they also pick the tournaments where they’ve had past success.
If you want to be an elite golfer then it’s time to sit down and look at your season and decide when you can train harder and when you need to pull it back. Ideally you will feel powerful, stable and injury free during the big tournaments. It doesn’t matter if you play in a men’s league or the PGA tour. If you want to be the best YOU can be then you need to plan out your time.
Planning out your season is definitely the recipe for success. Like I said, try to peak for the biggest tournaments and train so that you feel good when you compete. This means that our bodies are working efficiently with now injuries.
How do you do that? Systematically planning out training sessions, recovery sessions, nutrition, practice and sleep. How bad do you want it? This is what the golfer at the highest level is doing. Even if we’re not at that level we can use some of the methods they do to improve our games and really our lives. This is a controllable and the best way to improve is to control the things you can control.
Practice Schedule
My posts are about showcasing ways of becoming the best version of yourself or the best athlete you can be. As we know that doesn’t just happen in the gym. We have to practice our sport for hours on hours in order to become a master of our crafts.
First of all, golf is a highly skilled game and practice has to be a high priority. The amount of practice will depend on a lot of different things. What level of golfer you are and how committed you are to improvement? How much do you work? School? Family?
This is not my expertise and I leave this to the golf coach, but I do need to understand how much you are practicing. This allows us both to understand the physical demand on your body from playing the sport. From there we can come up with a dynamic plan to assure you are maximizing your time in the gym. The gym is something we use to enhance our play. Don’t get it twisted. Practicing the sport is more important than training. We need both to be successful but getting better at the skillset you want to improve is the #1 priority.
Below is an example of how my clients and I work through their playing and training schedule.
Power and Speed
Two buzz words in fitness and even more in golf! If you follow my content then you have heard me talk about these two physical attributes a lot. The tours are longer than ever before and it will continue to be that way with the advancements in sports science. With people like Bryson Dechambeau changing the game more and more players are looking for distance.
How do we achieve more distance?
By developing power and creating speed! This is by far the most fun you will have in the gym. Power and speed are meant to be trained at maximal effort with minimal volume and lots of recovery time. Kind of like your golf swing if you think about it. You tee off and hit your driver and then you walk to your ball (rest) and then you repeat. You might do 3 – 6 repetitions / holes with lots of rest. Speed and power training should be similar. 1 – 5 repetitions at maximal effort with lots of rest time. Usually, 2 – 5 minutes is needed to fully recover before the next set. Some examples of this are things like Olympic lifting, plyometrics, medicine ball tosses, STACK System and Speed Sticks.
Below are three of my favourite drills to develop rotational power:
In-Season Recovery
As we’ve discussed in previous posts, recovery is the “secret sauce” that most athletes don’t put enough emphasis on. During the season this is even more important if you want to assure you are recovering properly and feeling great on the course. No one wants there season cut short because of an injury!
Depending on the level of golfer you are will depend on how much recovery you need. Tour pros are playing A LOT of golf, on a daily basis, and they need to account for that in their recovery process. If you are a competitive junior, I would put you in the same category. For these athletes, recovery is really the most important thing or like I said the “secret sauce” of training. Maximizing sleep, taking rest days and your nutritional intake is the easiest way to assure you are recovering properly.
Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day. Try it for a month and you will feel the difference. You won’t be as groggy during the week after sleeping all weekend. Also, it’ll feel easier on the weekends by the end of the month. That doesn’t mean that you have to get up at 5am everyday. Try to get your 8 hours of sleep. If that means 12pm – 8pm, in your life, then that’s what it is! Just keep it consistent.
Another way we can recover is movement. That doesn’t mean go to the gym and push yourself to the limit. Recovery style workouts look to mobilize and stabilize areas of the body that have been stressed from training or playing your sport.
Below is a Recovery Workout for Athletes:
In-Season Peak
A lot of athletes have heard the word peak but do you really know what it means? Do you know how to peak for the right tournaments? I struggled with this concept for many years and I’m a coach! If you’re an athlete then you should be peaking at certain times of the year in order to be at your best during the biggest competitions. This is done with proper scaling of exercise programs, practice schedule and playing schedule.
During this phase you’ll want to be explosive and be in the phase of training where you’re working on speed and coordination. Sounds like power training, right? That’s because most athletes are usually in some sort of power or sport specific phase by the time the season comes and especially when they are trying to peak.
Check out my In-Season Training program below:
If you want to maximize your season then you need to consider a lot of things. Training and playing golf aren’t the only factors that will determine if you’re average or elite. The elite control the things they can and make sure that those things enhance their performances, not hinder it.
In conclusion, start training to improve your game and body and your health will improve at the same time.. This will set you up for success in golf as well as life. I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post. Thank you for supporting CSC Performance Coaching!
From Average to Elite.
Stop misusing your time doing the same thing in the gym expecting a different result! Let me develop a personalized plan to maximize your potential and start living the life you deserve. We will identify your limitations and turn them into your strengths! Take your athletic ability, game, body and LIFE to the next level! Don’t waste another minute. LETS GO!
Check out the ways I can help you go From Average to Elite:
Thanks for reading! Until the next one……
Mark
CSC Performance Coaching