Our Golf Workout Program is designed to deliver the strength gains and physical resilience needed to amp up your club head speed, while making you fitter and healthier too. The man behind this program is Henry Howe, the founder of Athletic Golf and an accredited practitioner in both Strength & Conditioning and Osteopathy.
He’s built a program that you can do at home, using minimal kit, which will build your strength and golfing power across four weeks of consistent training. Howe relies on his deep experience working with golfers, from The Open pro players to club amateurs, in order to build better bodies, while emphasizing personal wellbeing.
“I certainly don’t think you need to be fit to play golf, but it makes it a whole lot easier and doing some work in the gym can help unlock your golfing potential,” he says. So, read on to find out how you can get stronger, faster...
A Gimmick-Free Program
So what, exactly will this exclusive golf workout focus on to improve? Howe breaks it down like this:
Strength – the ability to produce force, the physical trait that underpins speed. Power – the ability to produce force quickly, aka speed. Mobility – the ability to take your body into positions that are advantageous for a repeatable golf action.
You may have seen the label ‘golf workout’ on other programs, and the internet is groaning with routines that include what Howe calls “golf-looking exercises”, which seem to be trying to mimic golf movements. Unfortunately, these are often just gimmicks. “They will do very little to improve the raw materials you need to play golf well. If you’re ever wondering if an exercise might be good for golf, ask yourself whether or not it falls within the three categories above,” he advises.
Howe is an accredited Strength & Conditioning Coach with the UKSCA and a Registered Osteopath with GOsC, and he’s designed the workouts to be well-rounded with both performance and health in mind. Of course, if you are carrying any injuries or are in any doubt about your readiness to exercise, you should always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare professional before engaging in any programme.
Do the workouts 2-3 times in their respective weeks to start seeing results, leaving at least 24 hours between workouts, or add them into your current program. Stick at it and your golf game, body composition and general health will all thank you!
RSNG Golf Workout: Weeks 1-2
RSNG Golf Workout: Week One Do these moves in order, leaving a 90-120 second rest between each set and 2-3 minutes rest between exercises. Use a weight that you can manage to complete all reps with, while using perfect form (if you have to use muscles other than the ones that the exercise is targeting, then you know your form is off and you should lower the weight, or reduce the reps.)
1. Goblet Squat, Sets: 4 Reps: 8
How To Do It: Start with feet shoulder-width apart, feet turned out to 11 & 1 o clock. Bend simultaneously at the hip and knee, keeping the weight close to your chest to promote a stable torso. Your knees should track in the direction of your feet. Squat down until your thigh is parallel to the floor, and stand tall between reps.
Why Do It? “The goblet squat is the first place to start when developing leg strength. You may feel like generating power in the golf swing comes from your arms, but the golf swing is a full-body sequence and how you interact with the ground is probably more relevant.
2. Half-kneeling Overhead Press, Sets: 4 Reps: 8
How To Do It: “Take a knee and place your knee directly under your hips. Be upright through the torso so that your spine angle is a continuation of the thigh that’s kneeling. Punch the weight vertically without allowing the spine to extend/lean back. Think about the bicep working towards the ear. Lower the weight back down, keeping it close to your body to minimize energy loss.”
Why Do It? “Overhead pressing is perhaps the most important exercise to maintain in your programme for long term shoulder health. Healthy shoulders help the upper back and cervical spine, and shoulder injuries sit third on the list of most prevalent physical ailments. Look after them!”
3. Single Arm Bent Over Row, Sets: 4 Reps: 8
How To Do It: “Use a bench/ chair/ sofa to lean on and get yourself positioned so that your working arm hangs vertically with the weight underneath. Focus on keeping the non-moving parts of your body as still as possible. Grip the weight tight and squeeze the grip throughout. As you pull the weight towards you, pinch the shoulder blade in toward the spine. Lower the weight to the floor with a full straightened elbow.”
Why Do It? “Pulling/ rowing motions are a staple in the programme of any athlete in any sport, especially those involving clubs! This is because pulling movements recruit more or less all the muscles in the back, top and side of the shoulder. It’s a strong pattern too and as the weight rises, so does the demand on our grip – having a strong grip appears to be a good remedy for injuries like golfers elbow, which ruin many a golfers’ summer.”
4. Side-Lying Windmill, Sets: 4 Reps: 8
How To Do It: “Ensure the hip and knee are bent to 90°. Take a deep breath in before opening through the chest and exhaling. Simply focus on drawing as big a circle as possible with your hand, pause for a moment before resetting. Aim to keep the knee flush to the floor as you move – you may need to put a cushion under the knee if you are particularly stiff.”
Why Do It? “It seems to be that whenever anyone says they lack rotation, they talk about their thoracic spine. Well the thoracic spine rotates perhaps 1-2° more per segment than the lumbar spine – trust me when I say, you would not see this amount of movement! But there are more segments in the T-spine, so it is an area that can penalize your rotation when it gets tight. These windmills are a great anti-desk movement and a good way to bring some rotation into your body – throughout the whole spine.”
5. Counter-Movement Jump, Sets: 4 Reps: 8
How To Do It: “Note this is called a jump not a squat…this is because you don’t/ won’t bend down as low at the bottom of the jump. Throw yourself down into the squat before exploding up as high as you can. Do not do continuous jumps as they will become less powerful and this is not a CrossFit class!”
Why Do It? “Jumping is probably the most underrated component in golf power programmes. We tend to see a lot of rapid band movements, a lot of medicine ball exercises – but very little jumping. The jumping you do see is often unnecessarily complicated, trying to bring in those ‘golf-looking’ movements to seduce you into thinking they’re better! Let’s get this straight, people who jump higher swing the club faster. This is because they can produce force quickly and generate high ground reaction forces. As soon as you begin to spin or land on unstable surfaces you reduce how much force you can produce…it’s counter-intuitive. Just jump.”
WHAT NEXT? If you’re looking to do some more work on your golf mobility then check out RSNG’s exclusive golf workout that targets movement skills from Hollywood PT Don Saladino.
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