For everything there is a season. If you’re a golfer, your season is just about here. If you’ve been training for it and putting in that offseason work we told you about, it’s nearly time for it all to finally pay off. But will it?
Not if you keep training like it’s the offseason. Golf is a power game, and power comes from a rested system that is charged and primed to be explosive, not fried from the past week’s workouts. If you train in April like you did in December, you’ll be sabotaging your ability to take those hard-earned golf fitness gains and put them to work on the course. With your season around the corner, it’s now more time than ever to train smarter not harder. Here’s how.
Periodize Your Golf Fitness Training
Think big picture. For most of us, golf is not something we can do year-round. Your window to get on the course is limited to a finite number of months. Wouldn’t it make sense to tailor your golf fitness training accordingly?
Too many of us don’t. Whether motivated by machismo or desires to look in top shape poolside, many of us will fire through the same heavy bench, squat, and deadlift routines year-round. The result is increased fatigue, some good old-fashioned Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), and sub-optimal scores. The smarter way? Periodization.
Periodizing your training means programming workouts into phases, with different goals or points of emphasis in each phase. This targeted approach allows an athlete to pursue more specific adaptations and avoid burnout or progress-stifling plateaus. Of greatest benefit, a periodized approach will allow you to peak at the right time and arrive on the course fresh, ready to shoot those low scores you’ve been training for.
How to Periodize
Periodization involves manipulating training volume and intensity to optimize performance, prevent overtraining, and avoid plateaus. This approach ensures peak physical condition for specific, planned times through a phased approach. Those phases are typically divided into building mass, then improving strength, then developing power, and finally focusing on active recovery.
For golf fitness, that means a phase of hypertrophy-based training immediately after your season ends. Think bodybuilding here: the goal is to put on some muscle. You’ll be doing the big three compound lifts at a minimum (squats, bench presses and deadlifts in some variation) as the staple movement of your workouts. When this phase is complete, the focus shifts to building strength. That’s typically accomplished by doing the same exercises you’ve been doing, now at lower rep ranges but heavier weights.
Then comes the power. Think of the mass and strength training as developing capacity. Now, the power training is going to take all that potential and turn it into explosiveness. You’ll be doing less weightlifting and much more jumping, sprinting, medicine ball slamming, and other plyometric work. Ideally, this phase occurs right before or at the very beginning of your season, and will be followed by a period of active recovery. During the active recovery phase you’re still working out (nobody in the know completely stops training), but now the goal is to reduce soreness and prepare for the next round.
Periodize with a Pro
If you find this level of nuance in your golf fitness training intimidating, relax. There are professionals in the golf fitness space that are well-versed in the notion of preparing golfers for peak performance at the right time. Consider Mike Carroll’s Fit for Golf, for instance. Fit for Golf offers an expansive library of workout options based on a golfers ability and training resources. Among these options are workouts called “Mass” and “Force” for the offseason, a power building “Velocity” program, and “In Season” training. Carroll’s training programs work (witness his stable of professional clients) and come by way of a very cost effective app experience.
With the season around the corner, it’s time to lay off the heavy benching, disc-threatening deadlifts, and bar-bending squats. Adopt a periodized training approach to get you ready to shoot your best scores. Your hard offseason gym work will pay off, if you let it.