Balancing Your Training and Playing Golf
Balancing workouts throughout the week or “season” for golfers is one of the things most golfers have a challenge with.
A question I am often asked is “How do I balance training and making progress in the gym while still playing and practicing without being too sore?”
There isn’t one best way to approach this as there are so many variables to consider for each person so rather than answer with a specific thing for everyone I will instead cover many of the variables you might need to consider in your training and give my thoughts on them so you can test them in your training and figure out which option is best for you and your situation:
Firstly, something I like my clients to consider at a higher level:
Take a look at your year or season:
This is something most golfers fail to do. I see most place a high importance on every weekend round which is why they never pull the trigger on getting started with their training or fail to plan their training and practice schedules very well. There will never be a perfect time to start so the best time to start was yesterday and the next best time is today.
Now I don’t know this for a fact but I would be very surprised if PGA tour players don't have big red circles around the dates for each of the four majors each year as times during the season they want to be at the peak of their games. Highlighting these dates helps them plan their training and practice schedules around it. With those dates in mind and placing the priority on these events it gives them the ability to work back and plan everything out. This gives peace of mind and clarity as to what they’re doing as they may have ups and downs during the year and from session to session but they know if they stick to their plan they can trust it is part of the process and in line with their long term goals.
What is your level of training experience:
Beginners to strength training can build considerable strength, mobility and power/speed with minimal sessions in the gym because the stimulus on the body is new and the body will adapt quickly to this.
If you’re Intermediate progress will happen more slowly but following a well structured program consistently will still yield good results in season or off season.
If you’re Advanced and have been training for a number of years it is harder to make progress without a higher volume or more specificity in your training or by finding a new stimulus/exercises for the body. If you’re in this position something to consider is it’s easy to do a small amount of work to maintain the current level you’re at now VS the effort it would take to make considerable progress. This situation lends well to an in season and off season approach. Maintenance in season and off season ramp up volume and intensity while events aren’t on or the course is unavailable.
The last thing I will mention on this point is, the majority of golfers can make significant progress with less work than they think, if they are working on the right things consistently. Once you understand what these things are it is easy to piece together a training program which will bring up the physical capacities which will transfer best to your on course performance.
What are the different ways to structure training sessions:
Body part splits
This is the method I commonly use with clients just starting out in their golf specific training journey. As the name suggests we split the body into segments and work each segment at different times of the week. Aiming to work the parts which will get the sorest and effect play and practice the most early in the week and then working our way towards things which will improve our performance on the weekend like speed work closer to the weekends play.
The way this generally looks is.
Mondays: Lower body strength session with Squats, Deadlifts and other accessory movements for lower body. Started with mobility and then finished with core and rotation exercises.
Wednesdays: Upper body pushing and pulling session.Thinking of things like bench press and rows in these sessions. Again started with mobility work and then finished with a core and rotation circuit.
Fridays: Speed and Power work. This is about teaching the body to use the strength you have built to produce force. The sets and reps in these sessions are much lower and each rep is performed at a 100% effort in order to elicit the response we’re looking for. These sessions rarely if ever leave clients sore as the reps are so low and more often than not have the client feeling more free and moving better for their round on the weekend. Again these sessions start with mobility and are then finished with core and rotation work.
Full body splits
This method is better for someone who has Intermediate or Advanced training experience behind them as they will be doing a little bit of everything each day. So mobility to start, strength work which will include upper and lower body, core and rotation work with a bit of speed work sprinkled in.
The reason this method is great for someone with a little more training experience is they generally need a little more exposure to movements in order to still make progress. For example squatting once per week when starting out you will make gains for a while but then when this progress stops you need to increase the volume which can be hard to do in just one session per week on squats or you split a larger workload over 2-3 sessions in order to give the body enough stimulus to continue to get stronger.
The way it might look.
Mondays: Mobility work, lower body hinge and squat, upper body push and pull movement and then core and rotation and speed/power work to finish.
Wednesday: Mobility work, lower body hinge and squat (different variation to Monday), upper body push and pull movement (different variation to Monday) and then core and rotation and speed/power work to finish.
Friday: Mobility work, lower body hinge and squat (different variation to Monday and Wednesday), upper body push and pull movement (different variation to Monday and Wednesday) and then core and rotation and speed/power work to finish.
Now I have introduced a couple of ways you can split up the training program with exercises and body parts how do you fit them across a week depending on the frequency you can train:
Organising your training week:
In order to fit everything of importance into a week's training and to spread the work evenly throughout the week I like to program 3 days per week. This allows sessions to be completed quickly depending how experienced you are in the gym and keeps soreness levels lower than if you were to do 2 harder and longer sessions during the week.
If 3 days per week isn’t achievable and a client can only do 2 sessions per week you can do this a number of ways:
Stick to the 3 day cycle and do it as follows, session 1 and session 2 one week then the next week start with session 3 followed by session 1. It would look as follows: 1+2, 3+1, 2+3, 1+2 etc till you reach the end of the cycle or program.
If you know what your priorities are then you can omit the things you don’t want to or need to work on. For example in one of my beginner programs if you’re only interested in strength work then day 3 can be omitted and you can do day 1 and 2 only. Or if you want lower body work and speed training you can do day 1 and 3 to achieve this.
If you’re following my intermediate or advanced programs which are full body split sessions you can follow the suggestion I made in point 1 and do the days in order crossing over weeks or choose the 2 days you feel will get you the best bang for buck and stick with those.
If 3 days per week is achievable or if you’re in your off season and you want to add a 4th or more days of training it’s why I include additional programming options in the Fairway Performance Training App. Core workouts, mobility routines, swing speed training and full body mobility/warm up routines which are all great as supplementary training pieces.
The do’s and don'ts with sets and reps:
As someone who writes programs it is a common frustration I come across when a client or someone changes the reps associated with the exercises because they “feel” they need more volume or it isn’t hard enough.
The Issue with this is the intended stimulus goes out the window and if you don’t understand the “why” behind the programming it’s best to ask the person who wrote the workouts as to how to adjust in your situation before changing it.
The basics of sets and reps:
If programming to build muscle 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps is a good start point. The goal of the loading and volume this set and rep scheme brings is muscle hypertrophy. Essentially it’s what bodybuilders do to put on size and for golfers is beneficial because extra muscle mass will increase our metabolism, help to reduce body fat and also give us the potential to produce more power and speed in our golf swing. The volume we do it at is significantly less than bodybuilders so chances of getting too bulky are not a problem. Bodybuilders will often also use other means with which to help with muscle growth which is not risky and has side effects of its own but can short cut the process.
I like this as a starting point for most clients because most people will increase club head speed immediately, the weights are not too heavy and the amount of reps helps someone master a movement before moving to something heavier for less reps.
If programming for strength/power/speed 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps is a good start point. In my programs I use this for mainly the Advanced clients. The reason being is they have an idea of what they can lift, their technique is generally good and having a weight this heavy is the stimulus they need to build strength, power and speed. This volume will build muscle but not as quickly as the 8-12 rep range and will build considerable strength as the loads will be higher. This has the effect of also making the body use a higher number and coordination of more motor units. Essentially muscles working and firing together to lift the weight.
These are the two main set and rep formats used for golfers because they will give us the most benefit to our game.
If you’re wondering how you progress with these formats heres a couple of rules:
Start with the lower end of the volume (3x8) and when you complete this you should feel like you could do 1-2 reps at the end of each set. Then the next week using the same weight do 3x9 the week after 3x10 etc till you reach 3x12. Then pick a heavier weight and go back to 3x8 and repeat the process.
This method is if you want to increase the weight each week. In week 1 you’d do 3x12 at a weight you feel you could do at least 1-2 more reps at then the week after add an incremental amount to the movement and do 3x12 again with the heavier weight. Repeat this process till you can no longer do 12 reps then go to 3x11 reps and repeat the process and the weight should be a little higher than when you started at 12 reps.
Making adjustments as you go:
When starting out with anything there is going to be a bit of trial and error until you find the right routine, balance, volume and intensity for your workouts and playing/practice schedule. It’s important to remember this as you get started and give yourself permission to make small errors along the way. It’s part of the process. You won’t always get it right so be open to tracking and not afraid to make adjustments as needed and if you’re a client of mine in the Fairway Performance App use the messaging feature to ask me questions so I can offer suggestions to help you.
Something to note is you don’t NEED to be sore from every single workout for it to have been effective. You might find training certain muscle groups will make you more sore and some parts of the body can handle more volume and don’t get sore as easily. Some level of soreness and fatigue is likely to occur as you progress and learn what your limits are so expect this to happen. Some variables which can trigger soreness are, changes in exercises or variations of exercises (stimulus), reps/duration (volume), weight (load), eccentric loading (time under tension).
By no means is this a complete list of considerations but it is the ones I see most often in clients and the ones I am asked the most about when playing golf with others. If you have any questions or would like to contact me about your situation I’d love to chat and you can email me: shaun@fairwayperformance.com
All of the advice and suggestions I have used in this article is they way I program for clients within the Fairway Performance Training App
If you want help with the commitment and support on your journey you can take me up on a 7 day free trial of the Fairway Performance Training App which is the medium I use to help golfers around the world improve what their bodies are capable of so they have the potential to play better golf. There are programs in there for golfers at any level of play and experience in the gym and guides which will help you decide at which point is best for you to start. You will also be able to direct message me through the app for any additional questions you have along the way!
If you have any other questions you can contact me in these ways:
Email: shaun@fairwayperformance.com
Instagram: @shaun.diachkoff
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