The 5 Biggest Golf Fitness Mistakes To Avoid
1. Not following (or sticking to) a program
This would have to be the most common mistake I see people make. They see exercises on Instagram or Youtube and chop and change frequently without giving their bodies enough time to make any progress whether in strength or mobility because they do not provide enough exposure to it.
You see for the body to make any adaptations or changes we need to provide it with a certain stimulus which will then create the changes we desire. Principles like progressive overload and linear progression need to be adhered to in order to create lasting change within our bodies. If you think back to the last time you tried to make changes to your swing, it takes a while for them to become natural and require minimal thought and effort and completely be ingrained. You can think of training the same, if you want strength, mobility and fitness which last you need exposure to them fr a long period of time consistently.
I feel the hardest part for most people who fall victim to this mistake is that once they have done an exercise a few times it can be hard to see much progress in that exercise. This is due to the body making lots of progress initially and then progress becoming harder to come by the longer you do it. This is where a good program which provides different ways to progress comes in handy and will keep things exciting and motivating enough to stick to it.
2. Trying to undo years of no training as fast as possible
I get it. The fitness industry is notoriously bad for promoting quick changes for people but it just simply does not work like that. I’m sure this is not news to you and I’m not the first person to say it but I don’t like to beat around the bush and will just shoot you straight. I commonly joke with clients and say if having a 6 pack and $1 million dollars in the bank was easy everyone would have it and it wouldn’t be special, but it’s hard work and takes a long time and lots of effort to have either.
You can think of training like you would your bank account if you were to continuously make small deposits long term plus compounding interest you will be looking at a healthy and large bank account but if you don’t make these deposits, well I don’t really need to explain what that looks like.
So my advice around those starting out with a training program is to pick a number of sessions per week which is achievable (even 1 or 2 sessions is enough to get the ball rolling) and you have the potential to exceed and nail them for a period of time. Usually 4-6 or even 6-8 weeks is enough time to commit to. Doing this will do a couple of things, 1, it will make you feel good about yourself because you’re actually making it in and completing the sessions, 2, it will build momentum and hopefully through starting to see results you will want to add to the amount of sessions you’re doing because you want to increase your rate of progress and make further gains.
By slowly building yourself into a new habit like this you’re setting yourself up for long term and sustainable success.
3. Not starting a program with a foundation of strength and mobility work
Fitness or endurance is easy to build and can be done very quickly and will disappear quite quickly. True strength and good mobility take a longer time to build but are very easy to maintain.
The way I view programming is I want a client to be able to follow it long term and make sustained progress over time. This cannot be done if strength and mobility work isn’t the foundation the whole way through. Building a larger range of motion and strength through that range of motion is the most important thing for not only general health and longevity but also your performance on the golf course.
Strength and mobility work are the hardest to continually make progress in. Initially you will see fast results especially when the exercises are new for you but over time it will become increasingly difficult to improve in both of these areas unless you have a program which plays with different variables, rep ranges and phases of muscle building, loading and de-laoding.
4. Expecting changes to happen on course straight away and being disappointed and quitting when they don’t
Different to point 2 where I was talking about performance improvements in the gym in this point I am more referring to seeing performance increases on the course.
Just because you don’t start hitting the ball 20-30 yards further after your first training sessions it doesn’t mean your program isn’t working. The way I like to describe how we transfer our in gym performance improvements to on course improvements is through the help of a swing coach or PGA professional.
Gym work is us improving the hardware we have to work with. You can think of this the same as you would take your car to the mechanic to have it tuned up and have the engine tweaked and handling/suspension improved. From there with the improvements made you would need to take the car to the track to test and even get the advice of a coach on how you can handle the improvements and best utilise them in your situation. This is the same with your body and the need for practice and testing and the advice of a swing coach to help you.
5. Changing the program as you go without understanding what the sets and reps are and why they are to be done this way. Talk about stimulus and why it is important to stick with it.
This is a tough one to watch as a coach who spends time and effort writing programs and understanding exactly what goes into them.
Programs are written by coaches with specific sets and reps to follow in order to get a certain adaptation from it. For example when working on speed and power we need to stick in the 3-6 rep range, when building muscle 8-12 reps is best and for strength work 3-5 reps is a good range to be in. These reps aren’t written because it is my opinion that they will work, they are there because they are highly researched by scientist much smarter than me and have been proven time and time again to work.
The way I see people deviate form this is when they “feel” like something wasn’t hard enough, something didn’t make them sweat enough or they feel like they could do more. If you ever find yourself in this situation trust the fact that what you’re doing in a program is written for a reason and although you may not feel like it has done something chances are it has. The other thing to consider is if you are asked to do 5 reps for a squat as an example and you feel you could do 3-4 more reps the weight probably isn’t heavy enough and you should go heavier so you’re hitting the correct stimulus.
As a golf fitness coach I include detailed program guides with each of the programs I write within the Fairway Performance training app. These give the clients a description of why they’re doing certain sets and reps, how to approach the program, how they should go about selecting weights and what they should do to progress within the program plus where they need to move to next.
I really hope the information in this post helps you in your fitness journey by learning from some of the mistakes I see others make and allows you not to fall into the same traps. At the end of the day though this information is a start point and implementing it and making it a habit you consistently stick to is another thing. This is where I see real value in hiring a coach or committing yourself to a program.
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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