3 Keys to Long Term Health & Golf Fitness

These days the fitness world has become bogged down with so much information that it can be incredibly overwhelming to know where to start or what to do. There seems to be a different fad almost daily on what to do in the gym to make you a better golfer. With all of this information being circulated, some of it good, some of it not so good, it’s easy to fall into paralysis by analysis. This causes a lot of people to either give up, or even worse, never start in the first place. It’s time to simplify all of the information, and put golfers on the correct path to making overarching, long term improvement in their personal health, fitness, and golf game.

Our blog post “The Importance of Golf Fitness” describes just what golf fitness is and isn’t. It also explains why it’s a necessary component of improving a golfers overall game. If you haven’t already, I recommend giving that a quick read. When you’re done, head back here to look at the three keys.

1. Physical Assessment & Goal Setting

We’ve combined these two activities for a reason. We’ve also discussed them previously in the article “If You’re Not Assessing You’re Guessing”. It’s such an important starting point that it deserves reiterating. You need to identify your weak points in order to build a workout program, and set realistic attainable goals. If you don’t identify what you need to work at in order to improve, you’ll constantly be disappointed in your results. The best way to get the results that are both best for you and what you want out of your program are to identify your weaknesses/areas that need the most improvement. From there, you set a goal that coincides with that as well as something personal that you wish to accomplish.

Let’s say you lack mobility in your hips, but you also want to be stronger in your upper body. You have a goal of doing 20 consecutive pushups. Well, you now have a great starting point! You can now build a workout program with those things in mind. This will help narrow down what you need to do in your workouts to both improve a weak point, and accomplish a personal goal.These identified weaknesses and goals allow you to be much more specific when developing your workout program. Which leads us to our next key point.

2. Programming & Consistency

Fitness influencers would have you think that the best way to make progress in the gym is to change your exercises on a daily basis. It’s becoming a common misconception due in large part to the fitness community having this need to constantly come up with new exercises. There is no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to creating your own program. The basic functional movement patterns haven’t and won’t change. (ex. horizontal and vertical pushing and pulling, hinging, squatting, core flexion, extension, rotation, anti extension, and anti rotation). With these basic movement patterns, your goals, and assessment results in mind you should be able to come up with a program consisting of exercises that address all of these areas. You can break this program up into however many days per week you want as long as it’s sustainable. It also needs to be something you’re able to be consistent with.

If you aren’t able to consistently get your workouts in on a weekly basis whether it be three, four, or five times per week you’ll greatly hinder your progress. Consistency not only matters in your weekly routine of simply showing up to the gym, but it’s also incredibly important in the exercises you are doing week in and week out. As stated earlier, you don’t need to, and shouldn’t be, changing your exercises every single time you set foot in the gym. Read that sentence one more time.Think of it this way. When learning how to play an instrument or a song, you don’t attempt to learn and master it in one hour and then move onto the next song. You should strive for as much consistency in your workout routine as you do in your golf game.

3. Progressive Overload & Documentation

The last key to long term health, fitness, and the continued improvement of each is progressive overload and proper documentation of workouts. This ties in perfectly to the two key points above. Progressive overload of each exercise you’re doing will be the method used to attain your goals. The documentation of each workout session and exactly what you did in that session will help keep you consistent to your program, and the exercises within that program. It will also show you where you can apply the concept of progressive overload to each exercise on a weekly or monthly basis. 

So what is progressive overload? Let’s use the goal earlier of being able to do 20 pushups in a row. Let’s say we found through our assessment of your current ability you were only able to do 10 in a row. When we sit down to write out a program, we are going to include pushups in at least two of your four scheduled weekly workouts. Knowing that you can do 10 in a row max we are going to work submaximally of that and do 3-5 sets of 6-8 reps, notice that it’s a range. Let’s also say that your first workout, you did 4 sets of 6 reps of pushups which equals out to 24 total reps. When you walk into the gym for your next workout that includes pushups you can look back at what you did last time, because you’ve documented it, and attempt to add a rep to each set. If done successfully you will have done 4 sets of 7 reps which would be 28 total reps. You’ve now added 4 total reps.

This is progressively overloading. You are either adding reps, or sets, to your exercise in order to continuously push yourself to attain that goal. This is why documenting your workouts is so important and why they go hand in hand as well. You need to know what you did last time in order to strive for improvement the next time you’re in the gym. The same concept can be applied to any type of cardio, strength, or mobility movement you are trying to improve. Write down what you did for the day, and attempt to do it at a harder level or faster speed. You may not always be able to progress each and every workout by adding a rep or a set to each exercise. There are other ways to continue to make progress though. Adding weight to a movement and performing the same amount of reps as the last workout would still be considered progressive overload. If all three of those methods aren’t able to be applied you need to then look at your nutrition and sleep. 

Is That All It Takes?

These three things keys are crucial when creating a workout program. They are also the best way to truly improve your overall health and fitness. There are many, many more intricacies and considerations that go into properly programming a workout routine. These could be volume, intensity, tempo, rest, nutrition, sleep, stress, and much more. That’s what we at SMART Golf & Fitness do. We take the guesswork out of every aspect of your golf and fitness game, so you know exactly what you need to do to improve. 

About the Author

Kody is a graduate of Northern Illinois University where he graduated with his B.S in Athletic Training, as well as his M.S in Sport Management. He has practiced as a board certified Athletic Trainer for the past seven years, and has worked with every level of athlete from high school, collegiate, and professional. His background in sports medicine and rehabilitation has given him a different vantage point when assessing a golfer’s movement patterns.

Kody believes there are three things that are most important when it comes to making a change to your golf fitness: assessment, consistency, and goals. He believes these things are most crucial because you will never be able to properly correct something you haven’t fully evaluated and assessed. Progress will never be made if there is no dedicated consistency to the program and process, and you need to set goals in order to drive continuous improvement.

Click here to learn more about Kody.