When you hear off-season, it’s not vacation time but a golden opportunity to hone your golf skills. There are plenty of things you can work on, even if you’re in a place with no clear off-season.
Here’s a recommendation: You can also divide a year into various phases, focusing on specific aspects of improvement. This is especially valuable if you are someone who plays all year round without seeing any progress in your game.
Aspects You Should Work On
1. Technical
You can make significant progress in your short game, full swing, and putting right from the comfort of your home or a facility where you can practice during the winter months.
Hire experts who can assess your game through video and work with you. For this, you should record your swing by using a tripod and your phone to make sure you are using the right camera angles.
2. Recovering From Recurring Injuries
Dealing with injuries that hamper your practice, play, or workouts can be a real roadblock to your improvement. Also, the training that can enhance your golf performance is likely to contribute to the rehabilitation of those nagging injuries.
It’s crucial to understand that there’s no strict division between training exercises and rehab exercises.
3. Improve Your Body Composition
When it comes to the composition of your body, the key players are your resistance training and calorie balance.
If your goal is to maintain healthy and strong muscles, as you start aging especially, you must engage in resistance training. For seniors, this type of training is particularly crucial because it counteracts the natural loss of strength and muscle mass that tends to accelerate with age.
4. Increased Speed of Your Club Head
Every additional mile per hour (mph) speed counts for approximately 2.5 extra yards on your shots, assuming everything else remains constant.
So, if you can boost your speed by ten mph, you’re looking at a fantastic 25 extra yards. Little of this extra speed carries over to all your clubs, giving you the power to be about one club longer.
So, you gain 25 yards away from the tee, and you’re a club longer with your other shots. That translates to a whopping 3 to 4 clubs less into the standard four par holes.
So, even if you’re experienced with speed and strength training, you’ll still have enough space for gains.
5. General Health & Aerobic Training
To boost your well-being, we’ve got to get up and moving more and spend less time glued to our seats.
From cycling, either regular or stationary, hopping on the elliptical, hitting the rowing machine to anything that increases heart rate and maintains it there for a decent time, adding some basic aerobic training to your routine is a fantastic idea.
How to Fit Them All Together
Having a routine is crucial if your goal is to stay consistent. Being consistent is the key ingredient for making long-term progress.
Ideally, you want a week that you can stick to week after week as much as you can. This way, you’ll know exactly what you’re doing and when you’re doing it, helping you get into the right mindset when you train.
A General Training Week
1. Resistant Training
Aim for 2-4 sets of each exercise with a weight that lets you do 5-10 reps each set initially.
Think of these initial weeks as a warm-up for the harder training ahead. You’re basically getting acquainted with the exercises, figuring out the right weights to get started, and gradually getting your body ready for more intense workouts down the road.
2. Speed Training
Now, when it comes to speed training, it doesn’t interfere with your strength training at all, or even if it does, it doesn’t matter.
Speed training must be done when you are feeling clean and refreshed for about 2 to 3 times a week.
How to Speed Train and Strength Train on A Day
If you’re working out at your home and likely to have enough time, combining strength training and speed training on a singular day or in one singular session can be a highly effective strategy.
The perfect way to approach this is by incorporating peed training as one of the power-focused segments of your Fit For Golf workout.
So, the sequence goes like this: warm-up, speed training, and then strength training. To save time, you can decrease the amount of sets of each of your exercises or the amount of exercises from your strength session.
Alternatively, you could split your training into two different sessions on a singular day. So, you’d do your speed training in the morning and then follow up with strength training some other time of the day.
Cardio
If you’re planning to include two cardio sessions in your weekly routine, here’s a solid approach: mix it up with one longer steady-state session and one shorter interval-style session.
For a longer steady-state cardio session, think about dedicating 30 to 60 minutes to an activity you genuinely enjoy. If you prefer a shorter session, consider going all out for 15 to 20 seconds, then ease off for 40 to 45 seconds of lighter activity, and repeat this cycle for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Mobility
When engaging in speed training, the sheer determination to swing faster often results in a longer backswing, achieved at high speed. This dynamic action effectively stretches the muscles we’re aiming to target.
Additionally, when you incorporate strength training with a full range of motion, it also contributes significantly to enhancing your mobility.
When is the Best Time to Practice
The timings of your practice sessions really depend on what your goals are. Combining practice and speed training can be quite effective since you’re swinging already, and it eliminates the need for an extra workout session.
Start with a warm-up, then move into your practice session, and finish up with your speed training. It’s no secret that when your speed training involves using a driver and a ball, it can actually fall under both the practice and speed training categories.
Overall it’s about finding the routine that works best for you.
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