We are pleased to announce that Sean Cochran, a nationally renowned golf fitness instructor and the personal golf fitness trainer to 2005 PGA Champion Phil Mickelson, has joined PGA.com as a fitness advisor. Cochran, who also has served as strength and conditioning coach for the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres major league baseball teams, will write a weekly fitness blog that will appear exclusively on PGA.com. He'll update it a couple of times a week, telling you about how to achieve better fitness, life on the road -- and in the gym -- with Lefty, plus answer your questions about fitness and how it can help you play better golf. More of Cochran's articles and his acclaimed fitness aids are available at his web site, www.bioforcegolf.com.
Training Variables to Improve Your Golf Swing
Tiger has been on a run and deservedly so. He is one of, if not the most talented player on the PGA Tour, he is "workmanlike" in his preparation, and a tenacious competitor. A great mix for a player of his caliber.
It his hard to believe the PGA Tour season is into its "Fall Finish," the Ryder Cup is a matter of weeks away, and the Tour Championship is not far down the road. For many of us, our golf season is winding down as well. The weather is beginning to change, and fall is in the air. On my end it is the perfect time to begin working on your game for the upcoming season.
An ideal time to take an inventory of this past season both good and bad. Once we have taken an inventory of our game, we can determine what areas need improvement. One of those areas I am guessing is our level of golf fitness. Obviously, improved flexibility and power will impact our golf game. In addition, such a program can help in improved health, weight loss and looking better, all benefits in my book.
The past few weeks we have discussed the benefits of strength training in relation to your golf swing. As an amateur, the goal of strength training is to get your body stronger for your golf swing, which over time will lead to improved distance off the tee, greater stamina, more consistent shot patterns and weight loss if done correctly.
In order for strength training to benefit you in all of these categories, we must utilize a set of training variables to get the greatest benefit from our hard work. These training variables are intensity, load, volume, duration and frequency. Individually or as a group these training variables directly impact our golf fitness program, and the benefits to our game.
The first of these variables is intensity. Intensity is, "how hard should I work or how much effort should be put into each golf fitness exercise?" The higher the intensity of the exercise, the more work being performed.
Our second training variable is load. Load is, "how much resistance should I use for a given exercise(s)?" Typically, load is defined as the amount of weight used for an exercise. It can be in the form of body-weight, weighted balls, dumbbells, or elastic tubing.
Volume is our third training variable. This refers to the amount of work performed in a specific exercise, a higher level of volume per exercise in terms of sets or repetitions will increase the volume of work performed in your golf fitness program.
The fourth training variable is duration, and this is simply the amount of rest time between each set of an exercise. Less rest between sets or exercises increases the difficulty of your golf fitness program.
The final training variable is frequency. This is simply the number of training sessions in a given time frame. The time frame could be a week, month, or even a year. A greater frequency equals more work from you in your golf fitness program.
To see how all of these training variables work, let use an exercise as an example. Referring to last week's exercise, side-to-side medicine ball rotations, we can see the benefit of these variables. Lets begin with intensity. Increasing the number of sets to two from one of this exercise would increase the intensity. Increasing the weight of the medicine ball would increase the load. Performing 20 repetitions for each set would increase the volume, resting only 30 seconds between sets rather than one minute would decrease the duration between sets. And finally performing this exercise three times a week rather than two would increase the frequency.
As you can see all of these training variables can work independent or interdependently of each other to benefit the development of strength in your body in your golf fitness training program.
Previous blog entries:
08/22/06 Functional Strength Training for Golf
08/15/06 Develop Strength the "Right Way" for Your Golf Swing
08/08/06 Want to Maintain the Angles in Your Golf Swing?
08/01/06 Utilize Strength Training to Maintain Your Spine Angle
07/24/06 Strength in Your Core to Drive the Golf Ball Farther
07/11/06 Use Progression to Keep Improving Your Golf Swing
07/04/06 Dynamic Balance Exercises
06/27/06 Two Types of Balance are Key to Your Golf Swing
06/20/06 Balance in Your Golf Swing Leads to More Power
06/13/06 Getting Yourself Ready for a Round of Golf
06/06/06 Joint Range of Motion and a Fluid Golf Swing
05/29/06 Flexibility Exercises to Help with Those Tight Muscles
05/23/06 Guidelines for Your Golf Flexibility Program
05/16/06 Assess Your Flexibility First
05/09/06 Better Golf Exercises to Improve Your Swing
05/02/06 Developing a Repeatable Golf Swing and Your Body
04/26/06 Increasing the Clubhead Speed in Your Golf Swing
04/18/06 How To Prepare for Your Round
04/17/06 Swing Faults are Not Really Swing Faults
03/27/06 You can improve balance in your swing
03/24/06 Improve Your Flexibility and See Results in Your Swing
03/20/06 Your Body is the Foundation of Improving Your Golf Swing
