139: Fitness Shouldn’t Be So Complicated!

Recently, I asked myself a few pretty important questions, like . . .

“What is the point of all of this golf fitness stuff?”

“Why does the 18STRONG Podcast even exist?”

“Why do you listen in every week?”

“Is it simply to chat with interesting people in the world of golf and golf fitness? or is there more to it than that?”

The answer was pretty clear that it’s not simply about having conversations and putting out random content. The mission is bigger than that. The intent is to help. To simplify. And ultimately provide you with clear cut ways to get in better shape (physically and mentally) to play better golf. That’s it.

With that mission in mind, I realized that sometimes this whole golf fitness thing can get pretty confusing and if you aren’t in the industry of fitness, you might feel like your drifting in the ocean without a life ring.

So the purpose of this episode is to simply give you a few anchors that you can cling to so you don’t get lost in the sea of information out there.

Highlights:

3 Big Golf Fitness Mistakes to Avoid

Stop being so serious:
1. Odds are you aren’t going to get a sponsors exemption into the next PGA tournament.
2. While you should be doing some specific things to help your golf game in your fitness program, let’s get real, what you really need to do
  1. is get in better shape
  2. lose a few pounds
  3. be able to move better
  4. not get tired at the end of a round
  5. and not hurt yourself
3. Stop trying to make everything about golf. Get your body better and your game will change drastically
Lack of Consistency over long periods of time.
1. Slow and steady wins the race
2. It’s not always about how hard you work out or how tired you are after one training session, it’s about small wins and gains over time.
Just going through the motions.
1. You have to actually push yourself and mix it up on a regular basis
2. In order to create change, you have to have focus on what you are trying to accomplish.
3. Doing an exercise without actually paying attention to the how you are generating the force/tension, or without consciously trying to improve leaves a lot of potential on the table.

5 Simple Components to Your Golf Fitness Program

Movement:
1. Completely underutilized. The philosophy is simple. Use it or lose it. (we expect to go out and play golf without ever putting our body in positions that are needed). A load greater than your tissue can handle causes injury
2. Need to move our joints every day: especially
  1. Neck
  2. Shoulders
  3. Trunk
  4. Hips
  5. Ankles
3. Before throwing a bunch of weight on an exercise, we need to know that you can move through the motion without bad form
Resistance:
1. You need to challenge yourself in some way
2. Weights or a position/movement that you can’t get into
3. Typically we think of this as using weights to strengthen our muscles, but sometimes this can be doing those super hard postural exercises and working into new ranges of motion (sometimes these are even harder than the weighted exercises)

Intensity (HIIT)
1. Specifically, I’m talking about doing some sort of high intensity interval training
2. I like because its quick and effective.
3. It tests your cardio, which helps with your endurance and is also a very effective way to burn fat, which is one of the biggest goals that most people are looking for these days in a fitness program (whther it’s golf related or not)
4. Mentally and physically challenging (pushes you to your limits and tests your mental/physical will) which I think we all need to do on occasion )I stopped doing this for a while and forgot how effective and rewarding it can be

Speed
1. Without doing something in your traininig that works on speed, how can you ever expect to move faster than you do today?
2. Includes things like plyometrics, med ball throws, slams, etc. (preferably toward beginning of the workout or on a separate day)
3. My go to for most golfers these days is implementing an overspeed protocol with the Superspeed golf clubs. It’s quick, it’s specific, it works both sides of the body, and it’s fun/easy for people to do on their own.
Nutrition
1. The number one way to lose fat and get leaner. Without question.
2. I don’t think the majority of us put this into the proper perspective.
  1. “I worked out so I don’t have to worry”
  2. Supplements, protein bars, shakes, etc
  3. Fruits and veggies are not the same thing
3. Need to look at this as the primary way that our body functions.
  1. What we eat feeds our heart, our brain, our muscles, every process in the body
4. You can make the scale tip with all kinds of crazy variations, fasting diets, liquid cleanses, etc, but again, simple, consistent eating of good whole foods will win everytime.
  1. Have some strategies around what you are going to eat in a certain situation. I know that when I get off track, it is simply a planning issue.

Each of these have different values in your program depending on what your current and long term goals are. So . . .

WHAT IS YOUR GOLF FITNESS GOAL RIGHT NOW? (if you don’t know, it’s time to sit down and really think about it.)

In general, if I were to put them in a hierarchal order, without taking into account any particular goal, I would list them as follows. I believe movement and nutrition play the most fundamentals roles that everything else builds on.

Movement/Nutrition
Resistance
Intensity
Speed

If you have questions, opinions, or just want to join the conversation, head over to the private facebook group THE 18STRONG MOVEMENT.

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