13 Get Fit Chapter
Get Fit For Golf When I started my challenge I knew that fitness was going to be an issue. It would be fair to say that I was extremely unfit when I started the year. As a result, to a certain extent; I almost relished the fact that I knew the challenge would help provide me with the stimulus to get fit. I had never committed to any sport properly so didn’t really have any decent base layer of fitness and not much of an understanding of what to do. It seems to me that fitness is still one of those “optional extras” that certain golfers feel they don’t need to add to their game. As a concept I find that hilarious. A golfer may not need to have the fitness of a 100 metre runner but it’s still a physical sport in two distinct ways. 1. You spend at least four hours out there walking up and down hills covering well in excess of four miles. An unfit golfer is clearly going to be at a concentration disadvantage on those last nine holes compared to a fit golfer. 2. The golf swing itself is really quite a violent and physical action. Club heads can travel at over 100 mph and clearly for this to happen in some sort of controlled way there needs to be a supple and strong body to produce this action. It was Gary Player who really introduced the concept of the golfer as athlete and the need to hit the gym fairly regularly and it’s hard to argue with his nine majors and remarkable 180 + worldwide tournament wins. I saw Player a few years ago and he still looked to be in remarkable shape – there’s clearly a lesson there. Likewise Tiger’s dominance comes from a number of key factors not least of which is his outstanding fitness. There were a couple of complications with my own fitness though. Since the age of 18 I’ve had niggling arthritis in my hips and latterly in my shoulder too. Overly aggressive range work in the early days (hitting thousands of 6 irons off a hard practice mat) also didn’t help and meant that very quickly I had a lot of pain in my right wrist as well. To finally complicate things I had, rather hilariously, slipped on a sausage in a butchers shop a number of years previously and badly broken my elbow – so badly that it will never go straight again. All this meant that I couldn’t just get out there and start a running and weights regime. I joined my local gym and they developed a decent program for me using various pieces of equipment and for a while I stuck to this. But I soon realised that getting fit was becoming an end in itself and was distracting me from the process of getting better at golf.
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So I decided to go back to the drawing board and create a fitness program myself based on information I’d found on the internet and from Gary Player’s “Golf Begins at 50” book picked up second hand for less than a pound on Amazon. My basic thinking for this new fitness regime had five basic criteria: 1. Get me fit for walking the distances required in a round of golf so that, relatively speaking, I could stand nearly as freshly on the 18the first. 2. Build “golfing muscles” to help me increase my length off the tee. 3. To take as little time as possible and ideally be slotted in and around daily activities. 4. To not spend much money on fancy equipment. 5. To reduce the likelihood of injury through golf in my dodgy joints as well as not exacerbating them through the physical activity itself. Out of that was born a number of slightly mad techniques that allowed me to eventually lose 20 lbs of excess fat (which helped the hip pain more than any other single item) and end up appreciably stronger in my upper body and core muscles. The key tools and techniques I used were the following: ●
● ●
●
●
●
●
Walking with a 10KG weighted vest in heavy sand on the beach. At the same time as this I had weighted straps on my wrists that I would use to twist and turn my arms. This put various mild stresses on them to increase general arm strength. Using my 6.5 lb Momentus swing trainer as a dumbbell. I would lift this 100 times with each arm. Using a set of light dumbbells and lifting them a total of 1000 times – 500 with each arm. I used these with my palms facing inwards since I’d read that this movement uses the arm muscles that are used in golf better. Using a resistance band and resistance tubing in a way that replicated the swing as much as possible. Initially this involved a resistance band attached to a nail on a beam in the spare bedroom but then I “graduated” up to a resistance band with an attachment that lets it fit over a door. Always carrying my bag for the first six months of the year. When out on my own I would use the bag like a dumbbell and simply walk up the fairway raising and lowering it with one arm and then changing arms when one was tired. Always taking the stairs wherever I went. This was classic stealth fitness. While others would wait for the lift I would simply bound up the stairs as fast as I could. Likewise in a car park I would always make sure I parked as far away from the entrance as possible. In a multistory car park I’d park on the very top floor forcing myself to walk up all the stairs rather than taking the first available space. Never using a trolley in the supermarket. Using two baskets and again working my arms to exhaustion by treating the baskets like dumbbells (and hopefully not looking like too
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much of an idiot in the process). ● Swinging the legendary and almost “marriage ending” sledgehammer. This became my weighted club and was probably my key strength building piece of equipment. ● Using a Power Ball. These are readily available on Amazon and are a very useful way of building forearm strength. Ten minutes with a power ball is a pretty serious arm work out. ● Swimming – I take my daughter swimming every Saturday and as well as a healthy amount of “messing about” we used to swim a lot of lengths too. It should go without saying (but I’m saying it anyway) that I’m not a qualified fitness instructor. These are simply the techniques that I used to help me get fit and undoubtedly some of them are probably not just a little bit mad, but also potentially not all that wise if you have slightly dodgy joints like I do. Make sure you fully warm up and stretch before you start any exercise though. That is the one lesson I learnt the hard way. I consistently used not to bother with this step until I realised that I was continually pulling muscles. I badly pulled a muscle swimming with my daughter so it’s important to start any form of exercise slowly until you are fully warmed up. So the key lessons are that fitness is very important to your golf but it doesn’t require expensive equipment, long visits to the gym or even a lot of time working out in your garage. With a little creative thought and a few of my techniques you can improve your fitness by an appreciable amount without a huge amount of effort. In a darkened room or out in your garden at night you switch on both lasers/lights and then simply swing the club normally. You’ll immediately see your swing path traced by the two lights. If you have a loop this will be instantly obvious from the very first swing. Now you just keep swinging backwards and forwards until you get a feel for how much change you need to make to have the two lines trace the same path. It’s a fascinating and illuminating (rubbish pun intended) exercise to see exactly where you are. Personally I couldn’t believe how much correction I needed to do. The great thing about this exercise is that it can very, very quickly eliminate the looping action. Within a week of practicing this at night a few times I had completely eliminated my slice. If anything I have a slight tendency to go the other way with too much of an “in to out” path through the ball but again I can cure this easily using the same drill. So that’s the Flashlight Drill and it was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most effective way to cure my slice and I probably tried two dozen other drills. One point of caution though. Be very careful with the lasers. You do NOT want to shine them in
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your eyes because you can and will cause permanent damage. It’s relatively easy to avoid this but it is still worth mentioning. The natural “Dad” in me also would suggest you keep them out of the way of children. I was paranoid about this because for a seven year old (as my daughter was then) this is a fascinating and exciting toy. You have been warned!
[ www.breakparblueprint.com ]
[ www.breakparblueprint.com ]
So I decided to go back to the drawing board and create a fitness program myself based on information I’d found on the internet and from Gary Player’s “Golf Begins at 50” book picked up second hand for less than a pound on Amazon. My basic thinking for this new fitness regime had five basic criteria: 1. Get me fit for walking the distances required in a round of golf so that, relatively speaking, I could stand nearly as freshly on the 18the first. 2. Build “golfing muscles” to help me increase my length off the tee. 3. To take as little time as possible and ideally be slotted in and around daily activities. 4. To not spend much money on fancy equipment. 5. To reduce the likelihood of injury through golf in my dodgy joints as well as not exacerbating them through the physical activity itself. Out of that was born a number of slightly mad techniques that allowed me to eventually lose 20 lbs of excess fat (which helped the hip pain more than any other single item) and end up appreciably stronger in my upper body and core muscles. The key tools and techniques I used were the following: ●
● ●
●
●
●
●
Walking with a 10KG weighted vest in heavy sand on the beach. At the same time as this I had weighted straps on my wrists that I would use to twist and turn my arms. This put various mild stresses on them to increase general arm strength. Using my 6.5 lb Momentus swing trainer as a dumbbell. I would lift this 100 times with each arm. Using a set of light dumbbells and lifting them a total of 1000 times – 500 with each arm. I used these with my palms facing inwards since I’d read that this movement uses the arm muscles that are used in golf better. Using a resistance band and resistance tubing in a way that replicated the swing as much as possible. Initially this involved a resistance band attached to a nail on a beam in the spare bedroom but then I “graduated” up to a resistance band with an attachment that lets it fit over a door. Always carrying my bag for the first six months of the year. When out on my own I would use the bag like a dumbbell and simply walk up the fairway raising and lowering it with one arm and then changing arms when one was tired. Always taking the stairs wherever I went. This was classic stealth fitness. While others would wait for the lift I would simply bound up the stairs as fast as I could. Likewise in a car park I would always make sure I parked as far away from the entrance as possible. In a multistory car park I’d park on the very top floor forcing myself to walk up all the stairs rather than taking the first available space. Never using a trolley in the supermarket. Using two baskets and again working my arms to exhaustion by treating the baskets like dumbbells (and hopefully not looking like too
[ www.breakparblueprint.com ]
much of an idiot in the process). ● Swinging the legendary and almost “marriage ending” sledgehammer. This became my weighted club and was probably my key strength building piece of equipment. ● Using a Power Ball. These are readily available on Amazon and are a very useful way of building forearm strength. Ten minutes with a power ball is a pretty serious arm work out. ● Swimming – I take my daughter swimming every Saturday and as well as a healthy amount of “messing about” we used to swim a lot of lengths too. It should go without saying (but I’m saying it anyway) that I’m not a qualified fitness instructor. These are simply the techniques that I used to help me get fit and undoubtedly some of them are probably not just a little bit mad, but also potentially not all that wise if you have slightly dodgy joints like I do. Make sure you fully warm up and stretch before you start any exercise though. That is the one lesson I learnt the hard way. I consistently used not to bother with this step until I realised that I was continually pulling muscles. I badly pulled a muscle swimming with my daughter so it’s important to start any form of exercise slowly until you are fully warmed up. So the key lessons are that fitness is very important to your golf but it doesn’t require expensive equipment, long visits to the gym or even a lot of time working out in your garage. With a little creative thought and a few of my techniques you can improve your fitness by an appreciable amount without a huge amount of effort. In a darkened room or out in your garden at night you switch on both lasers/lights and then simply swing the club normally. You’ll immediately see your swing path traced by the two lights. If you have a loop this will be instantly obvious from the very first swing. Now you just keep swinging backwards and forwards until you get a feel for how much change you need to make to have the two lines trace the same path. It’s a fascinating and illuminating (rubbish pun intended) exercise to see exactly where you are. Personally I couldn’t believe how much correction I needed to do. The great thing about this exercise is that it can very, very quickly eliminate the looping action. Within a week of practicing this at night a few times I had completely eliminated my slice. If anything I have a slight tendency to go the other way with too much of an “in to out” path through the ball but again I can cure this easily using the same drill. So that’s the Flashlight Drill and it was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most effective way to cure my slice and I probably tried two dozen other drills. One point of caution though. Be very careful with the lasers. You do NOT want to shine them in
[ www.breakparblueprint.com ]
your eyes because you can and will cause permanent damage. It’s relatively easy to avoid this but it is still worth mentioning. The natural “Dad” in me also would suggest you keep them out of the way of children. I was paranoid about this because for a seven year old (as my daughter was then) this is a fascinating and exciting toy. You have been warned!
[ www.breakparblueprint.com ]
