Golf Blog by The Orlando Golf Blogger

Golf Fitness Guru John Heringer from Fast Action Fitness (formerly PinHighFitness.com) posted up the Top 5 Ways to ignite motivation and determination.

It’s a good short, straight to the point, easily achievable read and I recommend checking it out.

John and I started corresponding a couple months ago when I started the golf fitness series of posts and he’s also written a couple guest fitness posts for the blog. You can read them here.

Essential Components of a Golf Fitness Program – Part 1

Essential Components of a Golf Fitness Program – Part 2

About two months ago, using mytpi.com, John created a completely customized golf fitness workout for me 100% remote. It was a pretty cool process. Using the website, I completed a self fitness evaluation using the videos they have and based on the input from the evaluation John created a sixteen week workout program.

My theory is that players will be able to cut some strokes off their game doing nothing other than exercising with golf specific exercises. So far, I’ve notice some small improvements in my game, nothing ground breaking yet, but I’ve managed to lower my handicap about 1/2 a point. It’s nothing that will launch me into the PGA Tour, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

Here’s the post on the golf workout.

I’ve had a golf fitness poll up for a couple months and it looks like about 1/2 of the golfers who do workout have a golf specific routine. I’m curious to know how it’s impacted your game. What I’d like to see is the vast majority of folks claiming some huge gains in the handi arena because of the workout!

There’s many of us who are crazy passionate about golf and we spend hours and days playing and practicing trying to improve our game. I believe that if we can shift the focus a bit and put more of a fitness spin on it, you’ll reap benefits that far exceed the game of golf.

Just my thoughts, be sure to check out John’s article, it’s a good read!

It’s time for another Golf Fitness post, sorry for the delay!

John Heringer owner of PinHighFitness has been working with me and put together an 18 session golf workout program that I’m about to embark upon.  Well.. to be honest, he completed it some time ago (just received an email from mytpi saying congrats on a successful program! <ahem>) and I’ve been ah.. a bit lazy busy and am only now able to begin the golf workout!

The entire golf workout is customized to me and my fitness level and there was no single face to face interaction required. Using mytpi.com, John set me up with an account and had me watch some videos and do a golf fitness evaluation.

The evaluation takes you through different tests to gauge your present strength and flexibility. You watch a series of videos and try to duplicate what the guy in the video is doing and then rate yourself on how successful you were with it. They catalog this data to get a good idea of your overall golf fitness and flexibility level to see where they need to start you out.

Once that’s complete, John goes in there and builds you a custom golf workout. It’s an 18 workout program, comprised of exercises designed to work the muscles used in golf.

Each golf workout session begins with a 30 minute cardio session of your choosing. Once that’s complete you work through a series of 10-15 exercises varying the number of sets and reps based on your trainers input.

From what I can tell, most of the golf fitness exercises can be done in the comfort of your home, using a combination of an exercise mat, Swiss ball, medicine ball and something called an FMT (Functional Movement Tubing) Band.

Each exercise in the golf workout comes with a video, step by step printable instructions and still images demonstrating the various positions within the exercise.

Here’s an example of one of the exercises..

Shoulder Tubing Matrix 1.

1) Exercise one is called Standing Rows 3-Positions.  Start with your elbows and shoulders at 90 degrees with your arms out in front of your body and your thumbs pointing up.  Squeeze both shoulder blades together as you pull the handles towards your chest. Perform three hand positions (thumbs up, palms down, and thumbs down).

2) Exercise two is called Circles Forward & Backward 3-Positions. Start

in the same position again, but this time try to make small clockwise circles with both hands simultaneously – as if you were pedaling a bike with your hands .  Perform three hand positions (thumbs up, palms down, and thumbs

down). Then repeat with counterclockwise circles in all three hand positions.

3) Exercise three is called Big Swims Forward & Backward 3-Positions.  Start in the same position again, but this time try to perform a big swimming freestyle stroke clockwise with both arms simultaneously.  Perform three hand positions (thumbs up, palms down, and thumbs down). Then repeat with counterclockwise strokes in all three hand positions.

4) The last exercise is called Hitchhikers 3-Positions.  Facing perpendicular to the door with your left shoulder closest to the door, grab the top handle with your left hand and the bottom handle with your rig

ht hand.  Keep both elbows and hands chest high and thumbs pointing up.  Slowly try to extend your right arm out away from the door and keep your left hand over your left shoulder and both elbows chest high.  Perform this in all three hand positions (thumbs up, palms down, and thumbs down) and repeat with your right shoulder closest to the door.

There’s also a video that illustrates the exercise, which you can download to your Ipod which is brilliant, in my opinion. There’s nothing more frustrating than getting to the gym and forgetting all the steps in a complex exercise.

My initial thoughts on the workout..

I really like the fact that you can get a custom golf workout over the internet. Isn’t technology great?? The price is pretty cheap too, $199 for Orlando Golf Blogger readers.

Now, I’m not too savvy when it comes to personal trainers and their costs, but I believe the average is something like $25-$35 per session. So 18 sessions would run you between $450-$630. Granted, there’s many benefits to having a personal trainer, some of which you won’t get with this program, but it’s over 50% less than a non-sport specific trainer and there’s a wealth of golf fitness knowledge at your fingertips.

One thing that bugs me is that about 40% of the exercises require the FMT Band and the ONLY place to purchase it is from the TPI. It’s more a personal gripe though, it makes perfect business sense to do it that way, in my mind, if I’m paying them for this custom golf workout, the least they could do is throw in the first band for free!

You can try and duplicate the exercises at the gym on one of the cable machines, but I suspect that doing this will limit the effectiveness of the exercise.

Other than that, I’m pretty excited to give this a go and see what sort of improvement I see in my game!

If you have any additional questions or if you’d like to give it a try, email John Heringer and tell him Dave from OGB sent ya!

John has also written some guests posts and you can read them here.

Essential Components of Golf Fitness – Part 1
Essential Components of Golf Fitness – Part 2

The Essentials of a Golf Fitness Program – Part Deux

Hello again everyone!

Thank you for your patience in Part two of our series where I’ll talk about the much anticipated Strength/Stability and Power components of a golf fitness program.

If you missed out on part one, here’s the link.

Essential Components of a Golf Fitness Program

So without further ado:

Strength/Stability

Once you have developed mobility in your body and you are able to create a “bio-mechanically efficient” golf swing (see “kinematic sequence & MyTpi.com for more info) and move your joints through proper range of motion, then you are ready for strength and stability.

Strength and stability refers to not only using resistance to strengthen your body (like weights, cables, bands, body weight, etc.) but also the ability to stabilize both your body and the joint that is moving. As golf has a lot of moving parts, the ability to stabilize and utilize the CORE is essential in creating a stable base from which you can create a sounds swing.

Some great stability and strength drills include: front plank/prone iso abs, kneeling chops from high to low or low to high to create distinction between your upper and lower body, rotations with bands utilizing your obliques, side planks, high row and low row with bands or cables, downward chest press with cables or bands and many, many more. To see some of these in action and view others, check out the exercise library at MyTpi.com.

Typically, I like clients to perform two sets of many different exercises with a resistance that is fatiguing usually within 12-15 repetitions. If done three times a week with days of rest in between you can achieve great results. If you are “hardcore” then you could also vary between “push/pull” days where one day includes pushing exercises and the other, pulling exercises. This could allow you to train five to six times a week….but then when would you have time to golf?

Power

Ah yes, the unquenchable thirst for more power and distance. Although power comprises of an important component of a golf fitness program, the reason it comes last is to truly prepare your body for the ballistic movements. Moving at high speeds can be a recipe for disaster and injury. Just think about that one swing you took and tried to kill it and felt your back ache  for days afterward…you know what I’m talking about.

So once you have all the other components implemented and have made significant improvements, then power can be introduced.

Many great power movements include a medicine ball such as lateral tosses against a wall both face on and perpendicular to the wall, seated rotation med ball slams, and a fave of mine, the squat/press/rotate and throw to partner. If you can’t use a medicine ball, try incorporating bands in the same movement pattern with a higher speed. Another great one for the lower body includes lateral jumps from 1 leg to the other which can incorporate both power AND balance.

Once you’re ready, power exercises can be implemented a few days in the week with your program. Usually two or three exercises with one or two sets each is plenty. Remember, the goal of power exercises is NOT to make you sore, the goal is to train your fast twitch muscle fibers so that they engage with more velocity during your swing. This leads to increased swing speed and ultimately, the much desired increase in distance off the tee.

Well folks, that about covers it for the Essentials of a Golf Fitness Program! I hope you learned some valuable information with which to attack your golf fitness goals.

And remember, if you have any questions or would like to set-up your own, individualized golf fitness program, you can contact me at John@PinHighFitness.com or 800-610-8939. You can also follow me on twitter at PinHighFitness.

Today’s guest post was written by John Heringer, owner of PinHighFitness.com. John is a Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) Certified Golf Fitness Specialist as well as a Certified Strength and Core Specialist (CSCA) from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).

I was tooling around on stumbleupon and came across this video of the muscles used in golf. I figured it goes along well with the golf fitness series of posts.
It discusses the primary and support muscles used in golf.

Have a great weekend!