Power Development For Golf
Golf has now become a popular sport played by many regardless of age, sex and skill. It is estimated that there are 35 million golfers worldwide. In the golf swing high levels of force are required to accelerate the club into the downswing and then to decelerate during the follow through.
Where do we develop the power from?
Power in the golf swing begins in the ground reaction forces with the lower extremities and finally peaking at the club head impacting with the ball. If we think about the movement sequence it starts in the legs and hips followed by the trunk and shoulders then the final component is the hands and wrists.
How can we test power?
There are a few ways we can test a golfer’s power using jump tests or a seated chest pass or standing rotational medicine ball throws. It has been found that the squat jump and the countermovement jump correlate well to club head speed.
What sort of training should I do?
To develop power we have to use a variety of training methods working on stability, heavy resistance training and ballistic exercises.
- Stability: The ability to control one’s movement.
- Heavy resistance training: This is where we can improve strength and strength is closely related to a golfers ability to produce high levels of force.
- Ballistic training: This is where in the exercise we move a load quickly then release it, rather than slowly lowering like in conventional resistance training.
Here is an example of a session that we might do with a golfer.
- Lateral Box Jump – 3×5
- Padded Ball Rotational Throw – 3×5
- KettleBell Swing (single arm) – 3 x 20 sec’s
- Overhead Squat – 4×6
- Split Stance Deadlift – 4×6
- Trx Row – 4×6
- Trx Press Up – 4×6
- Trx Row with a twist and reach – 4×6
In this program I have not included a warm up or any ancillary stability exercises as this is generally prescribed on an individual basis. In this program as you can see we start off with all the ballistic exercises and then finish with the strength exercises.
After each set we let the athlete/client have adequate rest as to allow the correct energy system to be used.
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