Workouts

This is the 100th Tour Fit workout! To celebrate, I wanted to share my greatest hits golf workout with you all. The exercises in this session are some of my go-to drills for golfers looking to improve their mobility, strength and power. In fact, I’ve featured many of these drills in my articles for Golf Digest and the Titleist Performance Institute. If I had to pick one total body golf fitness session as my deserted island workout, this would be it. Here’s to the next 100 Tour Fit workouts and thank you for all of your hard work!

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

Side bend is essential for a powerful golf swing. The ability to side bend properly sets you up for an ideal impact position so you can fully compress the ball. Whether you have a flat shoulder plane or struggle with loss of posture, improving your side bend can help. In this workout I’ll take you through nine stretches and exercises to help improve your thoracic mobility and increase your side bend for more power off the tee. Let’s get started!

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

Core stability is vital for a powerful, consistent golf swing. Your core helps you efficiently transfer energy from the ground up in your swing. Your core also helps you resist unwanted lateral movement in your swing, such as sway and slide. Without a strong core, it’s as if you’re missing a vital link between the lower body and the upper body, and it’s not hard to imagine the power leaks that occur as a result! This workout features nine stretches and exercises designed to train your core for power. Expect to work up a sweat in this session!

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

It was so inspiring watching the Tour pros get maximum power and distance off the tee in the 150th Open at St. Andrews. Part of that tremendous power comes from their highly efficient weight transfer in the swing, stacking up immense energy and delivering it with incredible force to the ball. All too often, golfers struggle with this weight transfer and “hang back” in their swing. We say a golfer hangs back when there’s an obvious lack of weight shift towards the target on the downswing. This issue often results in the golfer’s weight still being on the trail foot at impact. Unfortunately, reduced power is the result. Luckily, there are stretches and exercises you can do in the gym to help you avoid hanging back in your swing. This workout focuses on improving your hip and ankle mobility, strengthening your core and lower body and improving your overall power so you can avoid hanging back and start making solid contact like the pros.

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

The body functions as an alternating chain of stability and mobility. The foot needs to be stable, the ankle needs to be mobile, the knee needs to be stable and the pattern continues up the chain. What does that have to do with low back pain and golf? Well, when we get to the hips and the low back, we need the hips to be mobile so the low back can remain stable. All too often golfers with tight, locked hips overuse their lower back in the swing to compensate for that lack of mobility in the hips. Other times the golfer’s mid-back (a section that needs to be mobile) is so tight that the lower back again compensates. In this workout I’ll teach you the stretches and exercises you can do to prevent these imbalances and safeguard your low back so you can add years to your game.

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

Fourth of July weekend is here and it’s the height of golf season for many of us. In this workout I’ll take you through some of the best stretches and exercises to help you maintain the athletic golf body you built in the off season. In addition to helping you maintain that critical strength and stamina, in this workout I’ll also teach you exercises to improve your shoulder and hip mobility to help you avoid some of the most common golf injuries. We’ll also strengthen your glutes and core so that you can continue to create a consistent and powerful swing. Find yourself losing stamina on the back nine? This workout also features drills to improve your cardiovascular endurance. Let’s get started!

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

Whether you’re on the road or simply looking for a core workout you can do anywhere, this is the session for you. In this circuit I’ll take you through some of my favorite bodyweight core exercises for golf. For an added challenge, go through exercises 1-7 in the Strength/Power section with no rest between sets. Then rest for 3 minutes and repeat 1-2 more times. Not only will this workout strengthen your core, it will also challenge your upper and lower body strength and overall stamina.

If you aren’t going through this session as a circuit, rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

It’s been so inspiring watching the pros at the U.S. Open this weekend. While they make it look effortless, Tour players know how to use ground forces to drive the ball incredible distances. It’s no secret that the more ground reaction force you generate in your swing, the farther you’ll hit the ball. In fact, the vertical jump is one of the key tests I use to measure my golfers’ power. Why? Because we know the higher you can jump, the farther you can hit the ball. For that reason, a well designed golf fitness program often includes exercises designed to help you maximize ground forces in your swing. Whether it’s dynamically pushing the ground away as you come out of a deadlift or using more explosive exercises like tuck jumps, you can spend time in the gym improving your ability to get power from the ground in your swing. Let’s get started on this challenging workout designed to help you become a more powerful athlete.

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, training to resist rotation in the gym leads to more power in your golf swing. Why? Well, when you train your core to resist rotation, it helps you create a more efficient transfer of force from the ground up and out to the clubhead in your swing. In order to create whip-like speed at impact, you need to speed up one section of the body and slow down the previous one. By training your core to resist rotation, you’re effectively increasing the strength of the muscles that generate this rotation and deceleration. In this workout I’ll take you through some of my favorite anti-rotation exercises for increasing power in my golfers. If you want a more efficient transfer of power in your swing, this is the session for you.

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

It’s no secret that medicine balls are an excellent tool for developing explosive speed in the golf swing. Medicine ball drills challenge your balance, improve your ability to create rotational power, increase your strength and give you a total body workout that will leave you sweating! In this session I’ll guide you through some of my favorite medicine ball exercises for golfers. When choosing a weight for the slams, stay on the lighter side so you can truly develop speed (between 4-10lbs, depending on your bodyweight).

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

We all know poor posture affects the way we look, but did you know bad posture can also have detrimental effects on your golf performance? When your upper back is strong, it’s much easier to hold yourself in good posture. And when you can transfer that good posture to your swing, it becomes much easier to produce speed from the ground, up. And because the body functions as an alternating chain of stable and mobile joints, a strong upper back can also help lead to increased mobility in the shoulder joints. In this workout I’ll take you through drills to improve the strength of your mid back and increase the mobility in your shoulders so you can safely create maximum power in swing.

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.

A study in 2008 found that training proprioception or body awareness in golfers directly improved their ball speed, clubhead speed and driving distance. We know the golf swing is a complex move. We need the neural ability to fire each segment of the kinetic chain at the right time and on the right plane. But because we don’t play golf in a gym with mirrors, we need to do this without looking at what we’re doing! That’s when this body awareness becomes so vital for golfers. This session will challenge your balance, core stability and overall sequencing so you can reap the benefits of better proprioception in your game.

Rest for 90s between sets unless otherwise noted.