Is working out in the gym good for your golf?

I think Rory and Tiger are living proof that working out helps your game. all nuances aside, both had substantial improvements (Tiger - early 2000s, Rory - now) after the change in physique.
 
jamielaing said:
It all comes down to the level of training/ type of training. Too much muscle on the chest hinders golf massively. A friend of mine stopped playing golf and started body building. Now he is back to golf and can barely swing because he has no room and flexibility. He's lost a good 30 yards off his drives.

Training for golf should be all based around cardio, core and dynamic movements.
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What about Joe Miller, long drive champion, he's not exactly small and is still very flexible, Rory is not small lad either and have you seen the instagram vids that Lee Westwood has been posting, he's packed on the muscle as well.
 
jamielaing said:
It all comes down to the level of training/ type of training. Too much muscle on the chest hinders golf massively. A friend of mine stopped playing golf and started body building. Now he is back to golf and can barely swing because he has no room and flexibility. He's lost a good 30 yards off his drives.

Training for golf should be all based around cardio, core and dynamic movements.
Click to expand...

Joe Miller, long drive champion, has a different opinion on this. he suggested that building muscle doesn't hinder the golf swing at all. (from the horses mouth, at a Belfry open day, when he hit the 10th green with a putter, and nearly drove the 18th with wind against), in fact it helps.

He is a massive unit, a personal trainer, and weighs in at about 18 or 19 stone.

His golf swing certainly doesn't lack room/flexibility, and he hasn't struggled for distance since gaining muscle.


In fact he said that most of the people who do significant gym work will be much more flexible than the rest of us.
 
i think Rory's prodigous length for a guy who's 5'9" is down to the x-factor (as well as a great swing), not Simon Cowell, but the separation he can achieve in his hip turn from his torso turn (see any online Jim Maclean x-factor article).
The gym work Rory has clearly done should help maintain strength and flexibility getting older, he already had the flexibility and speed from a young age but he's stronger now too.
 
A very good golf related exercise you can do, without any weights, is to do squats facing a wall with your toes touching the wall.

Very difficult at first, it needs good balance as well as glute, hamstring and core strength.

...and it should have no ill effects on your putting!
 
delc said:
Of late, Tiger just looks stiff and muscle bound to me.
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I was actually under the impression he was a little less muscle bound since his latest return than he had previously been.
 
Personally, I don't think 'going to the gym' can be properly bandied around as a phrase because everything comes down to specific programmes. If you were to say 'can too much bodybuilding hinder your golf game?', absolutely it can. Can too much of a golf specific programme hinder your game? Absolutely not (provided your form is good enough that you avoid injury, of course).

Fitness (in the sports sense, rather than the general perception of being fit in a generic cardiovascular sense, i.e. being able to run down the road without being out of breath) is sport specific. You can be a fit distance runner, for instance, but be unable to compete in sprinting. The same applies to all sports, including golf.

Furthermore, although not really relevant to what you have asked, what most people don't understand is that going to the gym accounts for very little, overall, to the shape of peoples' bodies. I, admittedly, am not one but any sports nutritionist will tell you that the gym accounts for at most 20% of results for those attending, regardless of what their goals/intentions are. Some will even say that % is more around the 10 mark.

With a proper programme in place, no amount of gym work will be bad for you. It's effectiveness will be entirely dependent upon your daily nutrition, however, and without a good diet to go with gym attendance you may as well not bother at all.

If Carly Booth's short game is suffering, it is far more likely to be a result of little practice rather than anything she is doing in the gym (assuming that as a Tour pro she is getting proper advice about gym going).
 
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pokerjoke said:
This is a difficult one as I believe Rory has bulked up.
He said he put on 12kg of muscle.
I suppose the difference is he would have been monitored every session,he would
have been doing stretches and flexing exercise to compensate keeping the balance
right eating the right meals all weighed out for him.
As has been said it doesn't matter how much exercise you do if your ruining it by eating
rubbish.
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Eating rubbish, don't mention that as there is some on here who love fish fingers ;)
 
I think the key thing the pros have in spades is an excellent core. When I started working on mine I found a massive difference in terms of control of my swing plane, rotation and strike. think it was last year that there was a plank challenge between some pros including Westwood and he kept going for ages!!!!
 
I agree that it's unlikely that the Carly's gym work per se is bad for her golf, more likely the time she spends in the gym is time that she is not practising her short game.

I go through sporadic periods of swimming several times a week for a few months (folllowed by my usual couple of years of inactivity).
Any significant improvement in my hcp has often coincided with this- I suspect the swimming strengthens my shoulders and improves my flexibilty.
Trouble is- it bores me stupid!
 
Gary Player was renowned for being a gym rat, and his short game was quite good ;)

FWIW, I've lost 2 and a bit stone, and haven't set foot in a gym in 5 years. I've started a golf based circuit training class as my weight has been at a plateau for the last six months or so. Hopefully it'll help move the remains of my beer belly :thup:
 
drewster said:
Has her incredible dip in form not coincided with getting it together with Tano Goya ??
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Possibly? She needs to get her act together as a golfer soon. At the moment she has sponsorship from Nike and Aberdeen Asset Management, and playing rights from her two wins back in 2012, but I can't see these lasting much longer without some improvement in form. Maybe she just wants to be a celebrity? :mmm:
 
Does going to the gym and lifting weights make your a better golfer no!
Being fitter, more flexible and conditioned will.
What you do for a day job will have a bigger bearing on how you golf in my opinion.
 
Doing the right exercise will always be good for any sporting activity
 
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