Refine Your Clubhead Speed during the Season  Special to PGATOUR.com Until now, our series on golf fitness training and exercises to help you during the season has covered a vast number of topics, ranging from discussions on injury prevention to the lower back, how to properly warm-up before a round and even how to maintain consistency with your golf swing. 
In this week's article, we will discuss how to optimize clubhead speed during your golf season. Now, keep in mind that clubhead speed is not a new topic and we have covered it before. For example, we have discussed how to implement power exercises into an off-season golf fitness program to get you bombing it off the tee once your season begins. At this juncture of the year, where you are hopefully playing a couple rounds a week and are practicing a little more, we can't necessarily utilize the same golf fitness program or even exercises as we did in the off-season to develop clubhead speed. The simple reason is what we stated above -- you are hopefully playing a couple of rounds a week and spending more time working on your swing. A number of situations result from such a scenario. The No. 1, of course, is time. If you are not playing professionally on the PGA TOUR, you most likely have less time to spend on a golf fitness program than you did in the off-season when you were playing less. Secondly -- and more importantly from the "physical side" of the equation --additional playing and practice time causes fatigue within the muscular system of the body. That being the case, if we were to add a heavy dose of power drills to your in-season golf fitness program, we would most likely place your body in a state of fatigue, which is a situation we want to avoid during the season. Before moving onto in-season power exercises, let's revisit the topic of how to increase clubhead speed. Essentially, increasing clubhead speed hinges upon power development within the mechanics of the golf swing. Improving clubhead speed is contingent upon both the efficiency in which you execute the mechanics of the golf swing and the power generated by the muscles of your body. We also know golf fitness training assists with the second part of this equation, which is improving the power outputs from the muscles used in the golf swing. Now, in order to utilize golf fitness exercises effectively during the season to improve clubhead speed, we must keep a few guidelines in mind, all of which have to do with intensity. Intensity can be defined as the amount of work for a given exercise, groups of exercises, or entire training program. During the season, since we are playing more and practicing more, the intensity of our power exercises must be lower. This will lessen the likelihood of "over-fatiguing" the body while also keeping your clubhead speed moving in the right direction, which is up. Now we can lower the intensity of our power exercises in a number of ways. The first is through the frequency at which we perform these exercises. I have found it best to perform golf fitness power exercises two times a week during the season, rather than three or four during the off-season A second way to lower the intensity is the number of actual exercises. I often find limiting the number of power exercises to two is ideal during the season. And finally, adjustment in the actual exercises used during the season is helpful. One such exercise I often use during the season for power development is Power Swings. Begin this exercise in your normal address position grasping a 3-6 lb. medicine ball. Draw the medicine ball to the top of your backswing, pause slightly, and aggressively accelerate through the down swing into impact. Complete the exercise in a balanced follow-through position. Return to the starting position of the exercise and repeat for 8-12 repetitions. Keep in mind these simple guidelines and you can continue to develop clubhead speed during the peak of your golfing season. |
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