We all know that “getting old stinks.” You wake up and your back hurts, your knees hurts, your neck hurts. We blame it on getting old, but let’s face it, we trained like idiots in our teens and 20s (or did not train at all), and when we get into our 30s we bust our butts trying to hold down a job, family, and friends. Accordingly, we get to go to some fancy dinners out and maybe drink or two (and maybe a little too regularly), and again we either continue to train like we did in our teens or 20s, or modify incorrectly, or maybe avoid training altogether. Old injuries, new pain, too much stress, and an increasing lack of time become our down fall.

The first place to start is to get an assessment.

In our 30s, we are at the age in which we have to tackle a lot and take some risks, but there are a few places where I would spend the money to do it once and do it right: 1) Legal advice 2) Medical advice 3) Business advice 4) Movement advice 5) Sports skill advice.

With all of our responsibilities to work, raise a family, etc., this is the time to default to the experts for advice. We spend our 30s becoming experts in our careers and people come to us for information right? Likewise, we seek medical advice, legal advice, etc., so why do you think you should have a self directed fitness or practice routine? I’m pretty sure Rory McIlroy, Brooks Keopka, and Justin Rose have all had movement evaluations to guide them into their training routines.

The guidance of a Movement Expert can up your game faster and more efficiently than trying it on your own. A U.S. National Library of Medicine report states: “Self directed workouts tend to fail more than 90% of the time for multiple reasons.” Anecdotally, most of my clients have failed in either, self directed training, or the wrong advice from the wrong source, or lack of motivation/goal setting.

It’s important to have someone evaluate your current or previous movement related issues do you have. This needs to be considered before starting a training program. Knowing about a current of previous injury can be a major factor when it comes to fixing a missing piece in your golf swing and fitness.

What’s next? Planning and goal setting. Between a desk job, golf on the weekends, and juggling family life and a little down time, our athleticism suffers, which means our distance off the tee sucks, and we don’t feel balanced over the ball…and lets face it, we don’t look as good naked as we used to! We spent our teens and maybe some of our 20s working our mirror muscles and we may still have some of the muscle mass, but we never trained as athletes.

Golfers are power athletes; we have to have a good base of mobility, stability and coordination, we can build on that with strength, speed and power. Most people either get stuck in the mobility and cardio realm, which is fine but maybe not really advancing your goals. Others get stuck on the range grooving a swing in but never really building resilience in their bodies to keep up with the demands of swing a club over and over again. Planning and goal setting can help the movement professional work with you to figure out how and where to start your fitness routine — and it give some meaning to why you are doing what you are doing.

Part of planning and goal setting is giving yourself something fun to work towards. In our work lives it is very common to set goals for the year, quarter, month, etc to stay on target, or to recognize where we are missing the mark. Training to improve your fitness is no different, but unfortunately very few ever really discuss and reevaluate goals so we can plan and shift gears as needed. I am pretty sure tour players sit down with their teams each season to figure out what events they want to peak for, what skills they need to refine for which courses, and when they can take some down time to deal with physical, personal or other events or issues.

I suggest taking the time to sit down and break up your year into quarters, and set three-month milestones/goals. For example it could be a golf outing with friends, working towards a city or club championship, or even a family vacation, etc. Having a goal to work towards every three months or so can keep you on track and motivate you to stay on top of your training, practice, etc. It such a simple thing that is often overlooked, but it can help us plan your workouts and your practice and play schedule to make your time training in the gym or on the driving range more effective. We have all heard the saying “failure to plan is planning to fail,” so get after it and lets plan some fun goals to work towards.

Just to recap, when training in your 30s, especially for golf, we need to focus on a couple of things. First, don’t train like you did in your teens and 20s — you have a different body and set of responsibilities and we need to account for that so get an assessment and figure out your starting point. Next set some some goals to work towards; this builds in something fun that keep your on track. With that quarterly goal in mind, you and your fitness professional can develop a plan to keep you on track with interval check in times.

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