Instruction
Is your “dad bod” ruining your golf swing? This workout can help
This article was co-written with Nick Buchan, owner of the excellent online resource Stronger Golf
If you are a working father, I’m willing to bet that over the years, golf and working out have slipped down the priority list a few spots. While commitments such as work, family, more work and kid’s taxi service have increased, so the time for working on your game and body has dwindled to almost nothing.
This has likely left you feeling a little disconnected from your former athletic prime, we know that sedentary lifestyles are strongly linked to decreased muscle mass, reduced strength and increased BMI. This will likely have a negative impact on club-head speed and fatigue levels during the round.
Worst still, all that time spent chained to the office desk has likely ingrained some poor postural habits and negatively affected your ability to turn in the golf swing. Fixed posture is thought to be a key contributor to neck and back pain, generally causes all manor of aches, niggles and discomfort, whilst placing a general ‘lock’ on your mobility.
Sitting at a desk all day (in fact staying in any one position for long periods of time) causes your body to adapt to make that position more efficient. For example, sitting all day may cause your hip flexors to become short and weak (due to lack of load on them), your glutes to shut off and your spine to flex forward, which in turn can result in anterior pelvic tilt, which leads to your hamstrings and low back feeling ‘tight.’
As you can see this postural pattern has pretty far reaching consequences, all of which contribute to those niggles you get from daily life and when you do get a chance to play, negatively affect your ability to execute the golf swing of old.
Further, the lack of systematic load on your musculature is causing a lack of tissue resiliency – i.e. those aches and pains you’ve been experiencing – as well as leading to reduced force output. This is an issue as force output is the vital ingredient for moving fast, the ultimate determinant of club-head speed, and even correlates to how long you will live!
If and when you do get the chance to practice or play, the postural inhibition, loss of strength and lack of golf movement pattern practice are likely to be major restrictive factors in the outcome.
The good news is (as you probably already know), a solid exercise routine can counteract the detrimental effects of your lifestyle that have manifested themselves in “Dad Bod Syndrome.”
The bad news is, you’ve tried that before and can never quite make it stick. You’ve likely been left disappointed about the falling standard of your game and frustrated at the lack of time available to fix the problems.
The Proposed Solution
Work out in way that is quick, easy, efficient, doesn’t require much equipment and targets the following priority areas for improvement:
- Lose some body fat
- Gain mobility in T-Spine, Shoulders and Hips
- Improve Posture
- Re-gain some basic strength
- Practice a quality golf movement pattern
This quick and easy, circuit style workout ticks the outlined points above. It doesn’t take forever (less than 45 minutes) and requires minimal gym equipment. Aim to complete it 2-4 times per week, depending on other commitments.
Format: Circuit
Total Time: 45 mins
Equipment: Med-ball, Kettlebell, 41 inch Power Band, GravityFit TPro
Rounds: 3 to 5
Rest between exercises: 10 secs
Rest between rounds: 90 secs
Exercise Guide Playlist (you can shuffle between videos)
Warm-Up
1 round, 30 secs each
Half-kneeling alternate reach
Windshield wiper
PNF diagonal pull-apart
T-Spine rotation with groin stretch
Quadruped rock backs
Bar hang
Cross connect march
Strength Circuit
Exercise 1 – Med-ball slam
Priority – power
Equip – med-ball
Reps – 10
Exercise 2 – Split Stance Turns
Priority – golf movement patterns
Equip – TPro
Reps – 10 each side
Exercise 3 – Kettlebell Swing
Priority – basic strength / conditioning
Equip – kettlebell
Reps – 20
Exercise 4 – Push Up with Band
Priority – basic strength
Equip – power band
Reps – 12
Exercise 5 – 1 Arm Row
Priority – basic strength
Equip – kettlebell
Reps – 10 each side
Exercise 6 – Pallof Press
Priority – basic strength
Equip – power band
Reps – 10 each side
Exercise 7 – Suitcase Carry
Priority – strength/ conditioning
Equip – kettlebell
Reps – 30 seconds each side
To progress simply aim to do more reps in the same time and/or increase the duration of each exercise and/or increase the number of rounds in each circuit and/or reduce the rest periods and/or increase the weight/load used.
This workout isn’t special or innovative or entertaining. But it is practical, and it is useful, and it will help to reduce and reverse the effects of “Dad Bod Syndrome.”
If you would like something more tailored to your specific needs, check out the training program options at Stronger Golf or Golf Fit Pro
For more information on the featured equipment, check out the links below:
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Instruction
Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?
Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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Instruction
The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic
My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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Swirley
Apr 15, 2019 at 7:46 pm
As a father of 3 under the age of 7, if I have 45 free minutes then it’ll be spent chipping and putting. Plus ladies love the dad bod’s nowadays.