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GOLF
CONDITIONING
As the spotlight on
fitness intensifies, what type of
conditioning program are you going to adopt?
by Mark J. Smith,
Ph.D. & Rob Mottram, P.T., ATC
As you flip through
the pages of the latest golf magazines, it’s hard to find one that
isn’t addressing fitness in golf. The recognition that a fitter
golfer is a better golfer is now accepted by golf professionals and
high handicap golfers alike. Consequently, the golf industry is
becoming a target market for fitness professionals and golfers are
beginning a myriad of conditioning programs. Since the general
population is bombarded with incorrect information on a daily basis
and then acts upon it, it should come as no surprise that the golf
industry will be subject to the same.
Before arguing the case of one golf conditioning program over
another, it is first worth gaining a basic understanding of the body’s
different metabolic pathways towards energy production for muscular
contraction. Once this is accomplished, one can better evaluate how
certain conditioning programs are better suited to the golfer than
others. Although simplistic, we basically have two major metabolic
pathways that produce energy - the aerobic system ("with
oxygen") and the anaerobic system ("without oxygen").
We also see terms such as endurance training or cardiovascular
conditioning associated with the term aerobic. For the purpose of
gaining an understanding of these metabolic systems, marathon
runners have highly trained aerobic systems while sprinters have
highly trained anaerobic systems. However, a major misconception is
that sports and activities are either aerobic or anaerobic in
nature. This is simply never the case, all activities from sprinting
to running a marathon have relative contributions from both systems.
An even greater misunderstanding is that activities that have a
large contribution from the anaerobic system, such as sprinting,
will have little training effect on the aerobic and cardiovascular
system. This is wrong, dead wrong. If it were true, sprinters would
have lousy cardiovascular systems because the vast majority of their
training is spent engaged in high-intensity intermittent activity,
not low to moderate continuous activity. The fact is of course is
that their cardiovascular systems are in great shape. A sprinter
might not log spectacular times running a marathon, but they would
have no problem walking eighteen holes of golf interspersed with a
high number (we’ll leave that number to the reader!) of short
duration ballistic movements, a.k.a. the golf swing.
If one were to create a spectrum of sporting activities based on the
relative contributions of these metabolic pathways, we might see
track and field’s hammer throwing at one end of the spectrum and
running a marathon at the other. The question of course is where on
this spectrum does golf fall? Well it doesn’t take a genius to
realize that golf is at the end of the spectrum close to the hammer
thrower, that is to realize and understand that golf is a
high-intensity intermittent activity sport. Now before anyone starts
to argue that golf has a very large endurance component because
rounds can last four hours or more, I’ve seen a game of chess last
longer. The point here is it’s not simply the length of the
activity that determines the type of training needed, but the nature
of the activity and how energy is utilized throughout. Yes golf has
an endurance component, but it is muscular endurance not
cardiovascular endurance that is the most likely performance
parameter to fail you. Engaging in high-intensity intermittent
training will provide you more than enough aerobic/cardiovascular
conditioning to play a round of golf while training that all
important anaerobic system to reproduce the ballistic golf swing
throughout the round without fatigue. It is also important to
realize that these energy providing systems are in competition with
one another when it comes to training. Perhaps more simply
understood we are never going to see the gold medals for the 100
meters and the marathon at the Olympic Games go to the same
individual. Consequently, if you understand that golf is a
high-intensity intermittent activity sport, don’t make low to
moderate "aerobic" activities the core of your training
program as it will be counter productive. The majority of your time
should be spent on activities that fatigue you in a short period of
time. If the activity is intense, a minute is a long time! By
repeating the activity multiple times, with recoveries of one to
three minutes between each repetition, you will train your anaerobic
system while also training your cardiovascular system. This type of
training is often referred to as interval training and before anyone
asks, yes it’s also effective for weight loss. Has anyone seen an
overweight sprinter lately?
For more information on this type of training, click here and choose Downloads
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