In Season Golf Swing Training with just 1 Dumbbell

Over 90% of golfers do some form of exercise, but less than 30% of those actually train to improve their golf swing. Today, we change that in the most simple way possible. I'm Michael Dennington, PGA professional and founder here at DRVN Golf & Fitness, and I have helped thousands of golfers to improve their body and improve their game.

This simple workout is going to give you the tools to always have a workout to go back to, repeat, and improve your body. So, when you get to the golf course, you are more stable, more consistent, and can hit the shots that you want with your golf swing. All you need is one dumbbell and this workout to improve stability, balance, and speed.

So, every time you play golf, your body is ready to go. To start, we are working stability and rotation. And this workout is going to give you a full body test in less than 30 minutes.

So, with that dumbbell, first of all, weight. Use a weight that allows you to keep great form, move fast, but also challenge your body. Don't go too heavy, don't go too light, progress over time.

Two movements here. Number one is the rotational chop. This split stance is incredibly important because as we rotate, we're working around the spine, the lower body is working hard against the ground to stabilize, and that rotation is strengthening every single rep.

We work down here to move that core, then up and over the lead side to lift and power your rotation. Now, from there, you always work both sides. We always train both sides as golfers.

That's how you build symmetry and long-term durability. We might start with the split stance press. You can change weights if you need to.

We stay in the same position, bring the dumbbell to your shoulder, elbow should be nicely tucked beneath the wrist, and from here we press through a full range of motion. Control on the way down, press faster on the way up. Here, we build shoulder stability and strength, but not only that, because we are working in the asymmetrical pattern with each side of the body doing a different thing, we enhance your ability to stabilize in the golf swing.

More awareness, more balance, better results. So, in that set, we're going three sets of 20 reps, 10 on each side of the body. Again, a challenging weight that you can move really, really well.

From there, we transfer into more dynamic patterns. And this is about balance and change of direction, which is incredibly powerful for your golf swing. The first movement is the RDL with rotation.

This one's tricky, okay? If you need to start with just a golf club, do so. If you can do it with the dumbbell, let's get to work, okay?

So, here, we go into a single-leg deadlift. The key with that is stretching the hamstring, and then loading the glute. Once we get to the bottom, rotate away from your body, come back to center, and stabilize.

On the opposing side of the body, turn, and go. Huge for foot mechanics, huge for your balance. Ooh, and if you don't get it right, you're going to see that pretty quickly.

So, reset, refocus, turn, and go. Okay, as you build confidence in these movements, they transfer over to the golf current swing incredibly well. If you can balance there, you can balance anytime.

So, 10 reps of the RDL, ensuring that balance is on point, ensuring we're pushing out the ground, and then we go into our dynamic change of direction. These are lateral bounds. This is how you go from side to side.

Think about your golf swing, when we change direction to create power, that's what we're working on here. 10 reps with the dumbbell into 10 reps of the lateral bound. We use our body to push into the ground, change direction, and improve your talk, footwork, and power potential through the ground.

So, already in those two sets, we have worked the full body. We have worked rotation, stability, balance, and power output. And this is how we're going to take it into the swing.

Before we get into our final set, we focus more on speed and core. So, as we work on your body, one thing we really want you to have on the course is confidence in your swing. Comment below what gives you confidence and really gets you feeling good over the ball.

We have a drill here for you to try and use in your game. Now, so many players don't release the club as well as they could do. They try and guide the shots, and that just means you're not playing to your potential, and it's probably not going to work.

So, what we're looking at here is the preset release drill. And what we're going to do, we're going to break the hands into an aggressive position here, wind it up to the top, and then hit that again on the way down. Okay?

By presetting the hands, we're allowing them to be more fluid and have to over rotate in the swing. Meaning that when you get to the ball, instead of being tight and tense through impact, you're going to release the club head and hit the exact shot that you want to see. So, take your normal setup, get comfortable over the ball.

I've got a six iron here. We're looking for a nice flush contact and a little bit of compression. Preset the hands forward, and then it's a nice fluid swing all the way through the ball.

And as you can see there, we release the hands through, we're in balance, the swing's fluid, and that means that you're trusting your body to deliver the results, and that takes it out of your hands and puts it into a system that allows you to play better golf. Into our final set of intervals, we're working fast here. Okay?

We're going to go five sets this time. You're going to go 10 reps of the hang snatch into a 30-second side plank. And when we put this all together, you get every ingredient needed to improve your golf swing with a hang snatch.

We're looking to be as explosive as possible and we're looking to really power it from the legs. So, as we hinge, which is when you bend at the hip, bring your chest forwards, we let the weight go between your legs and then we fire up as quickly as possible. Okay, as you push into the ground, the glutes fire, you control and in terms of how you transfer that power going all the way up through the system is incredibly powerful for your golf swing.

So, press the ground, pull the elbow, lock out overhead. Nice and explosive. It's like a longer range kettlebell swing and you can really move fast here.

Want to push out of ground and create as much force through the whole system as possible. It's how we improve your kinematic sequence. From there, we drop straight down into the side plank.

And this is incredibly powerful for golfers. Working all of the core. Working your obliques.

This is how you become injury resistant and keep your swing working for a long, long time. We're going 30 seconds, 15 on each side. We're going to have a short rest and we go again.

>> [sighs] >> So, jump up out of that side plank. We've worked the whole body. You're going to do five sets here.

You're going to work for a minute. That's the 10 snatch into 30 second side plank. Rest for 30.

Want to increase the intensity. Want to get you a real workout so you're improving your body and your game. >> Mhm.