Does being Stronger improve your Golf Swing?

Strength training is super important for golfers. It's also crucial that you do it correctly with great form. One of the best examples for this is the deadlift.

We're moving a lot of weight from the ground, strengthening the whole body, but if you get it wrong, injuries can happen. That's why in this video, we are going to take you through how to start and prepare your body, how to test so that you know you're actually making progress, and then how to lift, how to load, and how to put a session together to get the maximum benefit to improve your performance, improve your golf swing, and don't hurt your back. The first part of any deadlift session or any strength training session at all is the warm-up.

And specifically, we want to mobilize the key areas of the body and then activate the muscle pathways. We want to get firing. We need the body to be heightened, revved up, and ready to lift weight.

So, this three-step warm up is a great way to get it done. We start with hip 9090s. Simple way to really mobilize the hips, get access into the musculature, and open up the power station for our further lifts.

From there, we can go into a body weight hip thrust. This fires up the glutes, the posterior chain, which is where all of the power comes from when you get into the deadlifts. Really is important that we can reach that full extension and activate the glutes cuz that's where we need to focus on.

And then from there, we're going to something more dynamic and loaded like a kettle bell swing. This is going to be a much lighter weight than your deadlift, but it's dynamic. We're using the ground.

We're activating the muscles. We're really getting the brain firing as well. So, this three-step process is quick.

You can add much more to it, but it's going to open up the hips. It's going to fire up the glutes, and then it's going to get the body revved up and ready to go. Every warmup should be a minimum of 10 minutes, and you should feel fully ready to lift.

All right, so do more. Activate, get the cardio in, get the heart rate up, and then we start to load the bar. And that takes us on to part two, and that is testing.

You need to know your levels if you want to know that you are improving and increasing your performance. A one rep max is suitable for most individuals because as long as you maintain your form, you're going to pick up the heaviest weight you can in a single rep. This gives you a baseline to work from and allows you to then set up all of your future sessions.

So, whenever you go for a heavy lift, number one, build up in suitable increments. You don't just load the bar up and see if you can pick it up. We're going to work up with slightly higher reps at lower weight all the way down to your single reps at near to your limit.

We do not want to see any form breakdown. So what does that look like? Number one, feet are anchored to the ground.

That's where we create our pressure. That is how we move through the lift. Number two, the posterior chain, the hamstrings, the glutes, the big muscles on the back side of your body are firing and keeping everything stable.

All right, that's where the strength really comes from. And number three is that neutral spine position. We don't want to see you really rounded down or too much extension.

We want to be neutral all the way through the lift so the legs can power it up from the ground. And once you get past those knees, it's time to drive through the glutes, stand up tall, and complete the lift. Okay?

So, you can test all the way up to a heavy single rep. From there, we know where we're at. You know how strong you are.

And from there, you can make continued progress into phase three. And this is where we really start to see progress. We mobilized and activated before any session.

You've tested your strength. So now you can set out a plan to follow over time and have slow progressions so your body adapts and you increase your strength. First option there, as you've seen in the videos, is what type of deadlift to use.

A conventional deadlift, if you have great form, is an excellent option. However, we prefer to use the trap bar deadlift because of where the weight is loaded. It's much more central.

It's less through the spine. It's more through the legs. And for golfers, with the technique being so much easier and more applicable as we push through the ground, that is an awesome option if you choose to.

Okay. And then from there, it's about progressive overload. So once you've tested that strength max, we can then lay out a program that gives you sets and reps based off of that strength testing to increase each week and to allow your body to change over time, which is how you get this done.

All right? We can't just keep putting more weight on the bar and hoping that you get stronger. We want to set up adaptation with excellent programming to give you the best opportunity to build strength, recover, become more resilient, resist all injuries and improve your performance.

And that's where it gets really fun. Once you hit that progressive overload, we can also then build out your workouts to give you clear performance increases. Okay?

So, once you've lifted that weight, basically a lot of the muscle fibers in your body are fired up. That connects up the mind better. So you have an opportunity in that window to use all of those muscle fibers for speed, for stability, for deceleration, and all the cool movements that we want to use in the gym.

So if we look at how to slow the body down, if we look at how to rotate faster, and then we can add in absolute acceleration, you then have a strength session that also goes into performance. And that is where the real magic happens, right? Because when your body is stronger, when the spine is stable, when everything is durable and resilient, you can practice on your game longer.

You'll have better physical tools to do so. Meaning that as you develop the skill of the golf swing, your body will deliver better results. You'll have less injuries, more energy, and that means more practice for better results.

Right? That is how we get this done. The deadlift is something that golfers really should use if they're looking to build strength and build durability, increase performance, and that is why we use it here at DRVN.

All right, so appreciate you taking the time to watch this video. If you do want that structured plan, right now is the time. It's the off season.

We're looking at the strength adaptations. Our daily workouts are tailored to this and you really should check it out, right? Start with a free trial.

Takes a minute to get set up and that's how you will golf strong.