Athletes who play golf need the following qualities: mobility, strength, speed, conditioning, flexibility, power, balance, and coordination. Chances are you excel at some and need work on others. Recognizing where you fall on the spectrum of each quality is the first step in making some serious gains quickly.
Ever heard the phrase, “A team is only as strong as its weakest link?” While a superstar can rise up and carry the team average, it would never be as big of a gain as if the weakest performer made a rise.
Let’s bring that back to physical attributes. I’ll use myself as an example. I am above average to excellent in the areas of strength, speed, coordination, and conditioning. However, I am below average in mobility—embarrassingly low in certain areas of my body. While my speed, strength, and coordination got me down to a low handicap, my mobility limits the positions I can achieve for a textbook swing. (I’m working on it and have gotten much better since I started Lift Heavy, Swing Fast.)
Since my swing is not technically sound, I am prone to some big misses—usually a couple per round—that keep me from getting better. While you can always get stronger and faster, which will move the needle some, I have much more room for improvement in mobility.
So, back to my analogy about the team. Think of a high performer on a basketball team, a superstar who scores 40 points a night already. It’s quite a lot to ask him to go from scoring 40 to 50 or 60, but if all we need is 10 more points, wouldn’t it be easier to ask a few players to kick in 5-6 points for us to win?
For me, since my strength and speed are already very high, it’s a lot to ask for more out of them when I can ask my mobility to chip in, as it has much more room for improvement.
Now it’s time to ask yourself this: Where is my low-hanging fruit? What can you start to work on today to bring up your weakest link to be a team player?
Luckily, in my program, we cover everything listed above, and athletes have the option to add more work for the things they need.
Need more mobility in my program? Do 3 sets instead of 2.
Need more conditioning? Don’t skip the programmed conditioning work.
Need more strength? Push yourself. We always include resistance training, but you have to push!
I don’t write these to sell my programs, but to help. So take a look at what you need and find a way to work on it. If you try a mobility exercise and it’s hard, well, guess what—do MORE of it! If you find a balance exercise that you can’t complete without falling over, do it again until you don’t fall. Are you exhausted halfway through your round? Don’t skip conditioning.
Take some ownership of your progress and fix it. Don’t just do the things you like to do. You should absolutely keep making your strengths stronger, but don’t shy away from bringing your weaknesses up to join the team.
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