How to easily improve your golf game: 5 exercises to fix your swing | Elastic Golf

Golf and exercise have become very much related in recent times. Golf has evolved into an athletic sport especially since Tiger Woods dominated the early 2000’s with his power game. Tiger was the first player to take physical preparation to another level to be able to overpower the opposition. He spent considerable time and focus on power training and physical fitness.

Today, professional golfers spend nearly as much time in the gym as they do on the range practising. Ex PGA Tour player, Bryson DeChambeau managed to bulk up during the COVID interruption to the professional game. In that time he gained mass and power, being able to generate club head speeds of up to 150mph. On his return to professional golf, the changes paid off as he bombed drives on his way to winning the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

In this article, we will try to give you 5 exercises that will help your golf game. These go beyond your typical "5 best stretches for golfers", these are golf exercises aimed at helping you develop the correct patterns. Add these to your workouts or sign up with Elastic Golf to access a library of golf workouts and exercises.

If you get your body in shape and moving well, you give yourself a chance to perform to your full potential.

From what we have told you so far, you are probably thinking you will be throwing heavy weights around and medicine balls to develop power and club head speed.

We don't contest that strength training increases swing speed. What we firmly believe is that most golfers will see more benefit from golf exercises aimed at improving golf fitness, mobility and balance. Our approach is to build a golfer's foundational strength and movement before layering on programs focused on swing speed and power development. The result is more gains, less injury and better golf.

We have picked five golf exercises that will help you with your flexibility, strength, coordination and motor patterns. This will allow your body the best chance of breaking unhelpful patterning in your swing.

Where do we start? Just Google "golf exercise" or "golf workout" there are thousands of exercises to choose from. So we spoke to coaches and players to research what players' poor swing tendencies are, then we designed five exercises that will iron these swing faults out.

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Poor Shoulder Turn

Many golfers will have difficulty rotating their upper body as they turn into their back swing. This will especially affect older golfers or office workers who spend many hours stuck at their desk with poor posture not moving. People who lose the ability to rotate their trunk and turn their shoulders in the swing will often incur the following problems:

• Poor loading into their trail side and arms becoming disconnected from their body.
• This can often be accompanied by them swaying to get their weight behind the ball. 
• The golfer will tend to use their upper body and arms to try to create power in their swing. 

The more you can get your shoulders to rotate in relation to your hip turn , the more stored energy will build in your big trunk muscles. This allows a more powerful release in your golf swing, often referred to as the X-factor in your swing.

A great exercise for poor shoulder turn is:

Swiss Ball Knee Rolls with a club overhead

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent over a Swiss ball and your arms at 90 degrees above your head holding a golf club.
2. Pull your knees to your chest to engage your lower abs, then roll the ball side to side
3. Keep your shoulders flat on the floor and feel your hips separate

Lead Lower Leg Stability

Another very common breakdown in your golf swing can be your left knee collapsing in toward the ball and away from your target on your backswing. This fault will often lead to taking your golf club back too flat during the early stages of your backswing. This will also pull your body around early, exacerbating the flat swing and impacting spine angle. It is important for your lower body to stay quiet during the early stages of your backswing  allowing resistance to be built up against the lead side of your body. Over swinging, poor lower limb stability and a lack of flexibility, can all contribute to your left knee collapsing.

Keep your left knee stable to build up resistance in your swing!

The corrective exercise for Lead Leg Lower Stability is:

TOE TAPS with a BAND

1. Standing in golf posture with band around ankles
2. Take weight on one leg then tap the other foot to the side
3. Keep the weight on the standing leg and feel glute activation

Improving Arm Connection

This swing fault often occurs in the first part of your backswing, when your arms disconnect or separate from your body. This will often lead to difficulty in sequencing your back swing correctly, so that your arms and club are synchronised with your body. As a result, poor swing plane and club-face issues ultimately lead to inconsistent golf shots. Further your legs and body do not work properly contributing to your golf swing, this allows your arms to often overtake your golf swing, becoming disconnected from your body

Turn your trunk keeping your arms connected to your body!

One of the best exercises to improve your arm connection is:

WOOD CHOP ARM CONNECTION

1. Using the rope attachment on a cable machine set high, stand side on with your feet shoulder width apart holding the rope with a wide grip.
2. Drop into a golf posture then "ring the bell" helping to connect your arms to your body.
3. Rotate the cable across your body keeping the connection between your arms and body.
4. Feel your shoulders turn and keep your head centred.

Improving Loading into Trail Leg

For a consistent golf swing it is vital to load your legs efficiently and in a balanced way. During the backswing ideally the pelvis rotates on the hip joints and loading of the right leg occurs with a slightly flexed knee power is then transferred as the left hip fires. You need to maintain that pressure as you turn your upper body over your back foot. Think of a baseball pitcher when he loads into his back foot so he can explode forward throwing a pitch. In golf we need to load back behind the ball to drive our power toward the target. 

A common mistake made by amateurs is to slide the hips away from the target so the lower part of the spine shifts back. This creates the wrong spine angle, when the spine tips toward the target, resulting in not much turn in the backswing and poor loading into the right leg.

The better player has a tendency to over-rotate the right hip on the backswing, which causes the right leg to straighten and the upper body to tilt away from the target too much.  Both pattern faults prevent a powerful coiling action against a stable lower body, leading to weak downswings.

The corrective golf exercise to improve loading into trail leg is:

Banded Backswing Step Turn

1. Your starting position is feet together with a band around your knees.
2. Move into a golf stance with your feet together.
3. Take step to the side into a normal stance keeping your trail leg flexed. Move your weight from your front leg to your trail leg.
4. Then turn the club into backswing feel a load into your hip.

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Early Extension

Early Extension is defined as any excessive forward movement of the hips towards the golf ball during the backswing or downswing. Early Extension often occurs due to lack of lower body flexibility and pelvic control, causing a thrust towards the golf ball and head lifting up out of posture. This is a very common tendency among amateur golfers, it often results in a two-way miss because the golfer’s arms get trapped behind them, causing a right-handed player to block the ball to the right or hook the ball to the left.  Either the arms stay stuck (causing the block) or the golfer attempts to compensate with their hands by flipping the club at the last minute (causing a hook). 

The corrective golf exercise for early extension is:

Medicine Ball Impact Bounce

1. Stand in your golf stance holding a medicine ball.
2. Take a backswing then slam the medicine ball into floor forming a K position at release.
3. Stay down and do not lift your head, feeling your lead side flexion.
4. Be sure to use the correct weight. Start with a lighter medicine ball to focus on technique before moving up to a heavier medicine ball.
5. This is an explosive movement so really slam the ball down.

The five exercises listed in this article can help improve common mistakes such as early extension, poor shoulder turn, arm connection or trail leg loading. These are great exercises to include in your workout.

If you are looking for golf workouts check out the Elastic Golf app today, sign up for free to access programs and workouts designed to get swinging the best you can out on the golf course.

Our member tier offers over 30 programs and more than 100 workouts all with effective exercises to get you playing better golf.

Regardless of your fitness levels the Elastic Golf app can help you build a repeatable, dynamic and powerful swing.

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