Intro:
As a junior golfer you may have heard the terms strength training, weight training, or resistance training start to come up more often. Professional players, college players and even high school players are starting to strength train more often but what are the benefits of it for a young junior?
Benefit #1
First and foremost having greater strength usually leads to more distance. Of course your swing mechanics are a major part of having good distance but typically, the stronger you are, the faster you are able to swing, and the farther you are able to hit it. This is where having a proper strength training program comes in, if you are training wrong or do not have a plan, you might not see results as quickly as if you had a planned training program.
Benefit #2
A second major benefit is injury prevention, a lot of the time injuries come from swinging too hard for your body to handle or overuse of a weak muscle. This is very common for junior golfers who will start to naturally swing harder due to growing. For example, let’s say you take a racecar engine and put it in an old pick-up truck and try to go as fast as you can. What do you think would happen? The pick up truck would probably fall apart because it cannot handle the power the race car engine has, same thing goes with your body. If you swing faster than your body can handle you will start to have more and more injuries. But, if you build muscle and strength, your body is able to handle the power of the swing and will be less likely to get injured. The same thing goes for overuse injuries, most injuries of that type occur to a smaller, weaker muscle. But with strength training, you can strengthen that muscle along with surrounding muscles so it is better able to handle the usage through the long golf season.
Benefit #3
A third benefit of strength training for junior golfers is increased stamina. Strength training is all about causing adaptations to your body and one of those is increased recovery. At first you might be sore after a training session but over time you will notice that you get less sore after a session and recover faster for the next session. This can also translate to your golf game, let’s say, for example, you usually start to get tired around the 14th hole and you notice your drive is decreasing. So, you start a proper strength training program and after a few weeks you notice that you are less fatigued later into rounds and your drive distance is maintained throughout the round and even tournament. This is because your body has adapted and is able to recover faster and maintain power longer.
Recap:
So to recap, there are 3 main benefits of strength training for a junior golfer and they are increased distance, injury prevention, and increased stamina. If you would like more guidance or even join our Junior Strength program, check out our website or give us a call at 919-377-2084. We have virtual and in person options for every junior!
Author-
Alex Shirazi
Golf Performance Coach
