There are a lot of reasons why it is important for someone to strength train, but why is it especially important for junior golfers? There are three main reasons why it is important: it helps keep you healthy, it helps increase performance, and it helps you keep playing later on in your career.
Reason #1: To Stay Healthy
A lot of junior golfers will start to suffer from minor injuries once they get deep into the season. These can range from wrist injuries, to low back pain, to shoulder pain. A lot of these injuries can be prevented with having a proper strength training program. The purpose of strength training is to get stronger, having stronger muscles keeps the muscles from breaking down over the season leading to less injuries. Basically, weak muscles are more likely to get injured and cause pain, stronger muscles are able to withstand the stress of playing a long season of golf which leads to less injuries and pain. So, by training in the off-season and maintaining a training program in-season helps you greatly in staying healthy.
Reason #2: To Increase Performance
As mentioned before, strength training makes you stronger and more powerful. The more powerful you are, the more clubhead speed you are able to produce, and with the right mechanics you should get more distance on your drive. More distance allows for less shots and lower scores which helps you get a leg up on the competition. Research has shown that the more force you produce into the ground with your lead leg, the faster you are able to swing. The only way to produce more force into the ground is to firstly have proper mechanics and secondly have strong legs. The only way to get strong legs is to have a proper training program that is utilizing the correct exercises and has the correct progression of weight being used. Without the proper training, it is very hard to get stronger in the correct areas which will make it harder to increase performance.
Reason #3: To Play Later in Your Career
This reason ties into the first reason of staying healthy. The healthier you are able to stay the longer you are able to play. If you start strength training early in your life, it sets up a strong foundation for the rest of your life. At a certain age your body will naturally start to break down, however, strength training is able to slow down that process. Obviously strength training makes your muscles stronger but it also helps your bones become stronger which is very important once you start to get older because your bones will become weaker overtime. So if you are able to stay stronger as you get older, the longer you are able to stay playing and hopefully at a high level.
Recap
There are a ton of reasons why it is important to strength train as a junior but three of the most important reasons are to stay healthy, increase performance, and lengthen your career. If you have any other questions or want help starting a strength training program, check out our junior page or give us a call at 919-377-2084.
Author-
Alex Shirazi
Director of In-House Performance
