When it comes to golf fitness, it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, Champions Tour, or even college golf. The players who are winning today are stronger and more fit than those who were winning just a few years ago.
Golf fitness training based on the science of biomechanics has changed the way the game is played.
Today, working on improving your body is just as important as working on your long game or your wedge play. But it’s not just the professionals at the top of the leaderboard who are taking advantage of improving their golf fitness. Everyone from the local club champion to the gal or guy who just picked up the sport last year is improving their game, getting stronger, and having more fun out on the golf course thanks to the kind of work we’ve been doing at the Joey D Golf Sports Training Center for years. While it’s a great honor that the last three American World Number One golfers — Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, and Brooks Koepka — have all put in a lot of hard work out at our facility, we’re just as honored by how many recreational players trust us to improve their bodies and their games.
And now you can, too — regardless of where you live!
1. Golf is Healthy
We’re in a strange time in human history right now. So many of things that we took for granted not that long ago are now either off-limits or have been drastically altered. Happily, one of the few things that seems to remain relatively unchanged is golf. Playing a round of golf is one of the few healthy activities left that allows you to play a game, get some exercise, reduce stress and hang out with friends — all while practicing safe social distancing.
Walking a 9-hole or 18-hole course on a beautiful day is a great way to get some exercise and fresh air. The average 18-hole course will have you walking around five miles or so.
(And congratulations if you have a vicious slice or hook. All those extra steps in the woods looking for your ball add up to even more mileage!)
Of course, the better you play, the more fun you’re going to have.
Our golf fitness programs will have you hitting it longer, carding lower scores, and having a whole lot of fun in the process.
2. You Get Out of It
What You Put into It
Many golfers think the only way they can improve their game is by improving their clubs. While there’s definitely something to be said for having the right driver, irons, wedges, and putter, the latest and greatest clubs can only take you so far. That’s because the club doesn’t swing itself. It’s the body that swings the club that ultimately determines the fate and final resting place of the ball.
By improving your body’s ability to move in golf-specific ways, you improve the way your body swings the club. The better your body swings the club, the farther and more accurately you’re going to hit the ball.
While the pros you see on TV — the players we see here in Jupiter on a regular basis — may work on their golf fitness 6 or 7 days a week, there’s no reason why you won’t be able to experience big gains in speed, add distance and improve accuracy with just two or three short workouts a week.
Our workouts are laser-focused on improving the way you play golf. There’s no guesswork and no fluff. We’re confident that once you start seeing lower scores and start having more fun on the course, you’re going to want to add an extra workout into your week.
You get out of it what you put into it…and the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it.
3. All Fitness is Not Created Equal
Just because you’re working out, it doesn’t necessarily mean your golf game is going to improve. You may end up looking better and feeling better, which are good things, but they may not be doing much to help you lower your scores or increase your power and accuracy. To optimize your golf game, you need to focus on the golf-specific movement patterns that will let your body swing the club more efficiently and powerfully. (The good news is that the things that’ll let you play better will also have you looking and feeling better!)
Many of the old-school lifts that many golfers still do on a regular basis in the gym can actually have a negative impact on your golf swing if you don’t mange them properly. Heavy chest presses and biceps curls can tighten muscles that you don’t want to be tight when you’re out on the course. The key is to balance strength AND mobility AND flexibility work to the correct blend for you to optimize your body in a golf-specific way while also preventing injuries.
Our Tour-proven golf fitness programs — based on the biomechanics of the golf swing — provide full-body strength training without tightening you up.
4. Flexibility and Mobility
The more you can effortlessly rotate through the hips, spine, and shoulders, the deeper your backswing can be, the more power you’ll be able to generate upon impact, and the deeper and more comfortable your follow-through will be. Unfortunately, real life sometimes gets in the way of our ability to maintain the optimal range of motion around the hips, spine, and shoulders. If you sit for a good part of the day — like a lot of us do — your legs, hips and back are going to be tight. If, while you’re doing all that sitting, you’re looking at a computer screen and hunched over a keyboard, the postural muscles of the thoracic spine and the rotator muscles in your shoulders can also get stressed and tight.
Luckily, most of this tightness can be reduced through golf-specific stretching and range-of-motion exercises. If you’ve spent your life playing with restrictions around the hips, spine, and shoulders, you’ll be amazed at how fluid your golf swing will feel after these restrictions start to disappear.
While lower scores, a more comfortable swing, and more fun out on the course are good things, just as important is how these same flexibility exercises, drills, and stretches will affect your time off the course.
If you suffer from lower- or upper-back issues, creating more movement around the hips, spine, and shoulders will let you enjoy every waking — and sleeping — hour pain-free.
5. Balance and Stability
Balance is one of the least understood and under-appreciated components of golf fitness. It’s something we work on constantly with players of all levels. You may be able to swing the club 100 mph, but if your body isn’t stable enough to confidently handle that swing speed, there’s no telling where you or your ball will be after the dust settles.
If you’re swinging the club off-balance and out-of-control, subconsciously your brain no longer cares about playing golf. Its goal, at this point, is to simply keep you upright. Due to your lack of balance and stability, you’ve gone from hoping your ball finds the fairway to hoping you don’t topple over in front of your buddies.
Most people think that their balance and equilibrium is like their eye color: it’s what they were born with and it is what it is.
Fortunately, balance, just like strength and endurance, can be improved through core strength exercises and drills designed specifically to increase one’s stability and balance.
6. Coordination and Swing Speed
We’ve all seen very arms-y players. (Some of you may see one every time you look in the mirror!) If you’re just using your upper body to swing the club, you may have a certain degree of success on the course, but you’re not playing nearly up to your potential. As we’ve mentioned, a powerful swing involves rotation at the hips, spine, and shoulders.
If you’re not able to get all of these moving parts to work together in your golf swing, you’re only generating a fraction of the clubhead speed — and power — that you could be generating.
To develop full-body coordination you need to be doing golf-specific fitness training that focuses on the movement patterns required in the golf swing. This will allow you to get all your body parts on the same page and in sync. Once you have a coordinated full-body golf swing, you’ll be amazed at just how easy and comfortable a fast and powerful golf swing can be.
Our Tour-proven golf fitness routines — based on the biomechanics of the golf swing — provide full-body strengthening without tightening you up. And you’ll also be amazed at just how far you’ll be out-hitting your formerly arms-y self. All. Day. Long.
7. Confidence and the Mental Game
In a perfect world, when you’re out on the course, all you’re thinking about is what shot you want to play, the distance to your target, the wind direction, and your club selection. Unfortunately, most players spend more time worrying about their golf posture, their achy lower back, and how much the next shot will hurt their knee. All of these mental distractions will negatively affect your swing and your game. (It’s like trying to ignore your “Check Engine” or “Low Tire Pressure” light when you’re driving!)
By optimizing your body to play the game with the same Tour-proven golf fitness program used by the best players in the world, you can remove a lot of that worry, doubt, and distraction. When you replace that worry with the confidence that your body can powerfully and comfortably swing the club, you can start to focus on the things that really matter, like hitting the ball longer and with better accuracy.
Let’s get to work!
Golfers of all ages and skill levels have been improving their golf fitness substantially using our Tour-proven golf training program.
On any given day, you could walk into the Joey D Golf Sports Training Center and see a World Number One golfer working out side-by-side with top LPGA players, promising junior players, recreational golfers who have been playing for decades, and folks that just picked up the game last week.
While it would be great to have you come in and work with one of the coaches at our 10,000 square-foot state-of-the-art golf training facility, we realize that that may be easier said than done for most of you.
The good news is that you don’t have to live in the Jupiter, Florida area to experience the same game-changing results we’re getting with players here in the training center. Our team of expert coaches are available for private online training. Get the same personalized fitness assessments, individualized workout plans, and one-on-one guidance that the Tour pros get from the comfort of your own home.
Fix Your Body, Fix Your Swing
In addition to our golf eBooks, you can also grab the best-selling book, “Fix Your Body, Fix Your Swing,” written by Joey Diovisalvi — better known in golf circles as Coach Joey D. The book guides you through easy-to-follow movement pattern assessments and golf-specific exercises and has helped thousands of golfers around the world optimize their bodies for the game since it was published. (Look for the follow-up “Hang the Banner,” written by Coach Joey D and Coach Kolby “K-Wayne” Tullier, later this year!)
STREAMING GOLF WORKOUTS
HIT IT GREAT is home to some of the best golf fitness coaches in the world. We feature golf workouts, classes and programs for players at all levels, including some can be done at home with just a golf club and some light equipment.
It’s designed for golfers of all ages and skill levels and lets you work out as much as you want…on your own schedule.
If you’ve been looking for a one-stop resource for everything about golf fitness, you’ve found it.
There is no faster way to improve your golf game than by optimizing your body for the game. Now you have a chance to work with the same coaches that the last three American World Number One golfers trust to optimize theirs.
Ready To Get To Work?
Our Coaches are standing-by to get you to your Best Game!
