INCREASING PERFORMANCE ON THE GOLF COURSE
Increasing Performance on the Golf Couse
The Trap-Bar Deadlift by JD O’Brien
One of the easiest conversation topics you can bring up when getting to know someone is, “what do you do for a living? “When I say that I am a strength and conditioning coach for The Indiana University Men’s Golf team, one of the first questions I am asked is, “what do you do with golf?” If you search the web on how to resistance train for golf, I’m sure that the results would look like some sort of twisting weight resisted type of core movement, or something very general like treadmill walks or your traditional crunching type exercise. With this idea of training a golf team, your head can get all of the place, you’re thinking anti-rotation, fixing asymmetries, weighted golf swings? But for me I like to keep it simple and think out how I can train the specific angles that this golfer puts him or herself in to execute a said skill. More specifically I am going to talk about the hinge movement.
When a golfer sets up to drive the ball, his body set up is in hinged position. There is a slight bend in his/her knees, the hips are back and the shoulders are positioned over or in front of the toes (Picture A). From this position the golf moves into his back swing and then finishes through to drive the ball. When I think about a golfers set up and the movement that his/or her hips go through to drive the ball, one particular foundational weight lifting movement comes to mind, the deadlift. The deadlift is the king of all lower body movers. It mimics the hip positioning most athletes utilize in their sports to explosively move in all directions, this is called, the “athletic”, or “ready” position. In golf this same position is achieved when driving the ball, although the hips may be set up a little higher than you would typically see with a defender in basketball.
When you traditionally think of the deadlift movement, you think of 250lb powerlifters pulling massive amounts of weight off the floor. When I think of the deadlift specifically the deadlift for my golfers, I think of trap bar (a specialty deadlift bar), and I think of lifting blocks. I think the of the block deadlift (Picture B). Why am I such of fan of this movement when training my golf team? This movement puts the golfers in the same position that they would be in when setting up to drive the ball.
This set up allows me to overload that hip hinge position, and help my golfers increase their power output when driving the ball. The byproduct of an increase in maximal strength is always a good start when looking to increase force production. Although there is no rotational aspect in this movement, it trains that foundation of where that movement starts, hip flexion to hip extension. As the year moves on we traditionally move to more rotational power movements such as different medicine ball toss variations, but I have found to help their game the most if to master the basics, because that is the foundation of where athletic development starts. Try this variation of yourself to enhance your golf game, the trap bar deadlift is STAPLE in my programs here at Indiana University.
JD O’BRIEN
JD O’Brien serves as an Assistant Athletic Performance Coach. O’Brien works with the Indiana University Softball, Men’s Tennis, Men’s Golf and Cheerleading Team. He also serves as an assistant to Clif Marshall, Director of Athletic Performance for Indiana University Men’s Basketball. During his tenure, he has also worked with Indiana University Football team.
Prior to his arrival in Bloomington, O’Brien served as an assistant speed, strength and conditioning coach at Athletic Revolution of Northeast Indianapolis from May 2013 until May 2016. At Athletic Revolution O’Brien developed performance programs for local collegiate, high school and youth athletes.
O’Brien earned a bachelor's degree in sports performance from Marian University of Indianapolis. He is a certified USA Weight Lifting Club Coach and a member of the National Strength and Conditioning Association.