Why not give aerobics a miss
The wrong kind of training could do you more harm than good
By Darren Roberts
When training an elite sportsperson, many things have to be taken into consideration. Doing the smallest thing in training that has no relevance to the sport will have a dramatic and catastrophic effect on performance. When I arrived in golf 18 months ago, I was initially shocked, then embarrassed at the number of Walter Mitty-type characters working in the sport on supposed "golf specific" training. Not only that, but golfers are absessed by gadgets and spend vast amounts of money on them without considering the most important piece of kit they have - themselves. Why not try seeing what effect a good night's sleep, eating plenty of good food and drinking plenty of water has on their game?
Golf doesn't have the historic human performance information that athletics or rugby has. So no-one has anything to measure themselves or the person they are getting advice from against. Tiger Woods is constantly held up as a talisman of peak physical condition in the sport, yet no-one knows (apart from him and his trainer) what he does, making it a self-perpetuating myth - he looks like a fit lad - but only because everyone else is so unfit!
Fortunately for me, Paul is well educated when it comes to health and fitness and is a natural athlete, making progress easy. But when considering the direction of training we should do, it's not what you'd expect.
Points to remember
Holding your breath is good
1. You don't need to be a fit athlete to play at Paul's level, but you do need to be in good shape. So rather than embark on a complicated training programme, why not keep it simple? Golf is not an endurance event, so there is no need for aerobic training as this destroys the fast twitch fibres Paul needs to produced controlled power. I know of governing bodies in golf that recommend an analysis of lung efficiency which is probably the most irrelevant test possible for golf, but great if you're a marathon runner. Anaerobic training aids aerobic fitness but not the other way round. The levels of aerobic fitness Paul needs are achieved through anaerobic training.
Be natural
2. Train twice as hard as you play, so that on the course the physical and mental demands are easy. I break the game into phases and make Paul carry them out at a speed and intensity way beyond the game itself. This means we're also working on developing Paul's natural instincts and movement. Standing in a gym lifting small weights does not teach Paul's brain how to communicate with his muscles.Golfers can become bogged down, so we box, skip, use fast foot ladders, reaction balls, micro hurdles and throw medicine balls around! Anything that involves moving in a complex and natural way, developing the motor skills so we can carry out the movement our brains want us to.
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