Everyone wants to get more distance off the tee to improve their golf game. A more expensive driver may help, but you can also make significant gains in your driving distance with increased fitness. By performing exercises that strengthen your core, upper body and lower body, you can create a body better designed to hit the long ball. More strength allows you to increase your swing speed, which will help you hit longer golf shots.
Upper Body
If you could see a freeze frame at impact, the musculature of the worlds top golfers may surprise you. The forearms, biceps and triceps, shoulders and chest of professional golfers may not rival those of an NFL quarterback, but they are definately toned and athletic. In order to work on your upper body without losing flexibility you can perform a variety of exercises. Push-ups and pull-ups are great because they use your own body weight as resistance. If you want to work with free weights, you should not try to max-out but rather use a weight at which you can complete 8-10 reps of an exercise. Bench press, dumbbell flys and lat pull downs all strengthen muscles that can help you add distance to your drives.
Core Strength
A strong and flexible core will allow you to increase distance off the tee with an explosive uncoiling of your body in your downswing. Your core consists of your abdominals along with your lower back, hip flexors and buttocks. With a weak core you will not be able to build up as much torque in your downswing and your club head speed will stay low. Exercises to build your core strength include crunches, oblique crunches and standing torso twist. If you have a partner, you can work with a medicine ball. Have your partner toss you the ball at the top of a sit up, lay back down with your arms over your head, and toss the ball back on the upward motion of your next sit up.
Lower Body
If you watch the longest hitters on the PGA tour you will notice they sort of sit down during the beginning of their downswing and push up and through the ball with their lower body through impact. Usually golfers will try to keep their body quiet throughout the swing to promote consistent ball striking. When you're driving the ball though, you can use this lower body motion to add extra power. The best way to strengthen your lower body is to perform a motion similiar to your swing during a workout. You can grab a barbell and do squats. You can again use the medicine ball to increase your lower body strength. Stand facing a high wall with the ball, dip down into a squat, burst your legs up and toss the ball off the wall. This motion will simulate the end of your swing when you power through the ball, releasing it up and away from the tee with a powerful follow through.
Flexibility
Strengthening your body can become counterproductive to your golf swing if you do not also work on your flexibility. Because the golf swing relies so much on timing, range of motion and tempo, a bulky muscular frame does not lend itself to long, straight shots. The longest hitters can turn their shoulders away from the ball while their hips stay relatively still. A great stretch to practice this turn is to lay on your back and swing one knee over the other leg until your are on your side and one leg is perpendicular to the other. Next, take your arm on the same side of your bent leg and extend it in the opposite direction until your hand touches the ground behind you. You should feel a stretch in your lower back, hip, shoulder and chest. Hold this stretch for 30 seconds on both sides. The better you are at this stretch, the further you can turn away from the ball and the longer your drives will fly.
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