Transcripts - Episode 5: How to Get Golf-Ready This Winter

The Birdie Board Podcast is brought to you by the Birdie Board app — the easiest way to track matches, scores, and handicaps with friends. Now, here's your host, Corey, with another episode of the Birdie Board Podcast.

Welcome back to episode 5 of the Birdie Board Podcast. In this episode, I'm going to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is working out. So even before I started golfing or anything, that was one of the main things I was into. It started when I was in high school. I was pretty much a one-sport athlete. I kind of wish I did a little bit more. I did some soccer things on the side, but I trained for football.

And one of the best things that I learned while training for football is how to work out. My dad taught me a lot of how to work out. He played at, or college football, and he trained under a guy named Bill Gillespie. If you don't know who Bill Gillespie is, you should look him up. So if I Google him right now, let's be. So his last name is spelled G-I-L-L-E-S-P-I-E. He's a strength coach. He has a world record at the age of 62 for bench press where he benched — and this is no exaggeration, you can YouTube it — 1,129 pounds. So at 62 years old, he bench pressed over 1,000 pounds. He's the one who trained my dad, and then my dad is kind of who passed down everything to me.

So a lot of what I'm going to share today is rooted in very, very deep athletic theory, working out theory. It is just, I have talked about my golf handicap before and how it's just kind of a friend to a friend. I think in this case, I'm sharing some real advantageous things about golf working out in this podcast.

So I think something I like to think about is: how do you approach golf? Everyone approaches golf differently. I think everyone can benefit from working out. I think the real question is how much do you work out and are you working out for the purposes of golf? So I love treating golf as more of an athletic event, but I also have buddies who just treat it as something casual. They'll have beer during, or a beer or drinks during the play — fine with me — but I can never have a beer or something like that while I'm playing football or running outside of soccer or playing basketball. Like, that stuff's just not going to energize me. And I've treated golf the same way. So whether you have that perspective or not, I think this podcast is going to be really useful for you, but I am going to talk more about the perspective of golf being more of an athletic sport.

And I think this really started with Tiger Woods. Early in the 2000s, late 90s is when Tiger Woods really started hitting the scenes. A big difference between him and everyone else is, before Tiger, it was more of a casual sport, definitely a professional aspect to it, but they weren't world-class athletes. Tiger Woods came to the scene and did something different. He trained like a full-class athlete. He had early mornings, he did cardio, he did lifting, he did flexibility, and he set this new standard, and it was one of the reasons he was so dominant in that portion of his career.

As you see nowadays, these golfers have caught up. So now you see Rory McRoy just focusing so much on his explosion and his speed-driven workouts, focusing on mobility just as much strength. And you see that still with Tiger — obviously he's pretty banged up — but you see that with just golfers across the board. If you took a line-up of golfers in today's PJ and compared it to a line-up of golfers in the 1990s, they're just not going to look the same. Today's golfers are going to be bigger, they're going to be in more shape, more tuned. And it's not to put down the 90s golfers or before — it was different. Today's an athletic thing; back then it was athletic, but it wasn't treated like a football or NBA or something like that.

I love training for golf in this sort of way. I haven't trained for that in a little while because I had a baby not too long ago, but starting to get back into the routine. And I think one of the key things to this is consistency. So working out is more important to stay consistent. It doesn't matter what you're doing — it would be better for you to do like a 30-minute or 20-minute workout every single day rather than like an hour workout or two-hour workout once a week. You're not going to see results by doing that.

So here's just kind of a base of how you can treat working out. And this is going to work for anyone, no matter your skill so. So here are some basic rules that you can follow. Alternate workout categories every other day. Easiest is like upper body, lower body, upper body, lower body — something like that. If you want to get a little more complex, you could do like strength, cardio, strength, cardio — something like that — but you're just doing every other day and then give yourself one day a week off. So what I like to do is like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; Sunday is a rest day. Monday would also be a really good day for mobility. That's huge — just stretching. You're not breaking a sweat. You don't have to worry about showering afterwards or anything like that. You're just going to stretch on that last day. So basic rule number one: alternate your workouts every day with a day of rest a week.

Basic rule number two is: try to do exercises that mimic what you're trying to train for. That's one of the best things I learned from Bill Gillespie, the guy I talked about earlier, and how you can really make the most. So, for example, in football, one of my favorite exercises was a power clean. And that's when you start with a barbell on the ground with weights or plates on the side of the barbell. You start, so it's kind of like a deadlift, and then you power clean it up to your chest. So that was a really good motion for football because you're constantly trying to get lower and then explode up through tackles. So you can find a lot of exercises that mimic that in golf.

So you take those two simple rules — alternating days and then just trying to mimic the golf swing — and you're going to get a pretty good workout. And then staying with that for weeks on end or months on end is really where you're going to see good results. So that's just like a nice base.

So why does fitness even matter? I think it's a pretty obvious thing. It helps you get stronger, helps you get better. But I think a big thing is just injury prevention. When you're stronger, you're not going to get as many injuries, especially if you keep the flexibility in it. You're not breaking down a hole 16 or 17, getting tired by the end of the round — stuff like that. And it will help your mental game. Because as soon as you start getting tired, you're going to start losing your mental game a little bit. You're going to start thinking about, man, I'm tired; I got to overcomply; I got to really think about my swing. That's not going to happen the more in shape you are.

I remember learning about Tiger's Woods workout, and it's insane. I mean, I don't think any of us will really train like he did back in the day. But he would run miles and miles every single morning — just get his cardio up — and then do like an hour or two-hour workout right after that. Maybe that's like the best goal we could get to. But that's not really what we're looking to do today.

So let's talk about what to train and why. The first thing I want to talk about is just mobility. So you have a golf swing really benefits from more flexibility, more mobility. So a lot of exercises to increase mobility through things like your hips, your shoulders — especially your back. If those things are locked up, your swing path will never feel smooth no matter how much you practice. You have to be really loose through all these parts. Stretching to get really loose is just a consistent thing. I would rather you work out — if you're saying, “Hey, Corey, I'm going to work out for 30 minutes a day,” I would rather you spend 10 minutes of that 30 stretching if the goal is to get better at golf.

Another big aspect is just the core strength. It's not about building like a six pack — you're probably never going to see a golfer with that — but it's really that rotational control that you're looking for. It's all about like planks and twists. One of my favorite exercises is: if you have like a band attached to like a door frame or something (make sure it's attached well) or go to like a cable machine and start by having your hips perpendicular to with the band, so you're kind of pulling the band across from your chest. Keep your arms out straight. Rotate to the right towards the wall or the cable machine where there's less resistance, and then, keeping your arms straight, rotate back the other way. It's a really good exercise that mimics the golf swing.

Balance is a big one too. Single-leg work on, like, a balance board. You can even get like a short two-by-four or something like that where you can balance on it. Stuff like that is really good. The Bonzo balls — it's like those half-ball things you can get. This is one of my favorite exercises I actually learned in physical therapy: you can do a one-leg stand on those and do like a mini half squat, holding some weight or just body weight would be fine too. Another thing is you could stand on it straight leg on one leg still and point your other leg forward and then back to neutral; sideways back to neutral; and then back back to neutral. The movement of it just kind of exercises those little muscles in your ankle and helps keep that stability.

And then another thing is just power and speed. I think one of the best exercises is like a hand clean. That's where you start — it's kind of like the power clean. Instead of starting with the bar on the ground, you start at your thighs. But it's a really good mimic of just explosiveness of a golf swing. It doesn't have the twisting motion, but it does have a nice power through your legs.

So, I really think that routine is what you guys need. So let's move on to the next section — just that routine. I would much rather you do, like, 30 minutes a day and just stay on that schedule. Have a day focused on mobility and stretching, maybe some on power, rotation, balance, and endurance. The key is just to make sure you're not exercising, like, the same body group two days in a row. You don't have to overcomplicate it or anything — any that would do.

I think some training programs do pretty well for golf too. I've done P90X, which is a 30-minute-a-day workout that has really good just all-around golf workout. I shot my best round last year. My best round ever was a 79 this year — first time, only time I've ever broken 80. But last year I did P90X — I did the 30 minutes a day — and then I was training for a half marathon on top of that. By the end of the half marathon training, I would do a 30-minute P90X workout and then I would run for 50 minutes or an hour. That by far was the best shape I was ever in. I think it was a huge contributing factor to why I was able to shoot an 80. I was just in such good shape. I wasn't feeling tired. I felt like I had great control over my swing.

I think there's differences too — whether you're doing this in the off season or in season. When you're in season, you probably want to avoid the heavier training. You're golfing a lot. You're practicing a lot out on the course. Today is October 20th. We're really starting this off season. That's why I'm talking about this now, where we can start to talk about what our off season plans are and what workouts we're going to do. But again, just the most important thing is staying consistent.

What I love having people do is just get that consistency first. Let's say you've been able to be pretty consistent — you've been staying with it maybe 30 days or so. It's going to get boring after a while. I think this is where measuring comes into progress. Measuring comes into view. It's more than just how much you can lift. You can certainly get your maxes on your hand clean and what's the best hand clean you can do. Maybe you do a deadlift or a rotation. Those are definitely factors I would encourage you to track. You can also track your mobility, which is really, really important for your golf swing. How far can you twist over? Can you touch your toes? Things like that can be tracked.

Track in six- to eight-week intervals, and then plan to take a week off. I like to do, like, six weeks of working out, a week for testing and measuring, and then a week off. It ends up being about an eight weeks cycle — about a two months cycle — in the end. That's worked really well for me in the past. I do 30 minutes a day — maybe a little more towards the end. It's really easy to stay consistent because you can do anything for 30 minutes a day.

If you do this throughout the golf season or the golf off season, I guarantee you you're going to start the golf season in the best shape of your life and probably have some really good rounds early on in the season. Golf fitness is about longevity. You need to keep your body healthy so you can play longer and play more comfortably — staying loose, being able to last those four- or five-hour rounds and not feel dead afterwards. I want you guys to be able to go to a golf weekend and play three days in a row and get to the end of the third day and feel like, “Oh, I could play another day if someone asks me.” I don't want you to get to the point of that end of that three-day feeling like, “I can't play another day because I'm tired.” I would rather you be like, “Oh, I can't play another day because I'm not really into — I just played three days in a row; I don't need to play another day.”

You can get started with anything. I mentioned a lot of different exercises that require different sorts of gear and stuff like that. You don't need that. The key is just get started. Just do something consistent. Resistance bands are great. You can get a bunch of resistance bands offline for like 20 bucks. That's probably going to give you all you need. Bodyweight moves are great too. You could just do a cheap membership or a cheap, like, workout plan like P90X. I think you can get it for like 10 bucks a month or something like that. There's a lot of cheaper options. One of the best things I think you can do is just running as well. You can do that outside. Of course, it's going to be cold, but maybe you have a trend more or something like that, or maybe you live in an area that it's not that cold. Anything like that — it's going to be good.

That's kind of the summary for this podcast. I'm probably going to talk a lot more about the off season coming up. We're starting it now — it's October. I know in this area, which is like the Northeast, the trees are starting to turn already. It's beautiful to play right now. It's tough to find your golf ball with all the falling leaves. It's definitely near the end of the golf season. This is a really timely podcast, and I'm going to keep talking about it. I love working out. I'll even commit to working out for this podcast. I'll start sharing my progress and talking about how my off season training is going.

Thanks for listening. If you really enjoyed this show, leave a review. I think it helps this show get found in your podcast stores. Of course, this is sponsored by — not really sponsored — it is by Birdie Board. You can go to iOS or Android. You can get Birdie Board for free to track your best match. Right now, I'm giving away three free matches for anyone that downloads right now because I'm not really looking to make anything off of it. I just want people to enjoy it, especially at the end of the golf season.

You can find short clips on a lot of different platforms like YouTube or Instagram or TikTok or pretty much everywhere at this point — really just trying to establish a base. I appreciate you guys listening. I'm going to keep trying to do this once a week. Stay tuned for more. Thanks everyone.

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