Golf world. Let’s talk about cardio. If you’re a golfer and you’re not doing some kind of sprint training, you’re doing yourself a disservice and here’s why.
- The golf swing is an anaerobic activity. Sprinting is an anaerobic activity. Training should always mimic competition… That is a short powerful bout followed by a long rest. The average PGA golf swing is around 0.8 milliseconds, with multiple minutes passing by between shots. Cardio training should mimic that. Golfers should focus on performing powerful explosive movements (bike sprint, running sprints, consecutive jumps etc) that are short in duration ( 0.5s – 25s) with plenty of rest in between and repeat.
- Sprinting improves strength and power relative to your mass. The very nature of sprinting is moving one’s body from place to another as fast as possible. To do that requires massive amounts of strength and power, again much like a golf swing. For those who hate weight training, sprinting and plyometric training are great alternatives for developing strength and power.
- Sprinting is an anabolic (muscle building) activity. That means sprinting actually builds up muscle mass, burns fat, and makes the body stronger. Traditional longer steady state cardio has a catabolic effect, breaking down both muscle and fat tissues as fuel sources. Think of a sprinter’s body type compared to that of a marathon runner. Again we’re building athletes for golf here at SSBS- I’ll take the sprinters body type all day!
- Decreased injury risk. The nature of sprinting is short intense bouts of movement, followed by a long rest. That means when performing the next sprinting rep you’re rested and firing near max capacity and able to repeat your technique. Most injuries occur when you’re tired and technique is compromised. A good coach will never allow you to sprint under fatigue conditions. Furthermore, sprinting has way less cumulative damage on joints and soft tissues and you’re spending much less time on the ground and the overall number of ground contacts have decreased.
- Time effective. Sprinting is incredibly time effective. Once you’ve warmed up properly you can get right into your workout where you’re going hard for maybe 30 minutes max compared to 45 minutes to 90 minutes at a slow sub maximal pace. In the last 20 years an abundance of research has been published suggesting High Intensity Interval training and sprint training are just as effective at improving endurance capacity as steady state traditional cardio. That means less time in the gym and more time on the course.
So get outside, find a hill, find a track, warm up and get your sprint on. If interested in getting a sprint training program please email and we’ll get you set!
