Improving Strength For Golf and General Fitness (not powerlifting)

Many strength training routines/programs tend to focus around the squat, bench press, deadlift or variations of these “big 3”.

Many people may have issues performing these exercises (and others mentioned below) for numerous reasons (e.g. load management, previous injuries, muscular imbalances and/or weaknesses).

So, here I have some alternatives to progressively overload/increase strength to help improve performance, golf, general fitness whilst avoiding common issues many people have. I have also included pulling exercises too as I believe its important to have good balance between pushing and pulling.

See video for the exercises and see below for the list of exercises and reasons why they can be useful compare to possibly the “Big 3” and other (maybe over used/ promoted) exercises.

Split Squats – reduce load on low back (compared to Back squat)
Neutral Grip Incline Bench Press – generally more comfortable position on the shoulder and low back (compared to flat BB bench press)
Single Arm Row – general less load on the low back (compared to deadlift and BB rows)
Lat Pulldown (machine) – same a the above but using vertical pull
Pallof Press – better option compared to crunches/ many core exercise.
Hip Thrust – less stress on the back and knees (compared to Back Squat and Deadlift)

To put these exercises into a program you could do this in many ways, however, here’s a couple of ideas…
Perfom all of the above exercises in one session and repeat 3x per week. Or focus on the above on 1-2 different days to improve strength and use additional exercises as ‘accessory’.
You could use a linear periodization approach starting with 12-15 reps, then 10-12, then 8-10, then 5-7reps over the course of 12-16 weeks (works quite nicely for a beginner).
Or for someone a little more advanced/experienced you could try a non-linaer approach where you swap between 4-6 reps and 10-12 reps day-to-day or week-to-week of the exercises.