Many professional golfers and athletes in other sports are turning to physical fitness to improve their games. This is done in the belief that greater fitness will translate to hitting the ball further and harder, throwing further and harder, running faster and so on. Very few, however, are doing specialized strength and flexibility exercises that duplicate the joint actions seen in execution of the game skills.
Most athletes do general fitness type exercises to get the body stronger and more fit cardiovascularly. This helps improve your game especially when playing in the latter half of the game, but not to the extent that specialized strength exercises can benefit you.
For example, it was reported that Annika Sorenstam did between 700 to 1000 sit-ups a day as part of her fitness program. This high number of setups is not unique to Annika; many athletes in other sports do an equal if not higher number of sit-ups.
The fitness program used by Annika and the programs used by athletes in other sports is literally transforming their bodies to where they have more muscle mass and definition. Many of the athletes become much more powerful in the upper body and arms in their upper body physiques are comparable to many high-level bodybuilders.
But are all these sit-ups (and other exercises) truly improving gameplay or skill execution? Yes, but very little. The reason for this is that the sit-ups and other general exercises such as pull-ups, biceps curls and bench presses do not duplicate any muscle action seen in the golf swing or in execution of other sports skills.
For example, sit-ups are effective for strengthening the abdominals, but in a front to back plane in order to execute spinal flexion. In the golf swing and in other sports that involve throwing and/or hitting, the abdominals play their major role in rotating the shoulders forward, not flexing the spine.
Because sit-ups do not duplicate the rotational action, the physical development does not transfer to the golf swing. If athletes did exercises such as the reverse trunk twist and Russian twist for the abdominals, they would see major improvement in their ability to hit the ball harder and further, throw harder and further etc. and more effectively.
For more information on specialized exercises that duplicate the actions seen in the golf swing, read Explosive Golf. To view exercise execution see the DVD Explosive Golf. For more information on specialized exercises in other sports, see Explosive Running, Explosive Basketball Training, Women’s Soccer and Build a Better Athlete.