Core training has been a buzz phrase in fitness for a couple of decades, and there is no shortage of exercise routines that emphasise strengthening the muscles around your mid-section. Muscles such as the rectus abdominus (the “six pack”) play a huge role in virtually every aspect of athletics – and are no doubt prime movers in the golf swing.
That said, if you really want to help your game, the core muscles you can’t ignore are the obliques, says Andrea Doddato, one of Golf Digest‘s 50 Best Golf-Fitness Trainers in America.
The external obliques are located on the sides of the torso and when you think about the golf swing, “they have to extend and contract, coil and uncoil, provide some rotational power… they are super-important – and unfortunately often ignored in the gym,” she says.
A big reason for their neglect is that many golfers don’t know how to train them beyond doing some version of the side plank you see Doddato demonstrating here [below].
While planks have some value, especially in the initial phase of training, you have to hold these poses for longer and longer chunks of time as the obliques get stronger. Sooner or later, unless you progress to harder versions, your shoulder muscles give out before your core does. Another issue with planks is that while they help provide stability to your torso when you swing, they don’t address the lateral and rotational aspects of golf very well, says Doddato, a Golf Digest Certified Fitness Trainer.
With that in mind, Doddato is demonstrating here three oblique exercises that will help prime your body to make a better swing. The first is a side-lying physio-ball stretch [below] to improve the mobility of these muscles. Instead of long holds, do a series of extensions and contractions on the ball, remembering to switch sides.
After that, you’re ready to improve your ability to move your upper body independently of your lower body (disassociation) and learn how to rotate through your mid-back (thoracic spine) versus the lower back (lumbar spine). A great exercise for that is a kneeling split lunge against a wall with a full torso rotation as you see Doddato demonstrating in these next two photos [below].
The final exercise is going to help train your obliques to provide some power in your downswing. The kneeling torso rotations while pushing a bar tethered to a resistance band out and across your body will help you pick up some clubhead speed. Doddato says kneeling really isolates these muscles keeping others from assisting in the rotation [below].
If you routinely add these moves to your gym time, you should find it easier to hit shots out of the rough, bunkers, even blast a high iron over a tree. You’ll compress the ball much better, Doddato says.
