Let's take a quick look at general fitness. Any exercise you do that requires physical effort will build up your fitness. Playing golf is actually very good exercise. Walking along the course is a very good cardiovascular exercise and will improve general fitness, but this is obviously not the case if you ride around in a golf cart!

Fitness means a healthy body that can handle a fair amount of everyday stress, breathing easily and recovering normally in a short amount of time. Naturally, every sport requires some effort and certain muscles are generally called on while others are specifically called on.

Therefore it is easy to see that depending on which sport you participate in you will need to follow different fitness routines.

Fitness training for golf requires all four of the following qualities – strength training, stamina, flexibility and focus. So let's see how we can do fitness training for golf.

Stretching

Stretching is extremely important for improvement in golf performance. The more you stretch, the easier and more powerful your swing becomes. Stretching will also loosen up your muscles to increase movement.

Cardiovascular

Cardiovascular training is what most people think of when they think of fitness training for golf. This includes running, cycling or any other activity that can get your heart rate up. This will enable you to walk down the whole golf course without becoming so tired that you start making forced errors. Generally the more tired you are, the sloppier your technique becomes.

Strength

The main idea for fitness training for golfers is to increase your strength for making longer drives. You only have to look at Tiger Woods and you can readily see that he works out. He is a vision of strength, stamina, flexibility and focus.

Now, the problem about golf is that it mainly works one side of your body and that is there is an asymmetrical motion that develops. Unless you follow a targeted program to compensate and train in a balanced way, that one side of the body will develop more and your game will start to suffer.

Training program

The following is a basic training program that concentrates on fitness training for golf. If you are unsure of the exercise, please ask your gym instructor.

Start on the treadmill and run a few minutes to warm up. Now take some time to properly stretch all muscle groups. Next, go to the weight room. Chest, shoulder and torso exercises are primary in fitness training for golfers. For your chest, do bench press or pushups. Follow that with some shoulder presses or dumbbell front raises. Now do some ab crunches to strengthen your stomach muscles. You will be surprise how much you use these muscles when you swing a golf club. Now for a crucial exercise to train the obliques (the muscles running vertically down your sides). Take a stick and rest it across your shoulders. Now rotate your upper torso from side to side in a controlled motion. Finish with another run on the treadmill or a bit of cycling to work on your cardiovascular fitness.

Ultimately it is stretching and strengthening the body core that will enable you to hit the ball further and more controlled so this is most important in fitness training for golf.

Hein Hayman is an avid golfer who has lowered his handicap significantly in a short period of time. If you also wan to lower your handicap, go to http://www.loweringyourhandicap.com to see how he did it.