Are you “fit”?
This question will have different meanings for everyone. Fitness also consists of a number of different elements, it’s not just “one thing”. Two elements that are extremely important are muscular strength and body composition.
Muscular strength is easy to understand. It’s how much force you can produce in a certain movement. Strength is very “task specific”, which means that we can be strong in one movement, but weak in another movement.
Body composition refers to the different materials that make up our body weight. For health and performance purposes we want to limit unnecessary body fat, and have enough muscle mass to keep us strong and robust. Muscle mass also helps burn slightly more calories, even when at rest. For example, you could have two people who both weigh 185lbs. One of them could have 27% body fat and the other could have 16% body fat. In this scenario, the person with 27% body fat would have 50lbs of fat, while the person with 16% body fat would have 30lbs of body fat. A 20lb difference in fat mass!
There is a simple test I think does a great job of providing you information about your strength and body composition status. It’s the simple pull up test.
All you do is hang from a pull up bar and try to pull yourself towards it. This is quite a ruthless test, because we have to lift all of our body weight. If we have a lot of excess body fat, and / or not a lot of upper body strength, we won’t be able to pull our chin over the bar.
I admit that this test is quite challenging, but in my opinion, it is a great standard to strive towards. Before you say, “but I’m ______ age”, or “this is harder for females”, which are two common rebuttals, I promise you there are people of a similar profile to you that can successfully perform multiple repetitions.
As mentioned earlier, there are two primary reasons you will not be able to complete a pull-up.
1) Excess body fat: This is a result of consuming more calories than you expend. You lose body fat by consuming less calories than you expend (contrary to some things you may read!!!). While activity absolutely plays an important role here, calories intake is usually where the biggest and most simple changes can be made.
“Many people overestimate how many calories they burn, and underestimate how many calories they consume”
2) Upper body strength: Primarily in the lat muscles, which are also very important muscles for swing speed in the golf swing. If you cannot currently do a pull up with your own body weight, and workout in a gym you can train the muscles involved on the assisted pull up machine, or the lat pull down machine. The key is to keep the reps per set low (about 5), and gradually increase the resistance.
If you exercise at home, there are pull up bars that can be mounted in door frames and you can use bands for assistance. Dumbbell rows, and band lat pull downs are also good options to train these muscles.
As you lose excess body fat and increase the strength of your pulling muscles, you will come closer and closer to being able to pass the test 🙂
This will be a good proxy measure for your all over fitness, health, and likely help your swing speed.
All of the programs on the Fit For Golf App include a variety of pulling exercises to work on these key muscles. You will need to make lifestyle changes for the dropping excess bodyfat part!
