February 7, 2025 • 10 mins
In this solo episode, Chris dives into how to properly increase weight when training to maximize golf performance. Too many golfers lift too light, missing out on strength gains that could translate to more clubhead speed and distance. Chris breaks down how to know when to increase weight, the common mistakes golfers make in the gym, and the ideal rep ranges for different training phases. He also shares a case study of a golfer who gained 20 yards in just 2 months by making simple changes. If you’re serious about getting stronger and hitting farther, this is a must-listen! To see if you're ready for strength training, test your mobility with our research-based assessment: https://www.par4success.com/podcast
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb spot. I'm your host
Chris Finn, and today I wanted to talk about a
very simple but important trick when it comes to loading
in terms of increasing how much weight you're lifting as
you're working out. Whether it's in the off season, maybe
it's in season, whatever. Maybe I just wanted to talk
about something that came up the other day with a
(00:30):
golfer who was working out at home and had this question.
So we're going to cover how to know how to
increase your weight, how much weight is too much, how
much weight is too little, and talk about the implications
of if you don't follow this rule. So let's dive
into it. So I had a client and we're in
Riley in North Carolina as one of our virtual clients,
the couple thousand or whatever that we have, and he
(00:53):
is I believe he was in I must say South Dakota,
somewhere kind of up north in the middle of the country.
I believe it was South Dakota and basically doesn't have
a gym around so that he goes to was doing
a lot of his working out at home, and he
had gotten through kind of his mobility heavy phase and
was had kind of done some of his early strength training,
(01:14):
so he was kind of ready to transition into a
heavier strength training phase, right, So think of it, you know,
first couple of weeks as just getting his mobility improved
in his roadary centers, his hip internal rotation, his shoulder
external rotation, his trunk rotation, his neck rotation, and then
we're starting to move into his like strengthening so like
you know, banded resistance and maybe send some lighter dumbells.
(01:36):
He's got his technique looks good, and you know, looking
at his profile, his power numbers are low due to
his strength being low relative to where he wants to
be club at. Speedwise, he's trying to get to one
hundred and five miles an hour. He started at ninety
seven miles an hour. He is, I believes, like eight
to ten weeks in he's already up over one hundred
miles an hour, so he's got about three or four
(01:57):
more mile an hour to go. So solid, you know,
first two months, I mean, dude picked up like four
miles an hour, how which is over ten yards, which
pretty good. That's typically the promise in the first three
months that we make is you know generally about ten
yards is what we expect to see if you do
what we ask you to do. So everything's smooth, smooth sale.
Now he gets on the call and he says, he says,
(02:18):
you know, I'm afraid that I'm lifting too much weight.
I don't want to get hurt. You know, I'm very
concerned about you know, bulking up right. And this is
a guy who's I think he's fifty nine years old.
You know, in terms of his workout history, historically kind
of would go to the gym. We'll just do a
bunch of machines, you know, do three sets of ten
and then you know, move on right. Very sporadically, he'd
have a couple of weeks where you do it, then
(02:39):
he'd stop, you know, based on the season. So it's
interesting because then you know, basically my first question is, well,
you know I can see your program, so we'll use
it like a We'll just use a squat for example. Okay,
he was doing a goblet squat and he said, all right,
well how many you know I look at this program.
He says, all right, you're supposed to be doing you know,
four sets of eight. Right, he's in and off season's
(03:00):
phase he's trying to build a little bit kind of
off of the build and starting to transition more to strengthening.
So he had been doing sets of higher reps as
he was getting more of his technique down. Now we're transitioning,
says eight. So but still have volume obviously, So we say,
I said, all right, well, well how much you know
load you lose using? It looks like you're, you know,
based on your numbers here using about thirty pounds, he says.
(03:21):
He confirms that. He says, yep, I'm using thirty pounds.
I doing four sets eight. I said great. I said, well,
how does it feel during the exercise? Right? And this
is a very crude way to do it, but it
works incredibly well, particularly for those of you who work
out at home, but also when you go to the gym, right,
and if you don't have a specific percentage based program right,
because you're not necessarily trying to do seventy five percent
(03:41):
of your one rep max or what Most golfers don't
know those true numbers, what their one rep maxes are,
and don't therefore don't program off of those. So for
those of you who are like I just want to
get stronger. I just don't know where to start, right,
This guy was able to do three, you know, four
sets of eight repetitions holding a thirty pound dumbell that
he was doing and you know squats, right, So God
(04:01):
was squats holding it out in front of his chest.
So I say to him, how many you know? How
do you feel the end? He goes, well, good, I
said great. I said, how many do you feel like
you could do at the end of that when you
hit that eighth rep? How many more do you feel
like you got in the tank? He's like, oh, probably
like another ten. So this is what we call reps
in reserve. Okay, so he had ten reps in reserve,
meaning I feel like I could go ten more reps
(04:23):
and then I'd have to stop, like I couldn't do anymore.
And then so I asked that. I asked him. I said, well, okay,
so you could do ten more reps? What would be
the limiting factor there? Right? Like, would it be your
arms or would be exhausted or would it be that
your legs would be tired? And he goes, I would
definitely be my legs would be exhausted. I say, cool, right,
because some people will get tired from holding the weight,
which case is not a leg at the whole point
of a squad is to strengthen your lower body. But
(04:45):
if you can't do a lot of weight because your
arms get tired and you got to hold it, then
obviously there needs to be a switch to a different implement,
whether it be a trap bar or a barbell, you know,
something different obviously, right if it's K box, if we're
doing the eccentric loading, whatever whatever it is. So this
guy goes sees, I got ten, Like, okay, well that's
a problem. I said, If you have ten in reserve,
that means the weight is way too light. And while
(05:08):
you know, because of where he's at in his program,
you know he's beyond two months in like the nervous
system adaptions of that cause a lot of those early
gains we call them beginner gains. That isn't going to
continue in that fashion. So we need to actually build
tissue and muscle, right, we need to build actual true strength.
So we have to basically get the load high enough
that it stresses the tissue enough that when you're done,
(05:30):
the body goes, oh crap, that was hard. I better
build some more muscle. So that you know, I that's
easier next time, right, So if you have ten reps
in reserve, that means it was really really easy. And
so generally, the where I will tell people to look
for and where we've I've had a lot of success
to people, We've had a lot of success to people
has very simply being like, hey, go till you got
(05:52):
two reps left. Right, So when you hit rep eight.
For this gentleman, I said, when you hit the eighth rep,
you want to be able to feel like you know,
I could probably at ten, but after ten I'd probably
be done right. And then this is a good good form, right,
not like falling over kind of like arch in the back.
You know, the weight is hanging to the ground. So
I said, until you get to that, I said, it's
(06:12):
not heavy enough and we're not going to get the
max benefit of what you what you need. And if
you have two reps in reserve, that generally is a
load that is safe, particularly if you're working out at
home alone. So I said, so next week, go to
forty pounds, see how it goes. Right. So he would
then go and do you know eight reps with forty pounds,
Let's say now, and I say, you know, we changed
his program to report reps in reserve, right, So then
(06:33):
it was like, how many reps in reserve do you
feel like you had? So he gave him easy to
track it, right, So he does it with forty and
now he goes, half, I could do five. Okay, all right,
well you go, let's try forty five pounds. Right, So
he does his you know, his first set, and he
does forty five pounds. Maybe he's got two reps in reserve, right, perfect,
second set, he's got like one and a half reps
(06:54):
in reserve. Okay, Like, well's see, let's let's see how
house house that three goes. If he feels like he's
like I could barely get to eight, well then we
may need to back off that weight a little bit
and maybe we go, you know, instead of forty five
pounds every single set, maybe we start with forty pounds
worth of first two. Or you drop to forty pounds
on the second two and you use forty five pounds
(07:15):
for only two of them. Right, So you kind of
like will self modulate or self regulate there. But generally speaking,
you know, you're looking to see if can I do
it where I have two reps in reserve that's going
to keep you pretty safe where the weight isn't so
heavy that you're going to be injured, but at the
same time it's going to put enough load on your
tissue that you can actually generate a strength of response
where you know, an opposite that requires you know, eating
(07:37):
you enough carbs and protein to you know, have the
energy to do the exercise, repair the muscle tissue. It's
got to eat well in order to optimize that that build.
But that is the probably single simplest hack for people
to use when they're and they have that question. I
don't really know what amount of weight to use well,
but just very simply just think of reps in reserve.
I'm going to do as many reps as i can
(07:59):
until I've f like I got maybe two left right,
And so if you can do if you're trying to
build strength, and generally you don't want to use a
weight that you could do more than ten reps with right,
So you want to be kind of in that eight
to ten rep range if you're trying to build kind
of hypertrophy and then durance strength if you're generally looking
for more like max strength. You're shooting in that four
to six repetition range, right, So for this get gentlemen,
(08:22):
you know, four to six reps, he may have to
go up to fifty pounds, right, And then when you
get to fifty pounds, the dumbbell may be too heavy
for his arms, in which case then you got to
move to a trap bar or a barbell, right, So
you got to use the different implements because the arms
are limiting how strong the legs can get. Right. So
so max strength is going to be anywhere in that
four to six range, and then you know just true
like max not max out power. But you know, in
(08:44):
season generally we're saying, hey, you're on like three to
you know, two to three reps in a set, so
you're going, you know, relative much heavier load that you
can know, you do three reps and maybe you could
have gotten five. Right when you're in the max strength,
you do five or six reps and maybe you could
have gotten seven or eight. And that's kind of the
just the easy beginner way just to think about it.
As you get more advanced, and obviously then there can
(09:06):
be percentage based training and all that sort of stuff.
But for the the at mass. Most people listening you're
working out at home. That would be the simple way
to go about it. So reps in reserve, which the
definition is you finish your last repetition. How many reps
do you feel like you could have still done if
you had to keep going until you like would give out.
And if it is, I would say shoot for two.
(09:29):
You know it's two to three, that are even four,
that's okay, it's more than four the weight it's too
light for the repetition that you're shooting for. And remember,
if you're shooting for building muscle and like hypertrophing, getting
bigger and you know in more of an endurance phase
is typically what you would do early off season. You
know that is going to be more that eight plus,
you know, more than eight reps in a set if
(09:50):
you're looking for mac strength, which is generally where you
would start to transition to as you get closer to
the season, so kind of like early preseason, then you're
looking the four to six rep bridge. And then when
you're in season, you're you're trying to keep your force
output high without fatiguing your muscles. So that's where generally
you're doing. You know that two to three rep range
you know, five at most right, so that the load
gets progressively, like the absolute amount of weight you're using
(10:14):
is more in season because you're doing fewer reps and
you don't want to fatigue excuse me. So hopefully that
helps give you, guys, kind of an idea of a
strategy that you can use at home, and hopefully that
you know, diffused a few of you who are unsure
of what kind of waits to use. So thanks as
always for hanging out with me here on the golf
in a spop squad, and look forward to catching you
(10:34):
in the next episode.
Welcome to the Golf Fitness Bomb spot. I'm your host
Chris Finn, and today I wanted to talk about a
very simple but important trick when it comes to loading
in terms of increasing how much weight you're lifting as
you're working out. Whether it's in the off season, maybe
it's in season, whatever. Maybe I just wanted to talk
about something that came up the other day with a
(00:30):
golfer who was working out at home and had this question.
So we're going to cover how to know how to
increase your weight, how much weight is too much, how
much weight is too little, and talk about the implications
of if you don't follow this rule. So let's dive
into it. So I had a client and we're in
Riley in North Carolina as one of our virtual clients,
the couple thousand or whatever that we have, and he
(00:53):
is I believe he was in I must say South Dakota,
somewhere kind of up north in the middle of the country.
I believe it was South Dakota and basically doesn't have
a gym around so that he goes to was doing
a lot of his working out at home, and he
had gotten through kind of his mobility heavy phase and
was had kind of done some of his early strength training,
(01:14):
so he was kind of ready to transition into a
heavier strength training phase, right, So think of it, you know,
first couple of weeks as just getting his mobility improved
in his roadary centers, his hip internal rotation, his shoulder
external rotation, his trunk rotation, his neck rotation, and then
we're starting to move into his like strengthening so like
you know, banded resistance and maybe send some lighter dumbells.
(01:36):
He's got his technique looks good, and you know, looking
at his profile, his power numbers are low due to
his strength being low relative to where he wants to
be club at. Speedwise, he's trying to get to one
hundred and five miles an hour. He started at ninety
seven miles an hour. He is, I believes, like eight
to ten weeks in he's already up over one hundred
miles an hour, so he's got about three or four
(01:57):
more mile an hour to go. So solid, you know,
first two months, I mean, dude picked up like four
miles an hour, how which is over ten yards, which
pretty good. That's typically the promise in the first three
months that we make is you know generally about ten
yards is what we expect to see if you do
what we ask you to do. So everything's smooth, smooth sale.
Now he gets on the call and he says, he says,
(02:18):
you know, I'm afraid that I'm lifting too much weight.
I don't want to get hurt. You know, I'm very
concerned about you know, bulking up right. And this is
a guy who's I think he's fifty nine years old.
You know, in terms of his workout history, historically kind
of would go to the gym. We'll just do a
bunch of machines, you know, do three sets of ten
and then you know, move on right. Very sporadically, he'd
have a couple of weeks where you do it, then
(02:39):
he'd stop, you know, based on the season. So it's
interesting because then you know, basically my first question is, well,
you know I can see your program, so we'll use
it like a We'll just use a squat for example. Okay,
he was doing a goblet squat and he said, all right,
well how many you know I look at this program.
He says, all right, you're supposed to be doing you know,
four sets of eight. Right, he's in and off season's
(03:00):
phase he's trying to build a little bit kind of
off of the build and starting to transition more to strengthening.
So he had been doing sets of higher reps as
he was getting more of his technique down. Now we're transitioning,
says eight. So but still have volume obviously, So we say,
I said, all right, well, well how much you know
load you lose using? It looks like you're, you know,
based on your numbers here using about thirty pounds, he says.
(03:21):
He confirms that. He says, yep, I'm using thirty pounds.
I doing four sets eight. I said great. I said, well,
how does it feel during the exercise? Right? And this
is a very crude way to do it, but it
works incredibly well, particularly for those of you who work
out at home, but also when you go to the gym, right,
and if you don't have a specific percentage based program right,
because you're not necessarily trying to do seventy five percent
(03:41):
of your one rep max or what Most golfers don't
know those true numbers, what their one rep maxes are,
and don't therefore don't program off of those. So for
those of you who are like I just want to
get stronger. I just don't know where to start, right,
This guy was able to do three, you know, four
sets of eight repetitions holding a thirty pound dumbell that
he was doing and you know squats, right, So God
(04:01):
was squats holding it out in front of his chest.
So I say to him, how many you know? How
do you feel the end? He goes, well, good, I
said great. I said, how many do you feel like
you could do at the end of that when you
hit that eighth rep? How many more do you feel
like you got in the tank? He's like, oh, probably
like another ten. So this is what we call reps
in reserve. Okay, so he had ten reps in reserve,
meaning I feel like I could go ten more reps
(04:23):
and then I'd have to stop, like I couldn't do anymore.
And then so I asked that. I asked him. I said, well, okay,
so you could do ten more reps? What would be
the limiting factor there? Right? Like, would it be your
arms or would be exhausted or would it be that
your legs would be tired? And he goes, I would
definitely be my legs would be exhausted. I say, cool, right,
because some people will get tired from holding the weight,
which case is not a leg at the whole point
of a squad is to strengthen your lower body. But
(04:45):
if you can't do a lot of weight because your
arms get tired and you got to hold it, then
obviously there needs to be a switch to a different implement,
whether it be a trap bar or a barbell, you know,
something different obviously, right if it's K box, if we're
doing the eccentric loading, whatever whatever it is. So this
guy goes sees, I got ten, Like, okay, well that's
a problem. I said, If you have ten in reserve,
that means the weight is way too light. And while
(05:08):
you know, because of where he's at in his program,
you know he's beyond two months in like the nervous
system adaptions of that cause a lot of those early
gains we call them beginner gains. That isn't going to
continue in that fashion. So we need to actually build
tissue and muscle, right, we need to build actual true strength.
So we have to basically get the load high enough
that it stresses the tissue enough that when you're done,
(05:30):
the body goes, oh crap, that was hard. I better
build some more muscle. So that you know, I that's
easier next time, right, So if you have ten reps
in reserve, that means it was really really easy. And
so generally, the where I will tell people to look
for and where we've I've had a lot of success
to people, We've had a lot of success to people
has very simply being like, hey, go till you got
(05:52):
two reps left. Right, So when you hit rep eight.
For this gentleman, I said, when you hit the eighth rep,
you want to be able to feel like you know,
I could probably at ten, but after ten I'd probably
be done right. And then this is a good good form, right,
not like falling over kind of like arch in the back.
You know, the weight is hanging to the ground. So
I said, until you get to that, I said, it's
(06:12):
not heavy enough and we're not going to get the
max benefit of what you what you need. And if
you have two reps in reserve, that generally is a
load that is safe, particularly if you're working out at
home alone. So I said, so next week, go to
forty pounds, see how it goes. Right. So he would
then go and do you know eight reps with forty pounds,
Let's say now, and I say, you know, we changed
his program to report reps in reserve, right, So then
(06:33):
it was like, how many reps in reserve do you
feel like you had? So he gave him easy to
track it, right, So he does it with forty and
now he goes, half, I could do five. Okay, all right,
well you go, let's try forty five pounds. Right, So
he does his you know, his first set, and he
does forty five pounds. Maybe he's got two reps in reserve, right, perfect,
second set, he's got like one and a half reps
(06:54):
in reserve. Okay, Like, well's see, let's let's see how
house house that three goes. If he feels like he's
like I could barely get to eight, well then we
may need to back off that weight a little bit
and maybe we go, you know, instead of forty five
pounds every single set, maybe we start with forty pounds
worth of first two. Or you drop to forty pounds
on the second two and you use forty five pounds
(07:15):
for only two of them. Right, So you kind of
like will self modulate or self regulate there. But generally speaking,
you know, you're looking to see if can I do
it where I have two reps in reserve that's going
to keep you pretty safe where the weight isn't so
heavy that you're going to be injured, but at the
same time it's going to put enough load on your
tissue that you can actually generate a strength of response
where you know, an opposite that requires you know, eating
(07:37):
you enough carbs and protein to you know, have the
energy to do the exercise, repair the muscle tissue. It's
got to eat well in order to optimize that that build.
But that is the probably single simplest hack for people
to use when they're and they have that question. I
don't really know what amount of weight to use well,
but just very simply just think of reps in reserve.
I'm going to do as many reps as i can
(07:59):
until I've f like I got maybe two left right,
And so if you can do if you're trying to
build strength, and generally you don't want to use a
weight that you could do more than ten reps with right,
So you want to be kind of in that eight
to ten rep range if you're trying to build kind
of hypertrophy and then durance strength if you're generally looking
for more like max strength. You're shooting in that four
to six repetition range, right, So for this get gentlemen,
(08:22):
you know, four to six reps, he may have to
go up to fifty pounds, right, And then when you
get to fifty pounds, the dumbbell may be too heavy
for his arms, in which case then you got to
move to a trap bar or a barbell, right, So
you got to use the different implements because the arms
are limiting how strong the legs can get. Right. So
so max strength is going to be anywhere in that
four to six range, and then you know just true
like max not max out power. But you know, in
(08:44):
season generally we're saying, hey, you're on like three to
you know, two to three reps in a set, so
you're going, you know, relative much heavier load that you
can know, you do three reps and maybe you could
have gotten five. Right when you're in the max strength,
you do five or six reps and maybe you could
have gotten seven or eight. And that's kind of the
just the easy beginner way just to think about it.
As you get more advanced, and obviously then there can
(09:06):
be percentage based training and all that sort of stuff.
But for the the at mass. Most people listening you're
working out at home. That would be the simple way
to go about it. So reps in reserve, which the
definition is you finish your last repetition. How many reps
do you feel like you could have still done if
you had to keep going until you like would give out.
And if it is, I would say shoot for two.
(09:29):
You know it's two to three, that are even four,
that's okay, it's more than four the weight it's too
light for the repetition that you're shooting for. And remember,
if you're shooting for building muscle and like hypertrophing, getting
bigger and you know in more of an endurance phase
is typically what you would do early off season. You
know that is going to be more that eight plus,
you know, more than eight reps in a set if
(09:50):
you're looking for mac strength, which is generally where you
would start to transition to as you get closer to
the season, so kind of like early preseason, then you're
looking the four to six rep bridge. And then when
you're in season, you're you're trying to keep your force
output high without fatiguing your muscles. So that's where generally
you're doing. You know that two to three rep range
you know, five at most right, so that the load
gets progressively, like the absolute amount of weight you're using
(10:14):
is more in season because you're doing fewer reps and
you don't want to fatigue excuse me. So hopefully that
helps give you, guys, kind of an idea of a
strategy that you can use at home, and hopefully that
you know, diffused a few of you who are unsure
of what kind of waits to use. So thanks as
always for hanging out with me here on the golf
in a spop squad, and look forward to catching you
(10:34):
in the next episode.
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