Golf Leg Exercises

Your lower body mobility helps you to distinguish between an amateur and a professional athlete in golf. Golf is a sport that not only tests our torso strength but also our lower body strength. Great athletes focus more on lower body workouts and body movements than the torso because it helps you to build the foundation of strength to perform effectively in sports.

In this article, you will learn 10 beneficial leg exercises that will help to strengthen your legs in golf and other sports also. The given exercises are easy to perform, but if you feel less stress, you can add weight and resistance bands this will strengthen your legs.

We have placed the order of doing these exercises and you can perform 3 sets of each exercise with 12-15 repetitions. The sequence of these exercises are as follows; compound exercises, targeting the specific muscles, and lastly putting stretch to muscles.

Top 10 Leg Exercises for Golfers

#1 Squats

Squats targets your legs and give lower body strength to your legs. Squats target your glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves. It not only provides strength to your legs but also helps in the mobility of the lower body.

You can start your workout with squats, this will help you get warm-up and activate the sleeping muscles and joints in your legs. You can perform squats in flat sole shoes with your chest upright, it will build good posture and strength in your legs.

#2: Leg Swings

Leg swings are most beneficial in strengthening your legs. It helps your glutes to get strong by putting stress on them. Leg swings also build your mobility and also targets your hip joints which helps you to give your most in your first stroke.

The exercise is easy to perform if you stand next to the wall and take support from it.

Leg swings sometimes are also considered as warm-up exercises but the actual meaning of doing this exercise is that it activates your leg muscles for the next exercises and to prevent an injury.

#3: Back-step lunges

The most effective exercise for your legs is lunges. Lunges are of variety, they range from weight categories and way of performing them. Back-step lunges are most effective for your legs it targets your glutes and hamstrings and awakens your sleeping muscle tissues.

Which helps you in taking the first stroke in golf. Back-step lunges are performed before the lunges because your hamstrings make the 70% of your legs, targeting those muscles before lunges and putting stress on their help to activate them and the later exercises help to activate them.

#4: Lunges

As said earlier, lunges help to strengthen the whole legs you should perform on daily basis but after the warm-up. Lunges are a simple but effective exercise for legs, they help to strengthen your lower body which ultimately proves stability to the upper body.

Lunges can be performed with and without weight. We would prefer if you are a beginner, you must stick to weightless exercises. Once you feel confident in doing more repetitions you can add weight and go for more sets also.

But the main target is to target your muscles and not lifting more weight.

Resource: Golf Fitness Training Plan

#5: Lunge and rotate

Another variety of lunges, but this variety only targets your hip movement. It connects and strengthens your lower body with your upper body and provides good core strength to get powerful strokes in golf.

This is an intermediate level exercise, we advise you to first get a proper warm-up and do the above-mentioned exercises before jumping to this one.

To do this exercise, perform a simple lunge and rotate your torso to your right and hold this position for 5-10 seconds. Repeat this again while rotating your torso to your left and hold for 5-10 seconds also.

#6: Walking lunges

To target your weak posture and to balance body level, walking lunges are advised. Walking lunges can be performed with weights and also without weights.

But the ideal way of performing walking lunges is without weights, the reason why we are suggesting this to you is, in golf you don’t carry much weight but golf is about adopting the right technique and strength.

Walking lunges can be performed on walking forward, but the steps you take must be bigger than your usual step. The bigger the step the more it will target your glutes, hamstring, core strength, and quads. This also helps you put in a correct posture.

Resource: Golf Fitness Training Plan

#7: Step-ups

Leg strength can’t be achieved by one exercise. Leg’s strength is a complicated matter this the reason many exercises are adapted to build strength in them. Step-ups can be performed in front of a bench or any stool.

For beginners we recommend you to take support while performing it. To get maximum output from it, you can raise your knee to your chest while holding it for a second and going down slowly.

This pattern of doing step-ups is generally missed by most of our beginners, they focus more on numbers regardless of making most of the repetitions.

#8: Calf raises

Calf raises can be performed in several ways, the most suitable way of doing it to think and focus on calves. The most common mistake beginners and even advanced athletes make is that they don’t focus on their calves while doing the calves raise.

The connectivity of mind consciousness and muscles are connected and any distraction can hinder the effectiveness of this exercise.

#9: Bridge

The most effective exercise for core strength which ultimately helps in strengthening legs. It can be performed on a mat or simple wooden floor. The main idea of performing is exercise is that you must focus on the stretch of the lower back and legs muscles.

Try to give a pause of 15-20 seconds while performing each repetition. It will help to develop endurance and also give muscle relief if you are suffering from it.

You can perform it by laying on a flat surface, and bringing your feet towards your hips, and holding them with your hands. You must focus on stretching the muscles to get maximum muscle endurance.

#10: Cat camels

Cat camels are also performed on the floor with faces facing towards the floor. Your arms must be straight and your elbows must not be bent. Try to focus on targeting your lower back and glutes.

Take a deep breath while doing the stretch and exhale while contracting the muscles. Cat camels are performed at the end of the workout because it is a stretch exercise and tightens the loose and fatigued muscles.

Cat camels have a variety to perform but it is better to stick with the basic one.

These were the 10 basic and most necessary exercises to target and strengthen your legs for Golf.

Frequently Asked Questions – Golf Exercises

Q) How many repetitions and sets to perform these exercises?

It depends on your training period. If you have been training for 6+ months and in shape, you can perform 3 sets of 20 repetitions of each exercise.

Q) Can I perform these exercises in other chronological order?

Yes, you can perform but I have arranged them from strengthening the building to stretch the muscles after they are in form.

Q) Is it better to perform with weights?

If you feel like you are not getting tired and your body responds to them you can add weight and perform more sets. It will also build your overall l lower body strength and will help in building core strength.