'Author: Justin Buckthorp, MSc Health & Performance Specialist, Team Rose' 

You’ll see tons of excellent golf fitness videos on social media—and many are inspiring. But, as we all know, golf fitness can become confusing without a little context as to why a player is doing what they are doing in the gym or how a particular exercise fits into their broader health and performance. We want to change that by sharing additional insight here from JR and the team. 

In this new 'Blueprint' series, we want to give you a bit of “the what, the why, and the how”. In doing so, we hope to go deeper than the usual posts about golf performance. Our goal is to provide you with some information that will significantly increase your understanding of health & fitness for your golf game.  

This video comes from a recent training camp at Albany. In it, you will see JR working out with golf fitness specialist Charlie Marshall from 360 Health & Performance, a company that has supported JR since 2009. 

The exercises you see are 1-Arm DB Rows, Rear Elevated Split Squats, Keiser Belt Squats, Linear Med Ball Slams, Sled Pushes, Rope Slams, and KB Hip Swings. Please note: these are not from one workout! They are a sample of exercises used in various training programmes during the training camp. 

Each exercise serves a different purpose:

• One-Arm DB Row: A great exercise that strengthens the back. 
• Rear-Elevated Split Squat: A fantastic full-body exercise that strengthens the lower body and grip strength. 
• Keiser Belt Squat: Used by JR to build explosive lower-body strength, which carries over to increased ball speed.
• Linear Med Ball Slam: An excellent drill to build explosive upper-body strength.
• Sled Push: A great exercise for overall strength and conditioning. The technical focus on pushing the ground away builds tremendous leg capacity.  
• Rope Slams: An excellent movement for upper-body explosive strength. They require stabilising the hips and torso, thereby building dynamic core strength.
• KB Hip Swings: A phenomenal movement for building lower-body power as grip and forearm strength. 

In all of this, form and technique are everything. We place a premium on movement quality before adding load, volume, and intensity. JR moves well in the gym and has a very high training IQ. 

In this video, you can see that JR is capable of lifting some heavy stuff, such as an 80-pound dumbbell row. But it’s important to share a note here. Our goal is not to build fitness in isolation — it has to fit into a broader mission of health and high performance throughout the year. At times, this means JR performs heavy lifts. At other times, he will do much more low-level work, supplemented by a focus on recovery. Periodisation is key.

Justin Buckthorp, MSc - Health & Performance Specialist, Team Rose

We will be adding more content to this series in the upcoming weeks. If you want to improve your golf game and don't mind diving deeper, make sure to follow along here for and on Justin's new YouTube channel!