Skill Is Not Enough

Surely the average club sportsman doesn't require a fitness program - even those with ambitions of winning competitions? 

After all... Sportsmen aren't athletes... right?

Make no mistake - Sportsmen (at any level) ARE athletes, I am yet to find a sport that doesn’t require a great deal of athleticism.

Strength, power, flexibility, balance, core stability, body awareness, endurance... they're all physical traits that every consistent sportsman (even the fair-weather players) must possess.

The sports industry is littered with gadgets and gimmicks for increasing performance. Yet for all their claims and guarantees most remain independently unproven. Compare that to a basic fitness or sports conditioning program...

I’ll use Golf as an example. After 5 weeks of completing 15 minutes of very simple home exercises 5 times a week, golfers increased their club head speed by an average of 24%. While it could be argued that club head speed is only one small facet of a golfer's overall game, it is highly correlated with a player's handicap. In other words, the lower a player's handicap is, the higher their club head speed at impact tends to be. In fact, a 24% increase relates to a reduction of 4 shots off a golfer's handicap. This is just one of several studies that proves the benefits of conditioning for golf.

For the more serious sportsmen, conditioning can no longer be seen as an unnecessary add-on to their practise routine. Just as a committed amateur athlete spends time on their technique AND their fitness, so must the sportsman who demands to be the best they can. There is a caveat however...

In order to improve performance in any sport, training must be specific to the demands of the game involved. 

Of the few sportsmen who do appreciate the importance of physical training (sadly it is only very few), most still make the mistake of following a general fitness routine.

If you want to consistently perform at a higher level, you need to take a different approach. Not a more complicated approach and not a more time-consuming approach, a more specific approach.