Athletic Golf Fitness

Better hip rotation starts with better sequencing.

One of my favorite combinations is pairing a prone scorpion turn with a Turkish half get-up.

The scorpion isn’t just a mobility drill. Keeping your chest and opposite shoulder pinned while your pelvis rotates teaches your hips and torso to move independently while opening the front of the hip and improving thoracic rotation.

Then we load it.

The Turkish half get-up takes that new range of motion and challenges you to stabilize, drive through the ground, and finish with hip extension.

Research shows the lead hip rotates significantly faster than the trail hip during the downswing. To make that happen efficiently, you need to load the trail hip, separate the pelvis from the torso, and extend through the lead hip as force moves up the chain.

The scorpion creates the movement.

The Turkish half get-up teaches you to control it.

That’s why this combination carries over so well to the golf swing.

Good getting my guy .sharpstene back in the gym.

One thing you’ll notice is we don’t spend the entire session lifting heavy or trying to move everything as fast as possible.

We’ll slow things down with controlled strength work, then we’ll speed things up with medicine balls, jumps, and quick change-of-direction drills.

There’s a balance to it.

If you can’t control your body, it’s hard to repeat good movement. If you can’t move explosively, it’s hard to express the strength you’ve built.

Golf is a game of repeatability. You don’t just need to make one good swing—you need to make that same swing over and over again. The gym should reflect that.

That’s what we’re training for.

Today’s session:
• Snap Down Chop → Med Ball Pass
• Alternating Cable Iso Press
• Resistance Band Goblet Lateral Lunge
• Split Stance Iso Alternating Dumbbell Row
• Cable Goblet Pogo Jumps

The gym should help make good movement more repeatable.

Here’s my guy James Anderson performing a rotational squat row on the KBox.

The KBox isn’t just resistance—it’s eccentric overload.

As you squat and rotate, you’re loading the hips, trunk, and upper back while the muscles lengthen. The flywheel stores energy on the way down, then demands that you absorb even more force before reversing direction.

Research shows eccentric muscle actions can produce 20–60% greater force than concentric actions while recruiting more high-threshold motor units. Over time, that can improve strength, rate of force development, tendon stiffness, and power.

For golfers, that’s important.

The downswing happens in roughly 0.3 seconds, so your body has to absorb force, stabilize, and redirect it almost instantly. If you can’t control force, it’s hard to produce force efficiently.

That’s why I like using the KBox. It teaches golfers to brake before they accelerate—a quality that’s critical for producing more speed while staying durable.

3 Activation Drills to Improve Hip & Torso Rotation

A lot of golfers struggle to rotate because they don’t have the right combination of mobility and stability. When that happens, it’s easy to start swaying or finding rotation in places you don’t want it.

These are three of my favorite activation drills to help golfers move a little better before they train or head to the range.

1️⃣ Half-Kneeling Torso Rotation + Foam Roller & Yoga Block
• The foam roller and yoga block keep your front knee from drifting so you rotate into your hip instead of around it.
• The yoga block also helps create better upper back position and ribcage expansion as you rotate.

2️⃣ Posterior Reach Elevated Single-Leg Bridge
• Gets the glutes, hamstrings, and obliques working together.
• A good way to improve hip extension while adding some thoracic rotation.

3️⃣ Iso Hip Abduction Against the Wall + Torso Rotation
• Teaches you to rotate into your stance leg instead of swaying off the ball.
• Great for improving hip stability and weight shift.

The goal isn’t to force more range of motion.

It’s to put your body in better positions, activate the muscles that drive rotation, and make it easier to move well when you swing.

Give these a try before your next practice session.

Want more distance without swinging harder?

Focus on your X-Factor Stretch.

Research by Cheetham et al. (2000) showed that elite golfers increase their X-factor by about 19% during the early downswing—when the hips start to rotate toward the target while the shoulders are still finishing the backswing.

This separation creates a stretch through the core that stores and transfers more rotational force into the club.

Training to improve this stretch-shortening cycle can lead to gains in both swing speed and consistency.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

2 Core Drills Every Golfer Should Master

When it comes to hitting it farther and feeling better after your rounds, core control isn’t optional — it’s foundational.

I use some variation of bear position and deadbug with every golfer I train because they teach your pelvis to tilt, and core to brace, and stabilize vs crunch, compress, and excessively flex your spine.

Here are 2 advanced variations:

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1️⃣ Double-Resisted Deadbug
Looks simple. Isn’t.
The two bands are trying to pull you into extension, and your job is to stay grounded — ribs down, back flat, pelvis under control.
It’s one of the best ways to connect your breathing, ribcage, and pelvic positioning — all key for stability and power in your swing.

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2️⃣ Bear + Cable Press
This one takes “anti” training to another level.
You’re fighting both extension and rotation as the cable unweights your arm on the raise and loads you on the press.
It lights up your core, shoulders, and hips while teaching you to maintain position under tension — exactly what you need to stay stable through impact.

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Here’s the thing: these aren’t fluff “core fillers.”
They build the foundation for stronger lifts, more efficient rotation, and less stress on your low back.

Train your core to resist first — then you can produce power safely and efficiently.

One thing I love about summer is that junior golfers finally have time to invest in themselves.

has been playing a full tournament schedule this summer, but he’s also taking advantage of the extra time away from school to become a better athlete.

That’s important because strength and power aren’t built overnight. They take months of consistent work.

Research continues to show that lower-body strength, rotational power, and force production are all closely related to clubhead speed and golf performance. Summer gives juniors a chance to improve those qualities before classes, homework, and a packed practice schedule return.

That’s what these sessions are about.

Building foundational strength. Moving better. Producing more force. Becoming more resilient. And giving athletes the physical tools they’ll rely on throughout the high school season.

The golfers who make the biggest jump in the fall usually started putting in the work long before school started back.

If you want a more consistent golf swing, stop thinking about balance as a skill.

Start thinking about it as a strength quality.

One of the first things TPI screens is single-leg balance because the golf swing is played almost entirely while transitioning from one leg to the other. If you can’t control your body on one leg, it’s much harder to maintain posture, shift pressure efficiently, and produce force.

Here are two of my go-to exercises:

1️⃣ Single-Leg RDL + Band Rear Delt Fly

A great way to train balance while building the posterior chain. Pressing into the band increases the load on the working arm, challenging shoulder stability while your glutes and hamstrings keep you stacked over one leg.

2️⃣ Single-Leg Bridge + Water Bag Chops

This combines anti-rotation with posterior chain strength. The moving water constantly changes the load, forcing your hips, pelvis, and core to react and stabilize throughout the movement.

Both exercises challenge stability, reinforce strong movement patterns, and build the posterior chain—the muscles that help you maintain posture, control your pelvis, and transfer force more efficiently during the golf swing.

The goal isn’t to get better at balancing.

The goal is to become stronger and more stable so you can:
✔️ Maintain your posture.
✔️ Transfer pressure more efficiently.
✔️ Create a stable base for force production.
✔️ Move with more control throughout the swing.

Strong golfers don’t just produce force.

They know how to control it.