The vast majority of golfers start to notice a significant drop in club head speed and distance as they age. It's a complaint I hear on a regular basis, especially from golfers in their 50's and older. With this decline in speed and distance scores typically begin to decline as well as enjoyment in the game. Many golfers try new clubs or lessons with the hopes or regaining some of this lost speed and distance, but there is only so much these options can do. Sadly too often most golfers just accept this progressive loss of speed and distance as part of getting older. While it is true that father time is undefeated, it does not mean that there is nothing you can do about this decline. In the post I will discuss some of the reasons why we lose speed with age and strategies to preserve or even improve speed and power with age to help improve longevity on the golf course and in life.
Why do golfers lose club head speed as they age?
As I mentioned above golfers around the age of 50 begin to notice a decline in speed and distance. There are actually several reasons to explain this:
1. Loss of mobility: this is the area that most golfers assume is the culprit to their loss of speed. It is true that a loss of range of motion and mobility in the joints specifically in the hips and spine can limit rotation in the golf swing leading to the swing getting progressively shorter and a very arms dominant swing. Most golfers are familiar with the look of the old man swing and often times the loss of mobility in these areas is a significant cause of this. This can definitely limit club head speed and distance.
2. Loss of strength: golfers I work with also often attribute a loss of club head speed to a loss of strength. It is true that strength loss does occur with aging and strength does play a significant role in how much force we can apply to the club and ultimately how much club head speed we can produce
While strength and mobility are absolutely important to maintain as we age the next factor I am going to talk about is likely an even greater contributor to speed and distance loss. It also happens to be the most commonly neglected in training programs.
3. Loss of Power: What is power? Power is a combination of our strength and speed. Muscle power is a crucial role in our to our ability to swing a golf club fast, run, jump, throw and most other athletic activities. However, it also has a lot to do with simple daily activities as we age such as standing up from a chair or catching yourself from falling. How we perform in these activities are all more a function of muscle power than muscle size or strength.
Research has shown that as we age our muscles experience some changes. Starting at around age 40 we begin to lose .5-1% of our muscle mass/year or 5-10%/decade. Muscle strength begins to decline as well at a higher rate of 1-2%/year or 10-20%/decade. Muscle power declines at an even greater rate of 3-4%/year or 30-40%/decade! The loss of power is drastically greater than that of muscle size or strength. You can see this in the picture above on the left.
The pictures below also highlight this loss of power. You can see this steady decline in power with age as depicted in the picture on the left. Now compare that to the picture on the right of club head speed loss with age. As you can notice these two pictures look very similar to each other. The percentage loss of power is very similar to the percentage loss of club head speed with age.
Why is the loss of power so drastic compared to muscle size and strength?
1. Changes in muscle fibers: Inside our muscles we have muscle fibers. To keep it simple we have two main types of muscle fibers: slow twitch and fast twitch fibers. Everyone has different percentages of each. As you can probably guess the fast twitch muscle fibers are activated with high force and speed activities such as sprinting, jumping, throwing and swinging a golf club. On the other end of the spectrum is the slow twitch muscle fibers which are recruited for most basic activities of daily living we do. Both are important, but the fast twitch fibers are going to be more important for speed in the golf swing.
As we age our fast twitch fibers are unfortunately affected a lot more than the slow twitch fibers. The fast twitch fibers drastically decrease in size and number with age whereas the slow twitch fibers are pretty well maintained as we age. As the fast twitch fibers become smaller and decrease in number this means are muscles will not be capable of producing as much power or speed as before. These changes will definitely limit our ability to create speed and power and swing the golf club fast.
2. Use it or lose it: What I mean by this is that typically as we age we quit doing speed, power and athletic movements. Many times by the age of 30 it seems like more and more people give up these activities that challenge our speed and power, especially in comparison to stretching or strengthening. I know many people that will stretch on a semi regular basis and many that will go to the gym and work on strength on a regular basis. I know very few people in their 40's and older who perform any speed or power based exercises. I think ceasing to do these movements as we age in comparison to other activities could explain some of this discrepancy in how rapidly power declines as we are no longer performing the activities that stimulate our fast twitch muscle fibers.
What can be done about this? Is all hope lost?
Reading this information up until now is a little depressing and makes it seem like there is an inevitable downward decline in speed and distance and nothing can be done to stop the effects of aging. However, there is good news. Of course there will be some changes with age, but the rate at which these changes take place can be lessened. In many instances people can even make improvements in these areas with age.
There are a couple explanations on how it is possible to maintain or even improve in these areas with age:
1. You are most likely not at your genetic potential for speed and power: If you watch professional or Olympic athletes you will see evidence of these physical decline with age. It's rare to see a professional athlete in any of the major sports in their 40's. Pitcher's fastballs become slower with age, basketball athletes such as Michael Jordan don't jump quite as high and sprinters such as Usain Bolt lose peak speed in the 100 meter dash. It's evident in golf too as golfers on the champions tour are by in large slower than the PGA tour. These athletes are also mostly functioning at the peak of their genetic potential. This also means that there will be a natural decline from this peak.
However, many of the club golfers I work with are no where near their genetic potential. In many cases their activity level has declined significantly with age leaving a large gap between their current physical level and their genetic potential. This leaves plenty of room for improvement and helps explain why you can actually regain speed and distance as you age.
2. Training: As mentioned earlier our bodies are very responsive to training and improvements can be made in mobility, strength and power even at older ages. However you do have to train to experience these benefits.
3. Maintaining is actually gaining on your competition: While it is definitely possible to make physical gains as you age there is also value in maintaining and preserving your current physical status if you have been training. As mentioned above there will be decline in several areas with age, especially if you are not physically active. So if you are at a minimum able to maintain while everyone else you are playing with is slowing down you are coming out ahead.
How should you train to address these age related changes?
The majority of adult golfers I work with begin from a relatively low level of fitness. In most cases they have done very little training. Due to this there does need to be a period of time to acclimate the body to training and gradually ramp things up to help reduce excessive soreness and injury. Once you have gone through this phase and advance in your training program it is important to address a couple of key characteristics. As mentioned earlier mobility, strength, speed and power all play a role in maintaining speed. While each of these is important the one I most frequently see neglected are the speed and power based exercises. Very rarely do I see anyone over the age of 40 training any of these characteristics. These type of exercises are what stimulate the fast twitch muscle fibers which are crucial to preserve as you age. General exercise and cardio will not be enough to stimulate the fast twitch fibers.
A Potential Solution: Proteus Motion
Proteus motion is a unique piece of training equipment that provides 3 dimensional resistance. It also features a variety of assessments of your power and speed throughout the body and is the only system on the market capable of doing this at the moment. It's a very safe way to assess power as well making it appropriate for all ages.
Initially when I got this machine I primarily was looking at it through the lens of high end sports performance training for athletes. The longer I've had it I've realized that there are many applications beyond that. For the adult clients I work with I believe that everyone should at a minimum have a power assessment to get a baseline of where their current power levels are at. With this baseline information we can then monitor this over time for any changes to make sure there are no drastic drops in power. You can see an example of the power report below indicating strengths and weaknesses throughout the body and overall power ranking.
Besides the assessment feature Proteus also has many training applications as well. It is a safe way to train power throughout the body. The 3D resistance mimics the resistance of water making it a joint friendly option on the body compared to other forms of power training. I've had client's in their 80's training on the Proteus with very positive results.
Summary
There are many physical changes that occur with aging. One of the most pronounced changes is the drastic loss in muscle power which can have a significant impact on your ability to generate speed in the golf swing and longevity in the game. It also has a significant impact on important tasks as you age such as getting up from a chair or catching yourself from a fall. Training to preserve muscle power with age should be a priority for your longevity in golf and in life.