First and foremost, I will start with this: doing something is better than nothing, but pretending to be able to train the same as professionals is generally not in your long-term best interests to start off with. I've spoken about this type of subject in many different ways in past blogs, but with the new year ahead of everyone, I think it's time to touch base on this topic.
Is some training better than no training? Yes, it is, but is it the best use of your time, money, and energy? Well, that depends, as I will keep this in a more general sense of things and use not only myself as an example but others I have worked with as well. So, for myself, it would be illogical for me to believe I can follow the same program for training as someone I would consider to be an elite athlete in their mid-20s. Could I do it? Probably. Would it be the best use of my time as a 41-year-old with a slew of prior injuries, torn muscles, and some tendinitis that creeps in and out? Not to mention I've been training for more than half my life in one way or another, from hockey-specific to bodybuilding, powerlifting, and now specifically golf speed and distance.
Now, to say any of these are the exact same would be completely wrong, but they do all have some carryover in one way or another to speed training for golf. However, when you get down to the specifics of speed training, there is a larger amount of specificity to the actual movement of swinging the golf club properly to maximize the effects of the training done outside of swinging the clubs.
What works best for one likely won't work best for another. Using the general population as an example, a person in their mid to late 30s with a full-time job, a couple of kids in sports, a wife/partner, and general responsibilities will have a much more technical schedule to accomplish hobby-like tasks than an individual in their early to mid 20s with a part-time job or someone who has the ability to train full-time without much else in terms of life stress happening in their own lives. So the question is, how can one expect to follow the exact same program as the other and have similar results? The simple answer is it's not only impossible but also illogical!
Could the person in their mid to late 30s do the program as it's written on paper/video? Sure, probably. But is it going to pull from other factors of their own lives and cause unwanted and extra stress in likely more important parts of their life? The simple answer is yes. The more in-depth answer involves true time management and actual sacrifice. If you add something to your plate of things to do on a daily/weekly basis without having the actual extra time to do so, it's like borrowing from the bottom and just stacking it on top of the pile of things to do. The pile of things doesn't get smaller; it just gets reorganized in a way where the thing below, which may or may not make your life better, is now less important.
It would also be juvenile to believe that you can keep up to the same standards as someone half your age. Yes, there are outliers within this whole scenario that have gotten better with age, but those certain individuals likely had a much more difficult time during their 20s and have more freedom as they have gotten older. Think about the friend who had children and started a family young vs. the friend who started and had a family later in life. Two different situations for two different individuals: one, when turning 40, is sending their children off to college, and the other, who is now 40, is changing diapers. Do they have the same amount of stress or availability on a weekly basis? I can't speak from personal experience, but the chances are likely very slim. The amount of sleep alone would be a large factor in recovery, I would think, let alone a ton of other factors that go into it.
These are my biggest reasons for always being very hesitant about building blanket cookie-cutter 12-week programs or whatever; you have zero ability to guarantee success besides a workout written on paper. It's similar to when I was in my late teens and early 20s, reading all the bodybuilding magazines and trying to follow a professional bodybuilder's workout. Sure, it was better than nothing, but who did I really think I was, trying to repeat workouts like those of Ronnie Coleman or Jay Cutler? When I think about it now, it's kind of hilarious that I was in that exact mindset. First, I didn't have the training years in my life like those guys had at the time. My knowledge was small but growing about nutrition, but even then, these guys did this full-time with perfect nutrition and sleep habits. But yeah, Ryan in his early 20s on a college diet and working until 3 a.m. on weekends was going to be able to keep up—not a chance. We tend to glorify and let the ego take over a lot of the time and want the very best out of ourselves always, which isn't a terrible thing, but if we don't understand these points, it will likely leave us frustrated and confused about why we didn't achieve the things we are trying to achieve when we think we are doing all the right things.
Another thing we always seem to expect is linear progression, meaning we can always be better week after week, time over time, again and again, which is simply not true at all. Everyone needs a rest period, a break, some downtime to recover not only physically but also mentally. Even within my programs, we monitor things on a regular basis, and usually (like 99% of the time), we have to make adjustments based on life circumstances at points to help the end outcomes and further progression down the road. It's somewhat hard to do on a basic 12-week cookie-cutter program unless the person doing the program is very self-aware and has a great understanding of training already and can make adjustments on the fly on their own.
To wrap it up, I'd just like to say I applaud anyone who is willing to be in the gym/training and work on their own abilities, no matter their skill level or training knowledge. If buying a 12-week course is what gets the fire going and gets you moving, that's great. Just please be aware of who you are and where your starting abilities may be when you get going, so you are not completely overwhelmed or frustrated during the process. If you have the ability to move towards custom training in the future, it will likely be in your best interest to do so, in the end likely garnering better results and time and money saved in the long run.
RG
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