When training for disc golf, it’s best to divide the year into segments so that you can work on various aspects of your game. Winter makes it difficult to play outside so most players stay indoors where they can still exercise despite the dipping temperatures. Consider improving your cardiovascular fitness so that you don’t get tired easily on the course. You should also increase your strength and stability for longer and more accurate drives. This will reduce your risk of injuries as well. Below are some examples of what experts are doing to keep themselves in shape during the off-season:
Cardio Exercises
This is the best time to ramp upon your cardio exercises. You have a lot of options to choose from including running, cycling, elliptical, and aerobics. Running is great as long as you can avoid excessive pounding on your joints and stay pain-free. After all, you will be going up and down the courses all day. You need your legs and feet to have excellent endurance. Running will also burn massive amounts of calories while improving your heart and lung function. Few people can run every day without eventually succumbing to injuries. Inject some cycling as cross-training to be more gentle on your knees.
Strength Exercises
You will need a total body workout to climb the ranks. Divide the days of the week into specific muscle groups. For example, you could run on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, then work on your back, biceps, and core on Mondays, shoulders and legs on Wednesdays, and chest and triceps on Fridays. This is a pretty basic schedule so advanced players may have more days allotted to strength training. It would be nice to have access to a gym so that you can do things like lat pulldowns, leg press, and bench press but you can do a lot in a home gym with just a few dumbbells. Try rows, curls, squats, crunches, planks, flys, dips, pull-ups, and push-ups.
Stretching and Mobility
Warm-up and disc golf. Make sure that you body is primed for heavy exercise before you turn up the dial. Wake up your muscles through simple movements like jogging in place and jumping jacks. Rotate your torso, do arm circles, stretch your hamstrings, swing your legs, and do some lunges. This is especially necessary if you are waking up to a cold morning with stiff muscles. Dynamic movements are great for getting blood flow going and elevating body temperature as well.
