Professional golfer Bryson DeChambeau has proved bigger is better. Since the return of professional golf, Bryson is getting a lot of attention, and for a good reason.
For one, he's seriously bulked up right now, with an extra 20 pounds of muscle. And, secondly, he's hitting longer drives than he ever did. A good casing point is the recent 367 yards at the Charles Schwab Challenge, which obviously prompts a lot of talk about his work out while under quarantine.
The five-time PGA Tour winner admits that his transformation didn't just happen overnight. It has been a lot longer in the making.
DeChambeau devoted himself to adding muscle mass to improve on his golf game. This professional golfer started at 195 pounds and bulked up to 225 pounds after several months of rigorous and devoted work in the gym.
His physical change comes as no surprise given that he shares plenty of videos of himself working out and works out multiple times a day, trying to accumulate three to four hours in the gym at the peak of his training.
The numbers never lie. Bryson now leads with an average of 321 yards in the Tour driving distance, compared to last year when he was hitting drives at just 302 yards.
We all agree on the gains in the gym but let's discover the benefits of his routine.
Bryson DeChambeau's Workout Routine
This 6ft 1in, 225-pound professional American golfer is among 25 male athletes who featured the '2020 Most Fit Athletes' list. So, what can we mere mortals learn from Bryson DeChambeau's workout and fitness routine?
1. Muscle Isolation Exercises
When it comes to working out and fitness, most people will head to the weight room, ready for a workout session full of squats and bench presses. But this “Mad Scientist” has a different approach to training.
DeChambeau says he prefers isolation exercises to train his muscles individually rather than the regular compound movements. “I feel like by using and training each individual muscle, you can aggregate all of them to be able to function at a higher potential rather than just saying, ‘Oh, can I use all of them and see if they all work?’ ” Bryson says.
Greg Roskopf, the founder of the Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT) program, used the MAT program to identify that Bryson's left side was weaker. The weaker side was putting pressure on the dominant right side in each golf swing, causing his back pain.
First, Roskopf helped DeChambeau stimulate his weaker muscles to enhance the neuromuscular communication between Bryson’s brain and muscles. This was meant to teach his muscles to contract through the entire motion range.
Greg Roskopf had him go through a workout program focused on isolating and training specific muscles through the complete ranges of motion. The MAT program helped increase Bryson’s flexibility and simultaneously made him stronger.
In terms of that golf swing, the MAT program has balanced Bryson’s muscles so that they can equally pull and help him build more muscle and, in the long run, improve his flexibility. This translates to a more powerful swing on the golf course.
The recent months have seen this golf pro level up his training intensity. Bryson DeChambeau commits more energy and time to build more symmetrical strength in his body core through exercises that majorly focus on back extension, side bends, trunk rotation, trunk flexion, and leg flexion.
2. Bodyweight Movement
Bryson says that apart from his isolation exercises, he incorporates bodyweight movements in his training.
Jamie Greaves, a Golf Strength and Conditioning Coach says, "Mass is quite a high correlator of speed. So, the heavier someone is, the more power potential they have. Force is mass times acceleration. If you’ve got more mass and you still accelerate the same, you’ll produce more power, which is what he’s doing."
a) Upper body Muscle Workout
Most notably, Bryson has added a few inches to his chest. Many would wonder if and how that helps produce more power. According to Jamie Greaves, the upper body muscles essentially play a huge part in generating the club-head speed.
In theory, by having bigger muscles at the chest, you should have more ability to produce more force. DeChambeau has nailed it by prioritising the strength and range of motion at the same time.
Strength work movements like deadlifts and squats in the gym have been known to have quite a high carryover to the club-head speed, and the theory behind it is quite solid.
b) Hip Rotation Movements
You'd wonder why Bryson puts in so much work on his hips. According to fitness experts, hip rotation is vital not just for the range of motion but also for you to control that range of motion. This is linked to swing mechanics and power.
Additionally, the hips flex and extend on an 'up and down' motion in a golf swing the same way they do as you do squat or a deadlift. In theory, strengthening your hips in those same motions should help you to produce more power.
Like many sports, the ground plays as the key source of power in golf. This is then translated through to the rest of the body and generally why most of the power starts from your lower body. For this reason, professional players on Tour like Bryson DeChambeau won't try to strike wholly, relying on their upper body.
Bryson DeChambeau realises that the hips are a crucial link in that power chain on the golf course, and his workout routine focusses on that as well.
Golf Fitness Benefits
Months of rigorous focused training has proved to be very rewarding for Bryson DeChambeau.
- First, he noticed an improvement and an increase in his ball speed. DeChambeau says his ball speeds now average approximately 186 miles per hour and at times even peak at 199 mph. This is an impressive leap from his previous season with an average of 175 mph
- Bryson also saw a tremendous increase in his swing speed. DeChambeau's swing speed has reached 134 mph
- Since DeChambeau's transformation, he says the most significant benefit has been his stability. The increase in stability has dramatically improved the quality of his swinging the game