Damon Goddard met Jordan Spieth when the current No. 1 golfer was 15 and attending Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas.
Spieth’s swing and mental coach, Cameron McCormick, asked Goodard to take a look at his pupil who apparently needed help on the physical side. Spieth was skinny and played several sports, but Goodard loved that Spieth was a try-it-all athlete before dedicating himself to golf.
“It’s easier to make an athlete a golfer,” Goddard says, “than to make a golfer an athlete.”
Although Goddard isn’t on the road with Spieth each week he sends him workout plans and trains the 22-year-old at AMPD Golf Fitness in Dallas when Spieth is in town. Here Goodard gives Southland Golf readers some exclusive insights into what works for his star pupil:
How has the development process gone from his mid teens to today?
I always like to say, you can’t put a Porsche engine in a Honda frame. You can’t do the strength and power moves without building the appropriate framework first. That’s what it was like for Jordan. During his teens we were building the framework portion but now we’re installing the Porsche engine. Being able to put in the strength and speed and having matched framework with power and torque, he’s earned the right to the bigger lifts.
What are the bigger lifts specifically?
We build optimal mobility and increase his stability; then we can do those strength and power moves. In particular we wanted to focus on the lower body and get a lot stronger there so he can take advantage of the incredible footwork he has while using the ground to our advantage. A lot of the lower body moves we’ll do are dead lifts, front squats, split squats and others challenges I’ll throw at the lower body. A squat looks benign with two feet on the ground and staying in one frame of motion, but building strength profiles by doing single-leg work matches up a bit more with what’s going on in the golf swing because it’s so multi-directional. Those are some of the moves that will transfer more quickly into the golf swing and onto the course.
What about your workout regimen to prepare for a major? Does it taper off so he can rest?
If we have a major coming up there’s a specific protocol that we’ll use to feel like we’re peaking a week and a half before the major. Then we’ll start to taper down in order to optimally perform. There’s a lot of volume that goes into the couple weeks that lead into a major that we’ll utilize to make him be able to perform at a high level.
What about the week of a major?
During the week of a major we’re continuing to train movement patterns, not just single muscles. We’re a little bit medium volume on workouts for Mondays and Tuesdays. We have a process for the major weeks and regular weeks called Inhibit, Lengthen, Activation, Integration:
Inhibit: This workout is more linear, with nature squats and dead lifts.
Lengthen: This is specific dynamic mobility to capture optimal mobility.
Activation: These movements get the brain-to-muscle connection going to prevent a specific group of muscles from shutting down. Activations make sure things are turned on and optimally working.
Integration: This is where a lot of our single-leg work, single-arm work or something that’s a global challenge to his body is worked on. A single-arm row or single-leg squat are two good things to challenge the body to integrate together.
Monday and Tuesday we really try to push it; Wednesday we use more as a recovery day but also throw in high-intensity interval training or use that day to recover or do soft tissue work. On tournament days, Thursday through Sunday, we have a warm-up protocol for everything we do that follows those four steps.
What’s your focus there with his recovery?
There are different compression sleeves or a cold plunge he’ll take, but basically we do whatever the day lends itself to. If there’s time we might do a light volume workout as well. The idea for these athletes that’s often missed across the board is quick recovery time in order to perform the next day. The luxury for those in soccer, football and basketball, for example, are off days between games. In golf, we’ve got four straight days of playing, so we have to recover well.
What drive do you see in Jordan with his workouts?
A lot of athletes rely on their coach to push them – as it should be because that’s the coach’s role. In the gym I’ll lay the groundwork of what needs to be accomplished. But if I have a particular weight or load that we’re doing for a specific lift, Jordan always wants to do 5 to 10 pounds more, or do that extra set or extra rep. He always wants to push the limits of his growth, of his capacity. So it’s always fun to almost keep up with him. If he wants to do 15 more pounds, can we do this? Is this going to be too much? So I think it really is fun because it keeps it fresh for both he and I and we’re constantly pushing the boundaries of his capacity, which shows me there’s still a lot of room for his growth and development. This is scary for the rest of the world because there’s still a lot of room for improvement and he knows that. So he wants to push that and constantly pursue that type of greatness and it’s fun to be a part of that because I can push those limits and push him to higher levels of performance. He still has more room for improvement, and that bodes very well for his future.
Garrett Johnston is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to Southland Golf. Follow or contact him at garrettjohnstonproductions.com or @johnstongarrett.
