How Bryson DeChambeau Gained 50 lbs to Break Tiger Woods' Driving Record

[golf all hisses]

A year and a half ago Bryson came to me and he said,

I want to be the longest driver on the tour.

So that's when we started his weight training program.

The proof is in the pudding.

He broke Tiger Woods' record

for the longest average drive on the tour.

When Tiger broke the record, he broke it by a yard.

When Bryson broke the record, he broke it by 10 yards.

[upbeat music]

I'm Greg Roskopf,

I'm the owner and developer of Muscle Activation Techniques.

I've been working with Bryson for the past three years.

When I met Bryson, he weighed 190 pounds,

and now he weighs 240 pounds.

So Bryson has added 50 pounds

since we started working together,

and the majority of that has been in the last year

and a half since he started working

with the strengthening program that we put them on.

I can personally guarantee that as his trainer

biomechanics, there's no way that he's taken steroids.

I've been working in pro sports for the last 30 years.

In the performance field, the type of strength changes

in weight gain that you see that Bryson's made

are uncharacteristic in any sport.

This program has been what's allowed Bryson

to make the strength gains

and the weight increases that he's made

and be able to optimize his performance

to the level that he's at.

[upbeat music]

You may have heard Bryson on interviews.

He actually spoke out ahead of time and said,

I'm going to get strong.

I'm going to become massive.

And I'm going to hit the ball farther

than anyone's hit the ball on tour.

He said, I want to hit the ball like Happy Gilmore.

[golf ball hissing] [air whooshing]

[man groans]

The program that I developed called,

Muscle Activation Techniques,

is a bio-mechanically based process,

designed to improve performance

and reduce the risk of injury.

We can increase your strength by tying in

the weight training component

to the muscle activation aspect

that we've already accounted for,

but it was his choice to increase the mass.

Forces mass times acceleration.

So the more mass that he can have,

the further he's going to hit the ball.

And as long as he doesn't sacrifice flexibility

or range of motion through his strength training program,

the combination of the strength,

the mass and the acceleration that he had already created

was going to make him the longest driver on the tour,

and it worked.

In the first year and a half of working with him,

it was more to develop a foundation.

His flexibility and his ranges of motion were increasing

as we were getting his muscles activated.

After the first year and a half

when his muscle system was firing it at a high level,

and we felt pretty confident that he was stable

and he was strong,

now it was time to take it to another level.

We saw the significant change in the session

where we increased Bryson strength from 90 pounds

for five repetitions to 165 pounds for five repetitions

in the movement of spinal rotation.

That's when Bryson saw dramatic change in club head speed.

It went from 117 miles an hour to 123 miles an hour.

That week he had a bad performance

in the tournament he was in

because he was so off in his swing

and I'm thinking that he's going to be in a bad mood

because he was in like 116th place

and he called up and he was just so excited.

He said, I've never seen these types of changes

in club head speed, and I've tried everything.

He was so excited because it was taking him in the direction

that he wanted to go.

I really didn't have any conversations about

what his limits were weight-wise

as opposed to more looking at the mechanics of his body

and recognizing that if there's anything

that's detrimental relative to his ability to swing the club

and stay healthy in the way of not being injured,

then I don't have a problem with him gaining weight.

I've heard him say publicly that he wants to get up to 270.

If that happens and he doesn't sacrifice

any of the variables that we're looking toward,

the sky's the limit.

[upbeat music]

So in Bryson's workout is kind of different

to most people that work out because

Bryson doesn't do squats,

he doesn't do deadlift, he doesn't do power clean.

When you look at his program,

it's not the conventional program that you would think

that would make somebody strong.

I always looked at the fact that we are only as strong

as our weakest link.

We have to account for every movement and every muscle

in his body.

The process that amount was Bryson

it's what I call a neuromuscular overhaul.

Where there's actually 43 movements

in account for all the muscles in the body.

I go through movement by movement, muscle by muscle,

to make sure that he's optimizing his function

in all 43 of these movement patterns.

So movement by movement, I've sought out the machines

that are specific to the movement

that I'm trying to optimize strength and performance in.

And there's a progression that we go through,

we're starting from the core and working out

through the extremities.

All the upper body and lower body muscles

need a stable core to work off of.

So that's where we put our focus is making sure that

he has a strong and stable core.

When I placed the focus on

what do we need Bryson to be strong and relative

to the golf swing.

It started out with these six main movement pattern.

So the first movement that's priority for the golf swing

is spinal rotation.

He generate so much torque through the spine.

And so we have to make sure that those muscles

that rotate the spine, which include the internal obliques,

the external obliques, the transverse of dominant

are able to contract and contract efficiently.

When we started with Bryson, he was able to do 90 pounds

for five repetitions.

And as we've progressed,

he's up to 10 to 12 repetitions at 165 pounds.

[upbeat music]

So another key motion than the golf swing

is spinal sideband.

At one point in time,

Bryson didn't feel like he could maintain

the side bent position as he was rotating

through the golf swing.

And so that became a focus that

it's not just about rotation.

We need as much strength in the muscles

that side bend the spine

as we do in the muscles that rotate the spine.

So when we started with Bryson,

he started with 30 pounds for five repetition,

and his body was basically saying,

I'm not ready to tolerate this.

So we had to retrain his nervous system

so that he could start to tolerate that type of force.

Over the last year to year and a half,

he's increased from 30 pounds per five repetition,

and now he's presently doing 90 pounds for five repetitions.

There also has to be strengthened the muscles

that control upright posture.

Other movements that we look at our spinal extension

and spinal flection.

And so a spinal extension would be where was actually seated

or on a Roman chair.

And he's actually moving up into extension.

When Bryson started performing this exercise

through the full range of motion,

he was only able to tolerate 130 pounds

for five repetitions.

Now, as he's progressed,

he's able to do 210 pounds per five repetitions,

and he continues to get stronger in that motion.

And we're looking at the muscles involved

to create spinal flection,

it's the rectus abdominis muscles.

They have the primary function to flex the spine.

Now, the interesting thing is these flexures

have to flex the spine from a fully extended position

to fully shorten into a fully flex position.

And when he started moving through

those great ranges of motion, he wasn't very strong.

So he was only able to perform five repetitions

at 110 pounds.

And now he's able to perform five repetitions at 200 pounds.

The glutes are the biggest and strongest muscles

in the body.

They're also hugely involved as we generate the torque

in our golf swing, tying in with the core muscles.

These glutes help us to generate great amounts of force.

The conventional exercise world is thinking that

movements such as squats or lunges or leg presses

are great glute strengtheners,

but muscles need to be strengthened

through their full ranges of motion.

And the glutes actually extend the hip.

And so basically they bring the femur

back behind the pelvis.

And so when the glutes fully contract and they shortened,

they bring the leg behind the pelvis.

And there's not an exercise that we do in the gym

that we would consider glute strengthening exercises

that even take us halfway to that position.

Bryson started at 110 pounds for five repetitions.

Then he went up to 210 pounds for five repetitions.

If I finalized the six main movements that we're focusing on

for the golf swing, the last one is hip rotation.

I always say the hip rotators,

I like the rotator cuff muscles of the hip.

They're the ones that have to be strong

so they can tolerate the forces the body's generating

back down through the leg then through the ground.

They have to be able to accommodate the torque

as the body spins the fixed hip in the golf swing.

He didn't have a lot of strength in his hip rotators,

and he started with 30 pounds for five repetitions.

And now he's up to 90 pounds for five repetitions.

So you can look at Bryson and say, okay,

not only is he strong through his core,

but he's increased the mass in his shoulders.

You can see his shoulders and arms are also getting bigger.

How is he doing that?

The integrated system is only as good as the function

of its isolated part.

So we go through movement by movement in his shoulders.

We strengthen the muscles that elevate and upwardly rotate

the scapula through a specific exercise.

Then we strengthen the muscles

that downwardly rotate the scapula.

Then we strengthen this specific muscles

that protract and retract the scapula.

And these are all different exercises

because they're focusing on a specific function

that the body needs to move through.

So those exercises alone are what's been able

to bulk him up.

He's physically challenging each and every muscle

in his body through these isolated exercises

as we're not leaving any stone unturned.

When Bryson was here after the U.S. Open,

I went back and pulled up all the data

where he was when we started and where he is now

and an every movement,

he's at least doubled his force output.

If he was doing 50 pounds on a certain exercise,

he's now doing a hundred pounds.

If he was doing a hundred pounds, he's now doing 200 pounds.

And it's amazing to see those type of strength gains

in every movement that makes up total body function.

So it was great to see the Bryson won the U.S. Open,

what a accomplishment that is for everything

that he's trying to do for the golf game.

It's been rewarding to see it happen,

rewarding to know that I've been a part of it

and probably the best thing is,

is when Bryson showed up with his trophy,

as excited as one could be,

he's like, We still have a lot more work to do.

So he wasn't stopping it at that.

That's an accomplishment,

but it's just one step in the road.

[upbeat music]

If you had to say,

is there one particular thing that allows him

to make this type of transformation, it's up here.

He wants to be the best at everything he does.

He wants to change golf.

When he saw that he could actually do things

that nobody else has been able to do, that motivated him.

So he said to me, Let's maximize the potential here.

It's his mental drive that has allowed him

to make the changes that he's made.

He really understands what we're trying to accomplish

in this process.

He doesn't have a set schedule of

like normal weight training,

where you have an upper body day, a lower body day.

He may say, you know what?

I feel a little tighter in my hips today.

So I'm going to put the focus on the exercises

for my hips.

So with the schedule that Bryson has engulfed,

he's been coming on the average about every three weeks.

I always say, life's gonna beat us up

and from a neuromuscular standpoint,

there's gotta be somebody here to put you back together.

So Bryson can go two or three weeks in a golf tournament,

and it takes its toll on his body.

So we spend two days, two hours at a time.

Each time he comes out here to Denver

and we just go through every single movement in his body

and identify where are the weak links.

[upbeat music]

When I say that I realized that,

wow what we're doing has had a huge impact

on Bryson performance in the game of golf,

it would be when he broke Tiger's record.

I mean the best player in golf forever

have the longest drive average for the last 15 years.

So it was a tough record to break by one yard.

And then when Bryson broke that record by 10 yards,

he was saying, He's changing the game.

He's doing things that nobody's ever done before.

[upbeat music]

If any general golfer tried to start

this strength training program,

he'd probably see what happens to most people

that do try in strength training,

is they start to tighten up and then they get injured,

because it's an overload on their muscle system.

But in that controlled environment,

I always say, I fix what I break,

and we're actually repairing and reestablishing

the communication immediately.

So he actually gets stronger on the spot

rather than getting potentially tightening and injured.

I don't know if anyone's ever trained like this for golf,

because golf is such a bio-mechanically based sport

that you can't have any imbalances in the system.

'Cause that's gonna alter the swing mechanics

and which in turn alters club head speed and ball speed.

I believe that the only reason Bryson has been able to do it

is because of the foundations that's been built

through his neuromuscular system,

and because the weight training isn't having

a negative effect on his body.

The question becomes can any golfer do this?

I have to say the first time I had talked

with a few pro golfers and they're like,

I don't want to gain 40 pounds or 50 pounds.

That's not a goal of mine.

And so Bryson has particular goals

for what he's trying to accomplish,

but from a strength standpoint,

can other golfers achieve

what Bryson's been able to achieve?

I believe, yes.

Under a supervised program,

like what we're doing with this MAT process,

I believe that the potential is for anyone.

So when Rory is making the statement that,

He thinks Bryson has taken advantage of the game's

relative to the way the rules are now.

And that's what we all want to do.

Rory said, It's not right or wrong.

It's just what Bryson's doing.

And that's what any performer in any sport would do

is play within the rules and try and do the best they can.

If golf sees a problem with it,

they may have to change some of the rules,

but that's only going to happen

if there's a whole bunch more people doing

what Bryson's doing.