Personal Trainer Near Royal Birkdale: Getting Fit in Southport During Open Week (and After)
This week, the eyes of the sporting world are on my town. The Open Championship is back at Royal Birkdale for the first time since 2017, and Southport is absolutely buzzing — flags up, crowds in, and the best golfers on the planet warming up a ten-minute drive from where I coach every single day.
I’m Alan, and I’ve been a personal trainer in Southport for 12 years. Most mornings I’m out running past those same dunes, training for the Great North Run in September. This week I’m sharing the paths with camera crews and caddies, which is a strange and brilliant thing.
So while the world’s here, I thought I’d write the post I get asked about constantly, whether you’re visiting for the golf or you’ve lived here your whole life.
Who’s writing this?
Twelve years ago I wasn’t a coach. I was seven stone heavier than I am today, and getting fit felt about as realistic as teeing off at The Open. The transformation that followed changed my career and my life — I qualified, kept studying (I’m Precision Nutrition certified), competed in bodybuilding, and these days train as a hybrid athlete, mixing serious strength work with distance running.
I coach in person at Anytime Fitness Southport and in clients’ homes, and I coach people online all over the country. The business is called Fitt-On, and the philosophy is three words: Build. Believe. Become.
Golf fitness: what actually matters
Watching the pros this week, it’s easy to forget how physical links golf is. A round at Birkdale is five-plus miles of walking on unstable sandy terrain, dozens of maximal-effort rotations, and hours of postural endurance in the wind. If you play golf at any level — three qualities will do more for your game than any new driver:
Rotational power. Your swing speed comes from the ground up: hips firing, trunk rotating, arms just delivering it. Train rotation and your distance follows.
Hip mobility. Stiff hips steal your backswing and your follow-through, and your lower back pays the bill. Most amateur back pain in golf is a hip mobility problem wearing a disguise.
Single-leg stability. Every swing is a controlled weight shift from one leg to the other. If you can’t balance on one leg, you’re leaking power on every shot.
Three exercises to start with
Half-kneeling thoracic rotations. Kneel with one foot forward, hands behind your head, and rotate your upper back over the front leg. Eight slow reps each side. This teaches your spine to rotate where it should — the mid-back — instead of where it shouldn’t.
Single-leg Romanian deadlifts. Hinge at the hip on one leg, reaching towards the floor with a flat back, then stand tall. Eight each side, bodyweight first, then add load. Balance, hamstrings and hip control in one move.
Dead bugs. On your back, arms and knees up, lower opposite arm and leg slowly without your lower back leaving the floor. Ten each side. Boring, brutal, brilliant for the core stiffness a powerful swing needs.
Do those three, three times a week, and your golf — and your back — will thank you.
Visiting Southport for The Open?
If you’re in town for the championship and don’t want your training to fall apart, you’ve picked a good week for it — this town is built for moving.
The best running route in Southport is the seafront: head out along the promenade towards the pier, and if you want the full experience, run the Birkdale end early in the morning before the crowds arrive. Flat, fast and hard to get lost on. I’ve been doing my Great North Run long runs along that stretch all summer.
Need a gym? Anytime Fitness Southport is where I coach in person — 24-hour access and everything you need for a proper session between rounds of spectating.
And if you’re walking the course all four championship days: that’s 20,000-plus steps a day on dunes. The three exercises above work just as well for spectators as they do for golfers. Your calves will understand by Sunday.
Live here? This is your sign
Here’s the thing about weeks like this one. The Open packs up on Sunday night. The claret jug leaves town. The camera crews go home. And Southport goes back to being the place where you live and where your goals are still waiting for you.
If watching elite athletes on your doorstep all week has lit something in you, don’t let it fade by Monday. This is exactly how my own story started: one decision, made locally, that compounded into a completely different life.
Working with me starts with a Kickstart Session (£50) — a full one-to-one where we assess where you are, get clear on where you want to be, and build the plan between the two. From there, coaching runs across three tiers — Build, Believe and Become — covering everything from in-person training in Southport to full online coaching with nutrition support, wherever you are.
Twelve years, seven stone, and one very good week of golf in my town. If you’re ready, I’m ten minutes from the first tee.
Alan
Fitt-On