The Ultimate Golf Workout

More often than not, golf magazines publish some lame sidebar on golf fitness.  They write a small blurb about an exercise and show someone standing with one foot on a balance board throwing a weighted medicine ball.  Then they tell you if you do it 3 times a week for 6 minutes while you are watching infomercials on the Golf Channel, you'll add 17.5 yards to your drive.

Brilliant. 

After you clean up the mess you made smashing the medicine ball into your coffee table, then what do you do?

For all of you cheap bastards out there who don't want to spend money on some of the fine products at www.GolfFitnessProducts.net, you can get the May edition of Golf Digest (only $3.99 in stores and free at the library, once you pay for those overdue books you took out in 7th grade).

On page 148, there is an article called "The Ultimate Golf Workout" by Mark Verstegen.  Mark is the founder of Athletes' Performance, an elite training facility in Arizona that I have had the privilege of spending some time at, and the author of the Core Performance Golf DVD and Manual.   Besides being a great guy, Mark and his staff are extremely knowledgeable about anything related to fitness.

In the article, Mark outlines a complete 60 minute program broken down with a Warm up- 7 minutes (what he calls Movement Preparation), Prehab- 8 minutes ("exercises that help protect the body from the pain and injuries associated with playing golf"), Strength- 15 minutes and Cardio-30 minutes. He breaks it down even further with sets and reps for 3 different levels (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced).  There is some equipment needed, so if you don't belong to a gym, you'll need to grab some things. 

It's a great way to get started on a golf fitness routine and it won't cost you much.  It might even add 17.5 yards to your drives.

If you want to get serious and get a customized program from Mark and his staff, check out the Core Performance Interactive website at www.CorePerformance.com