Ben Shear's 5 Week Fitness Program

Golf Digest has run two articles by their fitness advisor Ben Shear, which I'm linking here as 5-Week Program, Part 1 and 5-Week Program, Part 2. These 12 exercises -- 6 in each article -- are supposed to get you in golf shape in just 5 weeks. A crash course, if you will.

I don't know if I believe they will work that fast, and I think 12 exercises is definitely nearing the limit of how many you should try to do during a single workout. (Personally, I would prefer a limit of 7 or 8 exercises.) Still, this is a good mix of exercises if you're looking for a new routine.


There are 3 mobility exercises:

• 90-90 Knee Drop (pictured above)
• Bretzel (what a strange name!)
• Shoulder Wall Slide

3 stability exercises:

• Medicine Ball Lift
• No-Arm Side Plank
• Dead Bug

3 strength exercises:

• Bulgarian Split-Squat
• One-Legged Glute Bridge
• One-Legged Row

and 3 power exercises:

• Rotational Jump
• Vertical Leap
• One-Legged Lateral Jump

The stability and strength exercises all require equipment of some sort, but you may find items around the house that you can substitute.

Shear says you can do all 12 exercises in less than 30 minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time to devote to a workout. And he says to do two sets of 10 reps for each exercise, which is also a reasonable number if you're going to do this many different exercises in one session. If you try it, just make sure you don't move so fast that you hurt yourself, trying to finish within that 30-minute session.

Belen Mozo's "12 Yards in 12 Minutes" Routine (Video)

Okay. Belen Mozo says you can add 12 yards by doing just 12 minutes of exercises. I'm not so sure I believe that.

But then again, you should be forewarned that these are not easy exercises. Let's take a look.



Okay, she's got four different exercises here:

• Belen calls these mountain climbers. I've seen a similar exercise called mountain climbers, but they didn't involve the leg crossovers she's doing. Do one set in two minutes, then rest one minute.
• Lateral vaults. Mountain skiers do something similar to improve their cornering. Do one set in two minutes, then rest one minute.
• Dumbbell stand-ups. Combines a sit-up and a momentum move from the floor to a standing position. Do one set in two minutes, then rest one minute.
• Rotational jumps. Four sets -- 90°, 180°, 270° and 360°. Do a two-minute set of each, with a one-minute rest in-between each set.

That's 12 minutes. If you try them, I strongly advise AGAINST doing two-minute sets. In fact, I strongly advise against doing this routine AT ALL! These are going to be hard, even if you try to take it easy. And I mean REALLY easy! If you've never done them, even a few regular mountain climbers are draining. This routine could do serious damage to someone who isn't used to that level of exertion.

So why am I posting this video? Because you need to be aware that, just because a golf pro says they do a routine and a golf magazine posts that routine, it doesn't mean that YOU should do that routine! BE CAREFUL!

Are Golf Pros Working Out Too Much?

I intended to write about this topic in yesterday's post, but I planned my day badly and ran out of time. However, since GC was still debating the topic Tuesday night, I don't guess I'm too late to toss in my own two cents.

The question is simple: With so many pros suffering from back pain -- and other assorted injuries -- are they putting in too much time in the gym?

The answer, however, is not so simple. I think it's the result of several seemingly unrelated factors coming together at the same time.

I should point out that this isn't a new debate. I have heard that football coach John Madden -- yes, the guy they named the video game after -- once blamed an overemphasis on weight training for an increase in injuries among football players. Similar debates go on in other sports.

But an overemphasis on weight work is almost certainly a factor in all this. All you have to do is look at the types of injuries we see among athletes in general. It is a fact that you can strengthen muscles with weight work, but not tendons and ligaments. They have to increase their strength over time, at their own rate. And we see disproportionate number of injuries among other athletes that aren't muscle injuries, but rather ligament and tendon injuries. (Rory had one of those over the summer last year, remember?)

So clearly we can strengthen our muscles faster than the connecting tissue can adjust. Failing to allow for that is probably one of the factors.

Likewise, the power game most golf pros use now focuses on using stiffer shafts, which they "load" by increasing the leverage they create during the swing. To increase that leverage, you need to focus the movement at fewer "fulcrums" (or pivot points, if you prefer that term), and that creates more stress on those joints.

GC noted in their Monday night discussion that players in the mid-20th Century tended to damage their hips, and that more recent players tend to injure their backs. That's because swings in the style of Snead and Nelson tended to focus on hip turn, while modern swingers tend to restrict hip turn and focus the motion on their lower backs.

So the change in swing technique -- and the stiffer-shafted equipment built for that technique -- is also a factor.

The increased amount of practice time also contributes. In the book Bobby Jones on Golf, Charles Price noted that:

"It would be the most natural assumption in the world to think that during those eight years Bobby Jones did little other than play golf. In reality, Jones played less formal golf during his championship years than virtually all the players he beat, and he beat everybody in the world worth beating...Jones averaged no more than three months a year playing in, and going to and from, tournaments and championships" (p IX-X).

That's significant. The farther back you go, the fewer differences you see between the techniques of the full swing and those of the short game. With the differences that have grown between the full 'power' game and the short 'feel' game, players simply spend far more time on the practice tee than their forebears of a half century ago.

They have to, because they have to maintain two different swings.

Golf is a worldwide sport now. A large amount of time is spent in travel. And while many of these pros can travel in private jets, it still takes a toll when your travel time can take 10-15 hours or more. The pressurized cabin of a jet takes a medical toll on your body, as sitting for that many hours will affect your joints and your body can easily dehydrate. In addition, travel through so many time zones affects your sleep patterns as well

Finally, add the wraparound season to the mix. Players no longer get two or three months (or more) off where they can simply let the clubs sit in the garage for a while. (Well, they don't get it unless they decide to skip a large number of tournaments and put themselves at a large disadvantage in the points races that determine who plays in the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, FedExCup and Race to Dubai. For many players, that's a serious problem.)

So the reason for the increase in sports injuries seems to be a combination of factors:

• Too much weight work
• Changes in swing technique
• Stiffer shafts
• Increased practice time
• The effects of increased travel
• No off-season rest time

So it's not just one thing. It's the intersection of so many seemingly unrelated things that, while they may appear small in and of themselves, multiply the total damage into very real pain.

The solution would appear obvious. Back off a little on the workouts and practice time, move to a less strenuous swing technique that allows softer shafts (that should offset most of the loss of distance the players would expect), and travel and play less often. A simple solution...

But it probably ain't gonna happen. At least, not until somebody tries it and begins to dominate the game the way Tiger did.

Simple Diagonal Swing Training (Video)

I'm posting this because these two exercises are supposed to reduce lower back injuries, which is something most golfers need. This Golf Digest video from Ron Kaspriske is also supposed to help you create more power with your swing.

Watch this video on The Scene.

The video is pretty much self-explanatory -- it teaches you to do some lateral squats and twists, combined with some diagonal stretches.

I'll add only one thing to this, and it concerns the weights. You don't need heavy dumbbells or medicine balls. That huge fantasy novel you've been planning to read will suffice, as will a small sack of potatoes or a container of antifreeze (or any liquid, for that matter) up to a gallon. Judging by the size of the weights in the video, ten pounds is plenty for these exercises. (A gallon of water weighs just over 8 pounds.)

Again, let me stress that these two exercises are supposed to help reduce lower back injuries, which means lighter weights are better than larger ones -- especially when you make that diagonal reach. I repeat: Don't overestimate how demanding that move will be, even with smaller weights. If you try this, start with lighter weights, rather than heavier ones.

How to Adjust Push-ups for Your Strength Level (Video)

I'm a big fan of bodyweight exercises -- that is, exercises that use your bodyweight rather than individual weights or machines to provide resistance. They generally don't require any equipment (there are a few exceptions, like pull-ups) and they usually work a lot of muscles at once, so it's easier to work your muscles evenly in less time.

Ron Kaspriske at Golf Digest did this little video on how to make push-ups harder. I know that most of you need to make them easier! Don't worry, I'll tell you how that's done after the video. But the versions he does in this video -- which, yes, require equipment -- are pretty cool.



Alright, for the rest of you who have trouble doing push-ups, here is a quick course on how to adjust the effort level. Are you ready?

• If you want to make push-ups HARDER, move your HEAD farther from the ground.
• If you want to make push-ups EASIER, move your FEET farther from the ground.

Now let me explain that. It's much simpler than it may sound.

The basic push-up is done with your feet and hands on the ground. This is a medium level push-up. Let's say you want to make your push-ups easier. The easiest way is to stand up next to a wall and face it, take one small step backward so your toes are maybe 12-18 inches from the wall, and then put your hands on the wall and lean toward it.

Your head is now as high above the ground as you can get it, and this is a very easy-to-do push-up. (Perhaps it's more of a push-out. But it takes more strength than you might expect.) To increase the difficulty from there, you increase your forward lean so your head gets nearer the ground. At first you just move your feet away from the wall a little, but eventually you're going to need something flat to put your hands on to support your weight. So you can use the edge of the kitchen sink or a table, then move down to a chair seat, then use stairs or a footstool, and finally back down to the ground.

Some of you may remember the old Charles Atlas bodybuilding course. (Remember the ads in comic books with the bully kicking sand in the guy's face?) The cornerstone of the Atlas program was a push-up that used two chairs. You put one hand on each chair, which made the exercise easier than the "flat on the floor" version, but you lowered your body between the chairs so your chest could go lower. That increased the range of the motion so you got more good from the exercise. It's still a very good exercise to use as a basic piece of a workout program.

To make the push-ups harder, go in reverse but with your feet. Keep your hands on the floor but put your feet on the stool or some stairs, then on a chair seat, and so on until you're putting your feet high against the wall. These are almost the hardest you can do, and they're called handstand push-ups. (And yes, there's one version that's harder. It's called a freestanding handstand push-up, and obviously your feet don't touch the wall at all. Those are hard!)

Now, there's one other way to make push-ups easier or harder, and we used to mix these two techniques in Tae Kwon Do to build strength in different sorts of ways. You can do the push-ups on your knees instead of your feet, and then you can put your hands in awkward positions to stress different muscles. You'd be surprised how much strength you can build doing those... and yet even the students who hadn't done many push-ups before were able to do them.

BTW, that medicine ball push-up that Kaspriske does in the video? We got the same effect by doing knee push-ups while putting one hand close to our side and stretching the other hand much farther away. You can isolate individual muscles that way.

So that's your primer on push-ups. They're a convenient exercise that you can do almost anywhere... and now you know how to adjust the difficulty to fit your current strength level.

Ron Kaspriske's Simple "Goblet Squats" (Video)

Ron Kaspriske is the Senior Editor at Golf Digest. Not exactly the person you'd expect to get exercise advice from -- you'd normally expect some over-muscled personal trainer, right? But Kaspriske recently did this video of an extremely simple squat movement called a "goblet squat." I think it's awesome because it eliminates most of the dangers that can come from doing squats with weights.



The fact that you're using a relatively light weight helps reduce the danger of injury here. Why? Because you're holding this light weight very close to your chest, which forces you to go straight up and down, not get off-balance the way you can when using large, awkwardly-shaped weights.

Also, bear in mind that you don't have to go down as far as Kaspriske does, especially when you're starting out. Let your existing strength level tell you when enough is enough. The goal is to get healthier, not try to impress others.

Squats, when done safely with weights you can handle easily, are great for developing much more than power in your golf swing. Squats can really strengthen your legs, hips and lower back... and that can eliminate a lot of the lower back pain that develops from sitting for so long, especially at work.

Even if you don't use a weight, you can get most of those benefits from just squatting regularly. You can even place one hand on a table or chair to help you keep your balance if necessary -- you'll still get the benefits. It's hard to think of many exercises that can make the same claim.

The Third Ben Shear Core Workout (Video)

I almost forgot to post this! I posted the first two of Ben Shear's core workout videos for Golf Digest (that link takes you to the second post, which also has a link to the first one). The first video introduced three half-kneeling exercises, while the second video gave you three standing static exercises. (Static because you just stood still and held the positions.)

Today's post gives you the third and final core workout video, which presents three standing dynamic exercises. (That means you move while you do them.) Here's the video:


Again, three simple exercises that work your core in three planes of motion, with the resistance provided by an exercise band:

• The band is stretched parallel to your shoulders. You straighten your arms in front of your chest and try to keep them there while doing backward lunges.
• The band is still stretched parallel to your shoulders. You straighten your arms above your head and try to keep them there while doing side lunges away from the band's anchor point.
• Finally, the band is stretched perpendicular to your shoulders and tries to pull you backward. You straighten your arms above your head but you try to keep them there while doing forward lunges.

The other videos measured your progress by the time you held each position; for these exercises you count repetitions. And of course, you need to do the first two exercises on each side of your body. (You don't have to do backward lunges with the final exercise.)

Shear suggests at least two sets of 8-10 reps of each exercise. If you combine the exercises on this video with the exercises on the first two, you should get a pretty stout core workout without straining yourself. (After all, you're using an exercise band. It's easy to reduce the tension by just standing closer to the anchor point!)

And again, the real beauty of these exercises is how simple they are, as well as how quickly they can be done. The three exercises on each video are pretty much identical, they just add more movement as you progress through them. If you're looking for a decent core workout, these nine exercises might be just what you're looking for.

The Second Ben Shear Core Workout (Video)

A little over a week ago I posted the first of three Golf Digest core workout videos from fitness instructor Ben Shear. That one focused on half-kneeling exercises.

Today's video is the second in his three-part series. This one focuses on "resistance" standing exercises.

Watch this video on The Scene.

When I call these resistance exercises, I mean that you aren't trying to make an obvious body movement like a waist bend. Instead, you're just trying to maintain a vertical body position while an outside force -- in this case, a resistance band -- tries to make you move.

Here are the three exercises, all done from a standing position:

• You straighten your arms in front of your chest and try to keep them there while the band tries to make you rotate.
• Then you straighten your arms above your head and try to keep them there while the band tries to make you bend sideways.
• Finally you straighten your arms above your head but you try to keep them there while the band tries to make you lean backwards.

And of course, you need to do these exercises on each side of your body.

One of the things I like about these exercises is that you can position yourself so the band doesn't place too much stress on your body for your current strength level, but you don't have to take time to change weights on a machine. All you have to do is step a bit closer to or away from the band's anchor point to adjust the amount of tension you feel. (Of course, you can do these with a weight machine at the gym if you want, but the band is much simpler.)

As I have said before, I LOVE simple exercises. And they don't get much simpler than these.

Ben Shear's New Core Workout (Video)

Golf Digest has started a new three-video series on core exercises that are aimed at the specific needs of golfers. The first one uses three static exercises in a half-kneeling position, and that's the one I have here.

Watch this on The Scene.

Although the video shows each exercise to only one side, obviously you need to reverse position and do them the other way as well. And although there are two people demonstrating these exercises, you could clip the exercise band in a doorway and do them by yourself.

They're doing this as part of their Fitness Friday series, so the next one should be out next week. Next week's video is supposed to be static exercises while standing, and the last one will focus on dynamic core exercises.

I'm bringing this to your attention simply because -- at least in this first video -- the exercises are neither complicated nor do they require a lot of room. And if the other videos use a minimum of exercises like this one, the total workout shouldn't take much time either. We'll have to see what Shear comes up with next week.