Move your legs as much as your club

How healthy is your game?

Does your calorie intake at the clubhouse also resemble your club membership fee? To some on the tee, a rapid turn of the head to take a glimpse at the ladies team is the fastest their muscles move all week.

Riding in golf carts has become the favoured mode or rather the only mode of transport for many golfers in the UAE - but you should try those legs out again.

Its not uncommon for golfers to "valet park" their golf cart in front of the clubhouse! That's how comfortable we've become when playing golf.

Hitting a ball every five minutes with bouts of rest in between sitting in a golf cart is not considered appropriate exercise to lose or even maintain weight. Unless you are running to your ball from your golf cart and taking five practice swings before each shot, you are not getting enough exercise!

Walk the course

For starters, try walking a golf course. It's good for your health and good for the course's health. Everyone knows that walking is the most fundamental of all exercise programmes. In Sweden you have to get a doctor's note to use a cart, because the Swedes have determined it's in the national interest for people to walk.

Playing golf requires a great deal of concentration and may be mentally draining, but swinging a golf club does not require a large amount of energy output.

How many times have you started a new golf season with very high scores, short drives and aches and pains? Keep golf at the top of your mind by starting a golf-specific fitness programme. Don't let your clubs get dusty and forget about your game during the summer. Prepare your body in anticipation, it would be the wisest thing to do to improve your golf for next season.

Golf fitness is a very popular topic these days among all the pros, teachers and even amateurs. It's no secret that if you get your body fitter, stronger and more flexible, you will swing better and hit longer drives that produce lower scores.

Golfing lessons are a small facet to improving your game. You, the individual, are your own biggest hindrance to your game. Flexibility is a major factor that you should be improving on. Add to this your core strength, joint stability and general fitness and you can see that your health is a vital factor in your game.

Starting point

Now how to get started? Pursue a local fitness professional who works with golfers and really understands the mechanics of the swing and how the muscles work. Most of the golfers I meet have reduced flexibility, poor posture and want to gain more strength and balance. Long hours at the gym don't appeal to most, so what's to be done?

Titleist Performance Institute is turning to a highly portable performance training tool, the TRX Suspension Trainer. Suspension Training is an effective and time-efficient way to improve golf performance utilising the TRX to increase rotational power, flexibility, muscular endurance, balance and core strength — all at the same time. The simplest piece of equipment you can imagine and it is entirely user friendly and making such a splash in sports and fitness training. Richard Palfrey is a TRX Instructor who has studied the Titleist Performance Institute TRX Conditioning Program and can help you improve your overall fitness. Contact Richard at 050-248 8319 or e-mail: richard@thehundred.ae

Everything about your fitness, lifestyle and mindset contributes to your play.