Exercise for older golfers

Weight training

• I use dumbbells, not barbells. The exercises are designed to focus the muscle group and make them work hard with less weight. Smaller weights for the same effort means that you aren't stressing other parts of your body (other than those targeted by the exercise). By "other parts of the body", I am thinking specifically of the back. It has the secondary advantage that you won't need a spotter; the weights are light enough to greatly reduce the danger of just dropping them if you get in trouble.
  
• I believe it helps with endurance and cardiovascular health, not just the muscles being stressed, because I do it as circuit training. That is, I don't stop between sets. Instead, I am set up for enough exercises that I keep working continuously -- just not on the same muscle group continuously. That serves as aerobic (cardiovascular) training. It's not enough for all your aerobic needs, but it's a good start.
  

Biceps Standing dumbell curls. Simple, obvious, and completely standard.

Triceps Kneeling on a weight bench, tuck your elbow at your side and lift the dumbbell from the elbow. Don't swing it at the bottom; that will cheat you of the exercise. Bring it to a stop where it would hang anyway; that way, all the motion is created by your muscles, not swinging. Do each side separately.

Lats This time you'll raise the dumbbell using the muscle behind and below your shoulder. The forearm should hang from the elbow with no effort exerted; all the effort is in the latissimus dorsi. Do each side separately.

Upper Back Both Bob Forman and Meryl Freeman suggested that the program needs upper back work to balance the work on the pecs. I now use an upper back exercise rather like the lat exercise. Just turn the arm and dumbbell ninety degrees, and lift out rather than back. It is adapted from Bob's "upper back squeeze" video on his web site. I don't have the Universal Machine like Bob, but this does the same thing using gravity and a dumbbell.

Pecs The classic way to exercise the pectorals is the bench press. Flyes with light dumbbells has several advantages for old guys like me: They can be done with much lighter weights. The leverage of a full horizontal arm extension makes the pecs exert the same effort as they would for a bench press with a much heavier barbell. There is no way to "cheat" by helping with other muscles. A bench press can be aided by the triceps. Much less danger of injury, because you're using a rather small fraction of the weight. You don't even need a spotter. And it puts less strain on the back. (Why back strain with a bench press? With that heavy weight, a lot of other muscles are called into action to stabilize the posture of the body.) Update Dec 2015: I have found this exercise to be a strain on my back. Not so much doing the exercise as sitting up from it afterward holding 30 pounds of dumbbells. Almost all the time I can do it OK. But "almost" doesn't cut it. Having to recover from a back injury (no matter how mild) every couple of months is not a good thing. So a year ago I dropped these "Flyes" and added pushups to my core exercises. I am already on the floor, so it fits in well. I do them four times a week religiously, and my pectoral strength is not suffering from the change.

Upper Pecs If your bench tilts, you can vary the tilt from day to day. More tilt works higher on the pecs. I wouldn't do a full contingent of flat flyes and a full contingent of more upright flyes the same day. My intuition says it's overwork of a muscle group, but I'm hardly a professional trainer so I could be all wrong about that.

Quads and Glutes The usual way to work the quadriceps and gluteus maximus is squats with extra weight on your shoulders. That is just asking for a bad back to act up. I came up with this exercise via my engineering training, not any special knowledge of biomechanics. Build up to this exercise if you haven't done quad-glute work recently, or if your knees are suspect. Start with partial two-legged squats -- no weights. "Partial" means only 30º of knee bend each day, until you are comfortable and doing them so easily you don't consider it resistance exercise. Then go deeper in the squat, but not more than 90º of knee bend. When this is too easy, start on the one-legged squats shown here -- but again start with partial one-legged squats. If it never gets "too easy", then stop at the point where it is just exercise, not pain nor damaging. If you do squats on one leg at a time, it puts the same load on the active muscles as if you did normal (two-legged) squats with a substantial weight on your shoulders. In fact, the "extra" weight is equal to your entire body weight. For instance, I weigh 170 pounds. So the one-legged squat puts the same stress on the active leg as a two-legged squat with a 170-pound barbell. But the rest of my body is thanking me for leaving off the barbell. (Something for nothing? No. The exercise will take twice as long, because you have to do each leg separately.) When you do this, here are a few points for good form: Grip the support (the streetlight pole in the picture), so that your hand is no higher than your shoulder at the bottom of the squat. That way, you are not using your arm to help you up; the quads and glutes are doing all the work. (You will definitely be pulling on your arm -- but the angle will be such that it is not helping you get up.) Set up so that your active knee does not go forward of your toe at any time. I am told that is necessary to prevent knee damage. Might be an old wives tale, but I take no chances. Do each side separately.

Calf The muscles on the back of the calf (gastrocnemius) are exercised by calf lifts. A few advantages of the way I do it: One-legged lifts have the same advantage as one-legged squats. The "virtual barbell" is again 100% of my body weight -- with no strain at all on my torso or back. By doing the lifts with the ball of my foot on the curb, I get a longer length of work and no "relax time" at the bottom. That means it's more effective exercise than on a flat floor. (In the basement, I do them on the bottom step of my basement stairs.) As with the squats, you should build up to this gradually. Meryl Freeman reminds me that someone sedentary (and perhaps with tight calves to begin with) might suffer an Achilles tear the way I demonstrate here. So start on the flat, not with the ball of your foot on a stair or curb. Once this is fine, then graduate to a piece of 1x4 lumber on the floor, then a 2x4. If none of this fazes you, you are ready for the stair. Do each side separately.

Hamstrings Notably missing from these exercises is Hamstrings. Update December 2015: In the Fall of 2014, I picked up a 10-pound ankle weight at a yard sale. Special equpment, I know, but not a hardship at the price I paid. I stand on one foot on the edge of a step (as for the calf lifts), and do "hamstring curls" with the other leg, which has the weight on the ankle. I also leave it on the ankle for the calf lifts; it adds 10 pounds to the weight the gastrocnemius is lifting. For this exercise, 5 pounds is probably not enough for someone who is even marginally fit. 10 pounds is about the minimum. Do each side separately.

Shoulders It's very standard to exercise the deltoids and trapezius with a standing or sitting dumbbell press. No need to invent anything here.

Forearm: Wrist Flexors Lay the back of your forearm on your upper leg, and move the dumbbell with just your wrist flexors. Do each side separately.

Forearm: Wrist Extensors Lay the front of your forearm on your upper leg, and move the dumbbell with just your wrist extensors. Do each side separately. I see from the picture that I am probably moving my elbow and shoulder too much. I'll have to be more careful in the future. Actually, I have seen small breaks of form in several of the pictures. That is why many gyms have mirrored walls. It is not just for the narcissistic benefit of the body builders who train there.

Forearm: Abduction At the suggestion of Bob Forman, I am now exercising with another dimension of wrist motion: adduction and abduction. For the golfer, abduction is equivalent to "wrist cock". I have found an abduction/adduction exercise that works for me. It is drawn from Bob's video on the subject; my exercise is the one using a golf club. Do each side separately. You want to use at club that exerts the maximum torque that you can manage. This means you should maximize the length of the club times the head weight. (I'm ignoring shaft weight in this statement, but going to a steel-shafted club will also increase the torque.) I've done the math and, unless you have a weighted exercise club (like the Momentus), a heavy-headed wedge will give you the most exercise. In the picture, I have the best of both worlds: a Momentus weighted lob wedge.

Forearm: Adduction Adduction is the flip side of abduction. This exercises the muscles that oppose wrist cock. Note that I do not extend the thumb along the grip as I did in the abduction exercise. There are a couple of reasons: It would require gripping the club a thumb's length further from the end of the club. We are trying to maximize torque, which means maximize length. Unlike abduction, the thumb might be used to help the muscles move the club. That would reduce the effectiveness of the exercise for the forearm, because the thumb is doing some of the work that the forearm should be doing. Do each side separately.

Abs and Obliques The abdominals and obliques (the muscles low on the side of the abdomen) are certainly important to exercise. They are also very important for back health. For this reason, I have grouped them with the back exercises. I do not do this just from logic; it is actually the way I do the exercises. I do my back exercises with more regularity than weight training, and I need to make sure the abs and obliques get done regularly. So they are listed with the back exercises. If you feel you don't need back exercises... You're wrong. No, no, no! I didn't mean to say that out loud -- even though it's probably true. But I meant to say, if you don't feel you need back exercises, you can do the abs and obliques exercises as part of your weight training routine. Unlike the rest of the exercises on this page, they are floor exercises and probably want a mat or a carpeted floor. (Not a concrete basement floor, which is another reason I do them as part of my back routine instead of my weight training.)

1. I try to weight train twice a week during the golf season and three times when I'm playing less golf in the winter. I don't always succeed in meeting this schedule, but it isn't too onerous a chore. The equipment is right there in the basement; no dressing up and driving to the gym. And it takes less than a half hour.
2. If you have a back problem (or are older and not as strong as you used to be), picking up a pair of dumbbells can jeopardize your back. Perhaps the best way to avoid this is a weight rack so you don't have to bend over to get the weights. But if you keep them on the floor, here's a safe way to lift them into position.
   
3. The exercise specialists who helped me vet this article made a point to me that strength training should balance the work on both sides of a joint. Hence we have both flexor and extensor exercises for the forearm, and both bicep and tricep exercises for the upper arm.
   
4. Breathing: Yes, you should! For most of the exercises, I take one breath per rep. Breathe out during the high-effort part of the rep. (E.g., for the squats, breathe in when dropping from standing to squatting, and puff out when rising again.) A few exercises -- forearms, calf lifts -- go too fast for this; for them, I breathe in one rep and out the next.