Hitting the gym...

Monday was "Week 1, Day 1" of my new workout program. I'm not a gym rat, but I have spent plenty of time working out over the past several years for both golf and general fitness purposes.

However, passing into my mid-20s has brought on about 20 or so unwanted pounds. I'm currently 5'11" and 187 lbs and would like to start the 2010 golf season in the 165 - 170 pound range.

In doing research, I found that top athletes from all sports seem to turn to Athletes Performance in Arizona, Florida or Los Angeles for training. Their client list is like a who's who of the NFL, MLB and NBA, as well as many stars from other sports like Natalie Gulbis & Mia Hamm. Their "Core Performance" workouts are tailored to the sport you play and are designed to increase strength and flexibility while boosting energy and reducing pain. Their website is very cool and allows you to customize a workout based on your sport and how often you can workout. It does require a subscription, but you can get a 30-day-trial. After that it's $9.99 per month, but within a short period of time you'll have the workouts memorized, printed, or downloaded ;-)

The "movement prep" portion of their workout is my favorite and I use it to warm up before I play golf, as well as when I start my workouts in the gym. It's a series of core exercises and stretches designed to train your body for the movements in the golf swing. I'll probably go into more detail in a future post, if anyone is interested. You can also search around the Core Performance site and find samples of their golf exercises.

Following movement prep, I do a series of bodyweight exercises from to get further warmed up. After two circuits of squats, push ups, lunges and mountain climbers, I get into the meat of my workout (which is a pretty generic total body workout from Men's Health).

Superset 1 is 10 push-ups with my feet up on a bench for additional difficulty and to further strengthen my shoulders. I immediately transition into 12 reps (each leg) of step-ups on the same bench. After 30 seconds rest, I do it again, rest again, and complete a third superset.

Superset 2 is 1-leg RDL (Romanian Dead-Lift) for 8 reps per leg, followed by swiss ball mountain climbers for 10 reps per side. This is an awesome combo for golf as the 1-leg RDL really strengthens your lower back and doing it on one leg improves your overall balance. The mountain climbers are a great total core strengthener. If you haven't worked out much with a swiss ball, they will definitely be a challenge. I do a total of three supersets of this combo.

Superset 3 is the grand finale of my Monday workout and is 12 pull-ups followed by 20 wide-grip push-ups. I repeat the superset once. I will admit I had to use the weight assist for the pull-ups, which was a jab to my ego. I expect that as I lose a few pounds and get a bit stronger, this will change.

I hit the treadmill for a 15 minute interval session and then headed to the Precor stretch cage to finish up. All-in-all it took about 90 minutes and I was absolutely worn out by then end of it. I was really pleased that I kept my intensity level high for the whole workout, but know there will be plenty of days where that will be a challenge.

After this workout on Monday night, I played nine holes Tuesday evening. I was shocked at how sore I was and recommend not starting an intense workout plan on a day before you plan on playing any type of competitive round. Luckily this round was not competitive because I could barely take the club away!

I'm feeling better today and will be hitting the gym again tonight after some more (much needed) short game practice. My plan calls for me to go Monday, Wednesday & Friday and I'll be doing the Core Performance movement prep for golfers on a daily basis. I'll keep you updated on the progress...