I am a faithful reader of this site for more than two years, and reading this thread, I realize only today in which point it is much more than a technical skill. Golf is a link to share all which makes our life, small or big constraints. Thus thanks to Vickie for her competent answers, thanks to Bagger for his very good work of administrator and thanks to all the members for the sharing of their personal experience.
I am a faithful reader of this site for more than two years, and reading this thread, I realize only today in which point it is much more than a technical skill. Golf is a link to share all which makes our life, small or big constraints. Thus thanks to Vickie for her competent answers, thanks to Bagger for his very good work of administrator and thanks to all the members for the sharing of their personal experience.
Many thanks for sharing that.
You are right - Golf is the three legged tripod that involves technical skill, physical and mental ability. To play at the top levels and win championships, all three legs must be solid and balanced.
As you noted between the lines, most of the time we only focus on the technical skills. The other two aspects are largely ignored except for the guys that are consistent winners.
A younger persons body is very forgiving and adapts quickly to environmental changes but as we get into our 30's and beyond, special attention must be given to a more balanced approach if we want to maintain top form.
__________________
Bagger
1-H "Because of questions of all kinds, reams of additional detail must be made available - but separately, and probably endlessly." Homer Kelly
. . . Golf is the three legged tripod that involves technical skill, physical and mental ability. To play at the top levels and win championships, all three legs must be solid and balanced.
In the past 18 months of my coaching life on the PGA TOUR, I have been privileged to spend time with experts in what can be characterized as the mental game. As a result, I now insist that my students keep a Performance Journal, a written log that lists their daily objective, the results obtained, and a 'flag' for desired immediate performance improvements. At the bottom of each page, the student daily affirms -- in writing -- to a longer-term goal that gives us both something to shoot for. All events are chronicled, from the routine practice session to the competitive round in a national championship.
At some point, we will produce a commercial version of the journal for the benefit of our members. Its principles did not originate in psychology; instead, they originated at the top levels of athletic performance. Bottom line, the journal is specifically designed to help you develop a new competitive self image and to avoid gagging as you achieve your next level.
In short, our journal will carry a warning label . . .
Lynn, Sure looking forward to your journal for paractice.
When I was playing for the University Of Arkansas, Approx
41 years ago, I kept a journal. At times I would supprise
the other players by making the team on tryouts after playing
some bad golf before. One day, a couple of team member came to
me and asked how I played so well during the tryout. I said
that I went back to my journal and found my mistakes.
Even today, I keep a journal, with number of balls hit and
what I was working on with results. I rank the sessions with
stars. Zero is so so day. 5 stars is something special that
I learned. When I play in a tournment, I keep the names of
the players that I played with and their score as well as mine.
Don't know the value, but over the years I find that I can go
back and find some interesting people that I played with but
had forgotten their names. When my father was in business
I learned a valuable trick from him. He would date all business
cards that he received. He then kept the cards in a file. When
a salesman came in, my dad would pull their card from the file
and tell the saleman when he was last in without the salesman
knowning that had looked at the card. Real one upmonship.
Your organizaton for the Journal seems better than mine, more
focused. Sure will be looking forward to getting a copy.
I will provide some more background and hopefully answer all of your questions today. I am extremely grateful for all the help you have already provided.
Body fat percentage. I have heard that the validity of a caliper test is highly dependent upon the expertise of the person doing it and the number of sites they test. I also have heard the digital readings are not particularly accurate +/- 4%. A dexascan which is around $70 is however quite accurate. I decided I would focus on my waist measurement and make sure I was not gaining too much waist and too little weight. Perhaps there is someone in the area that is really good at the caliper test, I have not researched that. All I know for sure is the largest part of my waist (around the belly button) was 31 inches when I was 147 pounds on 3/9/08. Now I am 172.2 pounds and the largest part of my waist is 33.5 inches. I tend to carry weight in my stomach much more so than anywhere else. Please advice on what you think I should do in regard to body fat testing.
Goals:
I currently hit the driver about 260 yards. After I graduate from school (3 years from now) I want to really concentrate on taking my game to an elite level (compete at the natural amateur level) and I figure a big piece of the puzzle is learning to hit the driver further and under control. I am working with HennyBogan on the swing and that is coming along nicely, now I want to build a body that can perform at a higher level.
Before starting my physical transformation I knew I did not have enough fast twitch muscle fibers. It seems my brother got a lot of them as he has been able to hit the driver 300 yards ever since he was 14 years old and 110 pounds. I read about developing fast twitch fibers and the most significant things I learned were that it is easier to build more fast twitch fibers when:
1. the muscles are stronger
2. the muscles are larger
I also learned that the stronger you are the easier it becomes to get large, hence I am doing a strength program for at least a year before I start working on a bodybuilding protocol. Once I am big and strong I will be working on power and speed development. Although I will do this some along the way by doing some of my warm-up sets fairly quickly and mixing in an olympic type lift every week. My goal is in 3 years to be able to hit the ball 320 yards comfortably by building an extremely different physique. I want to go from 150 pounds and about 12% body fat to 200-210 pounds with 8% body fat. Because I figure this is how big I'll need to be in order to have the ability to develop adequate fast twitch fibers to achieve my goals. Also, this physique transformation is about doing something I never thought I would. I have had back problems for the past 6 years which I finally resolved about 5 months ago through study and working with 4 physical therapists. The truth is the physical therapists did not help much, reading Stuart McGill, Mike Boyle, Eric Cressey, and Dan John is what gave me the tools I needed to fix the problem. Essentially I needed to make my hips more mobile and learn to activate my glutes.
I think for strength I want to be able to squat and deadlift 400-450 pounds with putting slightly more emphasis on the deadlift, also I want to be able to front squat 300 pounds and do the dumbbell snatch with 120 pounds. Above all I will pay attention to how my body feels and try to keep healthy while pushing myself in order to consistently improve.
I feel as though I escaped overtraining. I no longer feel fatigued and I was able to handle 270 pounds on the squat reasonable well. I took an extra day off and then lifted light on lower body 70% of normal weight and feel a lot more positive and motivated now. I will no longer go heavy with deadlift and squat on the same day and will only go heavy on squat 1 time per week (previously it was 3 times per week). I will work on this protocol for awhile and see how I feel.
As far as my lifestyle is concerned I never drink alcohol, I rarely go to bed later than midnight and I generally sleep 6-7 hours at night on weeknights (sometimes 8 hours) and 8-9 hours on the weekends. About 90% of days I take a 30 minute to 1 hour nap. I don't eat desserts or junk food, I drink nothing but water. I have realized in order to eat enough calories to gain weight I may have to eat things that I consider less than ideal, but I always eat foods that are as close to whole as possible. Sometimes I feel as though I don't have as much energy as I should and I wonder if trying to gain weight is a huge energy zapper. At work we have had a person do health assessments and I have good blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, etc.
I look forward to riding the exercise bike after the workout today and am curious if you think I would be a good candidate for creatine. My rhomboids overpower back currently, at least so far as I can tell my looking at my back on video and reading Shirley Sahrmann (Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes). I have winged scapula (not nearly as bad as it used to be) and from what I can tell the lower traps, upper traps, and serattus anterior are weak and inhibited. I was thinking I would wait to do traditional rowing exercises until this issue is completely straighted out and will do face pulls and add in straight arm pull downs so I have an exercise directly targeting the lats. I was doing chins consistently for 3 months before I started this program and I actually have good hypertrophy of the latissimus dorsi. I tried to add in chins to my program but found my bench press suffered and I was already having a lot of trouble getting better at that so I figured I would put the chins on hold for another month or two.
I will add in core work as I am slightly decreasing my volume and I will plan my diet a little better so when I get home from work a couple of times a week I feel like doing it. When I am trying to eat all the time it becomes hard to get the core work in and after doing heavy squats, deadlifts, or DB Snatches my core feels pretty tired so I don't really want to do it following a regular workout. I know core work is very important and I did a lot of it in the 3 months preceding my program and I just need to make it a priority again.
Now I will type out my workouts for the past 6 weeks and tonight I will post my diet for the day.
Thanks for your interest Vickie!
Matt
__________________
"In my experience, if you stay with the essentials you WILL build a repeatable swing undoubtedly. If you can master the Imperatives you have a champion" (Vikram).
The reason you can't sustain the lag is because you are so eager to make the club move fast (a reaction to the intent of "hitting it far"). So on a full shot you throw it away too early, which doesn't happen for your short chip. (bts)
Back Squats
4x265 (tried to go too heavy, too quick, scared myself and quit after 2 sets)
3x260 (I had been increasing on squats by 10 pounds a workout for several weeks but this time it was too much, so I decided to scale back and give my body sometime to recover, see next workout)
Overhead press
3x5x110
Deadlift
5x135
5x165
5x205
4x255 (supinated grip)
Lying Face pulls
15x15
11x15
Push-up plus
15
14 (seemed to get in the way of bench progress so I'm temporarily eliminating them)
Fri. 6/20
Back squats
3x5x240
Bench
4x155
2x5x145
DB Snatch
5x75
3x75 (left) 5x75 (right)
5x70
Chins
7 (weaker than I was 2 months ago but I'm also 13 pounds heavier on 6/20)
2x4
Sun. 6/22
Back Squats
3x5x245
Overhead press
3x5x112.5
Romanian deadlift
8x115
9x140
8x175
7x205
Lying Face pulls
16x15
15x15
11x15
Tues. 6/24
Front Squats
3x5x135
Bench
3x5x135 (someone advised me to decrease my bench to break out of my lack of progress and then try to add 5 pounds per workout)
DB Snatch
3x5x60 (deload, shoulders started feeling a little sore)
Grip Strength
4x90's (hold two 90 pound dumbbells for 20-30 sec.
Wed. 7/16
Back Squat
3x5x270
Overhead Press
3x5x122.5 (I idiotically forgot a 5 pound plate on the left side)
2x130 (tried to make up for it with a heavy set but it didn't work so well)
Romanian Deadlift
8x135
8x165
8x200
2x235 (grip strength failed
4x225 (grip strength failed, probably warmed up too heavy, or did too much grip volume)
Sat. 7/19
Front squats
3x5x135 (deload)
Bench
3x5x160
DB Snatch
3x5x65 (deload)
Mon. 7/21
Back squats
3x5x190 (deload)
Overhead Press
3x5x127.5
Romanian deadlift (deload)
8x105
9x125
8x145
8x160
Standing! Face pulls
2x20x60
18x60
Thur. 7/24
Back squats
2x5x270
4x270
Bench
2x5x165
4x165
DB Snatch
5x3x70 (slight deload)
Standing Face pulls
18x72
15x72
14x72
Sun. 7/27
Front Squats
3x5x185
Overhead Press (too much weight, ended up being more of a push press)
3x5x130
4-1 minute intervals at an average of 22 mph with 30 seconds rest between on the stationary bike
---the darn bike didn't have any straps on the pedals, that wasn't fun
Note: On all exercises I do warm-up sets, but I only list them on deadlifts because I only do 1 work set of these. For back squats my warm-up sets are as follows:
5x45
5x95
5x135
5x185
5x225
2x250
If I do 3x5x270 for my work set this is a volume of nearly 8000 pounds. I do not know if this is particularly high or not but it is not suprising to me I could not recover after doing this and deadlifting heavy in the same work-out, so I will not be doing that again. For most other exercises, bench press, overhead press I do 4 warm-up sets.
__________________
"In my experience, if you stay with the essentials you WILL build a repeatable swing undoubtedly. If you can master the Imperatives you have a champion" (Vikram).
The reason you can't sustain the lag is because you are so eager to make the club move fast (a reaction to the intent of "hitting it far"). So on a full shot you throw it away too early, which doesn't happen for your short chip. (bts)
Matt
You are definitely a goal setter & must be a time management expert...it's awesome what you are doing. How do you manage your time between working, going to school & studying, working out, eating and sleeping, and slipping in golf lessons.
Can you elaborate a little and share your program on how you solved your back problems by making your hips more mobile and learning to activate your glutes.
My answer is in a new thread I started: How I fixed my back problems
__________________
"In my experience, if you stay with the essentials you WILL build a repeatable swing undoubtedly. If you can master the Imperatives you have a champion" (Vikram).
The reason you can't sustain the lag is because you are so eager to make the club move fast (a reaction to the intent of "hitting it far"). So on a full shot you throw it away too early, which doesn't happen for your short chip. (bts)
Whey Protein Powder
-260 calories
-3 grams of fat
-10 grams of carbs
-48 grams of protein
-11 grams of BCAA
-8 grams glutamine
Pumpernickel bagel
-330 calories
-2.5 grams of fat
-67 grams of carbs
-12 grams of protein
Cream cheese
-135 calories
-12 grams of fat
-6 grams of carbs
-3 grams of protein
Raw honey (got out a lot more than I had intended)
-85 calories
-25 grams of carbs
Rolled oats
-380 calories
-7 grams of fat
-64 grams of carbs
-14 grams of protein
1190 calories
24.5 grams of fat
172 grams of carbs
77 grams of protein
1:15p-1:50p
Roast beef 197 grams
-385 calories
-10.5 grams of fat
-0 carbs
-66.5 grams of protein
Whole grain bread (3 slices)
-330 calories
-6 grams of fat
-60 grams of carbs
-12 grams of protein
A1 steak sauce
-45 calories
-9 grams of carbs
Raw walnuts 45 grams
-270 calories
-27 grams of fat
-0 carbs
-6 grams of protein
1030 calories
43.5 grams of fat
69 grams of carbs
84.5 grams of protein
3:40-4:00
Multigrain Oatbran cereal
-330 calories
-3 grams of fat
-72 grams of carbs
-12 grams of protein
Unsweetened coconut
-220 calories
-10 grams of fat
-8 grams of carbs
-2 grams of protein
550 calories
13 grams of fat
80 grams of carbs
14 grams of protein
5:45p
Whey Protein Powder
-260 calories
-3 grams of fat
-10 grams of carbs
-48 grams of protein
-11 grams of BCAA
-8 grams glutamine
6:30p-7:30p
Drank during and after workout
Frozen Blueberries
-160 calories
-38 grams of carbs
-2 grams of protein
Frozen Mango
-90 calories
-24 grams of carbs
-0 grams of protein
250 calories
-62 grams of carbs
-2 grams of protein
7:35p-7:50p
Whey Protein Powder
-260 calories
-3 grams of fat
-10 grams of carbs
-48 grams of protein
-11 grams of BCAA
-8 grams glutamine
1 multivitamin w/o iron
8:20p-8:30p
Qdoba naked burrito with cilantro lime rice, chicken, black beans, quacamole, and sour cream
-740 calories
-31 grams of fat
-74 grams of carbs
-40 grams of protein
11p-11:10p
Whey Protein Powder
-260 calories
-3 grams of fat
-10 grams of carbs
-48 grams of protein
-11 grams of BCAA
-8 grams glutamine
Raw walnuts
-180 calories
-18 grams of fat
-4 grams of protein
Bed 11:30pm
4720 calories
139 grams of fat ~28%
487 grams of carbs ~41%
365 grams of protein ~31%
44 grams of BCAA
32 grams of glutamine
__________________
"In my experience, if you stay with the essentials you WILL build a repeatable swing undoubtedly. If you can master the Imperatives you have a champion" (Vikram).
The reason you can't sustain the lag is because you are so eager to make the club move fast (a reaction to the intent of "hitting it far"). So on a full shot you throw it away too early, which doesn't happen for your short chip. (bts)
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