Is your warm-up a coffee and a doughnut?

Ever go to a PGA tournament and watch the best players in the world warm-up?  I will park myself at the range for hours and marvel at the machine-like ball striking consistency of a Vijay Singh

Vijay warming up

or the effortless rhythm of a Fred Couples.  Vijay typically warms up with alignment sticks laid out all over the ground, umbrellas stuck in the turf to guide his swing plane, head covers under his armpits, and training aids sprinkled around his station at the ready.  You wonder how the guy gets ready to play with all the mechanical input.  We weekend players love to emulate our heroes on tour but you need to be very careful when it comes to copying their warm-ups.  These guys typically get to the course two hours before their round and condition their bodies and every aspect of their game before play.  We don’t have that luxury.  Usually we grab a coffee and a doughnut and do nothing, or throw on our shoes in the parking lot and rush to the first tee, or buy a bucket of range balls, pound 30 drivers and roll a few putts before heading out.  I’ve tried ’em all and none of them work.

Last year I thought I had this whipped when I tried a new warm-up routine and followed it up with a great round, but soon discovered the routine wasn’t extensible enough to support different practice facilities and different amounts of time.  I can’t count the number of times that I’ve either played with no warm-up or tried to warm-up sensibly and still stumbled out of the blocks.  How frustrating is it when you always need to play three holes to fully engage the golf circuits?

In 2013 I’m determined to find the perfect warm-up routine that will:

1)  put me in the best frame of mind

2)  put me in the best physical condition

3)  have me looking good doing it (got to avoid the Miguel Angel Jimenez  10-200 scenario.)

So coming soon are two warm-up routines constructed from a combination of exercises out of my workout regimen, and from trial and error at the golf course.  Look for the:

A)  Economy warm-up (10 minutes)

B)  Business Class warm-up (30-60 minutes)

Send me your ideas to help move this along and I’ll try the good ones.  Thanks!

Golfers, careful in the gym!

Back pain.

Dang!  Just spent five days on the short-term DL because of a stupid move during my workout last Sunday.  Instead of my final drill where I swing a club upside down, I stupidly switched to a five pound dumbbell.  20 hard swings with that and my lower left back (and left knee) where in pain all this week.

Folks, you gotta be careful with your workouts, especially when introducing new moves.  Temper your enthusiasm to experiment and go with what a pro recommends, or at least a fitness trainer.

I’m feeling better after some rest and an ibuprofen diet and am going to give the workout a light go this morning, followed by some short game work on Saturday and a game the next day.  Wish me luck and watch yourselves!