Leadership with a Low Profile
A great article by Helen M. Ryan about the President and CEO of the American Council on Exercise.
I can attest to his cooking ability, but being invisible?
Leading with a Low Profile
“A leader is best when people barely know that he exists.”
~Witter Bynner
There is an invisible leader.
One who directs over 50,000 professionals globally.
One who runs an organization that has been in existence for 25 years and is among the most respected in its field.
This organization has grown hugely in scope and vision under the leader’s reign and yet – few know that the leader exists. What they do know, however, is that that his style works.
This invisible leader? Scott Goudeseune, President and CEO of the nonprofit American Council on Exercise (ACE), one of the largest fitness certification, educational and training organizations in the world.
SCIENTIFIC PROOF: Golf is Exercise – sorta
How many times have you had that conversation with a non-golfer that golf isn’t exercise? Finally, we golfers have the scientific proof to dispel the naysayers!
From the New York Times….
“Ever wonder if you play better golf riding in a cart or walking? Ever wonder how many calories you burn in a typical round? Or if you would play better if you were in better shape? Ever wonder if golf is truly a sport?
Neil Wolkodoff wondered all those things, too. And as the director of the Center for Health and Sport Science at the Rose Medical Center in Denver, he knew how to find the answers. Two years ago, he bought $27,000 worth of equipment to conduct a painstaking set of tests on amateur golfers. When he was done, he had some findings that could settle a lot of barroom arguments.”
Radio interview and 2010 British Open pictures
My recent radio interview with Danielle Tucker on The Golf Club in Hawaii and heard round the world has been uploaded to my YouTube channel. As part of the interview, I share some of my pictures from The Open.
Another video to check out is a Q and A from Michael Vereb from North East, PA asking what I carried as part of my Spotter’s Bag at The Open at St. Andrews in Scotland.
Enjoy!
Live from the Open at St Andrews
Consider any misspellings as my gift to you.
Guest Post: Fitness from the Fairway
Exercise for golfers
There’s nothing worse than strolling down the fairway, lining up that next great shot then not being able to make it due to some problem with the back, arms or hips. Indeed a golf shot requires a whole range of muscles to travel through both extension and flexion.
So what can be done to ensure that our body is up to scratch?
From the height of the swing to the impact with the ball, any deviation from the optimal motion will result in a misdirected shot. So a little stretching and regular exercise can work wonders in keeping that ball aimed at the green.
Stretching before playing vastly improves the range of motion available to the player. This might include both dynamic and static stretching. Arm swings, trunk rotations and side-bends are excellent static stretches. Others that include the hamstrings, abdomen and groin are essential in preventing swing-related injury. All these stretches need to be repeated 5-15 times depending on age and mobility.
What about actual exercising – isn’t walking round 18 holes enough?
Walking is a great exercise for general health, but for a golfer who wants to improve their game, more than just an amble round the course is necessary. Golf is not a high-cardio sport so exercising for golf should not be an Olympic-style pursuit.
These are useful starting points;
Core Strength – Making those long drives requires optimum torso strength. The back and abdominal muscles are flexed completely through a golf swing. Strengthening these areas will improve drive length and accuracy. Push-ups, sit ups and weight training all help to improve these areas. Over developing muscles however is not recommended for golfers. It is widely recognized that muscle-bound people have restricted flexibility which is contra-indicated for a good swing.
The arms and wrists – Keeping hold of that club throughout the swing is essential and a good firm grip is important in maintaining ball direction. Grip can be improved by “racket ball training” whereby a racket ball (or similar hollow rubber ball) is held in the hand and squashed repeatedly. This builds up grip and forearm strength. Weight training can be used to improve rotator movement.
Depending on age, the rate and intensity of any exercise should be appropriate.
In general golfers need not look to extensive gym programs and strenuous workout programs. Simple exercises and stretches that can be done at home can provide golfers with the possibility of a much improved game. Strength training alone has shown to improve driving distances by 20% in a recent study. This study in 2004 even suggested that after only 2 days of an appropriate exercise program, players significantly improved their drive length.
A long-term commitment to exercise can really make a difference to the quality of a golfers play –more so than any new clubs, shoes, or golf balls can ever make!
Guest Post by: Sarah Leonard of Nursing Degree Website
545 vs. 300,000,000
Interesting observation, not pro or anti either political party…..
545 PEOPLE – by Charlie Reese Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does. One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 citizens out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank. I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a Senator, a Congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how s/he votes. Those 545 citizens spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the Speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.
If the military is in IRAQ, it’s because they want them in IRAQ.
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. WE THE PEOPLE
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
My top 25 At Home exercises
To help celebrate the 25th anniversary for the American Council on Exercise, we’ve released my “Top 25″ At Home exercises:
By Ted Vickey
President of Fitwell LLC, ACE Board of Directors Member, and former White House Athletic Center Executive Director
While I love belonging to a gym for the social interaction and the latest and greatest in fitness equipment, I do quite a bit of travelling these days and can often be away from my fitness facility for weeks on end.
Because of this, in celebration of ACE’s 25th anniversary I’m providing my favorite 25 fitness exercises that you can do anytime, anywhere – from your living room floor in front of the TV, to a hotel room half-way around the world. The only equipment you need is yourself – meaning NO EXCUSES.
Guest post: Lose Weight While Improving Your Golf Swing
By Bob Foreman at www.golfitcarolina.com
One of the benefits I often hear from my clients is that they lose weight while working to improve their golf games. While not a priority for many who enter into the golf fitness program, it is a welcomed benefit.
The key to a successful golf fitness program is to isolate the anatomical weaknesses identified through the physical assessment. This often entails a combination of specific stretching and strengthening exercises, done on a regular basis, to help bring balance back into the golfer’s body. This is essential as the research is now crystal clear that muscle imbalance is the root cause of most swing faults, inefficient golf swings, poor performance, and both acute and chronic injury.
One of the benefits from this pursuit of a better golf game is a loss of body fat. As in any exercise program that incorporates a strength component, muscle tissue is enhanced. Not only does this improve strength, balance, and power, it makes you a better calorie burning machine.
It takes about 2 to 4 calories a day to maintain a pound of fat in your body. It takes about 50 to 70 calories a day to maintain a pound of muscle. That’s a pretty significant difference! Muscle is what drives our metabolism and when you increase muscle, you increase the number of calories you’ll burn during the day.
Most of us had more muscle when we were kids running around the neighborhood and walking to school, uphill, 6 miles both ways. Then, for one reason or another, we slow down and sit more. This wastes away our muscle and as a result lowers our metabolism. We usually don’t alter our eating patterns to make up for the slower metabolism, in most cases the eating patterns get worse, so we put on weight/fat.
When a golfer begins an exercise program to improve their swing efficiency, they inevitably will need to include strengthening exercise to correct the weaknesses they posses (and we all have some). This progressive strength component, usually moderate in intensity, has a positive impact on body composition. As you tone muscle, and this is worth repeating, you raise metabolism and burn more calories. Increase the number of calories expended during the day and you lose weight.
Now be forewarned, muscle is also denser than fat and will weigh heavier on the bathroom scale. So don’t be alarmed if the scale doesn’t change all that much, but yet you’re able to fit into those jeans you haven’t worn since high school.
A word about cardio exercise. Keeping the heart and lungs in shape is a must and will help you on the back nine when fatigue can lead to poor shots and an enhanced potential for injury. Cardio exercise is important and should be included. It will burn calories while doing the exercise, and for an hour or two afterward as your body returns back to resting state. Cardio will not, however, do anything for strength development nor will it increase resting metabolism. That needs to come from strength training.
Whether desired or not, exercising to improve your golf swing will have additional benefits for your health. One of these, if you’re consistent with your workouts, is a leaner body. This will ultimately improve your ability to burn calories and lose body weight/fat. So not only will your playing satisfaction improve, so, too, will your sense of well-being.
About the author: Bob Forman, has a Masters degree in Exercise Physiology and is a Certified Golf Fitness Instructor through the Titleist Performance Institute and the Flexor motor learning program for golf. The articles, videos, and other related material presented are intended to help golfers improve their game and playing satisfaction. The information is based on Bob’s 27 years in the fitness industry and his work with golfers of all levels and ages. www.golfitcarolina.com
Guest post: Alexander Technique and Golf
A Poised Golfer Is A Happy Golfer by Roy Palmer
Top golfers can make it look so easy. With effortless ease they can hit a ball well over 300 yards time and time again. So why do the rest of us fail to hit this distance on a regular basis? And why does it seem to take so much effort to do so? I believe it comes down to using the wrong kind of effort from trying too hard.
In my role as a teacher of The Alexander Technique, the world-renowned movement system, I’ve worked with almost one hundred golfers and found many unknowingly interfere with their technique. This usually involves unnecessary actions during their preparation, such as clenching the jaw, stiffening the neck and raising the shoulders. Our neck muscles play a vital role in coordinating all our muscles as part of their function in our head and neck righting reflexes. Undue tension in the jaw, neck or shoulders has a similar effect to applying the brake before driving away from the lights.
Yet it only takes a tiny amount of inappropriate activity in one seemingly insignificant muscle to upset your coordination and timing. Unfortunately, the majority of us simply don’t have the degree of sensitivity or self-awareness to notice these actions and small differences from one shot to the next. If you have the habit of tightening your grip on the club handle, this can also cause your neck and jaw muscles to tighten. It’s probably not on your list of things to do, but I see many golfers doing it.
On Monday you may tighten slightly with no noticeable effect on the shot, whereas on Tuesday you may do it a fraction more and see the ball go wayward. If you’re not aware that you’re doing this in the first place, it becomes an unknown variable in your technique and leads to an inconsistency with no obvious cause. More importantly, if you don’t know you’re doing it, you can’t control it. And of you can’t control it, your efforts to execute the perfect swing, chip shot or putt are undermined. You may think you’re doing exactly what your coach or text book are suggesting but in reality there may be any number of other actions you’re unknowingly bringing to your shot. This complicates your golf as whilst you’re trying to do one thing your body may be doing something else.
So how can you improve your coordination? Well it’s not something you can do directly as good coordination requires us to do less and thus prevent interference with our natural reflexes. The answer is to promote poise which means using the most appropriate effort for every given task. To be poised you need to relax and allow your own innate reflexes control your muscles; a bit like a puppet whose strings can let go a little. If you’ve had the experience of hitting the ball further than your average distance whilst it felt effortless, this was because you were poised, better coordinated and therefore able to let your muscles to do exactly what was necessary – no more, no less. We need to practice in order to become poised by trying less and less to hit the ball hard. Try a few shots on the driving range and see how much effort you can take out of the shot to let your club do the work. Check to see if you’re clenching your jaw or lifting your shoulders to prepare. If you can stop doing what you think is necessary, relax and let it flow you may be surprised to see how far you can hit it.
I have more tips on my website at www.play-better-golf.com and in my forthcoming book due out in February 2010 called Golf Sense: Practical Tips On How To Play Golf In The Zone (FrontRunner Publications).
The Definitive Guide to Sticking to Your New Year’s Resolutions
Every time this year there are millions of people around the world that promise themselves this is the year to lose weight, or the year to stop smoking, or the year to run a marathon. But the reality is that most of us fail when it comes to sticking to resolutions — so much so that many swear never to make resolutions again.
And yet the rest of us are eternally hopeful when the New Year comes around, believing without any credible evidence that we can improve our lives, that change is possible, that we’re not going to be stuck in the same old rut again this year.
Author Leo Babauta (www.zenhabits.net or Twitter zen_habits) has an excellent method that will help you not only set your resolutions, but also KEEP them. Goal setting and resolutions are possible and you can do it following these easy steps.
The Problem with Most Resolutions
“While I love the optimism of New Year’s Resolutions, unfortunately, the enthusiasm and hope often fades within weeks, and our efforts at self improvement come to a whimpering end.” says Babauta. New Year’s Resolutions usually fail because of a combination of some of these reasons:
- We try to do too many resolutions at once, and that spreads our focus and energies too thin. It’s much less effective to do many habits at once.
- We only have a certain amount of enthusiasm and motivation, and it runs out because we try to do too much, too soon. We spend all that energy in the beginning and then run out of steam.
- We try to do really tough habits right away, which means it’s difficult and we become overwhelmed or intimidated by the difficulty and quit.
- We try to be “disciplined” and do very unpleasant habits, but our nature won’t allow that to last for long. If we really don’t want to do something, we won’t be able to force ourselves to do it for long.
- Life gets in the way. Things come up unexpectedly that get in the way of us sticking with a habit.
- Resolutions are often vague — I’m going to exercise! — but don’t contain a concrete action plan and don’t use proven habit techniques. That’s a recipe for failure.
There are other reasons, but the ones above are easily sufficient to stop resolutions from succeeding.
The 6 Changes Method
So what are we to do? Babauta created the 6 Changes Method, along with a new site called 6Changes.com, to solve these problems:
- Focus on one habit change at a time, so our focus and energies aren’t spread thinly.
- Implement the habit changes gradually, so you don’t run out of steam.
- Start out really, really easily, so it isn’t intimidating.
- Focus on enjoyable activities, so you don’t need “discipline”.
- Plan two months to do the habit change, so if something comes up, it’s but a small bump in the road. And because you are publicly committed, you are going to get back on track.
- Have a very specific plan with actions built in, using proven habit change techniques.
If you stick with the method, you’ll do much better than you’ve done in the past with New Year’s Resolutions. You’ll focus on creating long-lasting habits rather than trying to reach a short-term goal that fails. You’ll maintain your enthusiasm for longer and not become overwhelmed by the difficulty of change. You’ll have habits that will change your life, and that’s no small feat.
The Method
So how does the 6 Changes method work?
It’s simple:
- Pick 6 habits for 2010.
- Pick 1 of the 6 habits to start with.
- Commit as publicly as possible to creating this new habit in 2 months.
- Break the habit into 8 baby steps, starting with a ridiculously easy step. Example: if you want to lose weight, the first step is just to pack your exercise clothing at the same time each night.
- Choose a trigger for your habit – something already in your routine that will immediately precede the habit. Examples: eating breakfast, brushing your teeth, showering, waking up, arriving at the office, leaving the office, getting home in the evening.
- Do the 1st, really easy baby step for one week, right after the trigger.
- Post your progress publicly.
- Each week, move on to a slightly harder step. You’ll want to progress faster, but don’t. You’re building a new habit. Repeat this until you’ve done 8 weeks.
You now have a new habit! Commit to Habit No. 2 and repeat the process.