Thu, Dec 25, 2008 page18

• FEATURE: Hit ball, drag bag and burn calories too

  • AP
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Is golf really a sport or just a hobby? Is it a good walk spoiled, or should we forget the walk and ask Santa for a golf cart this Christmas?

  Would a PowerBar help more than an apple after nine holes, or should we forget ’em both and just wolf down another candy bar? And do you really have to have Tiger Woods’ biceps to be any good?

  A sports scientist pondering these and other questions crunched some numbers and came up with answers, a few of which put a new twist on some old assumptions.

  

  Tiger Woods tees off at the US Open championship at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, California, in June. You don’t need biceps like Woods’ to play golf, but it probably helps.

  PHOTO: AFP

  Among the top findings: Given the number of calories burned, it’s certainly OK to call golf a sport.

  “One of the more interesting things I found was that the actual act of swinging a golf club takes significant energy,” said Neil Wolkodoff, director of the Rose Center for Health and Sports Sciences in Denver.

  Wolkodoff found eight male volunteers strapped them into some state-of-the-art equipment and took them out for a few rounds of golf.

  Wolkodoff found the subjects burned more calories when they walked and carried their clubs (721) than when they rode in a cart (411). When they walked, they traversed about 4km, compared to 0.8km when they rode, but the 500 percent increase in distance corresponded to only a 75 percent increase in calories burned.

  The conclusion was that the act of swinging the golf club could actually be considered good exercise.

  “As far as physical exertion, it’s not the same as boxing, but it’s definitely more than people thought,” Wolkodoff said.

  But golf addicts tempted to cancel gym memberships should consider this: the 2,884 calories the average player might burn by walking 36 holes a week is considered good for health, but will do little to improve fitness — meaning it won’t increase aerobic capacity.

  For the test, Wolkodoff strapped subjects into equipment that measured, among other things, their heart rate, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production and how far they were walking. Each volunteer played four nine-hole rounds: one carrying the bag on their shoulder, one pushing the bag in a push-cart, one with a caddie and one in a golf cart.

  All the subjects went through fitness tests before the experiment to establish their baseline anaerobic thresholds — in other words, at what point they began to burn fuel without the help of oxygen. When people cross their anaerobic threshold, lactic acid builds up, which makes muscles start to burn and causes fine-motor skills to deteriorate.

  This is important because the higher a player’s anaerobic threshold, the more ability the player has to walk long distances without losing the motor skills needed to execute shots.

  Among Wolkodoff’s findings were that there was virtually no difference in calories burned between carrying (721) and using a push cart (718). Walking the course with a caddie carrying the clubs burned fewer calories (613) and playing while riding in a cart burned even fewer (411).

  Players in Wolkodoff’s tests scored best when using push carts and playing with a caddie. Their nine-hole averages were better than when riding in the motor cart.

  Wolkodoff said that offered proof there could be a benefit to walking the course that outweighs the benefit of resting while driving to your ball in the cart.

  “It gets back to the idea that walking gives you a certain amount of time to think about a shot, to rehearse, go through the stuff,” he said. “Where in a golf cart, you’re holding on, then, boom, you’ve got to get up, go to the ball and make a decision pretty quickly.”

  But the benefit of walking didn’t outweigh the stress of looping the bag on and off your shoulder 40 or 50 times and lugging it around the course. The average scores for the walk-and-carry rounds was 45.

  Players reached their peak heart rates at the top of two taxing, uphill holes. When they were carrying or pushing the cart, the peak heart rates went past their anaerobic thresholds, and Wolkodoff noticed a marked spike in scoring on the tougher of the two holes under these circumstances.

  He attributes it to the buildup in lactic acid, which decreases fine motor skills.

  Returning below the threshold took two minutes to three minutes in some cases. So, the advice is, get in better shape to increase the anaerobic threshold so you don’t find yourself going over it while playing golf.

  So, is golf a sport?

  Answer: Yes, but probably not the only sport you would need to play if you really want to get fit. But getting fitter will diminish fatigue on the golf course and, in turn, help you play better.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Magnitude 6.1 quake strikes off northeast coast

  • 2

    MOFA blasts Beijing after Zambia scraps RightsCon

  • 3

    Taiwan keep Thomas Cup hopes alive

  • 4

    Expert warns on China customs blockade

  • 5

    Notes from Central Taiwan: Taiwan’s land problem is colonialism by another name