Exercise advice please

I am now 36 years old. Soon to be 37. I have always been pretty athletic, but feel myself dwendling with age. With my schedule I don't really have a chance to go to a gym. I am looking for ideas of exercises I can do at home to gain streanth to help my golf gain and just get in better shape. I already do the norm push ups and situps. Any ideas will be appreciated.

TRX and their workout of the day

Concept 2 Rower and follow their workout of the day

Buy 2 Kettle Bells and follow a program.  Hundreds to choose from on YouTube.

Those are few off the top of my head.

Your body looses muscle mass faster as you age. So lifting weights and getting enough protein is important.

Honestly, just get some free weights, i like up to 5/10/15/20 lbs, good range. I know some will say you need to do 12 reps, or 8 reps at a high weight. Really, you don't. Doesn't matter, as long as you lift weights using compound movements you will be working out your muscles.

You can also use your own body as well.

Men's Health has some good information on some exercises for home or apartments, or when your on travel.

I just turned 40, and my strength has not dwindled even a tiny bit.  I think your still very young.  A person shouldn't start noticeably losing strength till probably 50-55 even 60.  You're not losing strength because of your age.  Your losing strength most likely because you're not challenging your self as much as you use to.

You said that you can't change you're schedule.  My advise is keep your life balanced.  If you're schedule doesn't allow you to go to the gym then I think you may need to make some LIFE adjustment so you can give your body a real work out.

Can you work out at home?  Yes you can,  but honestly that's that's a very difficult task - most humans require motivation, whether it be from other people, different surroundings etc.  Just my opinion of course, however I have a lot of experience with this subject.

Do you have any extra room? An empty bedroom? An empty corner of the garage? An empty spot in the basement somewhere? If so then craigslist is your best friend. Go look for a used squat rack set, usually comes with bar, weights, bench, rack, etc. You can usually find them for $300ish. Set it up in the extra space you created and started lifting weights 3 times a week. You don't need a fancy expensive gym membership or the latest and greatest fitness device on tv. Just get some old fashion iron and start moving it. You can do alot with a barbell and some weights.

As a physical therapist, I could literally give you a hundred different exercises to perform. Some of the other posters are correct, you likely aren't challenging yourself enough to at least maintain strength.

Looking specifically at golf, pushups and situps are not anywhere near enough. You need a goof mix of upper/lower and core strengthening in addition to flexibility.

Upper body exercises should focus on pecs, rotator cuff, scapular stabilizers and forearms.

Lower body should focus on glutes, quads, hamstrings and balance exercises.

You can perform some basic core exercises, but anything focusing on rotation would be best.

For flexibility, you'll likely get the most benefit out of a basic yoga stretching routine.

Honestly, since golf is such a total body motion, its probably best just to develop a total body exercise. What worked for me, do a full body work out monday and wednesday. Then i use Friday to do some more golf specific golf exercises, this tends to be my heavy core muscle workout day as well.

As for stretching, i find that just weight lifting with the right motions will increase your flexibility greatly. I haven't gotten into yoga, but i am more flexible now, ever since i started weight lifting.

I've seen some really good suggestions above and they will all help to improve.  But I have recently been doing a workout program that does not take a whole lot out of your day and is completely focused around golf.  The book is called "Core Performance Golf," and it is written by Mark Verstegen.  He is the head of Athlete's Performance out in Arizona, they work with everyday people up to the elite of athletes.  One of the tour pros that did the workout to give his career a second wind is Tom Lehman.  All the exercises can be done at home or if you travel with work, in a hotel room.  The focus is on your core; lower and upper back, shoulders, abs, hips gluts and hamstrings.  Stretching, strengthening and creating a strong core (which is where all movement starts).  It also comes with meal plan to help you optimize the workout (if the is something you are looking for). The book itself is only like $15, I bought it on my nook and it was $10. I got a pair of dumbbells and some tube bands and got to work.

Good luck with your workout!

I have that book to, its pretty decent. You can find all those exercises online if you do some research.

For Core, i like "New Rules of Lifting for Abs", it has some compelling arguements againts doing any crunches at all. Stating that crunches didn't improve strength above doing other core exercises like planks, and even this was tested with the military. They found crunches and sit-ups put unwanted stress on your back, since most people are sitting through out the day, your in flexion anyway, and then you do crunches, your just putting your spine in more flexion.

What i liked about that Golf Core book is the rehabilitation stuff. I love those Rollers, massaging the muscles, i use a tennis ball as well. You got a muscle thats sore, or a kink, that is heaven.

As for the nutriion, if they just spout the whole, low fat, saturated fats are bad, must have multigrain carbs, yada yada, its a bunch of BS. I wouldn't bother with that section. I doubt they know what there talking about. More studies are comming out showing that any diet consisting of majority of carbs, even whole grains isn't good at all, and fats are not what make you fat.

Besides that, its an ok book. it does help tell you what muscle groups to focus on. So then i would just go buy a overall exercise book on how to lift weights, and build your own routine with more variation.

As far as the nutrition is concerned, it's a lot better than you give it credit for.  I'm not sure how familiar you are with carbs and what type is which, but there are two basic types; complex and simple.  Simple carbs are pretty much anything white (bleached) bread/pasta.  They are broken down fast and easily which are good for endurance sports and activities but bad for recreational golfers and even those who do no activity whatsoever.  Just as easily as they are broken down, if they are not immediately used, they are converted and stored as adipose tissue (fat).  Complex carbs (whole grains) are different, they take longer and more energy to break down. When consumed in the right portions, you actually aid in burning more calories while breaking down this type of carbohydrate.

These no carb diets are okay if you do no workouts or activities that promote weight loss, but if you are active it is absolutely stupid to not consume the right amount of carbs.  They are the main fuel for your body to create energy for your activities and act as wood on a fire to your metabolism.

Different variations on the exercises for personalization will definitely make it more tailored to your body style. I would be careful though, weight lifting books can be deceiving. You don't want to bulk up and loose your flexibility or cause it to become worse.  A vast majority of the ones in this book are body weight exercises.

Finding the right exercises that will help you in the areas that you need is the most important part of any exercise regamine.  Hopefully the author of the thread found/figured out what would work best for them!

Actually your wrong, simple carbs are sugars and fructose. Meaning anything in fruits, and sugars, HFCS... Complex carbs are in breads, pastas, rice, potatos...

The problem is that insulin drives how fast your body stores fat. the notion that fat just stores as fat is wrong. Basically when you eat excessive carbs, above 150 grams per day, your going to be causing damage to your body. This is due to the fact that your spiking your insulin when you eat to many carbs. This causes your body to become resistant to that change, and your body will produce more and more insulin over time. This will lead to massive fat gains because now your have much more insulin than you really need and it drives more fat into storage.

Also note, your liver can produce 100 grams of glycogen a day on its own from your own fat storage. Your body doesn't just shut down, your brain doesn't just shut down with no carbs. Thats why people can survive stranded with litteraly no carbs. Its because there fat storage is turned into the same thing carbs will give you. Note, that half of all simple carbs becomes fat right off the bat, because its processed by the liver. So anything with sugar, you think you can burn off right away, wrong, half of it becomes fat.

Given if your doing a high intensity workout, a small amount of carbs after working out will aid in muscle regeneration. But thats never an excuse for downing a bowl of pasta. Maybe keep it to a small sandwhich. I am not saying no carbs is the way, but excessive carbo-loading is idiotic and archaic. New information on this is coming out more and more. Basically refined carbs of any form has only been around in the human existance for less than 1% of the years of evolution. Thats not enough to allow our bodies to handle them. Thats why we have insulin spikes, its our bodies telling us that we ate something we shouldn't have.

My mom, who hasn't had pasta in 5 years, she eats mostly veggies, proteins, occassional breads. She had to eat it because it was at a conference dinner. It was a pasta bar. She was sick for the next few days, her body was not happy. Foods that make you feel like crap after you eat them, are not what you want to put in your body.

Saevel25 is absolutely correct.  Simple sugars are stored as lipids (i.e., fat--not as adipose tissue as stated by Beau F, but in adipose tissue).  You want to limit your carb intake.  Most people eat way too much carb in their diet--they can cut their carb intake to about 1/2 of what they eat and still be on the high side.

Research has shown that most of the cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and even cancer is due to high carb diet that causes a huge insulin spike.  The primary role of insulin is to convert carbohydrate into lipid and store them in adipose tissues.  Eating high fat diet does NOT cause obesity but it is actually the high carb diet that causes obesity.

Once you get use to a low carb diet, eating any food that has high carb will make you feel sick.  I think this is due to surge in insulin level that you are not use to.

Even within pastas and bread there is a difference between simple and complex carb.  Sugars in fruit, candy, etc. being simple carbs is elementary, everyone knows this.  But when breads (as a generic) are bleached to become white, they break down the complexity of the carb to become a simple carb.  That's why there is a difference between whole grain and white.  You can't group all breads as being complex carbs.  Carb-loading is a totally different subject altogether and was also never mentioned.  There is no reason for a recreational golfer or even a professional golfer to carb-load (which typically takes place before events not after).  The insulin uses will also be heavily affected on how active you are.  If you are sedentary then you have a much greater chance for it to store more fat. Staying active is a good way to battle this and diabetes.  That's why diet and exercise is the way to prevent it.

Your body can indeed live without carb intakes, and burn fat for energy and fuel.  But given the choice between fat or muscle for food, it will choose muscle.  Even with exercise your body can use the muscle you are trying to build as energy to workout.  To burn fat you must maintain certain level of intensity for long periods of time for your body to tap the energy within fat.  Fat is very complex molecule for your body to breakdown.  However, when you do it has A LOT of energy potential, even to carbs.  Carbs though, are what allow you to last in the exercise during those times of lower intensity for when your body cannot tap the fat and during daily activities that are not sedentary.

I'm not saying that abstaining from carbs is the worst thing you could do for a diet, but what I am saying is that they are essential to a balanced diet that will allow you to perform at your best level during exercise, your round of golf, or anything else that you do.  Maybe the pasta is what made your mom sick at the conference dinner, but I can be pretty sure that it was white pasta and not whole grain pasta.  But to say that eating it is the only reason that she got sick my be a little much without all the other food being tested.  My experience with large amounts of food like that being prepared and served is that there is a lot that can be undercooked and/or be exposed to raw meats.  But maybe it was the pasta that made her sick.

Carbohydrates are essential to a balanced, healthy diet which will aid in performance in exercise sessions and everyday life.  The biggest key to what I previously posted was to consume the r ight amount .  Moderation is the key, especially in a culture where more is better with everything including food.

Adipose tissue is made of adipocytes which is fat.  This is why it is referred to as being adipose tissue.

Adipocytes refers to individual fat cells.  Adipose tissue is a collection of adipocytes.  Lipid is fat.  Neither the adipocyte nor the adipose tissue means fat.  It refers to cells and a collection of cells that stores fat (i.e., lipid).

I don't know were you get your information, but your completely off. For one thing, how your body taps into energy is dependent on how much O2 is in your blood. Meaning, when cross between Aerobic to anaerobic. To burn fat in your body, you need O2, meaning you burn fat at a higher percentage at low intensity. At anaerobic levels you will burn through glycogen at a higher rate than fat.

Now there is calorie defecits, and you can burn fat that way, but you got to watch out, because if your insulin resistant and you keep eating foods that are carb heavy, your going to be throwing your body into fat storage mode, and even though you burn fat, you will put fat on. This is why people fail at diets. They loose alot of weight because they only eat 1500-2000 calories per day, but they eat 60% carbs, and low fat. They loose that weight, there still over weight, but they require less energy now because there not carrying around that weight, and since that happens, now the insulin driven fat storage will over take your calorie defeciency and you stall in your diet. Then people just loose it because they think they can't go lower.

Lets just say this, I started going low carb before thanksgiving, which was fun, i did decent. But, i was stuck at 220-230. I was eating 2000 calories a day, low fat, lean meats, high fiber, 55-60% carbs. I wroked out 5 times a week, i couldn't drop the weight. I was stuck in 220 zone. Since i switched to low carb, i am down to 210, i dropped about 10-15 lbs since thanksgiving. I eat about 1800-2000 calories a day. But the only carbs i eat are red or sweet potatoes (one serving), and veggies. I have no sugars, no bread, no pasta, no oatmeal. I eat three egg cheese omlet with bacon for breakfast, a chicken salad for lunch and usually chicken or meat dish for dinner. I have gained muscle, my body doesn't eat it self from lack of carbs, i have more energy through the day, and i enjoy the food better.

Carbohydrates are essential, just not anything made by humans that have been developed in the past 10,000 years since we discovered agriculture. Its not in our evolution. We are not meant to eat them. The best things you can eat is anything that comes straight from the ground. Veggies, some tubors (potatoes), nuts/seeds (watch out for ones with high omega-6), lots of protein and fat. We are hunter gatherers, its what our ancestors were, and now were paying the price by not eating like they did. But to go by the american standard diet, were they advocate low fat, its going to kill this country.

Eat Bacon, Live Longer ;)

I think it best to agree to disagree, because I can do this all day. Not only from my own personal experiences, but also with those who I have trained to get down to their ideal weight according to the ACSM.  My information is from a 4 year degree in exercise science plus a personal trainer certification.  Whenever you start putting individual scenarios into play, we both could argue our points until the end of time.  Not everyone is created the same and such not every diet/exercise plan should be the same.  There is a lot of research (some good some not) out to provide plenty of ammunition to argue both sides.  This is an argument that probably will never be resolved because people are all different and need different specific needs to reach health goals and I am not going to keep going back and forth.