[Physioguy]

First off, congrats on your comittment to exercise to improve your health (and golf)!

First off, almost any exercise will exercise your heart, if you work out intensely enough. The idea is that the heart is a muscle, and like all the other muscle, it gets stronger with exercise. So, the exercise should bring the heart rate up to an appropriate intensity. This can be done with steady state exercise (eg. treadmill at a constant speed), or through more of an interval type training, with relatively short bursts of higher intensity exercise. As far as activity - pick something you like (and preferably, 2 or 3 activities), that you won't get bored doing 4-5 times per week.

As far as losing weight, I think most people realize that this comes down to the overall balance of calories in vs. calories out. Even low intensity exercise, such as walking, can help lose weight over a period of months, if performed for long enough each session. However, if time is limited ,you may want shorter more intense sessions. Interval training I find is a great way to get a good workout in a shorter time period.

Stretching - you might want to bring that 4-7 up to 6-7 times per week, depending on your current level of flexibility. Stretching is so important, not only for golf, but for your body (particularly your back) to withstand the rigors of the golf swing. The obvious performance benefits will be increased distance, a smoother looking swing (with less indiviual "glitches" and hiccups to the motion), ad hopefully reduced frequency of injuries. Please be aware of some common areas that people have problems with - hip flexors, hamstrings, calves, hip abductors, anterior chest/shoulder girdles, hip rotation, and trunk rotation.

Exercises to strengthen the legs - easy. I would sitck to free weights, using natural movement patterns, and keep away from the exercises machines. Lunges, step-ups and step-downs will do wonders for anybody, although the y aren't the most comfortable exercises to do (and let's face it, training your legs intensely is not exactly fun). Try to include or emphasize single-leg movements, to increased the stability required, and also recruit more muscle fibres.

Core/stability - again, pretty simple. Core stability really is nothing but having the muscular control for the various movements of the trunk and hips. To train it, simply perform again natural movements, in all planes of human movement (you can also combine planes, such as happens with the golf swing). Again, I tend to use free weights here, but you can do some wonderful exercises with med balls, kettleballs, tubing/cord, etc. I don't usually use the "unstable" surfaces too much anymore - seems to stiffen everything up more than anything, which is not what I'm trying to do. Posture is pretty simple, in theory. Restore mobility to the areas which have "succumbed" to gravity, and strengthen and equalize the muscle balances. Easier said than done.

As far as golf specific exercise, I am probably a broken record when it comes to this, but, exercise for golf shoulder look like golf, as much as possible. This means exercising primarily in the golf posture. It should exercise the various parts of the swing, such as the loading of the whole body on the backswing, and the deceleration of the WHOLE body on the follow through.

This is not to say that general fitness should be part of your routine - of course it should. I actually give my body a break from golf from about now until after the new year (mostly to avoid potential overuse or cumnulative trauma/syndromes). I still feel okay with it because my regular routine contains sensible exercises which stimulate the body in all planes of motion. With the golf season usually starting in May up here, I start incorporating my "golf" exercises in February, to give my body a good 3-4 months of preparation for the glorious arrival of spring.

One suggestion - instead of the standard 3 sets of 10 routine, vary it up a bit. Try performing a circuit training style of session, where you go relativel y quickly between each exercise, working through the list, and repeating the "circuit" 2-4 times. It is a great form of activity, and will also help the core/trunk, and that weight loss goal as well - and, oh yes, your heart rate WILL soar with this!

I hope there was something of value in this post, which I concede is rather vague. Any specific would have taken pages to do!