And coming in 3rd...Ernie Singh Goosen

The results of last week's poll are in. In case it's slipped your mind, the poll was on who you thought would win the PGA Championship. We had 147 votes.

Contestant, # votes and finish:

• Doug ("This is not an outdoors tournament?") Pike, 13 votes, 4th place
• Rory ("the course is its most vulnerable - ever!") Sabbatini, 7 votes, last place
• NOT Rory Sabbatini (all for fun), 38, 2nd place
• Tiger (uh...nevermind), 68 votes, 1st place
• Ernie Singh Goosen (I'll betcha someone in Europe has this name), 21 votes, 3rd place.

Tiger was the unquestionable winner in our poll nearly doubling the votes of NOT Rory, which when you think about it is essentially the field. Strong!

My personal favorite? Ernie Singh Goosen. He came on at the end, closed really hard on Sunday and came in 3rd. Not bad!

My second favorite? Doug Pike. The whole time he thought he was in an outdoors tournament yet he still managed to take Rory out behind the woodshed.

Alright. I'll see you guys no Tuesday. Have a great weekend. Hope you get to play some golf.

Brian

Funniest thing I've ever seen!

A friend of mine sent the link to this video. I really don't know if it's the funniest thing I've ever seen but when I first saw it, I laughed so hard my eyes watered.

Funny thing is, I could see the one living grandmother that I have as the golfer and the one that passed away last summer as the one with the camera - based on her comments.

Don't forget to turn up the volume - it's just not quite the same without it.



If you've taken offense, I apologize.

Uh oh...Baylor gave what to their bears?

go here to find out...6th paragraph down.

Football workout video

Here is a video demo of Chris performing a quick football workout on the Pro Trainer II from Vortex. Chris is demonstrating four exercises:

• Alternating chest press/punch: note the lean of his body - this helps develop power and explosion in his arms, shoulders and chest.
• Alternating high rows: Do these as fast as you can to develop the fast-twitch muscle fibers.
• Alternating bicep curls: Same as above
• Hip explosions with the bench: really jump into the bench and develop power and explosion in your hips - if you're a linebacker, strong safety or CB this will help you become a more aggressive and powerful tackler.

Keep in mind that these are only four of a practically unlimited number of exercises you could do while training for football. Check out other videos we've recorded. There are a lot of other videos you can find too. Youtube, myspace and other sites where videos can be posted have some, like NFL players, MMA, UFC and other professional athletes using this equipment.

If getting stronger and developing more power and explosion are important to football (you know they are, right?), why aren't you training that way? Oh, that's right. You don't have equipment like this. Never fear, you can come here and train. We're the only gym in Texas that has this equipment and it's right here in Houston.

Our location (59 and SW Frwy) makes it easy to get here within 15 minutes from a lot of different places. Get down here and check us and this equipment out!

Link Update

Some articles for your leisure reading:

• For you space (and fitness) buffs, read this story about an astronaut who ran the Boston Marathon while in space. Make sure you read the side bar - at the bottom right in the box - to learn about a few of the things that happen to the body while in space.
• The Worst People to Play With: Irritating golfers and what they do to irritate you. While there, check out the "Share your thoughts" section and read what many people had to report as their irritating partners and experiences.
• This is the follow-up article to the one above - amusing stuff!
• A Q&A with Tiger - not too revealing but interesting nonetheless to see how someone of his stature thinks.

I think that is enough "weekend reading" for you.

See you next week.

Brian

Golf Fitness Preview on the Vortex

Here it is...as promised yesterday - a video preview of a golf-fitness workout on the Vortex Equipment. Keep in mind this is only a 2-minute preview, your session at the fitness center will be an hour.

A quick description:

There are 4 different exercises. Each one was done for 1 set of 10 repetitions. The important thing(s) for you to notice are the limited amount of time it takes to switch from exercise to the next. How much work gets done with limited movement from one area to another, and how incorporating one piece of equipment (the BOSU) completely changes the exercise.

The four exercises demonstrated below are:

1. Squats on BOSU with overhead press
2. Trunk rotations with stability ball (right and left side)
3. Alternating high rows on BOSU
4. Swing exercise

With only these four exercises, we worked on:

• muscular strength - obviously by pushing, pulling, lifting and twisting the weights
• stability - notice, too how my feet are constantly moving when standing on the BOSU trainer
• posture - staying in correct posture is tough work when performing exercises like these
• balance - see comment on stability, the feet constantly moving really shifts your center of gravity
• core - the abdominals are almost constantly engaged and they get an extra workout when doing the rotations and swing exercise
• coordination - reaching out, twisting and pulling all while attempting to keep correct posture AND perform the exercise correctly is a tremendous challenge to your coordination.

All of these are important components of your golf-specific fitness program.

The equipment used was minimal: a stability ball, BOSU trainer, golf handle made by Gene Mitchell and, of course, the Pro Trainer II's from Vortex.



Now that you've seen it and are ready to try it for yourself, register here.

Oh...and post your comments below.

Read This!

If you are in the health care industry, whether it be pharmaceuticals, medicine, research, administration, or you're just interested in your own health and wonder what others think, read this article.

If you're somewhat skeptical of medicine, health care and big pharma, and you think the health care system needs revamping, you really should read this. It's long but very provocative.

Lateral Shuffle BOSU Trainer

Below is a video demonstration of a Lateral Shuffle on a BOSU trainer. See more exercise videos demonstrated by me here.

This is a great exercise for golfers. For all the benefits, read this. If it's August 21, 2007 or later you'll have to go to the archives page and read Issue #33.

If you're a golfer and want tips like this on a regular basis, sign-up for Brian's Report. It's my FREE golf-fitness newsletter. Just by signing up you'll get three great bonus gifts: a nutrition e-book, a golf-fitness e-book and a golf-specific workout, not to mention some of the best golf-fitness tips you can find.

Try this exercise and let me know your results.

Brian

Stupid Obesity - Socially Contagious?

This is a few days old but I still wanted to comment. In case you missed it, a study released last week indicated obesity was socially contagious. Authors of the study concluded that if you lived, worked or were friends with an obese person, you were more likely to be obese. Conversely, if you were height and weight proportionate, your friends and family were likely to be the same. Hence the socially contagious theme behind the research.

You remember the old saying..."Birds of a feather..."

In some respects the adage is true. You're not going to find the best lawyers or financial firms on the low-rent side of town, are you? Of course not, they're likely to be right next door to each other or in the next building - downtown or in the financial district.

But when it comes to this socially contagious idea, I completely disagree with the theory.

Here's why.

For the last several years we've been bombarded with news of the obesity epidemic.

And you've seen the headlines many times...

• "Obesity rates are rising?"
• "Obesity is an epidemic!"
• "Our kids are becoming obese at the fastest rate in US history!"

So if obesity is rising at epidemic proportions, how does the Socially Contagious idea fit?

It doesn't.

It doesn't fit because if everyone is becoming obese, does it really matter who your friends are? Does it really matter who your family members are? Does it really matter who you work with?

The short answer is no. While there certainly is some relationship, there's simply too little separation of the data to justify a Socially Contagious theory. By that I mean there are too many related items over-lapping each other that are better predictors of obesity than simply the circle of people you see on a regular basis.

Like a bad diet and too little exercise. At the same time we're bombarded by the obesity statistics, we're bombarded by information that our diets are terrible and we can't get off the couch for 30 minutes of exercise. These are more important than the Socially Contagious idea.

But back to the question...

Does is really matter who your friends are?

If more than 60% of the population is overweight or obese, simply by chance your going to be living, working or socializing with someone that was overweight or obese. So no, it doesn't.

Calling obesity socially contagious is analogous to saying that humans having two legs is socially contagious. We're all humans, we all have two legs. And just by chance you're going to know somone, live with someone or work with someone that is overweight or obese.

So does it make sense to say it's socially contagious?