I’m 49-years-old and a daily golfer. I’m in moderate shape. Recently because of the virus, the golf club hasn’t been offering carts, so we throw our bags onto pull carts and walk the course. It’s great exercise!
I’m an avid walker, so walking 6-7 miles doesn’t wear me out — but there are four sections of the course where you are walking 200-300 yards uphill at a pretty steep grade. When I get to the top of one of these runs, I am GASSED. Without the bag/cart, I can walk them and my heartrate goes up but it’s not going nuts and I can talk. But when pulling or pushing a 45-bag, my heart is beating at max and at the top of the hill I need a minute to pace in a circle and catch my breath.
However some of the other guys my age don’t seem as affected, and some of them are carrying clubs on their backs, which I don’t think I could do for 18 holes.
What exercises and or training could I do so that I can get up these steep hills without needing oxygen at the top? I’ve improved my cardio in the three weeks I’ve been walking this way, but there must be something I can do to specifically train to get up these hills.
Should I focus on cardio, and if so what type? Should I focus on leg strength exercises, and if so which ones?
My goal is to be able to shoulder my bag and walk the long hill sections and be able to have a conversation while doing so.
What should I do? I’ve dropped ten pounds and that helps and I plan to drop another 10 to get to ideal BMI, but that alone isn’t going to get me there. Help!
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Thread: Training for steep hill climbs?
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07-29-2020, 04:56 PM #1
Training for steep hill climbs?
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07-29-2020, 05:01 PM #2
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07-29-2020, 05:38 PM #3
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07-29-2020, 06:51 PM #4
- Join Date: Oct 2010
- Location: Indiana, United States
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Assuming that you golf semi-frequently to gauge your success, I suggest just starting with either semi-low duration (maybe 15 minutes of running up and walking down) or semi-low frequency (maybe every third to fourth day) and then slowly ramping that up over time, and all the while you should periodically golf to see if you've hit a sufficient level of stimulation to improve your aerobic fitness or not. When you're satisfied with your level of fitness, you should maintain your routine or cautiously scale it back, but again, continuing to gauge your fitness level by golfing to make sure you don't back off too much.
Pull-Up PR: https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=177233951
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07-30-2020, 04:48 AM #5
IMHO... Hill sprints are great but are super high intensity and sounds like should be a longer term aspiration for you, but not something to do right now.
Just doing more gentle walking on the flat probably won't help because you're already good at that.
I'd say that 6 days a week once a day, you should walk fairly quickly up an ordinary flight of stairs two steps at a time. Just a single story of stairs, maybe in your house or 1 floor of an apartment block. Walk down carefully at normal speed. No resting (if possible, but don't try to kill yourself).
Week 1 do it twice in a row, each day
Week 2 do it four times in a row, each day
Week 3 do it six times in a row, each day
Week 4 do it eight times in a row, each day
Week 5... you get the idea!
When you are on/past week 10, you won't notice the hill on the golf course any more
If you have any health concerns, or haven't seen your doc in a long time, make sure you have a health check-up/examLast edited by OldFartTom; 07-30-2020 at 04:53 AM.
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07-30-2020, 08:14 AM #6
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07-30-2020, 09:56 AM #7
Fantastic super intense exercise (if you push hard enough). They did great things to my fitness at start of lockdown, followed by an Achilles injury so I think the dosage needs to be carefully planned and not based on enthusiasm (well certainly if like me, you have far more enthusiasm than brain cells)
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07-30-2020, 02:34 PM #8
- Join Date: Jun 2007
- Location: New Westminster, BC, Canada
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occasional 200-300 meter elevations would gas anybody, that is normal, but will do nothing to improve anaerobic capacity or mitochondrial density. You need targeted exercise routine, perhaps 2-3 times a week for hour or longer duration. It has to be exhaustive, drain down training, the kind you will hate to even think about. This is where you will get gradual improvement over time. Ease into it though, do not push a first month or so, keep it on borderline of a comfort zone for now. The other thing about stamina training is that it is very sport-spêcific, to do better at climbing you pretty much have to climb, for swimming you have to swim etc.
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07-31-2020, 10:22 AM #9
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08-15-2020, 09:18 AM #10
Find a big hill in your neighborhood. Walk to it, walk up it, then walk back down and around. Use your judgment to decide how many laps to build up to (lower is better to start). Then once you feel ready, add a weighted backpack (10-20# to start) and repeat. Be conservative but consistent - 2 to 3 times a week. I hike a lot with a backpack and hill ascents is one of the things I try to add in regularly.
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08-25-2020, 05:13 PM #11
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08-27-2020, 01:07 AM #12
Why is this a problem?
Why embark on a fitness campaign just to save being out of breath for a short time?
If your worried about your general physical condition and health (and you should be!) you might want to test a few more things that may need fixing eg body composition, strength, mobility, diet.
At your age, physical decline accelerates. Honestly, getting fit enough to comfortably push a golf buggy up a hill is a piss poor goal.
Where you going to be at 70?
If you haven’t mastered walking, I would not recommend running, let alone sprinting and uphill???
PS Golf being a one-sided game can be damaging to the body, especially if played daily and with a garbage swing
(I’m assuming your not playing off a low single digit handicap). Yet another reason to get in shape.
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08-28-2020, 08:24 AM #13
This is exactly what I did since March to keep me sane.
30 second running up hill with about 1 minute walk back down. Repeat 3 times to start and worked my way up to 6. Took me 20 minutes and that included the walk from my house to the hill. Nice thing about hill 'sprints' is starting out you can just jog up hill and walk back down.
I also spent less than $30 on a backpack on Amazon and $8 on a 25 pound bag of rice that fits perfectly in it. I wore that a few times a week walking the dog on a 4 mile hike in a local park.
Yes I lost strength and muscle during lockdown but I also stayed in pretty decent shape -- physically and mentally. At least relative to myself
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