Q & A with The Bodybuilding Golf Pro - Michael Manavian

[Manavs]

I'd like to thank Slingblade for the go ahead to start this thread. I've already received a few questions regarding fitness and health and will use this thread to answer these questions. Share my ideas on the golf swing. And i'll also keep my personal playing journal here as well, along with any other going ons.

Best
Michael

[slickpitt]

Well if you're taking questions.... I'd like some workouts that can be done with dumbbells that can help core strength as well as swing flexibility. Since August I've dropped about 35 pounds of body fat and added a little muscle. I pretty much do cardio 5 mornings a week, lifting at a gym 3 evenings a week, and abs/stretching every night. I've upped my calorie intake recently to keep myself out of a deficit, so I can start adding muscle while continuing to burn fat. I'm trying to not use "weight" as a measure of how good/bad I'm doing as far as getting into shape. Anyway, long story short, I'd like some ideas on things to do to help improve my golf swing without having to buy a bunch of gadgets and tools, have bowflex select-tech dumbbells so I'd like to make use of them.

[Manavs]

Originally Posted by SilverUberXeno

I'm looking to get a weight bench very shortly that inclines and declines, with an olympic bar, 300lbs of weights, and a squat rack. I'm in good shape, but I'm pretty thin. I'd like to build a lot of muscle, period. However, I don't want to hinder my golfing. What do you recommend I do?

Right now I'm about 5'10, 155 pounds. I'm athletic and fairly muscular, but like I said, I'd really like to be at 170-175.

Let me know!

Not unlike yourself, this was my first concern when i started weight training. whats going to happen to my swing. well i blew all concerns out of the water once i hooked up with my friend and co-author Mr America Mr Universe Steve Michalik. The key was a total body weight training. Your body has already developed the neuro pathways to the brain from the first time you started hitting a ball, though changeable thru understanding and hard work, you dont want to modify it through weight training. rather enhance it thru weight training. my goal was to build a bigger mikey - so it had to be symmetrically.

for ex, if you build up your right arm bigger than your left, youve created an imbalance, and your swing will suffer.. thats why it boggles my mind when people think "golf specific" training is required. can anyone show me their golf muscles? you dont have any. THEY ARE ALL YOUR GOLF MUSCLES! so you have to build them ALL up - not necessarily in thickness and size, but definitly with strength and endurance.

having a weight bench is great, but dollar for dollar, a gym membership provides you with an abundance of equipment that you simply cannot duplicate in a home gym. youve got to build everybody part equally - chest, back, shoulders, legs, arms, and midsection.

[ezra76]

I've heard a lot of myths regarding building muscle and flexibility. I tend to think a lot of it is bunk. I've also read that after a workout, that's when your muscles are actually at thier most flexible. Any opinions on this or flexibility in general concerning muscle building?

[Manavs]

Originally Posted by slickpitt

Well if you're taking questions.... I'd like some workouts that can be done with dumbbells that can help core strength as well as swing flexibility. Since August I've dropped about 35 pounds of body fat and added a little muscle. I pretty much do cardio 5 mornings a week, lifting at a gym 3 evenings a week, and abs/stretching every night. I've upped my calorie intake recently to keep myself out of a deficit, so I can start adding muscle while continuing to burn fat. I'm trying to not use "weight" as a measure of how good/bad I'm doing as far as getting into shape. Anyway, long story short, I'd like some ideas on things to do to help improve my golf swing without having to buy a bunch of gadgets and tools, have bowflex select-tech dumbbells so I'd like to make use of them.

Slickpitt
Congratulations on the 35lbs fat loss. heck of an accomplishment! and it shows your doing many correct things. You cant discount something that is working. though its sounds like youve reached a plateu. your body WILL stop changing if your doing the same things over and over again, your body adjusts and adapts to the stimulus, therefore the body no longer requires to grow and gets lazy.

you need to hit the body with different routines: half reps, full reps, dead stop reps, progressive reps, degressive reps, different machines etc. change your body part groupings, the days you workout, the times you workout. the whole kit and kaboodle.

there are a multitude of things you can change, pick a new routine and use it for a few weeks and continue to rotate it again in a few more weeks.

keep us posted on your results!
Best
Michael

[Manavs]

Originally Posted by ezra76

I've heard a lot of myths regarding building muscle and flexibility. I tend to think a lot of it is bunk. I've also read that after a workout, that's when your muscles are actually at thier most flexible. Any opinions on this or flexibility in general concerning muscle building?

good topic ezra - and your right, its bunk. i worked for 6 years on my flexibility with the head of the american flexibility institute and got zero results. stretching CANNOT build muscle. never has never will. conversely my first 6 months of weight training with my trainer and friend Mr America Steve Michalik i added significant muscle density and volume contributing to a 13% increase on my distances.

its simple science, (given that your doing total body workouts and not creating imbalances), stretching creates micro tears in your muscles, so its stupid to stretch your muscles then to put a load (weight) on it as you would during a contraction.

there is no such thing as muscle bound. muscles cannot bind. they can lengthen (stretch) and shorten (contract).

if you weight train properly, your contraction of say the bicep will stretch the opposer (tricep). so technically you wont need to stretch.

if you weight train with weights that are too heavy, you wont be able to work the muscle the entire way - FULL RANGE OF MOTION (ROM). and thereby creating unfunctional blocky muscles. the weight training system i employ works the muscle both on the way up and the way down, and works it for the entire rep. so with one pump up high rep set to start my weight training session, the blood flow gets to the area and warms me up from the inside out.

i havent "stretched out" for 8 years now and im still hypermobile (overflexible) in my joints. before i go play golf, i just work on getting some blood flow to the area and im off.

[slickpitt]

Originally Posted by Manavs

Slickpitt
Congratulations on the 35lbs fat loss. heck of an accomplishment! and it shows your doing many correct things. You cant discount something that is working. though its sounds like youve reached a plateu. your body WILL stop changing if your doing the same things over and over again, your body adjusts and adapts to the stimulus, therefore the body no longer requires to grow and gets lazy.

you need to hit the body with different routines: half reps, full reps, dead stop reps, progressive reps, degressive reps, different machines etc. change your body part groupings, the days you workout, the times you workout. the whole kit and kaboodle.

there are a multitude of things you can change, pick a new routine and use it for a few weeks and continue to rotate it again in a few more weeks.

keep us posted on your results!
Best
Michael

You hit the nail on the head. I have very much plateaued, actually I think it happened about 6 weeks ago. I really haven't changed much and I haven't budged one way or another. Starting last week I upped my calorie intake(from about 1900-2200 to about 2400-2700), which I've found is really tough to do when eating healthy, I feel like I'm eating ALL the time now. Also changed up my cardio as far as heart rate is concerned. Instead of keeping a steady 130 bpm I try and throw spikes at it. 130 for 5 mins, 155 for 5, then back down, etc... generally for 35 minutes on a treadclimber. I don't know if that's really the correct thing to do, but we'll see I guess! I never thought about mixing up the weight training as far as reps and load and such, but I'll give it a shot. For now, for the most part I try to work all muscles in a gym session. I know idealy you should have an arms day, back day, legs day, etc... but 3 nights a week to the gym is reasonable for me... I don't think any more than that is going to be a realistic goal I can keep.

I feel like if I can get over this last little hump it'll be easy to maintain. Down from a snug 42" pants to 38"! Thanks for the advice!

[Manavs]

Originally Posted by slickpitt

You hit the nail on the head. I have very much plateaued, actually I think it happened about 6 weeks ago. I really haven't changed much and I haven't budged one way or another. Starting last week I upped my calorie intake(from about 1900-2200 to about 2400-2700), which I've found is really tough to do when eating healthy, I feel like I'm eating ALL the time now. Also changed up my cardio as far as heart rate is concerned. Instead of keeping a steady 130 bpm I try and throw spikes at it. 130 for 5 mins, 155 for 5, then back down, etc... generally for 35 minutes on a treadclimber. I don't know if that's really the correct thing to do, but we'll see I guess! I never thought about mixing up the weight training as far as reps and load and such, but I'll give it a shot. For now, for the most part I try to work all muscles in a gym session. I know idealy you should have an arms day, back day, legs day, etc... but 3 nights a week to the gym is reasonable for me... I don't think any more than that is going to be a realistic goal I can keep.

I feel like if I can get over this last little hump it'll be easy to maintain. Down from a snug 42" pants to 38"! Thanks for the advice!

intensity is the key to any exercise. do MORE in LESS time. 3 nights a week at total body is great!

i like what your doing with your cardio, in fact id suggest you do the same with your diet. have a high calorie, medium calorie and low calorie day and repeat. you'd basically fill your glycogen stores day 1 (high cal), use them day 1 and 2 (med cal), and spare the glycogen stores and have the body go for the bodyfat on day 3 (low cal).

[slickpitt]

Originally Posted by Manavs

intensity is the key to any exercise. do MORE in LESS time. 3 nights a week at total body is great!

i like what your doing with your cardio, in fact id suggest you do the same with your diet. have a high calorie, medium calorie and low calorie day and repeat. you'd basically fill your glycogen stores day 1 (high cal), use them day 1 and 2 (med cal), and spare the glycogen stores and have the body go for the bodyfat on day 3 (low cal).

Interesting... never thought of that but it does make sense. Should I coordinate any one of those specific days with lifting day?

[Manavs]

Originally Posted by slickpitt

Interesting... never thought of that but it does make sense. Should I coordinate any one of those specific days with lifting day?

no it doesnt matter - plus keep the body guessing.

[slickpitt]

Originally Posted by Manavs

no it doesnt matter - plus keep the body guessing.

Cool beans! Thanks for the advice!

[Manavs]

So i had some time to hit some balls yesterday at a local range, and on the way home stopped into golfsmith to try some new toys out before the pga show at the end of Jan.

I asked about the new Victory Red clubs by Nike, and was pleasantly surprised with the new fitting system they have. Granted it doesnt have an abundance of heads - they only had 1 blade model - and limited shafts - But it was reverse threaded ala the henry griffitts system - i can smell a lawsuit on this one!!!

the club felt unbelievably great in the simulator, both with the rifle 6.0 shaft and s300 shaft. i didnt like the high top line where it meets with the hosel, a little too square for my liking, but from a solidness it was first rate!

its always fun going in there and freaking out the kids who are working the launch monitors. they dont expect, nor do they usually see numbers like mine there. so its always fun.

wishing everyone here a very happy new years!
mikey

then for kicks i hit the new callaway iq (?) driver with a white fubuki shaft. awesome. got excellent distance, using a shorter shaft than i normally get , with less clubhead speed, and less ball speeed. quite interesting data. sounded and looked terrible, but then again im a bit of a purest/traditionalist.

[keithpbz]

I am curious as to what kind of swing speed numbers you have

Originally Posted by Manavs

So i had some time to hit some balls yesterday at a local range, and on the way home stopped into golfsmith to try some new toys out before the pga show at the end of Jan.

I asked about the new Victory Red clubs by Nike, and was pleasantly surprised with the new fitting system they have. Granted it doesnt have an abundance of heads - they only had 1 blade model - and limited shafts - But it was reverse threaded ala the henry griffitts system - i can smell a lawsuit on this one!!!

the club felt unbelievably great in the simulator, both with the rifle 6.0 shaft and s300 shaft. i didnt like the high top line where it meets with the hosel, a little too square for my liking, but from a solidness it was first rate!

its always fun going in there and freaking out the kids who are working the launch monitors. they dont expect, nor do they usually see numbers like mine there. so its always fun.

wishing everyone here a very happy new years!
mikey

then for kicks i hit the new callaway iq (?) driver with a white fubuki shaft. awesome. got excellent distance, using a shorter shaft than i normally get , with less clubhead speed, and less ball speeed. quite interesting data. sounded and looked terrible, but then again im a bit of a purest/traditionalist.

[bames]

I played football for years. We always had trainers and they all had a similar mantra. They never wanted us to have a "chest day" or "legs day" due to the fact that we would run out of energy during the first 20 min and have a poor day lifting for the rest of the workout due to fatigue. We also almost always lifted to "failure" which should have occured at 6-8 reps within each set. We also rarely did things like flys with dumbells, or multiple types of curls (nicknamed "curls for girls") because they said we were lifting for strength and not looks. What are your thoughts on these ideas?

[Manavs]

Originally Posted by keithpbz

I am curious as to what kind of swing speed numbers you have

Hi Keithpbz,

The numbers i get with my 6iron are usually 108-110mph clubhead speed and a carry of 225-235 yards. at golfsmith i nuked a 6 iron 260yards and was a little dumbfounded.

Drivers - i get my clubhead in the 115-120mph area with a ball speed of 175-185 which gets it out there in the 285-310 carry distances.

Growing up as a short hitter (i was only 128 lbs when i graduated college and hit it no further than 265 at my best!) it was always a dream to get numbers like this anyway i could, and now to be able to do it with little effort as the norm, it really gives validation to all the hard work in the gym over the years.