{"id":143691,"date":"2025-10-24T23:46:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T23:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/143691\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T23:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T23:46:17","slug":"the-striking-ways-that-playing-golf-reshapes-your-body-and-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/143691\/","title":{"rendered":"The striking ways that playing golf reshapes your body and brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cardiovascular rewards also abound. Heart-rate monitoring\u00a0<\/a>shows golfers routinely exercise in the moderate-intensity zone, which is important for building cardiovascular endurance, improving circulation, and strengthening the heart muscle. In fact, in one study<\/a>, women reached peaks of about 80 percent of their maximum heart rate while walking uphill fairways, and men reached about 70 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the heart-health advantages extend beyond stamina. In a recent randomized cross-over trial<\/a>, for instance, playing 18 holes was found to produce acute improvements in cardiometabolic markers such as blood pressure and heart rate\u2014sometimes greater than those achieved by brisk walking for the same duration.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of this has to do with the fact that below the anaerobic threshold\u2014the so-called \u2018burn\u2019 level\u2014the body uses a high degree of energy from fat,\u201d explains Neil Wolkodoff, medical program director of the Colorado Center for Health and Sports Science. \u201cThat positively impacts blood lipid levels and, over time, can help reduce fat reserves.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Golf has also been shown to improve circulation and lower the risk of heart disease\u2014findings supported by a landmark Swedish cohort study<\/a>\u00a0of more than 300,000 individuals. Partly because of these benefits, researchers found that golfers had a 40 percent lower mortality rate and lived an average of five years longer than the general population. \u201cThe message is clear,\u201d says Lindsay: \u201cPlay golf and live longer.\u201d\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

A full-body workout for your muscles and joints<\/p>\n

Golf also provides significant musculoskeletal advantages. \u201cGolf works more muscles than people realize,\u201d\u00a0says Rami Hashish, a physical therapist and biomechanics consultant at the National Biomechanics Institute. The full-body swing, for instance, \u201cactivates your glutes, hips, obliques, back, shoulders, and forearms in a kinetic chain\u2014from the ground up through the core.\u201d\u00a0In fact, electromyography studies<\/a>\u00a0confirm that upper-body\u00a0and hip muscles work at substantial intensities\u00a0during the full swing\u2014often enough to stimulate weight training effects when repeated across practice and play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardiovascular rewards also abound. Heart-rate monitoring\u00a0shows golfers routinely exercise in the moderate-intensity zone, which is important for building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[18,525,2527,135,84949,19,17,84950,84951],"class_list":{"0":"post-143691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-fitness","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-benefits-of-golf","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-is-playing-golf-good-for-your-health","16":"tag-mental-benefits-of-golf"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115431813035077741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}