Mobile Fitness Center Keeps Golfers in the Swing

When Jack Nicklaus was selected Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated in 1980, some people chuckled.

Nothing against Nicklaus, they said, but how can golf can be singled out for such an award? Golfers aren’t athletes, went the argument. They toss their clubs to a caddy, stroll around some perfectly manicured course, take a few swings at a ball, then head for the 19th hole to celebrate their triumphs or drown their frustrations in a tall, cool one. What does that have to do with sports?

Of course, most people making that argument are relating to the way they play golf.

Fortunately, Dr. Frank Jobe was not among them.

If the name Jobe seems familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard it in connection with baseball. Jobe is the Dodgers team physician, the man who has spent much of his career working on the arms and legs of people like Pedro Guerrero and Tommy John.

Jobe also was interested, however, in the Nicklauses and the Arnold Palmers of the sports world. Jobe never doubted that the hand-eye coordination necessary to accurately propel a little white ball around a 7,000-yard course required great athletic skill.

How much skill? He got a chance to find out beginning in 1980 when the Centinela Hospital Medical Center, the umbrella organization for which Jobe works, set up a biomechanics laboratory, a state-of-the-art operation that utilizes the most modern technology to analyze athletic performance.

One of the areas Jobe poked into, literally, was the golf swing. Jobe and his associates poked needles into the arm of pro golfer Tom Kite and isolated the muscles used in golf.

“We wanted to see which muscles fire during the golf swing,” Jobe said. “We learned the rotator cuff is just as important in golf as it is in baseball.”

He and his associates also used high-speed cameras and an electronic plate set in the floor and tied in to specially instrumented shoes to further examine the actions of the arms and legs in a golf swing.

One of the results was a handbook on exercises for golfers . Another more substantial product of this research is the Centinela Hospital Medical Center Player Fitness Center. The center is actually a van, a clinic on wheels, that currently is parked at the Wood Ranch Golf Course in Simi Valley for the GTE tournament, this week’s stop on the Senior Professional Golf Assn. Tour. The van became a permanent part of the Senior Tour last October, driving to each event where it is available to tour golfers all week. Similar vans are being used for the regular PGA Tour and LPGA events.

The vehicle, which looks like a normal van when in transit, can be enlarged at the push of a button. Through a hydraulic system, the van expands from 8 feet to 24 feet wide, allowing room for the stationary bikes, weights, pulleys and other paraphernalia that this rolling gym comprises.

The bikes have an electronic device attached to them, with one end resembling a clothes pin. The rider attaches that to the lobe of his ear after his physical profile is fed into the system. The electronic device monitors the rider’s pulse, feeding the information back to the bike so that the amount of resistance offered on the pedals can rise or fall with the pulse, preventing a golfer from overexertion.

When therapist Tom Jackson first opened the unique operation, he wasn’t exactly flooded with customers. Just the opposite. Golfers avoided his place as if it were a huge sand trap.

“The thinking used to be that the only thing a golfer should do is hit a golf ball,” Bruce Crampton said. “You didn’t lift a suitcase; you didn’t swim; you didn’t ride a bike. It was thought that all that doesn’t agree with you, that it doesn’t help.”

Crampton, however, was one of the first to become a true believer.

He stepped into Jackson’s van and says he hasn’t been the same since. It would be hard to prove a direct connection, but Crampton wound up No. 1 money winner on the Seniors tour last year, collecting $454,299. He won seven events.

Crampton has no doubt there’s a connection to the van. A strong one.

“I’m more fit, more relaxed since I started going to the fitness center,” Crampton said. “I rest better at night.

“I’m riding the stationary bike for 40 minutes a day and going through stretching and flexibility exercises. I’m also using the 8- to 10-pound dumbbells for the rotator cuff and the wrist. I’m not trying to become Mr. America. I’m just trying to maintain strength, not necessarily work on my biceps.”

Jackson believes in giving the golfers light weights and increasing the repetition rather than increasing the weight, thus ensuring against loss of quickness because of an increase in bulk.

“We don’t want to overwork the biceps,” Jackson said. “For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn’t golf. He wouldn’t be able to get around himself.”

Jackson also works with the golfers on cervical or spinal tension created by years of being hunched over in a golfing stance.

“The work in the van helps me to release stress,” Crampton said. “You can’t vent your anger and frustration in front of the gallery. It’s considered unsportsmanlike.”

So Crampton vents his tension in the privacy of the van. And private it was, at first. For a while, others jokingly referred to the van as the Bruce Crampton Fitness Center since he was the only one in there.

But as Crampton kept winning, the jokes died out. And soon others were shuffling up to the door, poking their heads in.

Can I help you? Jackson would ask.

Nope, a golfer would reply, just thought I’d look in and see what you had in here.

Soon they would ask if they could just sit on the bike. That’s all. Just sit. Maybe pedal a bit.

Sure, said Jackson. Now he’s got to chase them out to make room for the next customer. Jackson already has ordered a third stationary bike to ease the crunch. And the next step may be a treadmill.

I don’t really want to do this, one golfer told Jackson, but as long as you have this thing here, I’m going to use it.

After a few days of sweating and grunting in the van, the golfer sheepishly admitted to Jackson that he was hitting the ball farther than ever.

Crampton complains that he now has to wait 20 minutes for the stationary bike. But he’s not really complaining. After all, he’s not doing badly for a man of 50. Or any age, for that matter.

“I feel stronger and more confident than I’ve ever felt in my life,” Crampton said. “I wish they had this when I was playing on the regular tour. But we believed in those days the only thing to do was to hit a golf ball.

“Now we know a lot depends on how conscientious one is about taking care of himself. If you’re not feeling well out there, you may look for excuses like saying you’re not playing well because you’re getting older. All this exercise can’t hurt. It’s got to help.”

Another testimonial comes from 55-year-old Bill Casper, who insists the fitness center has added 15 to 20 yards to the drives he hit as a young man.

Jackson attributes such results to livelier legs for the golfers, especially on the final day of a grueling event.

“You’ve got to remember,” he said, “this is not the most fit group of 50-year-olds in the world. I’d say only about ten percent of them are really physically fit.”

Jackson usually closes his van at 1 p.m. on Sundays, the final day of a tournament, because nobody comes in after the event is over. Jackson drives out with the departing crowd and is all set up for business Tuesday morning at the next tournament.

The last two Senior events have been won by recent converts to the fitness van, Casper winning in Arizona and Bob Charles winning the Vintage tournament in Indian Wells.

Coincidence? Perhaps. They’re not all true believers just yet.

“It takes a while to get established,” Jackson said. “Arnold Palmer has not set foot in here. Chi Chi Rodriguez has not set foot in here.”

That’s fine with Crampton. He doesn’t mind sharing the van, but it’s a little ridiculous when you have to begin calling for a starting time for the bike.