By Alan Mozes

NEW YORK, Mar 28 (Reuters Health) - Set in idyllic surroundings and played at a calming pace, golf is considered by many to be the perfect recreational sport. But without a proper warm up, a golfer's game and body will suffer, Australian researchers warn.

About half of golfers play without any kind of pre-game warm up, and fewer than 3% warm up adequately, Dr. Andrea J. Fradkin and her colleagues report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Fradkin's team from the Sports Injury Prevention Research Unit at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, watched 1,040 golfers at three different settings: a private golf course, a public course, and a driving range.

Golfers were followed from the time they arrived until the time they hit the first ball, with Fradkin and her team counting the number of preparatory air swings taken and noting any kind of aerobic exercise the golfers performed.

While 54% of the golfers did engage in some kind of warm up, none of them performed any kind of aerobic activity and only 12% did any stretching. Most of those who did warm up, did so with a few practice swings at the tee.

The researchers conclude that most golfers are inadequately warmed up for the game, placing these players at an increased risk for injury. "Fewer than 3% of golfers in our sample can be considered to have warmed up adequately," the authors write.

"Ideally, a warm up for amateur golfers should last around 10 to 15 minutes," Fradkin told Reuters Health. "However, this is not always possible. So I am also testing the effectiveness of what I have termed a warm-up conditioning program, whereby golfers perform the warm up at home and can possibly then perform a shorter warm up at the course if they do not have time to perform the full warm up."

Fradkin expressed hope that her findings would lead to efforts to get golfers to recognize that--as for any sport--a basic warm up is important to both staying healthy and playing well.

Related MEDLINEplus Pages:

• Sports Fitness