A University of Wisconsin study has determined that playing golf on a Nintendo Wii burns one fewer calorie per minute than hitting balls at a driving range. According to the results, playing the Wii burns 3.1 calories per minute vs. 3.9 calories per minute hitting balls at a driving range.

It of course does not burn nearly as many calories per minute as walking and playing a course (8), but actually comes close to the energy expenditure of those who ride a cart (5).

Of all the Wii sports games, boxing burns the most calories, at 7.2 a minute. Tennis burns 5.3. 

Note that neither of those is as much as walking through a round of golf.

You can read the whole study here.

Here’s a great idea: at the LPGA Navistar Classic, dermatologists are offering free skin cancer screenings. 

You shoot what you eat.

Or something like that.

The New York Times has an interesting article on how the foods you eat can affect your golf game. The experts recommend carbohydrates to keep your blood sugar up.

TRION:Z Bracelet

Grade; Incomplete
Teacher’s Comments: There’s no way to know if these actually work. Still, it can’t hurt, and there just might be something to it ...

In my endless quest to improve my golf game, I’ve not only tried lessons, instruction manuals and hundreds of gadgets, but also a variety of fitness, health and lifestyle approaches.

While I wouldn’t ingest a magic golf pill from a Mexican manufacturer, would never do steroids, and am not interested in arm-straightening surgery, I figure just about anything else is fair game.

So over the past decade—in the interest of improving my game and of having more summers to play it in— I’ve changed my diet, started taking vitamins, practiced yoga and worked with resistance bands. The result: I’ve lost some weight, drasctically improved my cholesterol scores (my doctor said he’s never seen such a big change), and improved my flexibility and strength. I like to think I’ve also improved my game.

One “medical” product I’ve often wondered about are those magnetic bracelets so many pros seem to be wearing. Magnets are reputed to have healing properties, and the ion products claim to help keep you calm and loose.

Figuring that it couldn’t do any harm, I recently I acquired a Trion:Z bracelet from my local pro shop. It was under $20, wasn’t too ugly, and I was in the mood to try something different.

The Trion bracelets claim that their products offer both magnetic and ionization benefits:

Trion:Z bracelets and necklaces bring minus ions and twin 1,000 Gauss magnets together to form the most unique product of its kind today.

Trion:Z is made with “Stayers™”, a unique material woven with minus-ion producing minerals, which generates and releases more than twenty times the minus ions of the metal “ionized” bracelets, silicon tourmaline-embedded bracelets, and titanium bracelets of the competition.

Trion:Z bracelets and necklaces use 1,000 Gauss axially magnetized magnets, arranged in a patented Alternating North-South Polarity Orientation (ANSPO) matrix that increases the penetrating power of the magnets.

I really can’t make any useful statement about the bracelet’s calming properties. At work, at home and on the course, I’m renowned for my ability to stay cool. Crisis, failure, and strife calm me because they get me to focus. Mrs. GolfBlogger gets frustrated with me because “nothing seems to bother you” and sometimes she wants me to be upset. My blood pressure, medically speaking, is always low.

That said, it was the “healing” part of the magnetic bracelet that attracted me. If it could help assuage some of the aches and pains I feel on the course, it might do something for my game.

There’s no rational way to analyze the effects of the bracelet. Am I feeling fewer twinges as I play? Maybe. Maybe not.

I will, however, relate the following anecdotal evidence about their healing properties:

After 36 holes on the first day of my summer vacation, followed by an extended range practice session to straighten out a problem with my mid irons, my right elbow was just killing me. It was the kind of feeling that often has led to several days of steady pain, in spite of large doses of what Mrs. GolfBlogger calls “Vitamin M” (motrin).

As an experiment, I skipped the Vitamin M this time, and instead switched the bracelet from the left wrist to the right. Strangely, in about two hours, the pain went away.

Now I don’t know whether the magnets were having their advertised effect, or if it simply is a placebo. There’s no doubt, however, that the pain is gone way ahead of schedule.

Mumbo Jumbo? Probably. But the bracelet stays—at least for a couple more days. I may even get one for the other wrist (the Trion people have some cool ones geared to this year’s election season).

Two separate studies show that golf carts are dangerous, and injuries on the rise:

The research found that over a four-year period, nearly 50,000 people were hurt in accidents involving golf carts.

One of the studies, by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said about 1,000 Americans are hurt on golf carts every month. Males aged 10 to 19 and people over 80 had the highest injury rates.

A separate study by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, said annual injury rates for golf carts increased 130 percent over 16 years ending in 2006. The report said falling or jumping out of carts accounted for the largest number of injuries, 38 percent.

Abandon the carts. They’re no good for you. Walking is safer and healthier.