With a resistance band tied to his club, Bob Richey strengthens his golf swing under the direction of HealthSouth physical therapist Ginger Allen.

Always in search of longer drives, more accurate chips and unwavering putts, golfers have made golf fitness big business. As with overall fitness, however, buying some exercise equipment or program is the easy part.

A study in a recent British Journal of Sports Medicine observed more than 1,000 golfers and found just over half did any warm-up at all. Those who did mostly took some "air swings." Fewer than 10 percent stretched. Not one performed any aerobic exercise. The study's researchers recommended aerobic exercise before practice and play to increase body temperature. They suggested stretching hand, wrist, forearm, shoulder, lower back, chest, trunk, hamstring and groin muscles before taking any swings, to both enhance performance and prevent injury.

Fitness news you can use Golf fitness resources • HealthSouth's Golf Program Web site (www.healthygolf.org) offers information on injuries, exercises, self-assessments and expert advice as well as a national list of more than 300 certified golf trainers, including 16 in Washington state. • At www.golfonline.com/fitness/, the editors of Golf Magazine present illustrated stretches, golf-swing exercises, workouts, yoga and a variety of 10-minute workouts. On the shelves • "The Diabetic Athlete" by Sheri Colberg ($17.95, Human Kinetics). An exercise physiologist and diabetic covers health and training issues for active Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics, gives sports-specific recommendations and draws on examples from hundreds of diabetic athletes. • "Express Lane Diabetic Cooking" by Robyn Webb ($16.95, American Diabetes Association). What do you get when you cross one of the fastest-growing diseases in this country with our ever-squeezing time crunch? The associate editor of Diabetes Forecast magazine presents 150 recipes organized by source (salad bar, deli, frozen foods, shelf-stable foods), most taking 20 minutes or less to prepare.

Golfers commonly rely on teaching pros to improve their games and trainers or physical therapists to help their bodies. But it's possible for the three to come together, as Bob Richey of Edmonds discovered recently.

The 32-year-old loan officer was taking physical therapy after a shoulder operation from a basketball injury. He mentioned he hoped to get back on the golf course. His therapist referred him to Ginger Allen, a HealthSouth physical therapist and certified golf specialist .

A nationwide healthcare provider with more than 2,000 locations, HealthSouth is well-connected with the golf world via its 48-foot Sports Medicine Vans, which offer free training and physical therapy for touring pros at PGA, Senior PGA and LPGA events. Its Golf Program, launched in 1993 to help both healthy and injured golfers, trains interested HealthSouth physical therapists in the biomechanics of the golf swing, assessing problems, suggesting modifications and addressing golf-specific injuries and rehabilitation.

Injured golfers, usually referred to such physical therapists by physicians, first deal with their ailments, then work on preventing reinjury. The therapist stays in touch with both the physician and the golf pro.

Healthy golfers, often sent by teaching pros, start with a one-hour consultation to check history, goals, general strength, balance, muscle flexibility, joint range of motion and golf specifics such as hip turn. Therapists then teach exercises to help prevent injury.

"A lot of time there are issues in their mechanical makeup," says Allen, who works at HealthSouth Edmonds, at Harbor Square Athletic Club, where an initial golf-training session is $60. "They might not be able to do something or they try to make up for it, causing repetitive injury in some other part of the body."

Therapists contact the patients' teaching pros and send out written limitations. Patients return for check-backs ($25) as needed.

The program isn't intended to teach golf skills, Allen said, although it might help golfers lower their scores if they can better follow a pro's instructions.

But Richey says after his first session he could imagine an improvement in his game when he makes it back on the course.

"I was a little tight in the midsection," he discovered, so he received stretches to increase rotation. He also learned exercises to improve leg and lower-back strength and his swing, such as one that uses a stretch band tied to a club and anchored at the other end, to work on strength and balance. "That one was fantastic, it really helps."

Allen found a few improvements for her own game when she took the certification session.

"I'm a very flexible person, over-mobile with most things, and I was thinking, `There's no way I have any problems' " when it came to flexibility, she says. But a check of her trunk rotation found her surprisingly tight, which was stressing her back muscles as she tried to develop her backswing. A few simple stretches, over time, changed her swing.

Allen's trunk rotation had measured at about 45 degrees.

"Tiger Woods, I think they said, is 108."

Molly Martin is assistant editor of Pacific Northwest magazine. Mike Siegel is a Seattle Times staff photographer.