212: Robert Yang | Your Guide to Fueling Better Golf

This week we are talking all about nutrition specifically for you, the golfer, with Robert Yang.

Rob is a certified nutritionist and strength and conditioning specialist who has been in the fitness industry for over 20 years. Rob was on the 18Strong Podcast back on episode 42 and we wanted to bring him back to talk about his new book “Hole-in-One Nutrition.”

You’ll hear me brag on him and this book in the episode, and with good reason. I believe this is one of the best nutrition books that I’ve read from the ability of someone who is able to read who is not in the field of fitness, nutrition, or medicine. Rob has really written this in a way that is both easy to understand and address a lot of common concerns.

You are going to hear Robert talk about hydration for the golfer in a way that you haven’t heard about before, breakfast, building muscle as you age, and what you as the fitness minded golfer need to know to maximize your potential by what you do nutritionally.

Robert Yang’s Background

Robert Yang specializes in nutrition, nutritional supplementation, strength and conditioning, corrective exercise, and lifestyle coaching. His integrative and individualized programs have helped athletes and individuals improve performance, prevent injuries, and improve health and vitality. Robert’s clinic is located in Encinitas, California, where he maintains an active practice designing corrective, performance enhancement, rehabilitative, and sports performance exercise programs.
Robert Yang, top fitness and nutrition expert, and owner of RYI studio, is among the nation’s most sought-after exercise and nutrition authorities. Always staying on the cutting edge, Robert is in high demand as a nutritionist and strength coach for professional athletes, golfers, and celebrities. His client roster includes the likes of Morgan Hoffman, Ken Block, Michelle Wie, Drew Brees, Steve Delabar, Pierre-Luc Gagnon, I.K. Kim, Carlota Ciganda, Belen Mozo, Rashaan Salaam, Andy Dalton, Rob Dyrdek, Ben Crane, John Graham, John Beck, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano.
Robert is a sought-after international presenter and lecturer. He is an advisory board member for the Titleist Performance Institute and the National Pitching Association. As one of the lead instructors for the TPI Certified Golf Fitness Instructors Certification, Robert teaches Olympic lifting and optimal post-workout supplementation. He regularly teaches courses on corrective exercise and nutrition. Robert has been published in magazines such as Golf Digest numerous times and Natural Solutions Magazine (Formerly Alternative Medicine Magazine).
Robert is a graduate of the University of California Santa Barbara with a Biopsychology and Exercise Health Science degree. He is licensed by the American Health Science University as a Certified Nutritionist. He is a CHEK Level 4 and a HLC 2 practitioner. Robert also holds a Level 1 coach’s certification in Olympic style weightlifting from the United States Weight Lifting Federation (USWF).
As an athlete, husband and father Robert understands the needs of his clients and strives to stay on the cutting edge of training, supplementation, nutrition, rehabilitation, and performance enhancement. Robert is continually traveling, researching, and studying the best methods to help individuals achieve their ultimate goal.

Highlights from this Episode

His views on the original Food Pyramid by the USDA and how his revised Pyramid both uses that as a foundation and builds off of it and how the different diets stack up in terms of balance.
Hydration: The base of his nutrition Pyramid and why he puts so much value into proper hydration. He talks about how, unlike food, which we can store as fat, we don’t have a reservoir for water so there IS a difference between drinking water as compared to tea, coffee, Gatorade, beer, etc.
The importance of instituting salt into nutrition plan because of how much sodium is lost to sweat and how it helps get the water into the right places in your body.
The ideal breakfast for the performing athlete: the importance of drinking 25% of your daily water right when you wake up and how whatever you eat for breakfast is going to dictate how you play later in the afternoon.
The idea that we can’t compete with the aging atrophy of the fibers of our muscles and it is ‘use it or lose it’ in terms of our strength as we age.