Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number three hundred and fifty nine, published on
Speaker 1: November twenty seven, twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
Speaker 2: insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
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Speaker 2: like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: Part of the assessment that I do on golfer is
Speaker 3: there is a balance element, and you'd be surprised how
Speaker 3: many I would say close to eighty five ninety percent
Speaker 3: really have some issues with balance. And when you're moving
Speaker 3: your body parts in different directions all at the same time,
Speaker 3: I mean, balance becomes a vital component as you're trying
Speaker 3: to shift your weight from your trail leg to your
Speaker 3: target leg. I mean, if you have a balance issue
Speaker 3: and that's going to play havoc with your swing and
Speaker 3: your playing performance, you know, we don't practice it. The
Speaker 3: second issue is that a lot of us and to
Speaker 3: lose strength, especially in the lower body. That correlates to
Speaker 3: the inability to maintain balance and such. So it's important
Speaker 3: to make sure that you do, get checked for balance,
Speaker 3: and even if you don't, I mean just to practice it.
Speaker 3: Just try to balance on one leg and see if
Speaker 3: you have a tougher time trying to balance on your
Speaker 3: right leg versus your left leg. You'd be surprised how
Speaker 3: many people are good on one side but terrible on
Speaker 3: the other. You just need to work on it to
Speaker 3: make sure that you're kind of balancing out. It's your balance,
Speaker 3: so to speak.
Speaker 1: Your posture could be the key to fixing your game.
Speaker 1: With Bob Forma, this is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 4: Each week we tap the best minds in golf to
Speaker 4: help lower your scores with tips, drills, insights and advice
Speaker 4: in conversation with course pros, architects, authors, players, teaching gurus
Speaker 4: and coaches. Here's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast, Bob Hik.
Speaker 3: Fred, good to be back.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for Green to come on. Why
Speaker 1: don't you give us a quick recap of why we're
Speaker 1: having you on the show. What is it that you
Speaker 1: do well?
Speaker 3: I do golf fitness, programming, assessment and training and education.
Speaker 3: I'm an exercise physiologist by trade, which means I study
Speaker 3: the effects of exercise on the body. Always had an
Speaker 3: interest in combining golf, which I enjoyed playing and exercise,
Speaker 3: and went to the two thousand and six World Golf
Speaker 3: Fitness Summit in Orlando when the co founders of the
Speaker 3: Titlist Performance Institute presented. There then ten years of research
Speaker 3: into the physical nature of the golf swing, and the
Speaker 3: information they provided was unbelievable, a wow moment which basically
Speaker 3: changed the industry, changed the game overnight because prior to that,
Speaker 3: I mean, everybody thought that golf and exercise was like
Speaker 3: oil and water had just been mixed, right, And since
Speaker 3: that time, it's been one hundred and eighty degrees. And
Speaker 3: now everybody basically is you know, all the guys on
Speaker 3: tours and the gals on tour, and as word is
Speaker 3: getting out thanks to shows, you know, podcasts like yours
Speaker 3: and Thank You, you know that people are becoming aware
Speaker 3: of the fact that this exercise, now specific exercise can
Speaker 3: actually help their game and actually help alleviate and prevent
Speaker 3: a lot of the golf related injuries.
Speaker 1: Like all the equipment that's out there, all the new
Speaker 1: equipment and balls, clothes, whatever, it is, nothing seems to
Speaker 1: gain any traction until one player on the tour, at
Speaker 1: least one high profile player on the tour starts using it,
Speaker 1: and then everyone says me, I want to do that?
Speaker 5: Was there?
Speaker 1: Can this be attributed to any specific player on this
Speaker 1: whole revolution of golf fitness?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the first yeah, I mean Tiger. Tiger
Speaker 3: was you know, one of the the highlights in terms
Speaker 3: of his workouts and stuff like that. You know, Gary
Speaker 3: player has been talking about this.
Speaker 1: For years, Yes he has, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and I think unfortunately with Gary, there was really
Speaker 3: no research to back what he was saying. And you know,
Speaker 3: it wasn't until back in two thousand and six when
Speaker 3: all the research did come out that we finally said, yeah,
Speaker 3: Gary's right, you know, the exercise and strength training specifically
Speaker 3: can help a golfer. And then you know Tiger and
Speaker 3: now basically everybody on the PGA Tour is doing it.
Speaker 3: I don't think you're going to get on the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour if you're not doing some sort of exercise, because
Speaker 3: you know, from what I understand, from what I hear,
Speaker 3: a lot of the folks and both the men and
Speaker 3: women tours are you know, getting involved in getting trainers
Speaker 3: and working out on a regular basis, And.
Speaker 1: What does that do for those folks who just have
Speaker 1: a different body type.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think it really depends on body type.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It's well, some.
Speaker 1: People carry their weight a little bit differently than others
Speaker 1: and they you know, and then of course they don't
Speaker 1: do anything to stop that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, it's I think there's also a
Speaker 3: misconception out there that golf fitness kind of means, you know,
Speaker 3: you've got to be in good physical shape, you got
Speaker 3: to be able to have good cardiovascular fitness and run
Speaker 3: three miles and do all that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 3: really what golf fitness is is it's at bringing back
Speaker 3: of balance into the muscular skeleton system so that your
Speaker 3: body can move efficiently in the skill and activity that
Speaker 3: it's participating in. So it really doesn't matter how much weight,
Speaker 3: whether or not you're overweight or you're underweight, or you're
Speaker 3: at ideal weight. I mean, it's really kind of about
Speaker 3: about the muscles and the ligaments and the tendons and
Speaker 3: the joints and being able to move freely and to
Speaker 3: get into those good hitting positions, you know, being able
Speaker 3: to perform those power moves that all the golf publications
Speaker 3: talk about each month, and that's going to help you
Speaker 3: make better ball contact. That's going to help you get
Speaker 3: more distance down the fairway, and that's going to help
Speaker 3: you play better healthier golf.
Speaker 1: Uh So you're not necessarily when you talk about fitness,
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily speaking of cardiovascular you like we talked
Speaker 1: about last time, it's more about flexibility.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really don't do any cardiovascular with my clients.
Speaker 1: That's funny. I don't do any cardiovascular at all.
Speaker 3: So I mean, and don't get me wrong, you know,
Speaker 3: you gotta when you're playing golf, you're out there for
Speaker 3: four and five hours, so and especially if you walk
Speaker 3: the golf course. Yeah, I mean, that can take a
Speaker 3: toll on you. So to have a decent amount of
Speaker 3: cardiovascular fitness is actually it will work to your advantage.
Speaker 3: You know. It's when you start getting a little fatigued,
Speaker 3: when you start where your swing starts changing a little
Speaker 3: bit and you start hitting the bad shots and all that.
Speaker 3: So you definitely want to have a degree of cardiovascular fitness.
Speaker 3: But a large part of golf fitness is really, you know,
Speaker 3: like you said, the range of motion, the flexibility, and
Speaker 3: you know, certain specific strength in parts of the body
Speaker 3: so that you know you can help stabilize and swing
Speaker 3: a good golf club.
Speaker 1: And as we discussed last time, hydration and nutrition on
Speaker 1: that golf course. Like I know personally, like I said,
Speaker 1: I really have been very bad this year. I do
Speaker 1: not do a lot of cardio. I do know cardiovascular
Speaker 1: this year, I've just been it's been awful and and
Speaker 1: but I do still prefer to walk on a golf course.
Speaker 1: But I make sure that I have a bottle of
Speaker 1: water with me at the very least if it's a
Speaker 1: hot day, I'll take a Gatorade green thank you. And
Speaker 1: and then like either a bag a three ounce bag
Speaker 1: of nuts or some peanut butter pretzels, and the wheels
Speaker 1: do not fall off my cart or my body late
Speaker 1: in the round. And I feel that that has a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount to.
Speaker 3: Do with it. Oh yeah, I mean, from a nutritional standpoint,
Speaker 3: it's important that you know you start sipping water early
Speaker 3: in the realm. You know, you really shouldn't wait till
Speaker 3: you're thirsty. You should never wait till you're thirsty to hydrate,
Speaker 3: but especially when you're out there, you know, in the
Speaker 3: sun and the heat or even on the you know,
Speaker 3: on the cooler days, you know, like we're kind of
Speaker 3: getting into now. I mean, you know you'd be surprised,
Speaker 3: like I say, just being out there and moving the
Speaker 3: body and doing all that kind of stuff. I mean,
Speaker 3: you're gonna lose your water, not only through sweat, but
Speaker 3: through your breathing. And obviously when you're active, you're gonna
Speaker 3: your respiratory rate picks up, so you tend to lose
Speaker 3: more water. And you know, you do have that that
Speaker 3: sweat that you really don't feel, you know, that's not
Speaker 3: dripping down your face or anything. So you know, you're
Speaker 3: constantly are sweating, whether you realize it or not. So
Speaker 3: it is important to make sure that, Yeah, you definitely
Speaker 3: stay hydrated throughout the round, and you do snack on
Speaker 3: you know, good food choices, you know, like like what
Speaker 3: you're saying, fruit or you know some some of these
Speaker 3: bars that are out there now, these protein bars and
Speaker 3: energy bars are pretty decent. You know, even you know,
Speaker 3: peanut butter and jelly familich is good to take out
Speaker 3: there with you as well. But yeah, it's definitely important
Speaker 3: in a vital component of the game.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of words that you've already mentioned that
Speaker 1: I'm making note of an owner bring them back, and
Speaker 1: one of them is that you said balance. I know, personally, again,
Speaker 1: mainly on my driver, I tend to swing too hard
Speaker 1: and fall over backwards after my swing and when I'm
Speaker 1: very conscious of it and try to make sure that
Speaker 1: at my lower half of my body stays quiet and
Speaker 1: there's less movement there. I also, uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: stay in position better after you know, on my follow
Speaker 1: through my swing, my balance is better, and strangely enough
Speaker 1: I get greater distance on those shots and it's usually straighter.
Speaker 3: M Well, balance, yeah, there's two. Really, balance is used
Speaker 3: in two different ways here. Balance, in what you were
Speaker 3: just talking about, is very essential in golf, and unfortunately
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't really think about balance, and
Speaker 3: they don't practice or train for balance. And you know,
Speaker 3: as we tend to get older, we we tend to
Speaker 3: start becoming a little bit more susceptible to being in
Speaker 3: balance and to fall a little bit more. But it's
Speaker 3: something that and again it's because we don't really work
Speaker 3: at it. I mean, did you get up this morning
Speaker 3: and then get on one foot and balance on one
Speaker 3: foot and see how long you can stay on that foot.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sure a lot of people don't.
Speaker 1: Oh good, that was that was a rhetorical.
Speaker 3: Question, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know when
Speaker 3: and part of the assessment that I do on golfer
Speaker 3: is there is a balance element. And you'd be surprised,
Speaker 3: I mean how many I would say, close to eighty
Speaker 3: five ninety percent really, you know, have some issues with balance,
Speaker 3: and when you're moving your body part, you know, your
Speaker 3: body parts in different directions all at the same time.
Speaker 3: I mean, balance becomes a vital component. And as you're
Speaker 3: trying to shift your weight, you know, from your trail
Speaker 3: leg to your target leg. I mean, if you have
Speaker 3: a balance issue, that's gonna kind of play havoc with
Speaker 3: your swing in your playing performance. So a lot of
Speaker 3: it is, you know, we don't practice it, number one.
Speaker 3: And the second issue is that a lot of us
Speaker 3: tend to lose strength, especially in the lower body, and
Speaker 3: that correlates to, you know, the inability to maintain balance
Speaker 3: and such. So it's important to to kind of make
Speaker 3: sure that you do get checked for balance, and even
Speaker 3: if you don't, I mean, just to practice it. You know,
Speaker 3: stand on one leg, just try to balance on one
Speaker 3: leg and see if you have a tougher time trying
Speaker 3: to balance on your right leg versus your left leg.
Speaker 3: You be surprised how many people you know are are
Speaker 3: good on one side but terrible on the other. And
Speaker 3: you just need to work on it to make sure
Speaker 3: that you know you're kind of balancing out your balance
Speaker 3: sort of speak. But the other balance that I was
Speaker 3: mentioning prior was about balance in the muscular skeletal system them,
Speaker 3: because playing golf will actually create imbalances in your body
Speaker 3: because of the nature of the sport. It's repetitive and
Speaker 3: it's one sided. So you know, if you're a right
Speaker 3: handed golfer, you're swinging a club the same way hundreds
Speaker 3: of times during a round of golf, So you're working
Speaker 3: particular muscles in a certain way and you're neglecting other muscles.
Speaker 3: So over time, you know, you develop these deficiencies and
Speaker 3: then these imbalances in your body from playing in activity
Speaker 3: in addition to maybe your lifestyle for instance, like you
Speaker 3: know your work habits. You know, if you tend to
Speaker 3: sit a lot during the day, you know that does
Speaker 3: a job on creating muscle tightness in your body and
Speaker 3: muscle weakness. So really what the golf fitness program and
Speaker 3: really any good fitness program, I mean, if you went
Speaker 3: to a real good fitness facility, the one thing that
Speaker 3: you would want them to do would be to assess you,
Speaker 3: to see where your imbalances are, where your deficiencies are,
Speaker 3: and to first correct those deficiencies so that you bring
Speaker 3: balance back into your system. And we're talking left to right,
Speaker 3: front to back, up and down in the body. And
Speaker 3: when you do like I say, you're allowing the body
Speaker 3: to move more efficiently, more effectively, and that's going to
Speaker 3: help the particular skill that you're participating in. And then
Speaker 3: once you do that, then you can progress into more
Speaker 3: specific sport related strength. And because now you're in balance,
Speaker 3: the results that you're going to get will be better
Speaker 3: and will be quicker. And it's also the imbalances that
Speaker 3: we have that in our systems that lead to all
Speaker 3: those nagging aches and pains that we develop, I mean
Speaker 3: the lower back gosh, I mean, you know the prevalence
Speaker 3: of low backache in society alone, never mind golf, you know,
Speaker 3: which always tends to be number one anyway amongst you know,
Speaker 3: most golfers, male, female, all levels. It's those imbalances in
Speaker 3: the body that lead up to those chronic aches and pains.
Speaker 3: And it's not till you really correct those those imbalances,
Speaker 3: those mechanisms for injury, that you really correct the problem
Speaker 3: and fix the ache and the pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, well, unfortunately, I know, well, it's time
Speaker 1: to bring back Catherine Roberts of yoga for golfers because
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, as I admit that I have
Speaker 1: not done a lot of cardiovascular I've done no cardiovascular
Speaker 1: this year. I still try to do twenty minutes to
Speaker 1: a half hour of yoga every morning, let's call it,
Speaker 1: four mornings a week and that and I can really
Speaker 1: tell what my balance is like there, because you know,
Speaker 1: I either have to stand on my head or I
Speaker 1: stand on one foot, and I think that helps me
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 3: Oh, definitely, I would say it probably does a lot.
Speaker 3: Yoga's great and unfortunately though a lot of guys don't
Speaker 3: take yoga, and they should. I mean, going to any
Speaker 3: going to any yoga class. I bet you your yoga class,
Speaker 3: there's probably more women than men.
Speaker 1: There are both. Yeah, we both have men and women.
Speaker 1: And I would say, yes, there's more women. But I
Speaker 1: have found a great. Actually it's I don't even do
Speaker 1: a class. I found a great website on my iPad
Speaker 1: and videos right there, and it's called Yoga Glow. It
Speaker 1: is a monthly fee, but it's so worth it for
Speaker 1: me to have that and just not have to leave
Speaker 1: the house. And there's this one teacher I think is phenomenal.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's been really easy to make a nice
Speaker 1: yoga and there's ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty five, ninety,
Speaker 1: you know, sixty ninety minute different practices on there, so
Speaker 1: it really works for my schedule and I I it's addicting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds like a good deal because, like I say,
Speaker 3: more people really need to get into programs like yoga
Speaker 3: and pilates to work on flexibility, range of motion, and
Speaker 3: for golf, I mean that if you're going to work
Speaker 3: on anything to improve your game, flexibility and stretching is
Speaker 3: probably the number.
Speaker 1: One interesting you also mentioned earlier when we were talking
Speaker 1: about balance and the positions, you talked about the magazines,
Speaker 1: and there seems to be you know, we all know
Speaker 1: how many golf magazines there are, and the cover every month,
Speaker 1: one way or another says greater distance. In this article,
Speaker 1: you're going to get greater distance and learn the new
Speaker 1: twisted spine swing things, and I avoid them at all costs.
Speaker 1: But what is your what's your take on what's going
Speaker 1: on in the magazines and what they're promising us and
Speaker 1: and how we're going to increase our power by whatever
Speaker 1: it is they offer.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Well, I mean, you know they're hit.
Speaker 3: They're hitting the buttons, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: No, no question about it. They listen. Is their primary
Speaker 1: goal to educate or to sell magazine magazine? Right exactly? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to me. It's all about education. If we
Speaker 1: can educate, then we're going to win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. And I think the journals and the
Speaker 3: publications do a great job at offering tips and telling you,
Speaker 3: you know that you need to have a big shoulder
Speaker 3: turn for power and you need to maintain a good
Speaker 3: risk hinge in the downswing to generate more power and
Speaker 3: that's going to get you more distance. But the the
Speaker 3: issue I have with the journals, and hopefully that'll change,
Speaker 3: you know, as golf fitness becomes more prominent and more
Speaker 3: people are you know, buying into it in the industry,
Speaker 3: is that they need to tell you how to get
Speaker 3: into those positions or what may be your restrictions physical
Speaker 3: restrictions for getting into those positions, because you know, for
Speaker 3: the average golfer, you know, it picks up a journal
Speaker 3: and says, oh, Okay, I just got to make a
Speaker 3: bigger shoulder turn, and when they go out there try
Speaker 3: to do it, they can't because they got physical weaknesses
Speaker 3: or tightnesses that just aren't allow allowing them to do that, right,
Speaker 3: And it would be great for these journals to follow
Speaker 3: up with, Okay, you've got to make a big shoulder turn,
Speaker 3: and here are some possibilities. Here are some scenarios that
Speaker 3: you may fall into, and you may have a tight
Speaker 3: mid back which is restricting your ability to make a
Speaker 3: good turn. And you know, here are some exercises to
Speaker 3: help you remedy that situation, you know, kind of get
Speaker 3: into some different scenarios and some examples of how to
Speaker 3: you know, improve upon those.
Speaker 1: And I think, well, yeah, and the and the photographs
Speaker 1: that they're going to show of people doing these big
Speaker 1: shoulder turns. They're either tour players, or they're golf instructors
Speaker 1: or their fitness instructors or their golfers like Michael Hamill,
Speaker 1: which is yeah, right, you and Michael is a golf
Speaker 1: smarter listener, but he is a workout fanatic and he's
Speaker 1: got this amazing body and he does YouTube videos and
Speaker 1: you know, and just come on, what about Joe Schmoe.
Speaker 1: What about the you know, the weekend golfer who you
Speaker 1: know is not is getting older, doesn't have the flexibility.
Speaker 1: What about pictures of those guys and really showcase to
Speaker 1: us what can we really do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and it's funny you bring that up,
Speaker 3: because I did write about that in one of my articles.
Speaker 3: You know how uh you know, the butch Harmons of
Speaker 3: the World and the other you know, famous golf pro teachers.
Speaker 3: You know, they tell you how to get into these positions,
Speaker 3: and yeah, the pictures they have and there are there
Speaker 3: students and they professional golfers who spend two, three, four
Speaker 3: hours a day with a personal trainer doing specific exercises
Speaker 3: so that they can get into these positions and then
Speaker 3: going out you know, on the on the golf course
Speaker 3: and practicing for three or four five hours. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I agree with you. You know, for the average golfer
Speaker 3: to try to get into a lot of these positions,
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's it's a it's a tough it's
Speaker 3: an uphill battle.
Speaker 1: Are they really power positions? They? What are they selling
Speaker 1: when they say that? I mean obviously what they're pumping,
Speaker 1: you know, is you're going to get more distancing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but uh, can they be detrimental these these things they're
Speaker 1: trying to show us?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, if for the average golfer, who who?
Speaker 3: Because you know, most golfers don't realize that it's their
Speaker 3: own bodies that are holding them back from playing better golf.
Speaker 3: And so they pick up a magazine and they and
Speaker 3: they read about these various positions you need to get into,
Speaker 3: and so they go out and try to do this stuff.
Speaker 3: And because they're not physically prepared well to do that, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, it can increase the risk of injury. You know,
Speaker 3: there's always compensation going on, and that sets you up
Speaker 3: for injury as opposed to you know, let's just kind
Speaker 3: of stick to a standard swing and you know, let's
Speaker 3: take a look at your body to see where the
Speaker 3: restrictions are and let's correct those so that you can
Speaker 3: make you know, make those moves and get into those positions.
Speaker 1: So interesting, and so then what I'm curious when when
Speaker 1: it talks about these positions, and we've talked about so often.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got to start with PGA position, grip
Speaker 1: and alignment, or actually posture, grip and alignment. These positions.
Speaker 1: Does it address the fact that, and from what I've seen,
Speaker 1: most golfers don't have the correct posture when they're addressing
Speaker 1: the ball.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, gosh, I mean, you know, the sea posture,
Speaker 3: the kind of the bullying of the back when a
Speaker 3: golfer stands over the ball. It used to be a
Speaker 3: older golfers disease, but nowadays, I tell you, Fred, it's
Speaker 3: just unbelievable how many sea postures I'm seeing, even in
Speaker 3: the younger golfers. Oh oh, gosha. And the reason is computers.
Speaker 3: I mean, the fact that many of us are sitting
Speaker 3: at our desks, hunched over our computers all day long.
Speaker 3: The body basically adapts to the position that it's placed
Speaker 3: in most of the time. So when you're hunched over
Speaker 3: a computer, basically your shoulders are around it, right yep,
Speaker 3: And so that shortens the muscles in the chest area.
Speaker 3: And when you shorten a muscle over time, it basically
Speaker 3: tightens and it elongates the muscles in the upper back.
Speaker 3: And when you elongate a muscle, you weaken. So what
Speaker 3: happens is and you can see this in you know,
Speaker 3: when you're in the mall or when you're at the
Speaker 3: beach next summer. I mean, look at people's posture, even
Speaker 3: the young kids. It's terrible. The amount of rounded shoulders
Speaker 3: that are out there are unbelievable. It's like an epidemic.
Speaker 3: And so what happens is, you know, you're a golfer,
Speaker 3: you're spending eight hours a day hunched over a computer,
Speaker 3: and then on the weekends you go out and you
Speaker 3: get over the ball and you're taking that rounded shoulder
Speaker 3: posture out there with you. So right away you're setting
Speaker 3: yourself out. You know, uh, coming out of the gate
Speaker 3: of not being able to make an efficient swing because
Speaker 3: of rounded seat posture will reduce your back swing by
Speaker 3: about thirty percent. So you can't make that good shoulder turn.
Speaker 3: You can't get the club back far enough to be
Speaker 3: able to generate enough clubhead speed to get power and distance,
Speaker 3: so you run into issues. I work with a lot
Speaker 3: of dentists and almost every single one of them have
Speaker 3: sea posture because they're hunched over their patients all day,
Speaker 3: you know, working on their teeth, So you know, stuff
Speaker 3: like that. You know, lifestyle that we allude to can
Speaker 3: really impact your golf game and a lot of for
Speaker 3: a lot of average golfers are just not aware of
Speaker 3: the fact that their posture is terrible. And it's unless somebody,
Speaker 3: you know, says, hey, do you know you're you're really
Speaker 3: hunched over that ball and do you know that it's
Speaker 3: going to affect your swing? And YadA YadA YadA. I mean,
Speaker 3: the only way to really get the club back when
Speaker 3: you're in a sea posture is to stand up while
Speaker 3: you're swinging the club back. So what's going to happen
Speaker 3: is you're going to change your swing plane. That's gonna mess.
Speaker 3: Balance can be an issue, So I mean, there's a
Speaker 3: whole host of things that can develop from having bad
Speaker 3: posture over the ball.
Speaker 1: Can you expand on YadA YadA YadA? Please? I've been
Speaker 1: waiting for somebody to say YadA YadA YadA for years.
Speaker 1: It's like, what do you specifically what do you specifically
Speaker 1: mean about ya? Sorry for interrupting. What were you about
Speaker 1: to say?
Speaker 3: Well, the other thing is, you know, the other pasture
Speaker 3: that I'm seeing a lot is the s posture, which
Speaker 3: is characterized by an excessive arch in the lower back,
Speaker 3: and it's more predominant in women and in younger golfers.
Speaker 1: Give me a visual, because I'm not as looking from
Speaker 1: which direction are we talking about like a curvature of
Speaker 1: the spine or are we like, yeah, chest out, butt up?
Speaker 3: What do we hear? It's kind of like your lower
Speaker 3: back is arched and your butt is sticking out. Okay,
Speaker 3: all right? And like I say, it's more predominant in
Speaker 3: women and in younger golfers. And the big reason is,
Speaker 3: again it's due to a deficiency in the body. Women
Speaker 3: tend to have tighter hip flexor muscles, which are the
Speaker 3: muscles in the front part of the hip. Women are
Speaker 3: from Venus, men are from Mars. It's just a phenomena.
Speaker 3: Don't know why it happens. It's all the golfers I test.
Speaker 3: You know, women tend to be tighter and the hip flexers.
Speaker 3: Men tend to be tighter in the handstrings, which are
Speaker 3: in the back of the thigh, and that can lead
Speaker 3: up to back issues. But the yes posture, and again,
Speaker 3: this seems to be one of the biggest articles that
Speaker 3: gets a lot of hits on my website each month,
Speaker 3: So there must be a lot of individuals and they're
Speaker 3: suffering from back issues and who have s posture, whether
Speaker 3: they realize it or not, but the s posture with
Speaker 3: that excessive swaying of the back is just going to
Speaker 3: kill the back over time. I mean kill the back.
Speaker 3: I mean just try standing up and arching your back,
Speaker 3: get into your golf stance, arch your back, and then
Speaker 3: swing a golf club and you'll know how painful that
Speaker 3: can be. So imagine doing that again and again and
Speaker 3: again and again and again. A lot of it is
Speaker 3: because of the fact that those hip flexers are tight.
Speaker 3: And going back to sitting, when you sit, you're going
Speaker 3: to put those hip flexers in a shortened position. And
Speaker 3: again when you shorten them, you tighten them. And so
Speaker 3: over time, you know, your lifestyle can impact your golf game.
Speaker 3: And I got an article on the website that just
Speaker 3: talk specifically about how sitting can wreck havoc on your
Speaker 3: golf swing. I do a workshop I go around the
Speaker 3: area here and do the workshop for a lot of
Speaker 3: businesses called the Anatomy of a Sitter, And it was
Speaker 3: based on you know, what I was seeing in the
Speaker 3: sea posture and younger golfers and kind of led me
Speaker 3: to do some research on this, and there seems to
Speaker 3: be more and more coming out now about the negative
Speaker 3: consequences health consequences of sitting. It's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Chairs are sheer hell for me. Yeah, chair. I have
Speaker 1: switched and purchased so many chairs it's unbelievable. And it's
Speaker 1: always I'm a dusk jockey. I you know, I'm at
Speaker 1: my desk many many hours a day in a row,
Speaker 1: and I just have a lot of trouble with my
Speaker 1: lower back and it's been It wasn't until first I
Speaker 1: started sitting on one of those exercise balls for many years.
Speaker 1: But then I found a chair that mimics one of
Speaker 1: those balls and it forces me to sit up straight
Speaker 1: and it's been hugely beneficial for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we talked about the hamstrings.
Speaker 3: I mean the tightness the hamstrings, which is the muscles
Speaker 3: in the back of the thigh or one of the
Speaker 3: major risks for low back discomfort because of the relationship
Speaker 3: the ham strings have on the hip bone and because
Speaker 3: what they do to the hip bone, they basically it
Speaker 3: usually takes about the third decade for people to start
Speaker 3: experiencing back issues from muscle deficiency, and so those tight
Speaker 3: hamstrings are going to pull that hip bone down kind
Speaker 3: of towards the back. It's going to rotate the hip
Speaker 3: towards the back. And so what that does is because
Speaker 3: the lower back muscles are attached to the top half
Speaker 3: of that hip bone, as it rotates down, it stretches
Speaker 3: out the low back muscles and at least them in
Speaker 3: a taunt position. So early signs and symptoms are you
Speaker 3: sit for a long periods of time, you get up,
Speaker 3: your back's a low tight. You play around the golf
Speaker 3: your next day or two, your back's a little tight.
Speaker 3: The more serious consequence is as that hip bone rotates,
Speaker 3: it also will take that normal curve in your lower
Speaker 3: spine and the lumbar spine. It'll straighten it out. Now,
Speaker 3: you don't want to deviate from that normal curve. It's
Speaker 3: there for a reason. If you straighten it out, or
Speaker 3: if you increase the curve, you start putting more pressure
Speaker 3: on the disks in between the bones and your spine,
Speaker 3: and you start to wear out those disks faster. And
Speaker 3: that's when you start putting pressure on the nerve roots,
Speaker 3: you know, and getting into the sciatica, you just get
Speaker 3: back pain and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: so sitting will also shorten hamstrings as it does hip flexers. Now,
Speaker 3: the tight hip flexers pull the hip bone in the
Speaker 3: opposite direction. It kind of rotates it down forward, and
Speaker 3: that increases that curve in the lower back and creates
Speaker 3: that sway back. And that's why a lot of women
Speaker 3: tend to have those tight hip flexers, and they tend
Speaker 3: to have that s posture, and you know their backs
Speaker 3: are killing them. So either way, you know, tightness and
Speaker 3: the inflixors, tightness and hamstrings, and you're gonna have issues.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how many times you know. And
Speaker 3: I work a lot with low back people who have
Speaker 3: even gone through surgeries and have the ruptured discs. The
Speaker 3: problem is in many cases is they don't look for
Speaker 3: the mechanism of injury. They treat the pain, but they
Speaker 3: don't treat the reason, you know, the cause of how
Speaker 3: you got to the pain. And in many cases it's
Speaker 3: that the imbalances in the muscle that create the misalignment.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how many people that you know,
Speaker 3: I've worked with that you identify the deficiency and then
Speaker 3: you give them some stretches to do, and it's amazing
Speaker 3: how much better they feel.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised at all. Yeah, I'm not surprised at all.
Speaker 1: I have so many more questions for you. I really
Speaker 1: like to talk about golf injuries and where they come
Speaker 1: from and what we can do about them, and various
Speaker 1: things about how the swing can screw up your spine
Speaker 1: and things like that. I really have a lot more questions.
Speaker 1: Could you stick around and we will record part two
Speaker 1: of this conversation?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: Awesome? All right, Well that will be next episode and
Speaker 1: it will be a Golf Smarter for members only. So
Speaker 1: if you have had any aha moments in the past
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, because I've had four, then I encourage you
Speaker 1: please to join golf Smarter for members only at golfsmarter
Speaker 1: dot com and take advantage of the fact that you
Speaker 1: will have a new episode of Golf Smarter every single week.
Speaker 1: You'll get to hear part two of this conversation and
Speaker 1: part two of all those conversations that you've missed, and
Speaker 1: have complete access to our archives of seven years of
Speaker 1: Golf Smarter podcasts that all have content that you will have.
Speaker 1: You could potentially have an aha moment. So before we leave,
Speaker 1: for those who are not Golf Smarter members, Bob, tell
Speaker 1: them how to get in touch with you on what
Speaker 1: your website is.
Speaker 3: Please, my website is www.
Speaker 1: We did this before. You don't need the www, Bob.
Speaker 1: Come on, Bob, you don't need take two.
Speaker 3: Come on golf the golf website. Golf fitness website is
Speaker 3: golf fit Carolina dot com. It's g O L F
Speaker 3: I T. Carolina dot com.
Speaker 1: Excellent and you have articles on there as well, correct.
Speaker 3: Articles, yep, videos. I post stuff, new stuff every month.
Speaker 3: I post a new exercise of the month usually the
Speaker 3: middle of the month, and a lot of good information
Speaker 3: on there.
Speaker 1: Awesome, All right, stick around Part two coming up. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Bob, No problem, my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Well, I am so happy to welcome terror Kayler back,
Speaker 1: Terry the wedge guy Kaylor And this is our score
Speaker 1: Zone Short Game Academy.
Speaker 3: Hey, Terry, how you doing I'm break fret How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing very well?
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: In a brief overview if you're new to our score
Speaker 1: Zone Short Game Academy. Terry is the CEO of score Golf,
Speaker 1: where they make incredible scoring clubs You probably referred to
Speaker 1: him as Wedges in the past, but you will learn
Speaker 1: quickly from these that that is not the case. Those
Speaker 1: are your scoring clubs, and he's got a whole different
Speaker 1: way of approaching it. Check back to our our most
Speaker 1: recent members only episode. He'll give you a full explanation
Speaker 1: and we answer a bunch of questions if you missed it.
Speaker 1: But we're going to tackle one question today, and the
Speaker 1: question from Derek Zascow means that Derek is going to
Speaker 1: be eligible to receive a customized score forty one sixty
Speaker 1: one wedge and you can too. All you have to
Speaker 1: do is click on the short Game Academy button at
Speaker 1: golfsmarter dot com. It says score Zone, Show Game Academy,
Speaker 1: submit your question, and if we use it on the show,
Speaker 1: you get to your own customized score forty one sixty
Speaker 1: one scoring club and you'll also receive a golf Smarter
Speaker 1: Switchblade divid tool, the greatest divid repaired tool in the universe.
Speaker 1: I just know this for a fact because I do
Speaker 1: all this research and I'm making this up. So Terry,
Speaker 1: let's get to the Let's get to the question, and
Speaker 1: Derek is probably on the same question for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Derek from Santa Fe, New Mexico, all conditions
Speaker 1: being equal, what do you think has more control for
Speaker 1: in between distance shots stepping on a gap wedge or
Speaker 1: easing up on the pitching wedge.
Speaker 5: Well, my answer is neither one, and let me explain that,
Speaker 5: thank you. When we have a short club in our hand,
Speaker 5: a wedge or a short term, we're looking for pinpoint
Speaker 5: distance control. Da've Pelts has done a lot of research
Speaker 5: on this and shown that inside nine iron range people
Speaker 5: tend to not miss left and right as badly as
Speaker 5: they miss long and short. And there are two parts
Speaker 5: of missing long and short. One is just simply missiting
Speaker 5: the shot, catching it thin or catching it heavy, laying
Speaker 5: the sod over on it as it were. One of
Speaker 5: the other problems is that we're trying to step up
Speaker 5: or ease up on these different shots to hit our
Speaker 5: end between yardages. I think there's two solutions to this.
Speaker 5: Two parts of the solution Derek. Here. One is to
Speaker 5: go out with your laser rangefinder or even step it
Speaker 5: off if you need to, and find out what is
Speaker 5: your comfortable full swing distance with each of your scoring
Speaker 5: clubs nine, your pitch, your gap your sand, your lob,
Speaker 5: whatever you carry there and monitor these gaps. Measure them
Speaker 5: out and find out, well, I think a gap which
Speaker 5: is one hundred and five, but is it really Go
Speaker 5: out and hit five or six balls of your gap.
Speaker 3: Wey, it's.
Speaker 5: Leave your bag there, take your laser rangefinder, walk down,
Speaker 5: find the center of that pattern, and shoot back to
Speaker 5: your bag and say, okay, I thought it was one
Speaker 5: hundred and five, but the center of this pattern is
Speaker 5: really ninety eight. And do that for each of your
Speaker 5: scoring clubs. Because there is a hard math built into
Speaker 5: your set. You may find that you have fourteen yards
Speaker 5: between your pitch and your gap, but twelve or sixteen
Speaker 5: yards between your gap and your sand. What you're shooting
Speaker 5: for is consistent gapping. But to know these yardages, I
Speaker 5: wrote a book called the score Method that's available on
Speaker 5: our website if you hunt around for it. That is
Speaker 5: about then dissecting those gap. It's not by stepping on
Speaker 5: it or easing up, but by changing your hand position
Speaker 5: gripping down on the club, I can take off about
Speaker 5: a third to a half of the distance gap. Gripping
Speaker 5: down another half inch, which will take off a little more.
Speaker 5: You can build a measure of precision without thinking about
Speaker 5: swinging harder or swinging easier, just by changing the link
Speaker 5: of the golf club, which produces a little less yards
Speaker 5: than that club did it at full swing full length.
Speaker 5: You can then dissect that with a very slightly open
Speaker 5: club face. Again. This book called score Method dives into that.
Speaker 5: But I want to go into the other side of
Speaker 5: this question. And you're talking about stepping up on a
Speaker 5: gap wedge, a full swing with a with a high
Speaker 5: loft golf club, what we call a full sandwich or
Speaker 5: a full pitching wedger. A full nine iron is not
Speaker 5: anywhere near as heart of a golf swing as a
Speaker 5: full five iron or a full free wood. These are
Speaker 5: precision golf clubs. And when you back off on them
Speaker 5: a little bit and throttle down this little bit and
Speaker 5: need to find you can considerate que full swing, you'll
Speaker 5: find that your projector comes down, your consistency of impact
Speaker 5: will improve dramatically, and your distance control will therefore get
Speaker 5: more consistent. It really doesn't matter whether you hit a
Speaker 5: pitching wedge one ten or one twenty or one forty.
Speaker 5: The key is can you do that consistently? Can you
Speaker 5: stand there at one forty going I know this is
Speaker 5: a full swing pitching wedge and hit it. Or can
Speaker 5: you stand there at one oh five and say, I
Speaker 5: know this is a full swing pitching wedge and then
Speaker 5: hit it one oh five? So control your gaps. You'll
Speaker 5: measure your gaps like going out on the range, and
Speaker 5: then dissect your gaps not by stepping on it, not
Speaker 5: by easing up, but by changing your hand position on
Speaker 5: the grip to shorten the club. I have a three
Speaker 5: quarter in and watch what happens. Am wonderful exercise to
Speaker 5: go through to learn about your golf clubs.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to, uh, I hope everyone got that.
Speaker 1: You know, we had a little bit of a problem
Speaker 1: with the Skype signal, but it seemed like we I go.
Speaker 1: I was able to follow along even though it's kind
Speaker 1: of choppy. I still got the crux of absolutely everything
Speaker 1: you said. So I want to, you know, make sure
Speaker 1: and if and if anyone's been having trouble with that,
Speaker 1: please let me know and and get back to me.
Speaker 1: Just email me and we'll we'll work on that and
Speaker 1: we can even redo the question if you want. But
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you got everything. I sure didn't. I
Speaker 1: thought it was great advice Terry, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: another Square Zone Short game Academy and two more episodes,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you then.
Speaker 5: That would be great bread and look forward to it.