Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number four hundred and fifty three.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: You've probably seen people with very short backswings, So if
you can actually create.
Speaker 4: A little bit more of a backswing, you're going.
Speaker 3: To have a much more fluid fallow through and that
just adds ten to fifty to twenty yards. And as
I've been doing this now for six years, have slowly
increase my driving distance like aboute five to ten yards
every year. And that's an accumulation of all the flexibility stuff,
of all the balancing on trying to get my shoulders
a rotate a little bit farther, sort of like lessening
my upper back muscle mask because I'm not training really
heavy and during a summer anymore like I do during
the winter for when I ski, and it's just basically
bouncing out and trying to do things that are applicable
for your bent over is one of the hardest things
on back compared to doing exercises where you're standing up right,
and when you go on golf posture.
Speaker 4: A lot of people can't stay in golf posture.
Speaker 3: They have either a c spine it's very rounded, or
it's overextended, and it's almost like a hyper extended state,
and that creates tremendous pressure in their back and a
lot of guys stand up and as soon as you
stand up, you've lost your swing.
Speaker 1: Two hundred and thirty seven rounds by September first in
Canada with Michael Hammel. This is Golf Smarter. Welcome to
the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 4: Michael, thank you, Gred. Finally great to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Well, finally, you know, it's so funny that I'm welcoming
you to the Golf Smarter Podcast. You're very familiar with
this program, aren't.
Speaker 4: You, Yes, I've listened to it. I thinks it's day one.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's seedback you and I have to tell you
how much I appreciate the friendship that we've developed on email.
This is the first time we're speaking, but you've you've
kept me up to date on your game, You've kept
me up to date on the weather, and it's really
been fun. I really enjoyed getting to know you this way.
Speaker 4: It's been great.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you are definitely responsible for where I am today,
without question.
Speaker 4: Wait, I know you speechless.
Speaker 1: I know where you are in golf, not in live.
Speaker 3: In golf and my excitement for the game of golf
and the reason why I went back to school for
titleists and so on. But you started the ball rolling
and got me excited in golf that I could realize
I could actually do it.
Speaker 1: Well, you were playing golf before you you found the podcast.
Speaker 4: Right, No, no, no, I did.
Speaker 3: I just started. I just started listening to it. Was
not playing golf, was not interested in golf.
Speaker 1: So and and what what got you interested in golf?
Why did you get started?
Speaker 3: I was just tired of my clients, my personal training
clients and friends ask me to go golf, so I
thought maybe I'd give it a try. And so I
didn't want to look too foolish, so I started googling
some stuff and I found this thing called a Golf
Smarter podcast, and I thought it would give me the
information regarding what golf was about and what I needed
to know. And I just started listening and it sounded
interesting and it was probably something that I could probably
do for the rest of my life. And that's just
how it started the ball rolling and got me excited
about understanding the game of golf.
Speaker 1: Wow, so you were just a neophied, a brand new
golfer at the time. And tell me where's your handicap today?
Speaker 4: Unfortunately it's gone up to about a three point two.
Speaker 1: So do you know how many people would love to say, unfortunately,
I'm a free Why where was it? Where did it
get to?
Speaker 4: It got too low as a two? Oh?
Speaker 1: My, so that's pretty remarkable. But how much golf do
you play?
Speaker 4: Well? People are gonna hate me, but.
Speaker 1: Oh they already hate you. You said you're three. We
all hate you already, Michael.
Speaker 3: Okay, yesterday I said another personal record on two hundred
and thirty seven point five rounds for the season so far.
Speaker 1: Here we are in the beginning of September. How many
days in this year so far?
Speaker 4: Are you? So?
Speaker 1: How many? How many rounds a week are you playing?
Speaker 4: Roughly to a day? So up to sixty rounds a month? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, we we collectively hate you.
Speaker 3: Okay a day.
Speaker 1: Don't you work? Yes?
Speaker 4: A lot.
Speaker 1: Well how much. Wait, let's let's talk about where you're
based and how much sunshine you get during the year.
Speaker 3: Well, like I tell people, I'm not a fair weather golfer,
and in Calgary, Alberta, we can get from Like. Yes,
like I said earlier, we got snow yesterday south of us,
about two to three inches and it literally rained all
day yesterday. And I was besides me, there are two
other guys dressed like people that were going to go
to the Arctic.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: There's only three of us that were on the golf
course yesterday, and I needed to get that round in
to tie my last year's personal best of two thirty
seven rounds. And I just golf whenever, whenever I get
a chance, because the season up here is so short,
and last year I never had a chance to go
away because we had those epic floods and for the
month of July, I never played much golf because I
injured myself and I was basically homeless for four weeks
because of the floods.
Speaker 1: So, oh my gosh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was tough up here.
Speaker 3: And then you guys have you know, all that drought,
and then we have all this excess rain.
Speaker 4: So we need a.
Speaker 1: Pipeline between Calgary and California. Huh absolutely, so yeah, yeah,
well we just uh, the last episode, we talked about
drought conditions here in California and you're experiencing the complete opposite. Huh.
In the you're in the north. You're in the central North.
Speaker 3: No, southern part of southern part of Alberta, just maybe
about three hours shy of the Montana border.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're in central Canada, but on the southern part
of it Western Western that's considered the westc.
Speaker 3: BC and then Alberta and then Saskatchewan and then Manitoba,
and those are usually for western provinces.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, Well, I've never understood the west thing. When
they talk about you know, like Ohio is they consider
the west, and to me, that's the mid east. It's
the middle eastern part of the country. But because this
country is so east coast centric that California is like
way west, but that everything from California to Illinois is
the West. It's like, what how do you do that? Anyway?
I mean, I still don't understand Pittsburgh is in the
in the middle part of the country, and Okay, that's
geography is not my best part, but the golf is.
Let's talk about your amazing accomplishments on the golf course.
You've been playing for I guess if you've been six
years now? Okay, so we've been doing the podcast. Is
our tenth year of doing the podcast. You've been playing
golf for six years? And what were your struggles when
you first started. I mean, if you're already down to it,
you've been down to a two, what have you struggled with?
And is really banging balls? You know, thirty six holes
a day really make the difference.
Speaker 3: Well, like we talked about before before we were going
to do this, and some of the stuff that I've
seen since I started playing golf, people practice very poorly,
not the way they play. And when I first started,
I could not hit a straight ball. It was all slice,
banana slice, because no one told me that I had
to release my hands, and not until I actually heard
Tiger say that on one Golf channel and said, you
have to shake hands with the target. And as soon
as I started shaking hands with the target, I started
hitting the ball straight. I started controlling a little bit
of a draw, I started practicing more short game and
in the beginning, I actually did hit a lot of
balls on the range, but I also tore a bunch
of ligaments in my elbow from overdoing it and hitting mats,
and it never taught me anything. So unless someone actually
has a golf pro readily available watching what you're doing,
you just basically solidifying bad habits by just swinging endless
balls with no purpose.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Tell me more about the shaking hands with
the target. I want to back that up a second.
Speaker 3: So I'm a lefty, okay, and I played my whole
life playing hockey left and back when I in nineteen
eighty and grade ten, we went out in high school
to go play golf and my teacher gave me right
handed clubs.
Speaker 4: And I.
Speaker 3: Played hockey in my whole life left handed. Why would
I play golf right hand? He said, well, no one
should ever play golf left handed. So I tried hitting
the ball around right handed, and it was not normal
for me, and so I gave it up. So I
never took anything up to it. And then when I
started playing with my younger nephews left handed clubs, I
started getting the hang of hitting it, but everything was
a slice, and so now you righties are gonna have
to follow me as a lefty. So you basically, when
you take your swing towards the back, your thumbs will
face behind you correct and as you go through the
target line when you hit the ball, your thumbs are
now straight out in front of you. And then when
you actually proceed, I'm gonna say this for a righty,
your thumbs are now going to start facing the target.
Speaker 4: And if you finished that.
Speaker 3: Hand position with both thumbs, ninety nine percent of the
time the ball will go straight with just a little
baby draw. But most people don't finish they hold they
you don't finish the swing at the top, and they
don't finish it at the back.
Speaker 4: And you have to shake.
Speaker 3: Hands with not only the target behind you, but you
have to finish with your thumbs facing forward to the
target line as well. And that's one of the biggest
Eureka moments I ever had. That when I saw that
on the Golf channel, when I went out to the
range of that day, I could hit the ball straight
for the first time, and it was so small of
a little thing, but it was the biggest thing that
changed my golf. So and I've had people watching me
and stuff like that, but they didn't know what I
was doing wrong. And what I've found out in the
last six years, golf is really finicky with the people
that you meet. Fifty percent I think of the people
don't know what's wrong with a person's golf swing.
Speaker 4: And now the other fifty percent, No.
Speaker 3: But they really don't want to share those secrets with
you because they don't want you to improve.
Speaker 1: Why would they, Oh, because they're instructors. They don't want
to improve because they're all business.
Speaker 3: No, not necessarily instructors, but there are definitely some instructors
that I've actually put in heads with that I've helped
people on my golf course and I've managed to tweak
their game and they've had some of the best games
ever and it was just the littlest detail. And you know,
some unfortunately golf coaches want you as because that's their profession.
They want to keep you around. If you fix something,
they may not need you anymore. But just like with
me being a personal trainer, I'm not going to be
able to save someone's body and fitness just within one session.
That's sort of like an ongoing thing and from there
I get feedback from other clients and referrals, and that
just keeps the whole ball running. With personal training, and
now that I found a passion for golf, I'm able
to do that and actually see what's wrong with people's
golf swing because I had all those bad flaws coming
and probably more so so, and because I play so
much golf. Now I'm trying to play catch up to
all you guys who are playing golf since you were fetuses.
That guy I'm so far behind in my will be
fifty this year, and most of you guys have been
playing golf since you were single digits, so.
Speaker 1: In age single digit and age.
Speaker 4: Yes see, not single digit and handicap.
Speaker 1: I don't understand what you're trying to catch up. You've
surpassed most players as it is.
Speaker 3: Oh I know, but what alamsos once you have you
ever played hockey?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: So what amsos for you to learn to play hockey?
Now all your patterns and motor skills have been solidified already,
you might be able to take some of those things
from baseball and from golf and simulate probably a better
hockey swing, but you're never fully going to get the
hockey swing.
Speaker 1: I'll never fully get the golf swing. I started playing
in my forties.
Speaker 3: No, that's that's not true, but it's it's much put
it this way, it's much harder bo mechanically and connectic wise, to.
Speaker 4: Take up the game later in life.
Speaker 3: Yes, and then when when you started, like when you
look at mac Roy's swing when he was five, it's fallless.
He's better swinging at five than did most guys have
swung their whole career when they started at twenty or thirty.
But you know what, golf is pretty much the only
sport you could probably do for the rest of your life.
And that's why I just found so much passion with it.
Because of all the things that I've done to my body.
I've had nineteen serious lower back injuries and two dislocated palvises.
Golf is not one of the biggest things for me
to do. So the body does not want to do rotation, flection,
and extension all at the same time. And then when
you do it poorly, you actually create even more injury potential.
So I have to rethink my training, I have to
rethink my practice all that stuff in order to get
to where I am today. So I, like they say,
it takes a village to you know, create a child.
And with your podcast, with my friends and clients and
the TPI stuff, I just managed to condense it a
little bit quicker than most people do in ten or
twenty years.
Speaker 1: So as a TPI, let's talk about what it is
to be a two GI instructor and what that's done
for your game.
Speaker 3: Oh that was tremendous down two and a half days
down in Mesa with you top quality TPI titleist professionals
of LPGA, MDS, PGA tour players, the personal trainers, Cairo's
physios put together twelve assessments, of which fifty percent of
the people that have actually assessed fail and they have
failure built right into them. And so for me actually
assessing myself, I actually found out that I actually had
a left glute that would never fire.
Speaker 4: And if you can't fire your glues, which.
Speaker 3: Makes up eighty percent of the golf swing from the
ground up for power wise, you're not going to have
a very efficient game off the tee as well as
your mid irons.
Speaker 4: And it actually even affected my short game.
Speaker 3: So it just showed me the full aspect on exactly
what the tour pros have to go through to get
golf fit and that it was fit before of doing
a powerlifting and being a bodybuilder and stuff like that.
But I wasn't golf fit. I did all the wrong
things not applicable to the game of golf. And that's
what was an eye opener. And so when I came
back to Calgary, I revamped my entire training program. I
understood the flaws that my clients were talking to me
about their aches and pains, because as I start to
get into golfing a little bit more, I understood what
they were talking about the game of golf, and then
that completely changed my passion for fitness and it was
all specifically designed just for golf fit.
Speaker 1: Fascinating. Let's pursue the concept of golf fit and what
you learned about it and why is that different from
what you were doing as a bodybuilder.
Speaker 3: Well, bodybuilder is just aesthetics from the outside and trying
to have your upper and lower balance with your sides
and your front and back.
Speaker 1: But golf that's not necessarily So bodybuilding is not necessarily
a fitness it's a display.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 3: So even when I was a powerlifter, I looked totally
different as a power lifter, like very bulky, very thick,
compared to when I was a bodybuilder, completely two different physiques.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Like the powerlifter was extremely strong and powerful, but not
very cut and not very lean because you want to
have a little bit more body fat to protect the joints.
And where as a bodybuilder, my joints hurt all the
time because I was so lean. I was less than
two percent body fat and like paper thin skin and
tired all the time. But I wasn't that strong. Interesting,
but I look strong, because.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's surprised me. It was always when you
see bodybuilders, they look incredibly fit and amazing shape.
Speaker 4: But as you get leaner and leaner and leaner, you
don't have a lot.
Speaker 3: Of body fat to protect your joints, and you're extremely
exhaustive from trying to maintain such a low body fat level.
And it kind of makes you go crazy too, because
you're carbol depleted and you're tired, and you're you know,
training three four times a day and of cardio and weights.
But when I went to the TPI and took up
the golf fitness there, it was a complete mind blowing
experience that I needed to now balance out both sides
a little bit more efficiently, more rotation from not only
my wrists, my elbow, shoulders, you know, mid thrastic upper
back neck.
Speaker 4: And at the same time, I really had.
Speaker 3: To watch on over torquing for my lower back, and
I did tweak my back a few times when I
first started on trying to swing too hard and especially
trying to keep up to guys that were I was
playing with that could just crush the ball eighty tow
one hundred yards farther, and I thought I just needed
to swing harder, but it was there was just no
power in my swing. I swung, but absolutely no power.
And I learned how to slow it down like Freddy
Couples and Ernie L's and get more rotation. And now
you know, I'm within ten to fifteen yards of these
guys when I started.
Speaker 1: And you're probably ten fifteen yards beyond.
Speaker 4: Them some of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because if I you know, I know how
to play a cut now with my driver, and I
know how to play a draw, so I can play
both sides. Because one of the guys I used to
play with what was taught by Moon Norman, our Canadian
legend and Billy Casper, And one of the biggest things
that they said is you never ever fight the wind.
So in a draw wind, for me, left to right
it's my go to shot. And when there's a right
to left wind, I've learned how to cut it into there.
And sometimes my longest driving in a cut wind so
far as three fifty six yards.
Speaker 4: So I got all that one that day. Yeah, you did.
Speaker 1: And you weren't swinging hard.
Speaker 4: Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I was actually choked down and I just cranked on
it and I hit up on it and I just
left it into the wind, and I said, just see.
Speaker 4: You, and I'll see you when I get to you.
Speaker 3: And by the time I lasered it and put it
on the GPS with another guy who came out to
three fifty six. That's but that's something that most people
are not willing to learn to hit it. A little
cut and a little draw, and those things are game savers.
And that's why I've dropped my index so far, because
half the holes on my track out of twenty seven holes,
half of them are cuts and half of them are draws.
And I have to be able to work it around
from right to left, especially on the long par fives,
or I'll never get there in uh sometimes he even
three because it's such a hard dog leg left on
some of them when they go when I go down
into our valley that I just can't get home in
three because I'm stimmied by trees.
Speaker 1: So all right, now more about golf fit, what that
means and what we need to do.
Speaker 4: To get there.
Speaker 3: Well, the biggest thing, eighty percent of it is glutes
and abdominals, and most people don't have strong enough glute
to balance out both sides to stay stable. And like
one of the guys I golf with, he's about a
plus four. It basically is from the ground up. You
have to be stable from the ground up, creating power
and be able to transfer, you know, for a wrighty
from right and load it to your left hip. And
most people, when I start training them, they have absolutely
no hip power whatsoever, no flexibility, no rotate, And most
people just are arm swingers and they've adapted to swinging
with their arms. But eventually that gets to create tremendous
torque in their back, their hips, their ankles, their knees,
and after you know, you get after age fifty and
stuff like that, you start losing sonovia fluid in your joints,
bones start to reb on bones, and the golf game
is not that fun anymore.
Speaker 4: So that's why I can.
Speaker 3: Do what I can do, Like I can go fifty
four holes in a day and the only thing that
is sore is just my feet from walking.
Speaker 4: But other than that, my back is perfect.
Speaker 3: I don't overswing, you know, and some days they're windy
and I just play within myself. But it has to
do with golf fitness home basically an example of what
golf fitness can do that most people you should be
able to golf thirty six holes.
Speaker 4: Pain free walking, Yeah, you should be right, but most
people with apems is there, they don't train correctly.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think most people have the stamina to
do thirty six holes in a day.
Speaker 3: Exactly, just like on the one email saying that one
guy I was golfing with that could already get through
eighteen because he smoked a cigar the entire time and
he was hot, cat coughing and hack and I I
was surprised that he would walk and smoke that size
of a cigar for the entire round, and by the
time he walked up on one of our hils, he
literally had to take.
Speaker 4: A five minute break wow, and we were.
Speaker 3: Getting behind it and we pretty much almost had to
leave him there on the tea box. So it all
depends on what's important to you. And for me, I'm
probably a different breathe than most people. My grandfather taught
me about if you're gonna have something to do in life,
have to do it with passion or don't do it
at all. And I took up the game of golf,
and I gave it three years to see whether or
not I could figure it out, whether or not my
back would take care of itself and I wouldn't injure
it anymore, and I just fell in love with it.
So and like I said, I rechanged my training to
be more golf fit, more rotation, more flexibility.
Speaker 4: And I've got ten fifteen years in Taekwindo. So I
didn't lack.
Speaker 3: Flexibility, but golf flexibility. And in martial arts that's a
little different flexibility than in golf. So I started bouncing
out my left and right sides. I started swinging with
an orange whip.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you ever heard of one of those.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, I actually I have the version of it
by skills.
Speaker 3: It's incredible, absolutely incredible device. So it creates leg time,
it slows down your speed. I have an impact bag,
I have PVC balls that I throw against the concrete wall.
Abdominant work. Plus I specialize in bodyweight training suspension systems,
and that's all has to do with rotation and getting
the body loaded. And so basically I trained my clients
pre season so their bodies are already ready to swing
a golf club and the little finesse stuff that'll slowly come.
But most people injure themselves within the first couple of
weeks of playing in the season, especially when they're in Canada,
if they don't go away, and they injure themselves because
their body is not ready for that torque. So I
get them ready for a golf swing and they're ready
to go out. They may not play the best because
they haven't tweaked their short game, but their bodies are
ready to swing golf club and fairly hard.
Speaker 1: No, we don't want to swing hard.
Speaker 4: I thought we said no, But what amsos.
Speaker 3: Most people think they need to swing hard when they
first start out. And you'll see, guys, we've you know,
we've discussed this. I've actually even heard it on your
podcast where guys will crank out the big dog right
away on the range. Yeah, and they won't work their
way up on the bag, and so they think they
need to swing really hard. And I see it every
day at my track, and I'm going to see it
again this afternoon when I go play. Guys will crank
out the driver first thing. And that's the worst thing
you can do for your body. It's it's such an
overloaded shock to the body that you need to slowly
warm up the hands and the little muscles and then
the big boy muscles will autom actually come.
Speaker 1: I was doing some analysis of my statistics and you know,
I hit the driver seven times around, you know, because
I hit my four wood off the tee a lot
three wood forward. I heard I hit that all off
the tee. If it's if it's narrow or I know
I can reach, you know, trouble, or I want to
position myself better so I won't take the driver, and
I don't hit the driver that much. So that's for
me that that is the least important club to be
working on when I'm on the driving range, and sometimes
when i'm when I'm on the driving range the driver.
I try to hit it like one hundred yards. I
try not to hit it really hard. I try to
take a nice, easy, slow swing and you know, do
something different with it, but not just crank it out.
I'll take on the range. I'll take two or three
swings with the driver I have found And please concur
if you found this to be true as well. But
my scores are going down because I'm working more on
everything inside of one hundred yards.
Speaker 3: Did you want to know a big secret just between
you and I? Because no one else is going to
hear this.
Speaker 4: Right, nobody, nobody?
Speaker 3: Okay, what I have found in the last six years,
and not only from my game, but the guys I
play with that are near scratch.
Speaker 4: They play to a shot that they know.
Speaker 3: They're going to get to within a hula hoop, and
mine is my gap witch around eighty eight yards eighty
nine that's usually Birdie and my clients hate that because
they like to get on in two on a par
fives And what happens those nine and half percent of
the time they put it in the woods sand bunker
and they come out with a bogie or double and
I'm coming up with Bertie because I lay up to
eighty eight to ninety yards and I never go for
some par fives anymore. I lay up and I play
the whole backwards to one hundred yards.
Speaker 4: Or less out.
Speaker 3: Like you just said, that's the biggest Eureka moment that
I've probably had in a game of golf, that there's
just sometimes opportunities, unless it's downwind, that I just won't
go and try my track at some of the par fives.
Speaker 4: And two it's just too much to risk.
Speaker 3: And I already have kept my stats, and I know
now that the Game Golf has come out, I've kept
my you know, greens irregulation and fairways and putting. And
on the days that I lay up to like a
front pin, I may not have a greener regulation, but
I only have one putt because the chipped it tight.
Speaker 1: H Well, listen, you're a Golf Smarter member. You you
know about the game golf and getting your extra discount,
and thank you for being a Golf Smarter member.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, no, no, it's I'm I'm glad you
found value in it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Fred, And we had this discussion way back in
the day where I could not believe that you were
given that type of information for free.
Speaker 4: I was shocked, you know, from elite you know.
Speaker 3: Doctors like doctor Bob Ertel and Retella and like there's
hundreds of people that you've had on that. I was
shocked that, you know, it wasn't even a paid service.
So I'm feel guilty too for you know, listen to
it for free.
Speaker 1: Well that's okay, because I never had Bob Rutella on
the show, didn't you. I'm pretty sure I's never talked
to him. I've always want it. I've always wanted to
Joe parent lots of the time with Joe Parent. There
you go episode number one, and then golf and probably
about seven or eight more times after that as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know he's he's.
Speaker 1: Been fantastic for the mental gal absolutely and his books
are amazing too.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: What what are your favorite exercises to do for the
glutes in the core that you can share with us
for free?
Speaker 4: You know, just a simple lunch.
Speaker 3: I've actually started working on uh an invention based on
glute thrusts where you actually lie down on the ground
with your knees bent and you lie on the ground
your hands face down and you basically are lifting your
butt in the air. And it's one of the ones
that actually got from TPI, but we actually do it
with single leg and I actually worked on single leg
glue thrusts and if you want, I can send some
pictures and we can actually put it on your side
if you want. That was one of the number one
things that actually got me to reactivate my left glute, because,
like I said, I've had so many injuries that I've
actually had satic problems for the last probably thirty years. Yeah,
and so that was one of the biggest things on
getting the glutes more bounced for more power.
Speaker 4: But it's more usable power.
Speaker 3: And usually when muscles are tight, they're always being fired
and they actually bring in other muscle groups that continue
the firing process and that leads to more injuries. So
you want to have muscles that can fire at the
smallest little reaction, but then also learn how to relax.
And being seated is probably one of the worst things
we can do as human beings, So I teach my
clients sitting down is one of the worst things we
can do with our body because it actually deactivates things.
And most people don't squeeze their glutes and their abs.
So I have people actually sit on Swiss balls at
work and they're actually bouncing around on the ball to
keep their bodies active. And then I also make them
drink a lot more water, so they actually have to
go to the washroom at least once an hour, and
that sort of deactivates some stress in their body from
sitting for a six to.
Speaker 4: Eight hour day.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, So I have a lot of the glute
trusts for building glutes abdominals. You don't want to build
up abs that are so thick and so strong that
actually they limit the ability for the body to rotate.
So you know, tons of rotational stuff with like I said,
those PDC balls up here we go and killgram. So
roughly around a five to ten pound ball that actually bounces,
and it's a solid ball, and you throw it up
against the wall and if from about five feet out,
and if it actually bounces back to your hands, that
means that you're using the power of your glutes that
actually brings the ball back. And most people who actually
are arm swingers will throw the ball against the wall
and it'll fall right to the ground and there's no
power there, and then that means they have to stand
too close to the wall.
Speaker 4: So if you can actually throw, you know, one.
Speaker 3: Of those ten pound balls from five to six feet
at a concrete wall and it bounces back to you
in the same force, in the same direction, that's a
lot of glue power. But most people can't do that
for ten to fifteen reps aside, So, and also.
Speaker 4: The biggest thing is flexibility.
Speaker 3: I specialize in flexibility as well, so tons of hit flexibility, hamstrings,
growing the side, hips, the lower back, shoulders, wrists.
Speaker 4: Basically it's a full.
Speaker 3: Kinetic from the wrists all the way down to the
ankles and feet. So and out of the think of
almost a thousand games now played in six years, there's
a thousand different ways to swing a golf club. And
but Titleist says, there's one, only one efficient way to swing.
And people are basically designed to swing a golf club
at an early age. And if you've taken it up
at you know, your twenties and thirties and forties, based
on your past physical history, you're gonna swing it a
certain weight. And I've seen some horrific swings where I
can't even watch the people swing It literally causes me
back pain when I actually watch them swing. So they're
holding their breath like they're grunting and almost like a
Monica Sealis tennis match.
Speaker 4: So but and you can tell it it's.
Speaker 3: It's a powerless effort or effortless rather than effortless power
And you know, like Freddy Couples, we just had them
up here on the weekend and he won is the
senior tournament up here at the Champions Tour at Keny
Medals and just incredible fluid swing.
Speaker 1: So what you mentioned holding their breath. What negative impact
on your golf swing is holding your breath? Because I've
seen a lot of people do just that just before
they take this swing. They'll take a huge gulp of
air and hold it and then do their swing versus somebody.
And what I try to do is take a deep
breath and let it out before I start my swing.
What kind of negative impact is holding your breath?
Speaker 4: Well? Have you heard of the valsalva maneuver? No?
Speaker 1: I have not.
Speaker 3: It's where deep divers that have no tanks on will
actually do this breathing exercise to get more O two
in and more less CO two out so they can
actually dive farther down. But what happens, though, is it
creates tremendous pressure in your abdominal wall, and you could
actually get a massive hernia. You could blank out, you
could pop blood vessels in your eyes. Like you said,
the biggest thing is that, you know, you take a
breath in and then just slowly about half of it out,
just so that you're still stable. It's like trying to
lift a really heavy weight and let all the air out. Well,
you're not going to be able to do it. But
if you take too much air in and put all
that thoracic pressure in, you're going to cause some trauma.
And now you're not only work in your body in
a lateral fashion, you're actually doing rotation, flection, and extension
all at the same time, and those three things together,
if you do one of them, you're in a world
of hurts. So you want to be able to have
a little bit of breath in there to hold your
transverse abdominance in on the inside. That sort of like
stabilizes the spine, but not to the point where we're
actually putting tremendous pressure on your spinal calm as well.
Speaker 1: It's all you said you didn't that it's not good
to build the abs too much. No, what are your
favorite exercises for people to get enough ab strength but
not overdo it and still retain the flexibility that they need.
Speaker 3: Well, I try to do three or four things at once.
So the biggest one is that PVC ball through. So
when you're standing on the ground, now, you've got to
try to get your body weight, lower your center of gravity,
which stimulates a golf swing. You're taking this ball, you're
swinging it in your arms, you're throwing it up against
the wall, it's coming back to you. So that's tremendous
power on one side. And then you switch it and
you do the other side, so you have an equal
opposite reaction. And you've probably seen people with very short backswings. Yeah,
and so if you can actually create a little bit
more of a backswing, you're going to have a much
more fluid fallow through. And that just adds ten, fifteen,
twenty yards. And as I've been doing this now for
six years, up slowly increase my driving distance like about
five to ten yards every year. And that's an accumulation
of all the flexibility stuff, of all the balancing on
trying to get my shoulders to rotate a little bit
farther on, sort of like lessening my upper back muscle
mass because I'm not training really heavy and during the
summer anymore like I do during the winter for when
I ski, and it's just basically bouncing out and trying
to do things that are applicable for golf that you're
bent over is one of the hardest things on back,
compared to doing exercises where you're standing upright. And when
you go on golf posture. A lot of people can't
stay in golf posture. They have either a c spine
which it's very rounded, or it's over extended and it's
almost like a hyper extended state, and that creates tremendous
trusure pressure in their back and a lot of guys
stand up and as soon as you stand up, you've
lost your swing. And like I said, there's some of
the stuff that I know now I never did six
years ago on my training, and so I try to
do things that are applicable to the rotation as well
as the stability and try to do I don't do
the stuff I did when I powerlifted, and I don't
do the stuff I did with my bodybuild. They're completely
opposite to what golf is and most of it is
just applicable with rotation and staying centered and working from
the ground up, and that's mostly with the glutes and
the hip fletchers.
Speaker 1: There's so much conversation of golfers today spending a lot
more time in the gym and lifting.
Speaker 3: Right, and you know, some of the stuff that you
watch if you watch the Golf Channel and the Tiles
Performance Institute, that's similar to some of the stuff that
I do in actual gyms. But a lot of my
clients that I train, I train on at this one park.
We trained yesterday and unfortunately we trained a little bit
in the rain and at the client's homes and they
don't have all that equipment, so we make do with
the suspension system that I use, rubber bands, balls, PVC balls,
and basically matt work and stuff that they can actually
do on their own without actually having to go to
a gym.
Speaker 4: And I'd love to have.
Speaker 3: One of those huge TPI gyms that one of our
guys at Jason Glass out at Vancouver has. It's one
of the biggest in Canada and it's absolutely huge. Is
like two three thousand square feet and it's massive. They
got every piece of equipment in there, kettlebells and everything.
But that's not applicable to most people unless because they
have to actually go to these gyms and actually train.
So I try to make it very simplistic for my
clients that they can do stuff on the road. And
a lot of my guys are executives of oil companies
and stuff like that up here, and they're on the
road and they don't have access to gyms sometimes because
they're in their hotel, and so I get them to
do stuff that's they can actually just do right in
their hotel room. And most of the stuff I do
now is body weight training. Only your body knows what
your body needs. So most machines that I have my
clients from five feet to six foot two, they don't
fit in the machines. But when you use your own
body masks, your body mask knows what your body can
do because it's applicable to your own joints and your
levers and the kinesiology regarding your anatomy of your body.
It's all and that's coming, that's coming back. Body weight
training stuff is now finally come making its way back again,
and in my four years of gymnastics, that was probably
that was probably the best shape I ever was in
my life when I did four years of gymnastics.
Speaker 1: Can a golfer be too flexible?
Speaker 3: Um, Yes and no in certain areas, like I'd love
to be able to have Adam Scott's shoulder flexibility, but
I don't think I'll ever have that. My shoulders are
just too big from all the years of powerlifting, and
it takes me a while to detrain them.
Speaker 4: And so that's what I'm.
Speaker 3: Going to do over the winner on trying to get
a little bit more shoulder flexibility. You can definitely have
a little bit too much spinal flexibility, like you know,
the John daily swings like that, and eventually, as he
gets older, that's going to be a little bit less.
You know, Tiger's reduced as swing And it all depends on,
you know, if it's actually helping you or not. So
too much flexibility you're wound up like.
Speaker 4: A rubber band.
Speaker 3: But can you generate the same ground force when you
actually swing the club?
Speaker 4: And everyone is different.
Speaker 3: I have some clients that virtually have no flexibility, and
yet you know, there are single digit handicaps, and they've
adapted to that swing, and they're always on the fairway.
They may not drive it long, but you know, they're
always on the fairway. And I don't drive it that
long either, but I'm always on the fairway. My best
club in my bag is my driver. I can steer
that thing, choke it down. I can punt one out
under the wind. And you know, it's almost like a
wedge to me.
Speaker 1: So have you gotten a game golf yet or you
think about getting one?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's that's probably something I'm definitely gonna do in
twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Oh well, you know, if you want to take advantage
of that members only discount, you got to jump before
October first?
Speaker 4: Was that the date?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they put October first on it, so you can
get that extra members only discount, and I'd be really fascinated. Well,
first of all, I want to get you on on
our challenge. We've got a challenge going for the month
of September that for low score. But you know you're
you're you're starting low, so it's going to be hard
for you to have an all time low score to
win our.
Speaker 4: Prime LA month.
Speaker 1: But I just think it would be fascinating to get
your thoughts on what you're learning from from you know,
from the statistics and the data that it's coming through
the game golf. I'd love to hear what you.
Speaker 3: Get out of that, well most people, from what I've
kept my stats on and I started kind of doing
stuff with my GPS and stuff like that and my laser,
and I don't hit it as far as I think
I do, and libody I know is that that's sad,
and it's it's as you know, unfortunately, I think I
still have a ego thinking that I'm actually going to
hit it farther, but you literally have to peer it.
And you know, our course is wet and in the
mornings it's cold, the ball doesn't compress much. And it's
basically taken me that I literally have to be my
own caddy and say, you know what, Mike, you got
to take one more club and just choke down and
swing easy. And I'm getting actually more balls to the
to the flag and actually rolling past. And in the
past I was always afraid to go buy the flag,
and now I'm actually getting more balls to the flag
and passed, so at least I know I have a
chance to actually hitting one, and that's just an ego thing.
So I know I need to change that aspect of
my game if I if I definitely want to get
down to a scratch golfer, I don't know if it's
going to be at the end of this season, but
we have a club championship Saturday Sunday, and I've been
doing a lot of practice and trying to stay in
the moment and listening to the positive stuff in my
head and being a good caddy and taking more club
and you know, and that's the biggest thing on trying
to get it there by playing within my own strengths,
and definitely the game golf would be absolutely amazing to
figure out all that stuff that you know within five
or ten yards that you know today, I've got to
be hitting my five iron this amount, and I'm going
to trust that, right.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, I am blown away between game golf
and the statistics that I've learned and what Dave Stockton
said in our episode a couple I get months or
two back when he talked about taking two clubs to
every shot and not deciding until he's standing there. I
was starting to see that most of my shots are
my approach shots are coming up short, and so just like, okay,
so you're not going to hit you're not going to
crush this one, but if you hit it, well, you'll
be at the hole or beyond it, you know, instead
of coming up short all the time. And that's been
a huge change for me as well, getting closer to.
Speaker 4: The pin right.
Speaker 3: And I've like, I'm helping this one guy right now
that got me started in one of my best friends
in nineteen years.
Speaker 4: I'm actually helping him with his wedge game. He's had the.
Speaker 3: Worst happy hands that I've ever seen a human have
in game. And he's great off the tee mid irons,
but his short game is just horrendous and it's tough
to watch sometimes. And I always tell him, I said,
you know, Kevin, that's not his real name, but I'll
use anyway.
Speaker 4: Is that yes?
Speaker 3: To protect He already knows he has issue with his wedges.
I just said, you know what, buddy, take one more club,
choke down and swing fluid. And he's flying that ball
straighter to the target and he's got a new putter
and this putter is on fire.
Speaker 4: And I said, that's all you need now.
Speaker 3: You don't need to impress me by trying to hit
that nine iron one hundred and eighty yards, because you're not.
Speaker 4: You're going to thin it, You're gonna fat it.
Speaker 3: And then you swear and you know it's it's it's
a rough game from that point. Go take that aid iron,
choke down and let the ego go. And now he's
starting to enjoy the game a little bit more fun.
Speaker 1: But what what what are happy hands?
Speaker 4: He has the yips, so he had does the DC
chin all the time, so.
Speaker 1: He has now you're really speaking in Canadian what.
Speaker 3: He double taps the ball, so he stutters his hands
on his practice swings. He's like a Charles Barkley, perfect swings.
But as soon as he steps up to that ball,
something triggers in his head and he spends a little
bit too much time over the ball. Now he's got
massive swing thoughts, and I can tell Enough pulled him
off the ball several times.
Speaker 4: To back off, And I said, Keavy, you got to
back off. You're you're thinking.
Speaker 3: Now I can tell the wheels are rolling to practice swings.
So one of the drills that I gave him is
he steps behind the balls off to the side. He
takes a practice swing, he walks forward, practice swing, and
on a third swing he actually hits the ball, and
nine percent of the time it's on the green. But
the longer he spends over that ball, he starts changing
the club loftly angles and so he either fins it
or he opens it up and he swings too slow
and the ball comes out of the grass and he
actually double taps it the.
Speaker 4: DC chin.
Speaker 3: Wow, And that's frustrating to watch. And he does that
once or twice around, or he'll fat it or he'll fit.
Speaker 4: It out the back.
Speaker 3: But it's just something that most people just don't spend
enough time on practicing their.
Speaker 4: Short game, right, completely agree with you, yeahs.
Speaker 1: And now that I've gotten to that point, Now that
I've gotten to a point where I'm starting to see
significant improvement in my game, I see it's because of
the short game. I've talked about it for such a
long time, but since I've been working on it and
see the numbers going down, it's like, oh, now I get.
Speaker 3: It, absolutely, And so that's what I tell people when
when I play, and probably i'd say seventy eighty percent
of my rounds have been with perfect strangers.
Speaker 4: And then they figure out what I what I do?
You know, they always ask me.
Speaker 3: What he do and they go, oh, well, we get
free lessons today, and I go, well, not really.
Speaker 4: I'll be your caddy, but I'm not going to give
you a lesson.
Speaker 3: And so I guide these people around my track because
they've never played it, and some of the stuff I
give him advice. And one guy was from a sun
corepor executive here and had never played our track the
head as a son in law and daughter, and I
guided him around. He never shot under a hundred, and
once I kind of figured out his game, he pretty
much put the driver back in the bag and hit
his three wood. I've never seen a guy hit a
pure three wood off the deck than this guy.
Speaker 4: And at the end of the.
Speaker 3: Round, he shot in eighty eight and he'd never shot
under a hundred before because he was such a poor
manager of his game that he always thought he needed
to go go for every green, but his three wood
kept him in the fairway and his wedge play take
one more club.
Speaker 4: I helped Rede's putts.
Speaker 3: Where the green was on how to bring the ball in.
That's a huge thing on trying to manage your golf game.
Leave the eagle in the trunk and play to your strengths.
And if your strength is one fifty, go to one
fifty yards. If you can hit a driver that day,
leave it in the trunk. Don't be tempted by taking
that out. I'd rather see someone hit a three wood
two fifty, you know, two twenty five or whatever.
Speaker 4: But hit two straight shots. You're on in apart.
Speaker 1: Five awesome, and everyone sing along with me. Never follow
a bad shot.
Speaker 4: With a stupid shot.
Speaker 1: With a stupid shot. Yeah, it's so big because like,
oh no, I'm in the woods here. That's no problem that.
You know, the ball's covered well everything. There's a root
behind me and there's tree trunks. But I can get
there in two Yeah right, No you can't. And you
know what, you're gonna double maybe triple bogie the hole
unless you just hit it right out in the fairway.
Take that shot and bogey the hole.
Speaker 4: Easy, what's the problem any save a shot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least one.
Speaker 3: So another secret between you and I. One of the
best things that I ever did was actually enter an
amateur contest.
Speaker 4: Really what I got, what.
Speaker 3: I got out of that was I actually had to
become a caddie to myself on what would I actually
tell myself, under no pressure from the side, What would
I tell myself? What would I do in this situation? Well,
I probably wouldn't go through those trees like I normally would.
Golfing with the guys to see if I could prove
I could do it. And I won my first amateur
last year. So and I started playing managing my golf game.
I started working the whole backwards to my strength. I
started learning how to slow my swing down a little bit,
more more tempo, the breathing stuff, and playing within my
own strengths. Just like Arnold Palmer said, you know, play
your own game, and most guys do not play their
old game. Most guys right away to go to the tips.
Speaker 4: Oh, we got to play from the long teas well.
Speaker 3: At our track at one hundred and forty slope and
seventy five hundred yards, that's way too far from most people.
Speaker 4: So that's a long day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one hundred and forty slope is not an
easy track, no, that is.
Speaker 3: And it's long, and it's tight, and you go into
a forest and you're going down the valley. You know
that has minus six slope from the top down to
the bottom, and most guys take double par or worse.
Speaker 1: It's all wow, Michael, it's so great to finally get
to talk to you and for you to share what
you've learned and what you can teach us. I really
appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Oh thank you for contacting me. I'm this is what
I want to do now. So this is my passion.
And and like I said, I'm trying to get caught
up to all you other guys that have been playing
golf for so long, and and I just want to
share what I've learned and grow the game because I
know it's suffering and and I know we need to
have more juniors in there, like I train the Golf
Canada Juniors here and if the parents golf, the kids
will golf. And we need to get that going. And
we need to get more people into the game of
golf because it's something that you can do for the
rest of your life. And I've met some amazing people
from around the world in the last six years of
playing golf.
Speaker 1: So all right, so what's your cure. How do we
get more people to the game?
Speaker 3: You know, what we need to be friendlier on the
golf course to each other. We need to help people out, right,
We need to help people out.
Speaker 4: We need to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's for the people that are already or
how do we get new people out of the course.
Speaker 3: By bringing someone out? And I know, we definitely need
to have a lot more par threes. And like that
one thing you had years ago, that one golf course
where you could actually play three holes.
Speaker 4: At a time. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, a golf course that has sets of three holes,
you can play as many as you want. You can
play three, six, nine, whatever. But we need to have
easier courses. We need to have a golf superintendents having
pins that are much easier, you know, with regard to
the whole size. Well, we're putting we're basically playing golf
on the level that the pros played. And you know,
pin placements that are inside of slopes, on ski hills,
on ant hills, that are pins that are inaccessible, it
slows the game down. And in the tournament, yeah, go
ahead and place the pins, you know, in ridiculous places.
But for the average population to have a good game,
and when you leave that day and you say, man,
I had a great experience. I'm going back to that
golf course. You don't have to prove anything that. Yeah,
our track is one hundred and forty slow because we
have the pins in stupid spots. And unfortunately we've had
that the last couple of years because we've had people
cut in our grass but don't necessarily play golf, and
they put the pins in places that no one's ever
told them not to put them there, so it actually
slows things down and when everyone is four putting, it's
very frustrating.
Speaker 4: And golf you need to have it as.
Speaker 3: An enjoyable experience, and unfortunately, from what I've seen, it's
not that enjoyable anymore. And you need to have people
have a great experience. It's going to be a long day.
You know, you expected four to five hours or more.
By the time you get there is probably longer. But
give them a good experience, good memories, and they'll come back.
Speaker 4: And that's what I try to do at my track
as a golf member. Now I'm finally a member at.
Speaker 3: A track for the last three years, and I try
to give everyone that I play with a great experience.
I lead them around with their own personal caddy and
you know, cracking jokes and stuff like.
Speaker 4: That and just making it a little bit easier your
because golf is tough. It is a hard game to master.
Speaker 3: And just me think you've got it, someone taps you
on the shoulder and gives you a slap in the
face and it's like you take a eight right on.
Speaker 4: The four or four.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh no, I had a par street going
and then boom to blow up.
Speaker 1: So, Michael, if people wanted to see your stuff online
or get in touch with you to maybe get some
flexibility and strength training lessons or TPI certified work, how
do we get in touch with you and where do
we find you?
Speaker 4: Well, I've got about three or four thousand training videos.
Speaker 3: I'm a little obsessed with my videos on top cop Guru.
So I was watching cops one night and that was
the only thing that actually came to mind that I
could actually use on YouTube. So just top cop Guru
and you just put in the browser bodyweight training, suspension systems, golf.
Speaker 1: So a top cop Guru is the YouTube channel.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, that's or all my videos.
Speaker 1: Are, and I'll put one of them on our blog.
I'll share one of your videos. Which one do you
think we should see.
Speaker 3: Something that I trained with clients. I also use the
assistant called Birdie balls. That is one of the best things.
Speaker 1: I love the Birdie balls if you can find them anymore.
Speaker 3: Great friends with John down there, and he keeps sending
me because I'm the only guy I think in the
world that actually hits him in minus ten or fifteen
in the winter time. And I put them through the
test and I've literally worn out two boxes and I
hit those with real balls into a net with my
impact bag and orange whip. And so if you look
up anything on birdie ball in training golf in the
park under my top coup threw site, okay, you'll find
it and all my other informations on there with regards
to my email.
Speaker 4: Address and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And if people want something answered, I'll be more than
happy to help them out with the best I can.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you and again thank you so much for
sharing in your time and and for your support for
such a long time.
Speaker 4: Oh and I'm sorry to go play now. Mm hmm.