Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: This is Steve Ingram from Stabished, West Midlands and I
play at Envil Golf Club in south Steputire, England. This
is Golf Smarter number nine seven one.
Speaker 1: When you have the opportunity to be in control, you
basically would look at the pros and say, how do
they look like they're moving so fast? But it's effortless movement.
And I think effortless movement is really the opportunity to understand.
Let's start with a program that works on the body
from the ground up. Let's build balance first, and then
let's create what I would call the body's awareness to
fire muscles and use them properly versus them not working
at all. It's about body awareness and muscle activation. That's
a big part of what people should think about as
they're maybe thinking about after what we talked about today,
where would I start up? That's what would I do
to create a plan for myself? And I think it
starts out with asking yourself, do you ever even give
yourself about evaluation? Can you stand on one leg for
ten seconds by itself? And then can you stand on
the other leg for ten seconds? And then challenge yourself
to stand for ten seconds with your eyes closed, which
really creates more awareness like oh my gosh, I can't
even get there for two or three seconds.
Speaker 3: Get more out of your body and your game in
just ten minutes a day with fitness expert Joey D.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from
great golf minds to help you lower your score and
raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Joey D.
Speaker 1: Hello, Fred, how are you man? I great? Another great
day in Jupiter, Florida.
Speaker 3: And when do you ever say, ooh, it's a bad
rough day.
Speaker 1: You put any times over come out several weeks when
all it does is monsoon rain, I say.
Speaker 3: That a lot. Yeah, okay, that's fair, that's fair. But
it's three hundred and sixty five days of golf every year,
it is.
Speaker 1: And you know what, And here we actually did an
indoor facility to make sure that because of Florida's weather conditions,
we would have that check that box checked.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right. With these indoor simulators, now you can
play any course in the world right up against your screen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty good. They've done a great job. Technology
has finally gotten where I think it should have been
for a while to create that reality for people.
Speaker 3: And it's only getting better.
Speaker 1: It is continuously getting better, and I'm optimistic and hopeful
that we can not allow weather to restrict us in
this part of golf.
Speaker 3: Right right, But that's not what we're going to be
talking about today. We're not going on the technology of
indoor golf, all right. We're talking about the most important
tool in your golf bag. And it's not even in
your bag. You're the bag. The most important tool being
your body. Like that, I agree, and we just you know,
so often I hear instructors saying, yeah, the number one
question I get when people come out to get a
lesson is I need more distance? Right, Well, they try
to switch clubs to get more distance, they try different
balls to get more distance. They even might even try
some tweaks to their swing to get more distance. But really,
you want more distance, you got to strengthen up, right.
Speaker 1: I agree. You know. The one the one thing that
I think people will all agree on is the body
actually moves the club. The club won't move until you
put it in your hand. And I think that's the
connection that if people get that if you become more
efficient and aware of what your body's limitations and its
strengths are, then you can start to hone those skills
or develop the ability for field to become real and
then actually achieve that distance if that is in fact
the one thing people are always trying to get more of.
I think, having been in golf for twenty seven years
at the highest level and grateful for this career, is
accuracy can outshine distance day in and day out. And
I've seen that with the best players who have never
been the longest hitters but have had massive success. And
I want to send that message to every player at
every level. Although distance is attractive and people love, you know,
hitting that long ball off the tee, sometimes that's not
really you know where everybody ends up. And I've seen
it with great players with great results.
Speaker 3: We actually had an episode years ago called give me
ten feet closer over ten yards farther any day of
the week.
Speaker 1: I like that and I agree. I mean that is
something that when you think about accuracy and opportunity to score,
the better you are at that part of the game,
the more opportunity that will come your way. And I
think that's that's great because it speaks volumes about distance
is not always the key.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and then when people, you know, the other
thing they always ask is golf instructors and they come
in for a lesson. First of course is distance, and
the other one is more consistency. And then you asked
the person, well, tell me about your last five scores. Oh,
you know, I shot eighty five, eighty six, eighty four,
eighty five, eighty six. And they're like, you're very consistent
with the problem, right, just because well, I make you know,
I have mishits. Everybody has mis hits. That's that's key
to golf. I mean, I guess the ultimate goal is
fewer mishits, not eliminate them. You can't, No one can't.
Speaker 1: Fred one of the greatest things that I learned in
my time with VJ. Singing. We spent many, many many
years together, inseparable, but it was interesting to say that
he would argue that your best misses are the opportunity
to get your best results. So if you can control
your miss and you managed it, you would have better
opportunity to really understand the consistency of the game, right,
because you're going to miss in golf. That's a given right. Right.
The best players in the world miss all the time
and people go, where did that come from? Right? But
if we're talking about managing awareness and knowing what your
miss is, I think that's your opportunity to get the
body to pay attention to what causes those misses. And
it's not always swing related. It has to do with
what the brain is telling the body to do and
does the body actually know that it's doing it or
does it think it knows. So reality in golf and
the golf swing is a very different thing than the
perception of reality. Right. And I think many times some
of the greatest instructors, but being my greatest mentor ever,
would say to me, you know, I think the reason
people don't push harmonia. He was, you know, people don't
want to go under the microscope or go on video
many times because you think you're doing something. And the
reality is when you swing like you do and you
see it, you go, oh my gosh, I don't never
look like that. But in reality, when you start to
become aware of how can we lessen the things that
are going wrong in about one point five seconds, when
it's from the start to finish, then I think awareness
is key, and I think identifying those things and bringing
the body into that equation saying I know what's going wrong,
now let me get the body to do its job,
so the club and the swing can get together and
do their job.
Speaker 3: And how do you do that?
Speaker 1: I think one of the great things and I talk
about this all the time. I think it's important for
people to relate when when we all go for our
annual physicals, right and yeah, hopefully we're doing that right. Preventative.
You know, opportunities today give give us opportunity to have longer,
healthier lives. But in the golf life, the life of
your your golf swing, your golf body, of golf game,
we don't do that enough. And I think I watched
it at the tour level and have been very grateful
to be part of the whole process. So week in
and week out, we'd get there on a Monday, you'd
go to the tour trucks that the texts, the guys
that were amazing to support us. Whichever club company you use,
they would check the lofts and the lies and the
and the and the frequencies and the shafts and you know,
they they would check all of those things, right. But
but what we need to do on the body side
is give ourselves an opportunity to evaluate what's going on
with your ability to move the body in the way
that it has to stop creating obstacles. And I think
if people could dial into what I'm saying is give
yourself and whichever one you want use, there's plenty of
evaluations or self evaluations you can use. But actually do
that check in once a month to see, you know,
what does your internal and external rotation look like? Because
if you can't get a club to move in the
path that it's supposed to, that's when you start seeing
these very common things like you know, raising the club
instead of rotating and allowing the arm to move into
the position to get to the backswing in the right sequence. Right,
And you know, do you have early extension versus good
separation and X factor? What does that mean? Right? Are
your hips separating or your lower body and upper bodies
separating from one another to create those things that give
you time and opportunity to square the club face out address.
But if you don't know that, you're creating early extension,
or you're lifting your toes too soon and you're losing
connection to the ground and balance isn't where you need
it to be. Now you're fighting gravity, you're fighting obstacles
that don't even belong in your swing that are making
it more complicated. Because you and I could argue it
could one of the most complicated swings in all of sports.
In one point five seconds. There's so much going on
that if we can limit that and keep it simple,
I think we have better results.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but your function, your job is not focused on
the golf swing, is it? It is?
Speaker 1: Our job has evolved to work closer than ever before
with the swing instructors and the players that take this
game very serious or want to take it more serious.
So when we understand what the instructor and the player
are working on, now we have created a true team
that says, hey, listen, this person can't rotate. They lack
thirty degrees of rotation. How do we do that? That's
a perfect example. Like if you think you're turning the
back to your back to the target, but you're only
moving your torso your upper body twenty degrees when it
needs to move forty five. Going to force it to
get there, because once it stops, the next thing you
do is you lift instead of turn, but we think
we're turning, Oh, we only turn twenty degrees then we lift.
So those are things that I think through the evaluation
process or assessments that give you an opportunity to check yourself,
to say, am I actually where I need to be?
With these metrics? Not dissimilar than what TrackMan did as
a tool for us in golf, The assessment process is
an opportunity to really say to yourself. Here's a perfect example.
Now we actually have these tools where they're making these
insoles in your golf shoes. It comes up on your
cell phone to say, am I at fifty to fifty
at address over the ball? Am I at you know,
sixty forty in my toes and heels? Where am I
distributing weight? And how does that affect my golfs? So
we're getting more body feedback and awareness with tools that
have become available. But think if we even go back
a few steps and say you can check your balance
points out any of that technology, because there are simple
tests and assessments you can do. You can check your
internal and external rotation without any technical devices, but you
actually have to be willing to go through that process
to ask yourself, where is my body as it relates
to my swing?
Speaker 3: So what we're going to be talking about with you
specifically are things like that we kind of reiterate so
often on this show, or the flexibility, mobility, strength, stamina.
That's your focus. That's primarily what you are called in
for is to help golfers with those functions in their body.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair to say. I mean, we we
create these opportunities for people to do their evaluations, so
we can create individualism. Not every human body works the same.
So if somebody is lacking mobility, right, that we can
work on that specifically with all of the joints. Right.
If somebody is lacking flexibility, they have tight hamstrings, they
have tight lats, they have like flexibility is different than mobility, right.
And then if somebody says, I swing it really slow, well,
that's an issue that requires you to be aware of
how you recruit velocity and speed, so we can work
on that, you know. And then the biggest thing that
people should always be aware of in golf is where
is your balance to the entire swank? Because when you
swing out of balance, you're out of control. And we really,
really do a better job more than ever now giving
people an opportunity to create the ability to swing in balance.
And I think all of those things factor into a
better controlled golf swing. And when you're in control, you
can swing it faster, you can create more speed. You know,
you maintain all of the great things that give the
body an opportunity to move that club efficiently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think of all the issues that I have,
which there are many, I think that balance, especially with
my driver, balance is a big issue for me. There's
been times where I would, you know, just come out
of my shoes and just fall all over the place
after my swing. And I'm doing everything I can to
try to stay in balance, but boy, I would really
like to be able to figure out how to stay centered.
Friend that I play with told me, and he was
volunteering at a recent PGA event. He said, when these
guys on the tour swing the club, their body does
not move in the sense of swaying. Falling is like
their rock steady and it's just all you know, their
whole body is into every swing, but they stay on
balance the whole time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're in control. And really the golf swing starts
from the ground out right. If you lose connection to
the ground, you lose the opportunity to really control your
golf swing. And what you said, many many people will
experience they want to swing it faster, or what they
don't understand is swinging it faster doesn't actually mean you're
going to get a better result. Many times people top
the ball, they missed the ball. They know they can't
really swing efficiently because they're not in balance right, and
that affects the golf swing maybe more so than anything
at a recreational level, right, people that are learning or
aspiring to play the game better. If you are more
aware of the things you can do to swing efficiently,
I think that is one of the things that would
get you more motivated to do the work on what
I would call the body side of golf, right. And
I think people need to have good information to create
opportunity to make decisions on what's best for them as individuals,
because not everything works for every single person. But I
think there is something in the work that has been
created on an hour side of golf, and I would
call it the biomechanics, the sports science side, the physical side,
that helps people more so than today to have a
better golf swing.
Speaker 3: Can you help me to understand the difference between swinging
faster and swinging harder?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I sure can so Its a huge difference, right,
there's a huge difference swinging faster, is it? We use
the term velocity. Something has to move in a direction
with the force going to the same direction. Sometimes swinging
harder doesn't mean you're actually using those forces correctly. You're
interrupting through different movements that don't match the directional force.
So when you create force, you're working with the forces
of gravity right internally by the skeleton and externally by
the muscles. And how does that affect your body? You know,
in a rotational movement. But if you're not moving like
you said, and you were describing the way the pros move,
then you start you start moving with forces in different directions.
So that implies that you have to work on understanding
how to move directionally the right way with the right
force imbalance, which creates a really good result. You don't
swing out of your shoes or you don't you know,
get get your body to stall, and then your your
you know, you know, because you're compensating in that moment
and you start doing other things like hands working too
too much or arms swinging too fast while the other
parts of the body are slowing down. So that's a
really good point you make, and I think people would
work on understanding the difference between the two. You have
to move in a direction that the ball and the
body needs to go simultaneously, and then you get a
better result.
Speaker 3: What do you feel is the greatest contributor to a
faster swing? Is it? I think muscle is Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's the ability for the brain right to
send the signals to the body that you have to
use these these muscles, these body parts to get you
to understand how to be and control. And I think
that speaks volumes about understanding where you are in time
and space, right, And I think people don't always know that,
and they think when you have the opportunity to be
in control, you basically would look at the pros and say,
how do they look like they're moving so fast? But
it's effortless movement, right, And I think effortless movement is
really the opportunity to understand. Let's start with a program
that works on the body from the ground up, Like
let's build balance first, and then let's create what I
would call the body's awareness to fire muscles and use
them properly versus them not working at all. It's about
body awareness and muscle activation, and that's a big part
of what people should we should think about as they're
maybe thinking about after what we talked about today. Where
would I start on this? What would I do to create,
you know, a plan for myself? And I think it
starts out with asking yourself, you know, so do you
ever even give yourself a balance evaluation? Right? Can you
stand on one leg for ten seconds by itself? And
then can you stand on the other leg for ten seconds?
And then challenge yourself to stand for ten seconds with
your eyes closed, which really creates more awareness like, oh
my gosh, I can't even get there for two or
three seconds. So, balance awareness and distribution of balance, because
that's a huge part. Golf is starts off at a
center to fifty to fifty, and then it starts to
transition as you move the club from takeaway towards its
kind of journey to the backswing. And where does that
weight distribution require your feet to be and your body
to be while you're in that movement pattern? Are you
eighty percent in your toes and how do you know that?
Because if you're swinging in your toes and you should
be at the top of your back swing, it's sixty
to seventy percent in your heel. Those are things people
should be aware of and there are ways to easily
do that work to get there. So that's awareness number one.
Number two are you're using the muscles in your calf
and you in your quads in your glutes, and people
kind of joke about those things, but these are big,
strong muscles that the body has the ability to turn
on or use as a tool to get your body
to feel really strong and connected. But if you don't
know you're using them, it's because you probably don't. So
there's simple ways to do that, right. There are simple
exercises to create activation of musculature in the body that
supports the stability to create more balance and power and
speed and control. But you have to do that for
it to work. It's no different than people getting on
a driving range and hitting balls. You have to do
the reps with your body. And I tell people you
don't have to be in a gym to do it.
You can do it in your own like there are
ways to do things to create all this activation without
tons of tools, because I don't think everybody fits into
that mold like I'm going to go to the gym
and get stronger for golf, like we've been fighting that
for years. You don't have to, but you do have
to have awareness of what to do and do it correctly.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't mean just doing a couple of stretches
when you get to the golf course before before you
even walk up to the range. And then I can't
believe how often I see this when I go up
to the driving range. And mostly I'm at the driving range.
I mean I do go out to practice too, but
mostly i'm an hour before my round begins. It's when
I get to the driving range to hit balls and
to focus on what I'm doing. But I see people,
you know, taking their golf club and stretching over their
head and their back and then they go twist, twist, twist, Okay,
I'm ready to go. I'm like, really, I think that's
going to be the most efficient way to get your
body ready for your round of golf.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I think that's what has evolved, that's
the acceptance that we have allowed to kind of sneak
into the golf game and think we're creating a good
result before we hit a ball. But what people don't
understand is the golf swing can be very taxing on
the body. And we should talk about this more because
people that are generally deconditioned right and have not paid
a lot of attention to their body aging or their
body not being able to support the movement and the
swing usually will end up with these small injuries that
can become larger injuries. And I think you shedding light
on the fact that you personally spend an hour is
a really big message because if you looked at what
a tour player does, it starts hours before they get
to the first tea. And that's the beauty of having
been able for me to create programs and write books
to give people opportunities to check themselves on the reality
of what you get out is what you put in.
And if you go and you do the thirty second
golf form up before you start hitting balls in the range,
that's pretty much the result you're gonna get, which is
not the one you want. And I think even if
you gave yourself a full ten minutes, like legitimately doing
what you had to do before you got on a
driving range. You would be amazed on the difference that
you would feel in your driving raine session if you
even give yourself that much time, or before you ran
to the first tea, because you give yourself no time.
But it's a big difference. If you did a ten
minute activation the proper way. You activated your balance, your brain, hemispheres,
You activated the ability to truly understand how am I rotating.
You activated the shoulders to make sure there's internal next
do rotation. You activated the torso and you know what
has to happen when you need velocity and your hips
need to rotate in sequence with your with your upper body.
Ten minutes is not a lot to ask, but the
result could be amazing.
Speaker 3: So I started playing golf when I was in my
early forties. I was introduced to it by my son
who was at camp, and became obsessed from that point on.
And I played sports as a kid growing up, and
you know, did some things along the way and always
tried to be in decent shape. But I wasn't working out.
I wasn't you know, doing anything all swim it's my workout, right,
go for long walks. That's my workout. But since I
started playing golf, I've been more obsessed with my conditioning
than any other time in my life. And to this
and even now, I try my hardest. I'm I'm you know,
five at least five days a week, I'm doing some
you know a little bit of weight resistance, flexibility, mobility
yo oga. I do that regularly for forty five minutes
to an hour each morning, and I'm grateful that I'm
doing it, but you know, there I would. I've been
working with this one app that I've found years ago
through the podcast called Dynamic Golfers, which is like a
fifteen to eighteen minute random stretching you know things they've
set it up for as Dynamic Golfers, but it's mainly
the workouts are dynamic athletes type of thing, and I
get questions a lot. It's like, where can I find
information that's going to help me get to a better
place for my body so that I am more flexible,
that I do have more ability, that I can be
balanced and stable. And that's why I was excited when
you kind of came across my desktop here because of
what you've been doing. Who you've been working with and
what you've been developing.
Speaker 1: I like that you're doing the dynamic program because the
difference for people is sometimes they're like, what does that
actually mean? So when you think about the words dynamic
and static, the first thing I want to tell people
all the time is we found that static stretches are
less effective than dynamic movement. And to simplify all that,
if you say, my hamstrings are tight, which affect your
low back, essentially right, and that's a big part of
what happens to golfers. They have tight hamstrings which affect
their low back. And it's a common that's a common
theme for people, especially head down and you touch your
or you try to touch your toes and your fingertips
get to your knees or just your shins right, and
you hold it for a few seconds, it's static. But
if you actually stood like you had two ski poles
in your hand, and you swung your leg like a pendulum,
or you swung it forward and backward, the hamstring elongates
and length and sort of like a ballerina. When you
see ballerina is the reason they're so efficient and they're
so flexible, and they have so much mobility as they
work through dynamic movement, So that means continuous movement or
something moving in either one direction or multiple directions to
create length or ability to free up something that concentrically
should be tight. That should be something that gets concentrically
tight versus eccentrically longer. So give yourself an opportunity to
not just stretch statically right. Dynamic Like you said, movement
is a huge part of success for people that want
better mobility, better movement essentially. So what I like is
there's so much information out there in the world today,
which I think we're grateful for, but which one is
best for you? I think what you have to ask
yourself is first and foremost, what are you looking for
and how do you apply that and does it work
for you? You found Dynamic, you know the dynamic app
and what you've been working on, But you know, I
think that people generally get confused in the search for
what works. I think what you should first ask yourself
is write a list of things that you're looking to accomplish,
and in that, when you get on a search, what
are you feeling that that search engine and that result
does for you? When you can actually apply that to yourself.
And I think one thing I love about where we're
going with our app is the one we're building. We're
rebuilding it actually be ready in December, is it will
give people the opportunity in real time to work alongside
of us with actual golf specific modalities. And what do
I mean by that is starting from everything we've talked
about to this point, like how do I get my
body to be aware of what do I need balance
wise to be able to swing as long as hard
as I can in balance efficiently? And then how do
I get all the muscles to activate without killing myself
in a thirty or forty minute hour workout in the gym?
I want to create good activation? How do I get
better joint mobility? So we've done things very specifically that
we created that were born on tour, and we actually
created a simple system that works for people in every
single you know, facet of the golf body.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned does it work for me? You know
you want to ask that question, does it work for me?
But I also I think that especially with this audience,
we're all kind of obsessed here, does it work for golf?
Will it? Will it help me in my golf game,
you know. And what's interesting is this dynamic program that
I've been doing, this single stretch movement that you just
suggested about, you know, holding the sticks and then rotating
moving your leg back and forth. Yeah, I've never done
that on this program and I've been doing it for
a couple of years. They've never had me do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think people, and I think hamstrings are an issue
for me because I walk the course, always walk the
course as often as I can, and as I'm aging,
I'm starting to feel like, okay, my left leg behind
the knee here, I'm starting to feel a little bit.
The little ibuprofen is going to help out for the
rest of the round. But I think that it's a
hamstring and I've always had a hamstring issue. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think many people, if you gave them a survey
to say, what are the things that bother me the most?
And I struggle with that prevent me from being very efficient?
And then how do I feel before I play? How
am I feeling at nine holes? How am I feeling?
Can I get through eighteen holes? Is my body starting
to do things that really are hindering me to enjoy
the game? I think another big thing that I touch
on all the time is, you know, have the awareness
of giving your body the proper hydration is a huge,
huge key and a factor because golf is traditionally you know,
played over maybe these days five to six hours. I
think it's been the big problem with people wanting to
play golf, you know, and consistently getting enough rounds in
because it takes longer and longer. I think people have
been starting to become more aware of how do we
put people on the clock, and instead of that becoming
something that annoys people, we should always be more aware
of in that process of those amount of hours, what
are we doing during the course of that round to
maintain you know, our body's ability to move efficiently. So
the information that you're going to acquire, make sure that
whatever app you use, like you said, it applies and
works for you, because not everything does. And I'll give
you an example. I've had many many people come in
here and say, try yoga, but I just can't get
through it. And I think yoga is amazing, but yoga's
a process, like you can't get through twenty six poses
in one vignace if you can't move the way they
need you to move. Your body has limitations. But as
we slowly see ourselves working to increase and improve the
ability to get our bodies to move efficiently, well, then
I think we're doing the right thing. So I would
say to people, make a list of what you need,
and does that information that you're searching for apply to
you and does it work right? If it doesn't, then
you don't want to force something. Find something that does work,
and give you an opportunity for those exercises or those stretches,
or those mobility movements to work into your golf swing.
You know it's working because you start to see and
feel the results right. The body will give is a
great barometer of what is or isn't working. You don't
want to push yourself because simple stretches can create injuries
and people we've seen before in my world, if you overstretch,
r you do things that you think are helpful, you
end up getting injured. And I think, like you're saying,
your hamstring has always been somewhat of a little bit
of a you know, a hindrance for you. How do
you address it? And it could be as simple as
changing what you're doing to what I was suggesting versus
you reaching down trying to touch your toastatically. So those
are simple little things that I think make huge impactful differences.
Speaker 3: When you say, make a list of what you want
to do, how do we know that that's what we
want to do? I mean, you know you make a
list of things, but are you really aware without coaching,
without getting the help or the assessment from a professional,
do we really know what we want to do?
Speaker 1: I think the answer is no, you don't. But I
think I think in the question lies the answer. So
if you are serious enough about wanting to make improvements
in your golf game, you have to go all the
way back to where you and I started, was you know,
the greatest you know club in the bag, which isn't
even a club or the tool is the body? And
I think if you can ask yourself honestly, how is
my body prepared or is it not prepared to play
the game I want? And if you can really be
honest with yourself, that's the greatest starting point. Ask yourself
the first question, is my body capable of doing what
I want to do? Can I swing as fast as
I want in control? Or do I swing like you
said out of my shoes, Do I lose my balance
and I find myself not being able to finish my
swing without stepping forward or backward, or you know, feeling
like I'm on a surface like an earthquake, like things
are moving underneath me. That shouldn't you know? Am I
in control of finishing my swing properly? Right? And I
think that's the first question. Do I get fatigue? Do
I feel tightness in my back straight away or my hamstrings?
Ask yourself what are the things that you are aware
of and then write that down. Then from there, what
do you want to work on? Well? I want to
I feel like I don't have any flexibility. Well, then
let's address flexibility. And then I feel like mobility is
a problem because I can't get my arms or my
body in the position that it needs to be. So
I know that I'm doing things that I shouldn't. And
understand the difference between mobility and flexibility, because it's a
pretty big difference, but they both matter. Are you strong
enough to maintain you know, a round of eighteen holes?
Do you need to increase your endurance and do you
have to get stronger? Do you even know if your
muscles are working properly or not? Those are great questions.
And when you can start to do the assessments, which
some are as easy as six and some are greater.
Some take thirty minutes, and everybody has the opportunity to say,
I don't want to do something that takes thirty minutes,
but I wouldn't mind taking ten minutes or so to
figure out do I move properly?
Speaker 3: How do I know?
Speaker 1: You know what that means? Right? And I think you
can check the list for yourself as a player at
any level to know, yes, I can start to swing
in balance now I know how to do that. These
three simple exercise are going to help me get better melts.
I know that my quads and my glutes and my
lower body for my waist down those muscles aren't supporting
my swing because I can't even field them. So can
I create muscle activation and awareness?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: And then I think, can you understand how to get
your back to terms of the target completely? Can you
rotate your tour so properly? Can you get your arms
to move with the proper measurements within a certain amount
of You know everybody moves a little different, some more flexible,
others or not. Some have more joint mobility, others don't,
but within a certain number that you know you need
to be at. Those are all important, you know, pieces
of information, just different than what a track man would do,
which quantifies all the results. And I think if people
just do a little bit of research, you can find
something that works efficiently for you. And that's what I
would strongly suggest. That's what we do here at joeyd
Golf and hit it great. We put everybody through an
assessment and evaluation as an individual and find out what works.
We start slow. Less is more. You don't need you know,
twenty things to start to get better, but you can
use two or three to become more efficient in each
part of what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Are you saying that we could just start with ten
minutes a day? If you do ten minutes a day,
you know, and try to be consistent with it, I
can see it's like, oh, you know what, I need
a little bit more time. I need more time, but
ten minutes a day can be a great start.
Speaker 1: I just did a piece recently that said, if you
give me ten minutes and you commit to three times
a week, I guessuarantee you you will feel things that
you never felt before. And I think people's hesitation is
nothing can happen in ten minutes. But if you truly
gave me ten minutes, I would give you an opportunity
to feel things and have results you didn't even know
are possible. And I say that, and I stand by
that after twenty seven years of doing at the highest level.
We don't say things we don't mean, and we don't
do things that don't work. And I think for people,
gaining people's trust is an opportunity to say, I gave
you my time and my trust. I'm going to hope
that where I'm putting all of those things will give
me a result that works. And I know that for
a fact, We've had thousands and thousands of people that
have come through this academy, in this system that I've
either lost hope or feel like there's no hope for them,
leaving here with the greatest sense of change and awareness.
And you can't change overnight, but you can change one
movement at a time. And I think you're right. Ten
minutes you can do things you didn't know that would
create a massive difference in your golf body. Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow, Well listen in reading your website. I've found it
fascinating and that's hit it great dot com.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, hit a great.
Speaker 3: People should definitely check it out. Hit it great dot com.
But in reviewing it, you talk about the people, the
thousands of people that have been through. You have a
list of names on there that in the golf world alone,
but maybe even beyond that. It's the one, the one
name identity on these people that it's like, whoa, these
are big names when you just like DJ, we know
who were you talking about? Keegan Brooks, PJ, Ricky. Those
are all people who have been through your program. And
all I have to say Ricky, I mean we're not
talking Ricardo here. We all know Ricky is right, it's amazing,
or Henderson, but we you know, everyone can oh those
names and those are the people that you've been working
with for years, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know one of the things that I think I
don't like to talk about a lot, but giving given
the opportunity, and I mean this because what happens to
people and I've found this to be true and I
think you would agree with me, Fred. Everybody wants to
feel like in the moment that they're working with you,
they are as important, and I do agree with that,
but those names, those players knew the importance of what
they had to do for their careers. And when I
think about that, you know, people all have the opportunity
to ask themselves, what do you want to get out
of it? And those players put the work in and
had decorated phenomenal careers. And I was a part of that,
you know, at a level that was very hands on,
and I still have the most amount of gratitude today
for the trust they put in me and the team
work that did help them, because ultimately you have to
have hands off and they go out and they're the
only ones, and you have to honor that, like you
can only give so much to them and the rest
they have to take out and apply to themselves in
the game. And I think when I walk through this
facility many many years later, I still look up at
the banners that hang on the walls, and I am
still impressed with the work that these players were willing
to do to get those banners to hang. And that
was basically the book Hang the Banner. That was our
newest book that I love because it's kind of gives
you the most modern approach to the science of the swing,
how to do it. There's some anatomy in there, but
there's a lot of anecdotal in there as well. There's
a lot of stories from the pros themselves speaking factually,
which I think brings people right into the world that
I've been in. And we love the book because it
it really does do what we wanted it to do,
is give people a peek into the journey of the
greatest players, but what they could do just the same.
So hang the banners want to I you know, I'm
most proud of that body of work and all the
people that participated to make it happen. And I think
what you're saying, do it does really still resonate with
me today that I walk through there and go, man,
there's a lot of banners on that wall. It's a
lot of history and I'm grateful for every second home.
Speaker 3: So that's awesome. That's awesome, And it's not the only book.
Speaker 1: Now, Fix Your Body, Fix Your Swing was our flagship.
It started, you know, the whole process of asking yourself,
do you want to hold on to that information? You know,
at this kind of private world, it only deals with
the best players in the world. Do you want to
offer it up to people who want to consume it.
You know, read, people read, you know, maybe just as
much as they did ever before. But I think what
matters is the information you're giving was actually, you know,
taken from tour level professionals to the system at the
highest level. But it was given and written for people
to understand, consume, and apply at any level. And that's
the beauty of I think the books that we've done
is it gives people a system that if you do this,
then you do that to get this result and to
validate that. I think I always found out through my
greatest mentors and people that I wanted to learn from.
Go to the people that have done something really amazing
and ask yourself, do those things apply to me as
an individual or don't they Take what you want from
something you believe in, that you've invested time in, and
what doesn't work. Leave that out and apply to you
as an individual, what works and how can you create
a result? I think we did that well, not only
in the books that I've done, but the e books
which hunts come out every month with your new topic,
and people should go to our website and dive it
to these free books because it's twenty seven years of
information in these e books that are free, that are
easy reads. They're not, you know, novels, but they are
very on point to certain topics that people are always asking.
And that's another thing that I would love, you know,
your listeners to say, here's some free information that is
taken from the tour and born there and then created
a system that is easy to understand and a plot.
And I love that about the e books that we've
done and continue to do. So please give yourself an
opportunity to take a little bit of time as you're
doing all your research and before you make your choices.
The isle Enterer system, it's pretty good and I think
it offers a lot of simplicity with a lot of results.
Speaker 3: So you've got a couple of books, You've got the
two books or is there more than two books because
we only mentioned too. Yeah, there's Mann Fixture Swinging.
Speaker 1: The third is coming out, but I think we're only
going to do it in ebook form because what I'm
realizing is you reach more people through the ability of technology,
and uh, the book business is shrunk. So it's called
from the teens to the tour and it's coming out soon,
and it's basically a blueprint on the opportunity for teens
and parents which are very heavily involved in in the
in the in the junior part of golf because they're
they're still making decisions for their children that are minors.
It is a very on point factual amount of information
that parents and young players can start to apply because
what we need to bring is awareness. We don't want
these kids to get hurt. We don't want to stunt
their growth, we don't want to confuse them because in
the developmental process, you can only process so many thoughts
before they become counterproductive. So the Teams of the Tour
is a roadmap, so to speak, on how to get
the right information and how do you apply it and
ultimately how does it affect you the body and the
game in a time of life where kids are growing
and developing.
Speaker 3: And hopefully you don't want to get them to burn out.
Speaker 1: No, you don't want the biggest thing burnout.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, because when you see you see young
kids and then the parents are on top of them
the whole time, that's that's a formula for disaster.
Speaker 1: To that part of it is addressed. So yeah, yeah,
that one's coming out, and we constantly do ebooks every
few weeks to to you know, month once and a half.
They're always out there, they're always available and hit a
great dot com Joety Golf and I and I'm always
proud of the opportunity that the career I've had working
with the greatest players has given me the opportunity to
create a system, you know, with my peers and the
people that have been behind me H to help this
process and bring it to the world. So the app
is is something we're really excited about that will launch
itself sometime in December. And what I realize is not
everybody can get to Jupiter, Florida, and not everybody's going
to be able to buy a book. But I think
the app world has given us an opportunity to reach
people in places that we could never reach and give
them something that is not only affordable, but there's information
that they actually apply and use to get themselves feeling
better as a human being. And I say, it's not
always about golf thread, It's about you move better, you
feel better, you live better, and then ultimately you're going
to play better. But we got to remember before we
become sports specific. You need to be species specific, and
as a human, what I can tell people is sometimes
to be better at golf, you got to ride a bicycle,
You got to swim in a pool. You can use
other sports that create a swing, like tennis or pickleball
that's picked up all over the world, or do things
that give you opportunity to get the body to challenge
itself in different arenas, because you'll ultimately be a better golfer.
Any app it's going to be such a great tool
because when it's finished, it will cover and check every box.
It will give you the ability to do assessments, It'll
give you the opportunity to dive into so many different
aspects of what people are looking for. It's covered everything,
and it's an amazing body of work that we're proud of,
and I look forward to people really giving themselves an
opportunity to explore it. You don't have to buy it,
you don't have to download it, but through the opportunity
for exploration, you explore things and you make decisions and choices.
And we respect people generally and want to know that
we can build their trust first and foremost and give
them a result that they want, and the app is
going to is going to be something we're ultimately the
most proud of.
Speaker 3: So we're talking about December of twenty twenty four is
when the app is scheduled to be released.
Speaker 1: We're we're we're on right now to deliver it somewhere
mid to late December.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about the app and what we as
consumers and students will learn and gather from using the
app on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing you're going to learn in
the app is first and foremost people are like, we
talked about this, what do I do? Where do I start?
So through the process of the evaluation that you'll get
in the app, it'll give you real time ability to
work through your goals. So you're going to start at
this point. If you've done these things in the assessment process,
you start here, and it directs you very clearly and
on point of where you should be in multiple levels.
Speaker 4: It doesn't restrict we're not including like the best players
and not including people that have never done it before.
Speaker 1: We've addressed everybody at every level, and there's something in
it for everyone, and it gives you specific programs. So
if you're already at a high level, you know, you
can dial into what's available at like the pro level,
and if you're as a beginner, it gives you opportunity
to understand how do I start, how do I start
to feel when I need my body to be specific
to golf. And in there, you know, there's calendars and
it and it checks your workouts and it'll track them,
and it gives you, you know, amazing amounts of tutorial
and coaches corner where you sit right inside like YOUREI
and I are doing and you're you're literally talking to
the best coaches in the world that are swing on
the swing side with us on the body side, coming
together to create that opportunity for people to really start
building the trust and why this app works. And we're
grateful for that because I have access and my some
of my greatest friends and associates through the world of
professional golf have dove into this app and we have
the greatest, uh, you know, a semblance of coaches that
have come together to go we need to burge the
world to swing and the physical part of golf to
give people the ability to have the best result. This
app checks every box and even in it you get
to hang your own banner, so you know, if you've
done a great job, you get a digital banner. And
there's so many really fun things in there to do.
I love the ability for an app to create a
metric and this is where I started, this is where
I should be, and this is where I want to
end up. And it does all of those things and
it does it in a concise way that isn't confusing,
and it gives you the ability to scale from where
you start to where you want to go.
Speaker 3: So if I wanted to do fifteen twenty minute workout
but I want someone to guide me through it is,
there are there video workouts that I can do on
a daily basis.
Speaker 1: It's all in there. It's all done in that world
where you're working side by side with your coach and
you're actually on real time, and that's really the you know,
I think when I watch things, you know, you look
at a book and there's a page and you go, yeah,
I see him doing that, but I don't know that
I know how to do that. Well. You're actually the
part that we did really well was we brought you
into a world where we really are working with you
one on one and that's the beauty of it because
you're watching these things and we're going through the movements.
And I always say that, you know, people are visual
learners more so than literal learners. Right, like the written word,
Sometimes it's harder to understand apply than the visual world
because there's a great difference when you can see it
and you're doing it alongside with with the creators and
the people that have done it at a very high
level that are efficient, and I think efficiency is key.
Application is key, Right, Can I do it efficiently? Does
it work for me? And then can I apply it
when I'm actually working on my golf swing?
Speaker 3: Well, it's hit it Great dot com? Is that also
the name of the app? Hit It Great? Yes, it's great,
and we'll be looking forward to its available for iOS
or Android.
Speaker 1: Yes, both, it'll be available on both platforms.
Speaker 3: Great. And are there fees associated with it?
Speaker 1: Uh? The fees are currently nineteen ninety nine a month,
so you know, you break that down and it's five
dollars a week something that you're willing to spend. We
you know, we know that in the app world there
can be things that are as easy as what some
of the kids download. These games for a dollar ninety nine,
or there are things that are much more expensive. I
don't know, but we try to find a price point
that right now that we're working on that averages twenty
nineteen ninety nine. It's underd twenty dollars and it's about
five bucks a week. So we thought we wanted to
appeal to everybody in the world and not exclude anyone.
Like golf can be expensive to just play it, you know,
when you think about what's the average cost to go
play around at golf. We kind of thought about that,
and then we thought about what's the average cost of
a lesson or you know, what's the average cost of information?
And we felt like it was something that we had
to do to maintain the integrity of the app, right
because there are costs, but you want to be fair
to people, you know, when you're asking them to spend
their money, and we tried to be mindful of that
as well.
Speaker 3: So if I download the app, is do I need
to pay to download the app? Is there any free
element to it that I can just kind of explore
it and get a sense of it, or is it.
Speaker 1: You get the opportunity to explore it when you go,
they don't restrict the exploration, but actually use it, you
have to download it. Yeah, So the one thing is,
I know there's a lot of free stuff out there,
or we felt what was important was to give people
enough information to go through it, see what they were
going to get, give them enough information to make a decision,
and then if you want to buy it, we would
love to have you. And you know that does require
you to make a purchase, so we don't want to
be dishonest with people. So yes, that question is, you know,
you have to buy it, but the good thing is
before you do it, you have plenty of opportunity to
explore it without having to download anything.
Speaker 3: Well, I wish you a lot of luck with this.
Clearly you've had a lot of luck in the business
you've been doing already, and it sounds amazing and you've
been really helpful today. I so appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Fret, thank you for having me. I appreciate everybody
in your audience giving me the opportunity to come spend
some time with you and your listeners. So thank you everybody.
I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Speaker 3: I sure did. This Friday on Golf Smarter Mulligan's will
get our second conversation with Bob Foreman. It's totally random
and a pure coincidence that we're getting multiple episodes from
fitness experts right now. But listen. If you want consistency
and greater length off the tee and all your other clubs,
then you really have to start with your body. If
you remember, I had to take a break from playing
for about six months at the end of last year
in the beginning of this one because of issues with
my neck and arm, and I wish I would have
heard this episode then to keep my frustration in check. Well,
this Friday's episode is called Dealing with and Overcoming Golf
Injuries with Bob Foreman.
Speaker 5: Many of us are walking away with an imbalance in
our forearms. You know, we tend to be stronger on
the underside of our forearms because we're gripping things all day.
So the muscles on the underside tend to be stronger
than the muscles on the top part of our forearm,
the extensors, which are responsible for kind of spreading out
our fingers.
Speaker 3: Well, when you say top part of the forearm, you
mean the side of the back of your hand.
Speaker 5: The back of yes, okay. And so because we have
that in balance with the flexors being stronger than the extensors,
that can lead to issues in the wrist, elbow, and
even shoulder carpal tunnel. A lot of people have carpa
tunnel because of that imbalance. And again it's something that
a lot of people just don't realize that they have.
It just develops again. We're gripping doorknobs, we're gripping chairs,
we're gripping, gripping, gripping, and we really don't do anything
to balance out that strength by providing a resistance to
the extensors. I mean, how many times do you have
a resistance when you are going from a closed fist
to an open finger position. Hardly ever, so you don't
really get a chance to work those extensor muscles as much.
Speaker 3: Originally from December twenty twelve, episode three hundred and sixty
has even more insights that I know you're going to
find interesting. I want to thank this week's Golf Smarter Ambassador,
Steve Ingram from Staffordshire, West Midlands, England, who is excited
to get Tony Manzoni's video of the loss Fundamental. How
would you like to receive all three of our gifts,
including a glove and glove storage compartment from Red Rooster Golf,
a box of flight Path golf tees, and Tony Manzoni's
video of the loss Fundamental. Just write an honest review
and send me what you wrote and where you posted it.
Once we confirm that your review is public, I'll email
you information on how to receive your gifts, or if
you'd like, you can introduce an upcoming episode and tell
all your playing partners that you were on your favorite
golf podcast. Now, when I started this show back in
two thousand and five, iTunes was just starting to play podcasts,
and they were the leader for a long time. Remember
the iPod before the iPhone. A lot of people believe
the word podcast came from getting them on an iPod.
But today, in twenty twenty four, there are many more
resources to get your favorite podcast. Spotify is putting pressure
on Apple as the main source of podcast discovery, So
please do me this favor and I'll send you some
free gifts. If you're a regular user of Spotify, follow us,
write a review and explain to others looking for golf
content why you're a fan of Golf Smarter, the longest
running game improvement golf podcast, and as always, thank you
so much for your continued support. If you have any questions, comments,
want to open a future episode with where you're from,
where you play in the episode, number, you've submitted a
review on your favorite podcast platform, or maybe you have
a suggestion for an upcoming episode. I respond to all
emails as quickly as I can. Please write to Golf
smarterpodcast at gmail dot com or click on the Heyfred
button when you visit golfsmarter dot com.