EP 39: Swing Science: How Unique Body Shapes Can Impact Your Golf Performance with Dr. Mike Kay

Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
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(00:24):
com or click the link in theshow notes.
And welcome back to the golfintervention podcast.
We're excited.
You're tuning in with ustonight.
We have a very special guest,Dr.
Mike Kaye, I know Robbie andI've been talking about this for
a while.
And so why don't you tell thelistener a little bit about
yourself, who you are, what youdo.
we're going to turn this episodeinto a Q and A.
We've been collecting questionsfrom our listeners, and I think

(00:47):
it's going to be an awesome andinsightful, episode tonight.
And we're excited to learn fromyou.
So why don't you tell us alittle bit about yourself Yeah.
Uh, happy to be on.
Thanks for having me on guys.
It's, uh, always.
Great to talk to Robbie and Ericfirst time meeting, but I'm
looking forward to chatting.
So, um, yeah, I'm so I'm a PTby, uh, by trade.
That's what I guess the initialsafter my, after my name, but,

(01:09):
um, I work in work out ofScottsdale, Arizona, but travel
back and forth with my partnersout in California with Helix
Golf with Tony Greco and ChrisWalkie, um, for food like Helix
Golf.
But I guess that's kind of likewhat I do is, um, I'm
biomechanics, PT, sportsperformance.

(01:29):
Uh, I guess I can fill a lot ofroles depending on what is
needed.
Um, or what's like, who's infront of me.
Like today I was in the clinicall day.
And it was, uh, a couple ofpitchers.
I mean, I've been kind of crazybusy with, um, off season
baseball stuff and they'rewinding up winding close to
getting to reporting.
So that's, that's kind of beenmy main focus.
But like my day to day was, uh,Chronic jaw pain, regular

(01:54):
person, chronic headaches,regular person.
And then, you know, guy that'sgot a, that's got a pitching
trial for the Yankees and then acouple other baseball, baseball,
baseball.
Yeah.
So I guess the day in the life,I get the, I get the, uh, and I,
I say this like affectionatelyweirdo headache stuff and I get,
uh, baseball, golf, rotationalsports, and, um, so you can kind

(02:18):
of, you know, I could one day Ican be on a drive range.
Or a pitching mat next to apitching mound or the next day
in a clinic all day.
So I just kind of can fill thoseroles.
So it's kind of in a nutshellwho I am.
Super cool.
Yeah.
Well, so, um, I think for, forthis again, my background, I, I
think we met, was it now threeyears ago?

(02:39):
Cause it was at least threebecause, uh, we're at Mark races
place for a little bit, but, um,that day I remember cause it was
at Mark races, it was the mostlike Mind blowing four to five
hours that I've ever spentbecause the, the interventions
were all very, very unique towhat I was accustomed to at the

(03:02):
time.
Um, they didn't necessarily looklike golf swings always.
Right.
And so they were very sort ofspecific and targeted.
And that was the main thing thatI was really curious about when
leaving.
I was like, man, he's Um, everyindividual is getting something
tailored to their specificstructure and who they are,
right?

(03:23):
So in the context of golfintervention, we're going to,
we're going to bring you somethings that are really just
going to get you thinking.
It's not our goal for you toleave this episode, having four
or five, six things that you'regoing to take out right away.
Cause that's not, that's not thepurpose of this podcast today.
Um, our podcast is to get, uh,coaches.

(03:45):
Um, and you the player perhapslooking in a little different
place.
So going back to the last twoepisodes that we've done, um,
probably by the time this comesout, you'll have already
listened to the one that we justdid on just the context of when
we address swing, right?
So it's, it's probably for a lotof golfers pretty far down the

(04:05):
line, but I would say it's a,it's an intervention that across
all skill levels is just goingto stack the deck in your favor.
And that's what I love aboutwhat you do doc is.
It's, it's giving each golfertheir best chance of those
skills lining up, right?
So as we kind of get into thesequestions here, the first one

(04:26):
that I want to talk about isthose individual structures.
So when you look at a person,when you got somebody coming to
you for the first time, What aresome of the things that you're
assessing?
What do we need to be aware ofas humans?
And just, okay, well, why don't,why do I not swing like my
buddy, right?
So like, what are, what are thedifferences that we need to be
aware of?
And maybe some of theconstraints that we need to, uh,
to keep in mind.

(04:48):
Yeah.
So I guess, um, I guess likefull disclosure, my, I mean, I'm
obviously I am my mentor, BillHartman, um, who's out in
Indianapolis, you know, createda model where we can.
Sort of bucket people beingeither a wide or a narrow and
then there's a lot ofintricacies that go into it.

(05:08):
Um, we don't need to dive superdeep into it, but basically it's
just, it's just, it's, and it,to me, it's like, this makes
complete sense.
It's just your shape and, uh,who you are as a, like a, how
you are, how you push in theground and your structure is
going to determine, um, theaccess to space that you can
move in, right?

(05:28):
Um, So that being said, it'slike, you know, you take a look
at someone and you say, youknow, I guess if, so if you take
the spectrum of like, um, JohnRahm versus Justin Thomas,
right?
Two very different looking humanbeings, but, uh, two pretty
effective, pretty efficientgolfers, right?
So, but they're both going tomove the club differently.

(05:49):
They're going to produce forcedifferently, two human beings,
but two very different animals.
Um.
So like, I mean, it, it golf'sinteresting in the way that
like, that's a pretty farspectrum between one shape of
one individual and the shape ofanother individual versus like,
if you walked into like anOlympic, uh, swimming, like you
went to go watch an Olympicswimming event pretty much when

(06:10):
they put their caps on, he'slike, shit, I don't know any
difference.
Same thing, kind of, maybethere's some differentials
sometimes in the a hundredmeter, but like, like, so golf
is such a game that where youcan.
Spam the spectrum of shape andspace shape of individual where,
you know, you'd necessarilywouldn't see that if you're
walking through like the Olympicvillage, you're like gymnast,

(06:30):
pole vaulters, whatever, like ona football field, right?
You, the offensive lineman,defensive lineman, you know who
they are, the wide receivers.
Yeah, you couldn't accidentallythink that slot receivers and
offensive linemen.
Otherwise, maybe it's like eightman football or something.
Yeah, some of that.
Yeah, for sure.
So when it comes to the wideversus narrow, can we talk a

(06:52):
little bit more?
Cause I've had, I've hadquestions about like, if you're
a Husky or golfer, like it hasnothing to do with that.
Right.
It's just more like the skeletonitself.
So like, can you talk a little,just really briefly about.
What we're looking at when itcomes to wide versus narrow.
Yeah, it's essentially like thestructure of their, um, you can,
like, it's, it's, it's easier tomeasure it off of their, off of

(07:14):
their rib cage.
So like they're more of their,their, their lower rib cage.
You can get an idea of, of whattheir, what their shape is.
It's usually, you know, if I, ifI have a, if I have a wider rib
cage person, I'm going to bebiased more toward that wide rib
cage position.
That's going to be biased moretowards like a, an inhaled look.
But the spine underneath, it'sgoing to be more biased to an

(07:36):
exhaled representation.
So it's like you get these twocompensation things happening
off of one another.
So you get a guy who's wider,uh, tends to be a better force
producer, right?
And able to, they are going topush force in the ground for a
longer period of time, more,like a greater amount than
someone say that looks like,looks like me, or it looks like

(07:56):
Justin Thomas, or looks like amarathon runner.
Those guys are going to havegreater access to the ability to
what we would consider probablyturn than a wider individual,
right?
So, um, and that's just the, thedetermination of their
structural shape.
So someone who, again, who'slike maybe a little narrower or
narrower is going to have agreater ability to access like

(08:17):
external rotation.
So maybe space away from midlineup away from the ground.
So that'd be more like aninhalation bias versus someone
who is wide, who has, that's thechallenge.
It has like an inhale looking.
Uh, lower ribcage, but actuallyout of the actuality, they're
exhaled, right?
So they're gonna have a greaterability to create IR or force
more down towards the midline.

(08:38):
Uh, and so they won't turn aswell.
So, like, and maybe simpler wayto think about it, you get a
denser individual versus someonewho's less dense.
Yeah.
Right.
Would it be, would it be easy tosay like, okay, if like you're a
full wide versus a narrow, ifyou were to place your bets on
who'd be better at a verticaljump?
Yeah, I mean, you'd seedifferent types of

(08:59):
representations because you getall things being equal, both
could create the same impulse.
Um, so, you know, becausethere's, there's, there's a very
Certain time constraint with avertical jump right where so the
narrow might not create the sameamount of ground contact time
But get the same have the same32 inch vertical jump where the
wide could still have a 32 inchvertical jump But they're gonna

(09:20):
be on they're gonna createthey're probably gonna be on the
ground for a longer period oftime longer Until it becomes
right they hit the timeconstraint and they can't They
can't, and now they lose theenergy production, you know, the
stretch shortening cycle or losethe, really, it's the position
of the guts.
That's, that's driving that sortof thing.
So it's kind of an impulsething.
Yeah.
And then how, like, is it kindof what you're born with?

(09:43):
Like, how really can you seethat?
Like, can you see that in kids?
Like, if a kid's like 10 yearsold, like, how well can you see,
oh, that kid's gonna be, like,that kid's a wider.
Yeah, you are what you are.
Like, there's some people outthere who are kind of not.
They're just not educated on themodel, and they start spouting
off about it, but they still saysomething like, this Y turned
into a narrow, and that's justnever what happens.
You just can't, you can't, youcan't outrun your, your DNA,

(10:04):
right?
How you literally like, how yourcells spread in the embryo,
right?
So it's, that's just how itworks.
Um, you, a narrow can compressthemselves to such a degree that
when you put their hands onthem, they look wide.
But essentially, this is a betribcage.
You're not, you're not takinginto account the terms when we
look at something, we try tolook at something with, put your
hands on someone, think peoplethink about like it being like a

(10:25):
flat representation.
They're not understanding theactual, the turn that's going
through the ribcage to get that,to get that certain
presentation, right?
Um, you know, so it's, I mean,I've got two little girls.
My older one is like, uh, likeright away, this is a, this,
she's a wide funnel, like, likepushing the ground.
She's, you know, yeah.
She's a force producing monsterand then I've got a, like a

(10:46):
narrow kind of dancery kind ofcan't stay on the ground.
She's just floating up out.
She's floating everywhere.
Right.
So it's like you see it.
Right.
And there's, it's a spectrumtoo.
Right.
So you get, you don't like, youknow, uh, what I tend not to see
in clinic and, or probably with,you know, like if someone throws
98, 99 miles an hour, They'reusually not very average, so you

(11:10):
don't really see this sort oflike average representation of a
ribcage.
Right.
You see maybe some extremelynarrow with some, like, limb
things and then a big twistthrough the ribcage.
Or you get this wide personwho's got a, you know, crazy
twist and they can pruse force,right?
So it's, um, you know, averagepeople don't throw 98.

(11:31):
Jump 40 inches, right?
Run subs, 10 seconds, hundreds.
But that's the cool thing aboutgolf is very average people can
have 175 mile an hour ball speedbecause I'm not reliant on,
because I got an implement thatactually is going to be my
connective tissue for me.
Right?
Yeah.
We're definitely going to getinto that.

(11:52):
So kind of as we, as we take ourtime through this, I just want
to make sure that that image ofwide versus narrow, everyone's
really As clear as possible onthat.
All right, Eric, did you haveany questions?
I was just curious about theinteraction with the student and
the instructor and you, Doc,like when you're working at the,
you know, with, with golfers,are you assessing them and

(12:12):
telling them, I think you're awide, I think you're a narrow,
like, how does that, how doesthat work and how does the
communication work with yourteam on that?
Yeah, I mean, between Chris andTony and I, um, or if I'm
consulting with like, likeRobbie or some other golf coach,
I will, you know, that's, thatcommunication would be there
with the player.
It's more like, Hey, you know,it's more, you know, you know,

(12:32):
you're, you're doing X and wethink you would be better off if
you, if we pushed you in thisdirection.
Right.
Right.
And, and it's more likely to,it's like, Rob, you've seen me
work.
It's not necessarily like evenspeaking much to them in
general.
It's like, here's a kettlebell.
Can you do this for me?
Right?
And all I want you to do is, allI want you to do is feel like,
let's say, all I want you to dois feel the inside part of your

(12:54):
right heel when you're doingthis.
Um, and then it's a simple cueand a takeaway.
But, you know, but the, I lookat the person and say, this
guy's got, this guy is a, on thewide side, right?
On the wide spectrum.
You look at their facestructure.
Yeah, like the jaw maybe, likethe width of the jaw can jaw,
yeah, with the jaw you can docertain things where you have

(13:15):
them do a toe touch or have themcross their arms across their
chest and you can kind of seesometimes where their, where
their rib cage is.
Um, and a lot of times peoplelike, again, it's, it's not
necessarily like you have to,like a very wide person is very
obvious, a very narrow person isvery obvious.
Everyone else in the middle,it's like, alright, I'm just
going to have to play aroundwith it a little bit and see how

(13:35):
much.
access to, let's say, internalrotation they might have.
Um, so by, you know, like, howmuch heel can I expect them?
How much, like, how much accessto the depth of the backside of
their heel?
Can I actually expect them tohave?
And it's just this trial byerror, safe to fail experiment,
right?
I think that's the interactionwith the player of the coach.

(13:58):
It's like putting times likeCoach, PT, whatever, anyone who
interacts with a human being, weexpect to be able to just give
something and walk away and belike, no, it's your problem.
And that's just not the way itworks.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Complexity.
So it's not.
Yeah.
I was, I was curious about the,about the communication.
Cause I always, I always feelit's tricky to, to put someone

(14:18):
in a box and say like, Hey,you're this and you should do
that.
And I, I try to stay away fromthat personally.
Right.
Like I think there's some other,teaching methodology that sort
of puts people in boxes andsays, you should do this.
It's your thing.
And I think that belief systemcan be hindering to a student at
time.
It can, it can be, um, limitingI think.
Um, and so I was just curioushow y'all can, it sounds like

(14:41):
you don't communicate that way,which is awesome by the way.
Yeah, no, I mean, I completelyagree.
I think that's the problem witha lot of, whether it be, I don't
know, whatever assessment you'redoing, I don't care.
Like you can do.
You know, some days I'll just belike, I'm just gonna look at toe
touches today and say, becauseyou could tell kind of where
this person's center of gravityis or, you know, standing
rotation versus, you know, wecould talk about all that stuff

(15:03):
if you guys are interested.
But yeah, but it's not, it's,it's, um, yeah, we're, we're
trying to figure out, um, it'snot like, it's like examples
like for like shoes, right?
You know, X, X company spendsmillions of billions of R and D
in shoes and they'll take a,basically they'll take an
implant of someone's foot andthey'll say, all right, and then

(15:24):
they'll find their, the shape oftheir foot, right?
And then they'll just make a,they'll make a shoe that just
relates to the shape of thatfoot.
Like they're just matching wherehis foot is in space.
They don't take into accountthat it's like, do we really
want his foot there all the timeor do we need to start moving?
It's like, just because, justbecause I, I rotate to the right
really well.

(15:45):
and what is well, and I can'trotate to the left.
That doesn't mean that now,like, that doesn't mean that
like, okay, that I need to becertain X type of Turner.
You're just seeing them wherethey are at a time and place.
So then if you continue to teachthem and coach them into this
perspective, now you've got thisball rolling downhill.
So you don't really have like atrue sense of ability to like,

(16:06):
see the whole picture.
You're just coaching.
And there is something aboutcoaching them where they're at,
but you need to understand like,all right, what's.
Where do I need to go?
When is this gonna, where's,where's, what's, what's the
future look like here?
That's awesome, so Kind ofmoving on to kind of our next
question.
I Think I think that giveseveryone a really good kind of

(16:28):
foundation of like okay likewides versus narrows and in
understanding that It is yourskill.
It is your, like Dr.
K said, it is your DNA, likeyou're not getting around that,
right?
I think that's a huge constraintthat we need to, to, to kind of
consider.
Right, and we don't, and wedon't really know how adaptable
you are until you try certainthings, right?

(16:49):
So some people can, right?
Some people can be relatively,can access different space that
someone else can, right?
And you can have a Y that canfool you and it can access
certain spaces and, um, theymight.
Like, that's what they, whatsomeone says, like that wide
swings, like a narrow, that'snot a thing.
It's just, that's the wideaccessing his space where he has

(17:12):
like he's using.
So we're just not looking at thewhole system and how they're
bending, twisting, getting intothat particular shape.
Yeah.
So can you talk a little bitabout, and so this is something
that we, we talk about a lot on,on our podcasts is the
importance of rhythm.
Right.
So it's one of the things thatacross all shots, across all

(17:34):
skill levels, it's one of thethings that's just going to,
like I said before, is going tostack the deck in your favor as
best as possible.
So do you see rhythm differencesbetween wides and narrows?
And then I want us to, to reallyget into what understanding what
good rhythm is.
Maybe a good, a good place tostart is what is good rhythm to
you?

(17:55):
What are the differences thatyou see when it comes to wides
versus narrows?
And then we can get a little bitinto like, uh, queuing it,
fostering it, kind of thingsthat you like to see, um, to get
someone to, uh, swing with alittle better rhythm.
Um, I guess I would ask, like,how do you guys define rhythm
before, like, how have youdefined it in the past?

(18:16):
So in the past, right?
It was very before learning fromyou.
Um, it was very much more likethis holistic, like very non
tangible, like, Oh, does it looklike they're, um, Does it look
like they're exerting themselvesa lot or does it just look easy?
Right.
And before learning from you, Inever really had a tangible way

(18:38):
to get someone closer to that.
It was more just like this verygeneric, like, Oh, just relax.
Just like, you know, like itwasn't anything really substance
behind it.
Whereas now I understand like,Hey, there's a phase of the
backswing where we're creatingenergy.
We need to capture that energyand then we need to yield to

(18:58):
that energy.
So like that sort of likesequence of like creating
energy, capturing, yielding, um,is kind of what I look at now is
like how, what's a, what's agolfer's ability to capture what
they create and then how wellare they yielding to that?
And this is what I'm reallyexcited to have, uh, Dr.
Prior.

(19:19):
If you haven't listened to theDr.
Pryor podcast, please go backand do so it's, it's game
changing, but a lot of his stuffI think is so good at the, at
creating the environment foryielding.
Um, and so for me now it's,it's.
Less about just like the, theoverall time.
Although I think time is areally good cue.

(19:40):
Like you could have someone say,all right, like is the general
time of backswing roughlymatching the general time of the
entire downswing and fallthrough?
And if they are, it's probably agood tell, but it's not looking
underneath the hood enough.
So, um, I don't know, you know,if you can expand on that in,
in, in terms of, um, you know,what good rhythm is to you.

(20:02):
Differences that you see betweenwides and narrows and then kind
of ways that you like to cue it.
Yeah, I think, um, so, Likerhythm, like, you know, rhythm
is one of those things whereIt's, you dive into it and
there's a lot of, there'sobviously a lot of, I guess,
complexity with it.
Um, but, we should be able tolike, what Dr.

(20:22):
Prior does and what, what I doand what we do is We should
have, we should see somecommonalities between the two,
like there should be Simplerules that kind of would work
and I guess foster principles inboth fields, right?
So the way I would look at itprobably is like, is access to
like relative, access torelative motion.
So could I move, can I move onesegment of my body relative to

(20:45):
another?
And I'm not even justnecessarily talking like, you
know, I don't know, wrist toelbow to shoulder.
And we're talking in betweenlike segments of bone.
Can things move relative to oneanother?
Um, Because if I have access torelative motion, I have access
to sensation.
If I have access to sensation,then I have access to time and
space and where I'm at.
Um, which is going to fosterprobably a better rhythmic

(21:06):
relationship with myself andthis thing that's way off, way
from me that I can't see.
Um, and I need to feel, right?
So the, I guess the analogy toowould be if I, if I put a
quarter in your hand, right?
And I just told you just tosqueeze the hell out of it.
You wouldn't, you couldn't tellme what's in your hand.

(21:26):
I'm not talking about like howmuch you should grip the club
because I know people get upsetabout grip pressure, those sort
of things, I don't care.
Grip it tight enough, please.
Don't hit me with a golf club,please.
But it's, it's like, these arethese access to relative motion,
right?
So like, if I can, that's goingto give me the sensation of

(21:47):
where I am in space, right?
If there are points in time,right?
So as I'm Speed and getting backinto like downswing sort of
stuff where there's points intime where there's going to, or
at the top of my swing, probablyeven way before that where there
is no more relative motion inyour golf swing until we unwind
to untwist again.

(22:08):
But Like, like the otheranalogy, analogy I use all the
time is like, I want line in thereel prior to hitting those
moments in time where there areno relative, there's no more
relative motion of'cause.
Then I get, I get theappropriate twisting,
parascoping, lengthening of theconnective tissue to allow the
golf club to travel in a moreeffective manner.
So then it's like that to me,like that's rhythm, right?

(22:30):
Then it becomes, you know.
That because you do that overand over again.
You guys basically guys andgirls basically start to learn
like this is how I step on thisthing.
This is how I can control thisthing.
This is how I can, you know, canpull the face, let go of the
toe, whatever I need to do,depending on it.
But all of those are going to beanything related impact
downwards is going to be relatedto me being creating the balance

(22:53):
and the sensation of the controlPrior.
Um, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Right.
So, like, related to thedifference between your shape
and your rhythm, like, like,you're, like, you're probably
going to, you're going to seenarrows that have more access
to, like, ER.
So, you know, like, and Um, handpaths that are a little higher

(23:16):
to steeper, right?
And then why they're going to bea little more, they're on their,
if you're on their helical anglemore, right, they're going to
be, they're going to have a handpath that's a little flatter,
not as vertical and relative tosomething else to their, to
their shape.
Um, so they're going to be,it's, you know, so the timing
differential that are, is goingto be, is going to be different,

(23:36):
um, yeah.
So from a, from a geometryperspective, that makes a lot of
sense.
What about from?
More of like the time elementbecause one of your one of the
best analogies that you use isof a half pipe, right?
So, um, can you talk about thathalf pipe and then is the half
pipe a little different forwides versus narrows in terms of
how much time you have to reallycreate that energy into the club

(23:59):
before you then capture andyield to it?
Yeah, for sure.
So like, um, if you think about,if you think about the structure
of a, like a narrow, they're allthings being equal, they're
going to tend to have Greaterverticality.
Uh, if everyone knows what ahalf pipe is, right?
Like a skateboard half pipe orthey're going to tend to have
the greater verticality of thewalls of their, of their

(24:22):
structure.
And that kind of goes along withthe shape of their pelvis too.
Um, and there's idiosyncraticdifferences in each narrow and
each wide, um, and I can createbends and twists through this
thing too, right?
So like you get all sorts ofthings, but like in all things
being equal, if I've got thisnarrow with like this vertical
pelvis and then the bottom partof their pelvis is called like
their outlet.
So like the backside of theirpelvis where their sacrum is, is

(24:44):
going to be smaller.
Um, and, and steeper and the,the differential is going to be
less there.
So as, as if you pictureyourself as a little
skateboarder man in there, asyou come down, it's like, I'm
going to have to basically, Ihave to, uh, ride the wall down
and I have to push and kick backup out of this thing pretty
quickly relative to the shape ofmy outlet or the bottom part of

(25:07):
my pelvis.
Um, versus a wide who might notnecessarily have the verticality
of the, of the, of the walls onthe, of their, like their ilium
or their denominates, but theymight have a greater bottom
part.
Like, so they've got more depthin the backside or the bottom
side of their pelvis.
Right.
So then they're going to have agreater ability to basically
hold that IR longer.

(25:29):
Um, so they're going to be, youknow, less of, I don't know if
like if I would call them.
double limb jumpers versussingle leg jumpers for the
narrows versus wides.
But like, they're going to havea tendency to, they're going to
tend to have a tendency to maybehold the ground a little longer.
Whereas a wide, in order forthem to create their turn,
they're going to probably goingto use a little more vertical,
uh, vertical ground force,ground reaction force to get out

(25:51):
of the way.
Yeah.
So if you've got a narrow andyou see them way up on the, on,
especially the trail foot, likeway up on the toes of that foot.
And you're like, Oh wait, no,I'm, I believe that that's not
okay.
You can't play like that.
I'm just going to try to nailyour feet to the floor.
If you've done that with anarrow, um, probably not a great
idea.
Yeah, it's, it's a pet, right?

(26:11):
So like, that's the, you thinkabout like, how does the narrow
eventually kill himself is thatthey lose, they lose their
ability to hold on to IR for alittle bit longer.
And then that heel breaks theground really quickly.
And then they go toey.
Right.
So then the.
They, what they end up doing,like I imagine if you think of
your, like, pick a golf, pick anarrow, I think we all think of
a narrow who's got, loses hisheel really early in transition,

(26:34):
um, and he may have had discissues or like whatever, because
they would have disc issues,that type of stuff, um, you're
going to have to create a yieldsomewhere, you're going to have
to slow down somewhere, so i.
e.
disc, okay.
First med head, my neck, right?
Those are all these thingsthat's going to keep me from
getting pitched off the front ofthis half pipe in order to
create this turn to come backaround.
So it is their superpower, butit's the thing that you want to

(26:57):
make sure that doesn't, like,like using, stealing a Bill
Hartman line, it doesn't,hopefully doesn't kill them,
right?
Yeah.
Mm hmm.
Versus a wife, right?
Yeah.
Who gets kicks early, right?
Or, or gets buried and continuesto use this kind of, Like, I
don't know, David Duvalie, rightside bendy holds, uh, you know,
like, like that, that's going tohave, that's going to, that's

(27:19):
going to end up bending stuffthat you're not going to want to
bend that you can't unbend overa period of time.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Well, speaking of unbending, canyou talk about the importance of
breath when you use it, how youuse it?
Um, and then how can we usebreath to our advantage?
I like that you use it as anunbending thing.

(27:41):
That's cool.
That's a good segway.
Yeah, I mean, that's like your,it's, that's how you change the
internal dynamics, right?
So if I need to increase mydensity, I exhale and I squeeze,
right?
If I need to decrease mydensity, I inhale and I create
more space, right?
So that's like, that's how we,that's how we internally shape
change.
Um, and, and that's how, like,let's say I was working on

(28:04):
someone's, I don't know, likesomeone's pack and I'm trying to
get more expansion in the upperpart of their ribcage.
I'm going to use techniques thatdoesn't twist and bend them.
I'm going to use techniques thatcreates the tiniest, tiniest,
tiniest bit of stretch and thenlet them use their breath to
untwist them.
Right?
Because that's, that's what'sessentially going to happen.
Like.
We'll hear from a lot of modelsthat a breath is like, you know,

(28:27):
it's a pump handle.
It's a bucket handle.
And those are terriblerepresentations of what's
actually happening.
These are three dimensionaluntwisting.
When I take an inhale, I'm goinginto inhale and I exhale.
It's like this.
I'm getting these three D.
I'm getting multiple planes ofmotion.
You know?
Yeah.
All at once.
Right.
So if I can, if I can getsomeone to use their breath, uh,

(28:49):
as a, as a way to sort ofcreate, uh, a focal untwist of
something or to create anexpansive, or to create more
external rotation or to slowthings down, right.
And probably DR stuff, right?
It's like that's how you, that'show you create more external
rotation space.
That's how you create more time.
You want to slow, you want to,yeah, slow things down really

(29:09):
quickly, make time stop, right,or make things really speed up,
I'm sorry, is like, then youmake things very dense, uh,
eventually, but yeah, it's kindof tricky.
In breath, as far as I'm awareof, is it can be a very
technical thing.
It can be something that's, uh,not a given, even though we're

(29:30):
always breathing, a lot of timeswe're unaware of it.
Um, it gets us into some badhabits.
So what are some of the thingsthat you've seen, like
absolutely do not try to breathelike this?
And then some things that you,that, uh, that you would maybe
recommend we think about whentrying to breathe a bit better?
Yeah.
I mean, I think like, like forsomeone, you know, that comes in

(29:50):
to see me, like I'll put them inlike an advantageous position to
take a breath and that might be.
On their back, you know, threequarter position on their side.
It depends on where they're at.
Um, you know, I think like notto get like a whole load of, you
know, stuff is but like bellybreathing is usually pretty,
pretty poor idea.
Um, yeah.

(30:10):
So when you belly breathe, allyou're doing is basically
creating like a Expansion out infront of you and it squeezes the
top part of your ribcagedownwards.
Yeah, you can feel it.
It's like, it just, it's likeyou get compressed like right
around here, your belly goes outand then like everything else up
top just gets squeezed.
It doesn't feel good.
Yeah, you don't want to, youdon't want to spill your guts
over the front of your, over thepelvic rim.

(30:31):
If I spill the guts out of thepelvic rim, I, I am going down
and forward with that stuff.
Where the point is, is to, isthat when I take an inhale, my
lungs to drop my, my, uh,diaphragm to move and to push
straight down to the pelvis tocreate like a, a pelvis that can
actually receive those, receivethe guts, right?
Which allows space to build upto the upper rib cage.

(30:53):
You know, so when I'm standingand talking in normal breathing,
when I take a breath in, the airis going to bias to fill to the
bottom part of my rib cage.
You know, you do that over andover again, a lot of us then I
get end up getting compressed.
We don't, we have a hard timegetting the air out of the
bottom part of our rib cages andgetting it to expand in the
upper part.
So like putting you on your backor on your side or in a slightly

(31:16):
inverted position can bias moreof an upper rib cage expansive
position.
Um, so like there's, I mean, youknow, you can put your hands
kind of in the soft spotunderneath your ribs in here and
take an inhale.
If you're sitting and you canfeel, you should feel like you
get this 3d circumferentialexpansion.
If you get the 3dcircumferential expansion, that
should hopefully translate tothe upper part, upper chest,

(31:38):
upper back.
So it stands you up.
Cause that's, that's essentiallywhat air does.
It keeps you stand you up,right?
If I can't get air to the top ofmy rib cage, I start getting
pulled down, down, down, down,down.
And now I can't get up off theground again, which has
implications on the half pipe,right?
So like if you have, if youhave, uh, a very, I'd say, uh,

(31:59):
sub, suboptimal breathingstrategy.
I would imagine that the bottomof your half pipe is just going
to get squeezed and squeezed andsqueezed to where now you don't
have any time to apply force tothe club with relative motion.
And just to make sure that thelistener is clear on relative
motion, right?
So, um, a good tell would beearly backswing.

(32:20):
If you can look at the feet, um,essentially the, the, the heel
and the base of your big toe.
If you feel, if you see thosepoints of contact, basically
leave the ground right early onin the backswing, then you're
not using relative motion,right?
You're basically changingorientation space.
So what we're talking about isthis first part of the

(32:40):
backswing, right?
From, from really before theclub starts moving.
To about, what do you would sayabout like shaft just past
parallel, like that firstparallel position in the
backswing essentially.
Right.
That's kind of our window thatwe're talking about to really
put some energy, some force inthis club.
And we want to do that withoutlosing relative motion without

(33:01):
taking our whole body and justlike changing orientation in
space.
We want to have access to that.
So if you're not breathing well,Right.
You're going to limit yourability to hold those relative
motions while the club is, isbeing given energy back.
Am I, is that fair?
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
I mean, like your ability totake a full inhale and full
exhale is going to berepresentative of me being able

(33:23):
to move my body effectivelythrough space.
They're just, they're, they'rerepresentations of, of, uh, of
full body.
What we should access to in fullmotion.
Yeah.
So do you have any, so what doyou see issues in that first
part?
So like from set up to again,club handle, maybe just outside

(33:44):
your base of support, a bit likethe trail thigh, like what are
some ways people get it going ina way that allows them to really
capture that effectively versusnot?
Like what are some, some commonthings that you see in that
early phase that we could startto be aware of?
And just again, not getting tolike, again, wise and errors are
going to do it differently.
You're just talking about like,yeah.
Common themes that you tend tosee, uh, more often than not, if

(34:07):
any, and again, if there's not,then I would, I would believe
that totally.
Yeah, no, no, I think, I mean,I, I think, like, especially
that early, the early, beforethe club has even started to
move, um, you, I see too manypeople that can't unweight their
right side prior to moving,right?
So it's like they, and whether,whatever it is, you know.

(34:29):
55 45 left versus right.
But the ability to unweight myright side, what that does is it
then allows me to move into myright side.
Sounds kind of silly, but it's,you know, but it's
biomechanically really, like,really effective because when I
unweighted a little bit, itallows me to kind of essentially
like drop my, my guts down tothe right for my right.

(34:53):
It gets the connective tissuebeginning of this kickstart of
this golf club.
Um, so like, yeah.
Getting people to understandthat sort of that, that
unweight, that sort of, youknow, tuning mechanism prior to
taking the club away is, is abig deal because everyone's so
static and afraid to move aroundbefore they hit a shot, but like

(35:13):
you look at any other great, anygreat ball striker and it
doesn't matter if it's golf,baseball, whatever, as they are,
they are fidgety, they're movingaround before they hit the shot
because they're trying to get,whether they know it or not,
they're trying to set the rightinternal pressure in their
systems before they start takingthe club away.
Um, so that's a big one, but youneed access to range of motions

(35:35):
and space in order for that tobe able to do that, right?
That's like you get someone onthe table and they've got, you
know, Um, no access to anyrelevant motion, then they're
like, they're, they're like Plyostep.
They're getting the club movingaway is like everything moving
all at once.
Yes.
So they might unweight, right?

(35:55):
But it looks like you're like,that doesn't look good.
You know?
No.
And then they say, well, I can'tlike, it just becomes like,
well, guys shouldn't unweightbefore they take the club away.
But it's, it's because hedoesn't have access to the
differential and relevant motionearly part of the takeaway.
So you just have someone who's.
either set up from a postureposition that's way too forward.
Um, so there's no else for himto go.
Um, but like, that's, that isgonna, basically it's like the,

(36:19):
it's the domino that if you getsomeone to do that well, that
everything else becomes whatthey typically say is so much
easier.
They're like, they're like, wow,you'd show them on video.
Like, wow, Alex, wait, I'm notdiving down the ball two clicks
off of it.
And you know, and, and likeperceived effort goes is
significantly less, right?

(36:39):
So, you know, like there'splenty of models or golfers
right now talking about liketension is your friend, tension
and squeeze and tension is yourfriend.
And I'm not disagreeing.
It doesn't, it works for, itdoesn't work.
It doesn't, doesn't work.
But you know, that strategy isgoing to dry you out.
It's going to cause a problemfor time.
Right.
Um, So, like, that's just thekickstart of the domino.

(37:02):
Like, it literally, like, it'slike how you throw the yo yo
down into your right foot.
If you got a yo yo, you just tryto throw it down into the right
foot.
Like, if I have to, I have tobecome a little bit unstable,
and then be okay with it, andthen catch it.
And that's what gets the clubgoing.
And there you go.
Again, that goes back to Dr.
Pryor, because so many peoplearen't willing to give up some

(37:23):
control.
Right?
Like a little bit of out ofbalance, right?
They said, okay, this thing hasgot to work out for me or else.
Yeah.
Right.
And, and that little sense ofbeing okay and, and letting the
outcome play out and, and beingwilling to see how it plays out
without a guarantee is so huge.

(37:46):
It takes, cause I'm a bigbeliever that the tension starts
in the brain.
Like if like a concentric muscleactivity starts.
In the brain, right?
It's, it's the golfer squeezingdown on this club and saying,
okay, I'm going to exert my willon this golf shot.
This golf club ball is going togo here because I'm not willing
to accept the outcomes when itdoesn't.

(38:08):
And so I think that's where, youknow, the, what you are doing
and it's, it's so cool.
How have you ever met Dr.
Raymond?
But it's so cool how like youguys are going at complete
opposite ends of the spectrum,but you're doing the same thing.
It's like totally, it's totallycoherent.
Like it's 100 percent coherent.
And that's what I love about itbecause totally, like when you

(38:30):
get people apply a stepping forthe first time, when you get
them breathing, when you getthem and we can be, Oh my gosh,
we could talk about grip, likeputting your hands on a club,
that could be an entire podcast.
But like when you give them somespace, when you allow them to
apply a step, A lot of timesthey're like, Oh, I, I feel like
I have no idea where the ball,like, where, like, I feel like I
would never do this on the golfcourse because it feels

(38:51):
completely out of control.
But then you look at the clubhead speed and it's jumped about
five or six miles per hour.
And the strike dispersion iseven tighter.
You know, like, well, what is itthat you're really trying to
control?
Cause the, like the old adage oflike, Hey, you got to give up
control to gain control.
Like there's a little bit oftruth to that.
I feel like for sure.
I mean, that's like, that's myleast favorite, my least

(39:12):
favorite word in the.
In the, uh, like P.
T., strength and conditioningworld is stability.
It's, uh, talk, if we could justget rid of that piece of jargon,
word.
It's, it's a useless word,right?
Because it's just, it, itdoesn't, it doesn't, it's a lack
of understanding of that.
I literally, for me to put myleft foot out in front of me, I
have to be incredibly unstableto get there.

(39:33):
I have to give up control to getthere over and over again.
Yes.
Knowing that I'm going to landand create a moment of
stability.
And then we continue to movethrough space again, but it's
like it's like these moments ofimpulse of force of but having
to like, you know, let go as Ias I walk through space, you
know, like A lot of people Isee, especially with chronic

(39:54):
headache, neck, jaw stuff, likethey've been given chin tucks
and glute bridges for like 10,for five years and they're, and
they walk and they walkeverywhere and they squeeze
themselves to death as theywalk.
Right.
So they're, they, their locus ofcontrol is like, they have to,
they have.
Zero.
They have, they try to controleverything.
They have no control at the sametime.
Right?
So, yeah, the more they'retrying to control it, the less,

(40:15):
yeah, the worst they feel.
Right.
So it's like the harder it goeswrong.
Do you think we, do you think atsome point we coach that out of
people in golf?
Like if you go back to the oldtimey swings and look at them,
like they, they've got lots of,uh, lots of action pre swing,
like go back and look at JackNicholas in the 1950s and look
at Bobby Jones.
Look at all these guys with howthey moved and turned.

(40:37):
And then all of a sudden it waskind of like, I think we went
through a period of time, like,I've been teaching golf a long
time, so like, we went through aperiod of time where, I don't
know, if we tried to turneverybody into a computer model
or something, like, there wasthis like, you know, mechanical
overdoing of the 2D analysis orsomething, and then all of a
sudden we lost like thatathletic motion that we used to

(41:00):
see back in the day.
Like when you watched theforward presses and the leaning
left right before they drew likeall the foot action kind of felt
like it went away for a longtime.
And now it's, now it seems to becoming back.
So like it seems like it's comea full circle, but I don't know
if you had any theories abouthow maybe golf instruction maybe
had coached that out of peoplefor a little bit of a time,
turning them all into robots orsomething.

(41:23):
Yeah, I think it's, um, Um, youknow, like the old, like, be
still old adage, right?
Like, I mean, um, you know, I, Ithink for sure, I think it, I,
like you look at long driveguys, right?
That's where it kind of becameback in vogue.
Long drive became popular again.
People were doing their, theirrock steps and they're like,
wow, hitting it further causethey're doing it.

(41:43):
You know, like golf tries toconsider itself such an insular
thing, but then you look at, Imean.
Before any, like a high jumperbefore a high jumper takes off,
they're rocking and they'removing, you know, like all these
sort of things.
Um, so yeah, it like we tend tothink of this thing as different
than everything else.
And then, you know, then, andthen that becomes issues.
It's not different than anythingelse.

(42:05):
It's just the context of whatwe're doing is different, right?
Um, yeah, I, I, I agree.
I think like, like theathleticism, um, yeah.
At some point in time kind ofwas I don't know removed or
discouraged, right?
Yeah.
Um, you know, and then you know,he you just you kind of add on

(42:27):
the the components of like like,you know, like the force like I
mean I don't know like you thinklike what Bobby Jones or some of
the older guys are doing, right?
There maybe wasn't a premium onHitting the ball like a mile
right at all cost of everythingelse, right?
Um, so, uh, the, the, maybe therelative force with what they

(42:53):
were swinging, it allowed themto feel and be a little freer,
uh, in relationship to maybewhen we coached some of that
stuff out of guys.
I mean, now it seems to becoming back in vogue, um, you
know, but there's so manypockets and corners of, you
know, of, of styles and methods,so, yeah, sure.

(43:14):
Cool.
All right.
So working our way up.
So we went from before the clubstarts moving.
Now the club's moving right andit's moving for a second and a
half to two seconds.
It's all done.
Right.
So, um, can you talk aboutreally, what do you, what are
you referring to when you saycapture and then what is

(43:35):
yielding?
Right.
Cause really this is the basisof rhythm, uh, that, that we,
that we like to coach.
So.
Um, what's a capture?
What's a yield, right?
It would be a good kind of introto that.
Yeah, so if you think about likethe example of unweighting and
then sort of like weighting orpushing into the ground again,
like I would consider that to belike a capture.
Like I'm capturing, I'mcapturing the force now.

(43:58):
So when I pushed into theground, then the, the energy or
the predominance of the force iscoming from the ground up as I
get going here, right?
If I got that nice, like maybeyo yo y, connective tissue y,
yielded, Kind of feel.
Then when I push in the ground,it's like the yo yo, the rubber
band.
I don't care what version ofelasticity you want to talk

(44:20):
about.
It gets, it gets accelerated andthen pushed up.
Right?
So I don't have to squeeze andpull it to the top.
I'm now, now I've got, I've got,I've got physics, I've got
Newton, I've got ground reactionforces on my side.
Right?
Um, Different types of shapesand sizes, narrows and wides,
like I'm expected to see agreater differential between

(44:42):
the, the unweighting to theweighting, maybe in a narrow
versus a wide, you know, justbecause of the shape of the wall
that they've got to get up.
Going up through versus, youknow, someone who's wide.
And then you have to think aboutto the relative position, like a
wide, like a wide, they're,they're already like, they've
got like an internally rotatedbias pelvis that the moment they

(45:03):
push in the ground, they'regetting things.
They're going to get, they'regoing to get ground reaction
forces right away versus anarrow might take them a little
more time to move through thisvery like ER biased pelvis to an
IR biased pelvis to get thingsmoving up.
So these are the kind of smalldifferentials in time that you
would see.
So the capture is this thinggetting popped and caught.

(45:25):
And now it's now I get a, I geta position of, of, of my, my
pelvic outlet and like my, likemy insides, my guts up.
So they're in a, like they're inan advantage position now.
So now that they are essentiallyalmost like floating for a
little bit.
So as I begin to thensuperimpose like a, a turn on

(45:46):
that, this turn now becomes amuch easier turn.
I'm going to now start movinginto like this, like I'm, I'm in
a, like a biased of like ayielding representation.
I'm turning back to my rightside.
So guts are up and I'm twistingand now pulling them up to the
top.
You know, like depending on likeyour shape, like you'll see guys
that will like literally startlike.

(46:08):
Unweighting at left armparallel, right?
So the guts get up.
I've rolled them up and now Ican actually start to unweight a
little bit as as I go.
It's important to know, it'slike my, this is my, again, like
the time again where I have tobe okay with letting my, the
gut, club travels, my guts arestill going up, but my body
essentially is moving away fromthem, so it's like this is

(46:29):
another moment of like, lettinggo, right?
It's like the top of the rollercoaster.
Giving up.
Let it go.
I don't want to ride, or I twistand roll with this thing
forever, right?
And it's now I roll off my rightfoot, and now I've got to do all
of, I've got to do, which youguys seen, I'm sure, on Gears
all the time, it's like, theamount of work that a, that a,
even like a Two or three greatclub player does in relationship
to a touring pro.

(46:50):
The amount they're trying toundo at the top of their swing
versus what like a touring prois doing.
It's not even close.
There's not, there's not enoughtime to undo what a typical,
even a single digit is doingversus a touring pro.
Right.
Right.
The, the analogy that you'vegiven me that, that's been
really, really helpful is theunderstanding that the club
becomes the leading resistance.
Yeah.
Right.

(47:11):
So you move the club and then.
It's like, um, I'm just tryingto think of like a good analogy.
Like you, you're pushing a kidon a swing set.
Right?
The, like, you've, you've pushedthem.
The child's moving towards you.
There's, there's gotta be thattime of where you're gathering
and capturing that child movingtowards you and what, and you're

(47:31):
kind of yielding to that child.
If you're too stiff, right?
If you, if you block that, thechain's going to get all like
wonky.
It's not going to be a funexperience for that child, but
if you yield to it, right.
And if you allow that momentumto then move you.
That's a much differentscenario.
Right?
So it's literally, and, andwe've talked about this, I think

(47:53):
with, uh, Mike McLaughlin, uh,two years ago.
It's like, if things are set upin that first part, like
literally you can basically justgo like lights off, like not
have to try to do quote unquoteanything.
Once that club kind of picks upmomentum, right?
That's like ideal, like pie inthe sky.
Right.

(48:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, that's like, we all makeswings where it's like, wow,
that club felt really balanced.
I knew exactly where that facewas the entire time.
Um, and the reason you knowwhere that faces the entire time
is because you're, becausethings are on in balance, right?
It's like, I've got theappropriate amount of yielding
so that I'm getting feedbackfrom where this thing is that
the whole time, um, and then Ican tug on it and I can tune it,

(48:35):
right?
Because that's what we see.
It's like, it's not like theseguys are doing the same thing
over and over again.
They have enough noise that theycan deal with this noise that
they can tune this thing as itcomes down.
It's a, it's a, it's a privilegeto be able to tune.
You're talking about functionalvariability, Dr.
K.
Come on.
Functional variability.

(48:55):
I like that.
I love it.
No, that's literally what it is.
Like, cause they're so skilled.
Like they've, they're aware ofthe club.
Like they know where that clubis.
It is a privilege to get to dothat.
Right.
So we think like, but you wantto take someone's ability to
tune then.
twist them like a pretzel,right?
Dry them out.
Like that's the, like, you know,like we could, like, it's the,

(49:16):
like, people start talking aboutlike fascial lines and like, to
me, it's inconsequential.
It's like fascia coverseverything from, you know, your
toe to your liver, right?
I can draw any fascial line withall due respect to anywhere I
want.
It just, it doesn't matter.
But fashion is a sensory suit.
So if I twist myself over andover again, lose my foot
contacts, have to bend myhelical angle in an event like a

(49:37):
way to get the club in a certainposition, that stuff dries out.
When that stuff dries out, thenI lose my capability for sensing
where this thing is.
Then I lose my capability fortuning.
I lose my capability for tuningand I'm a frigging robot.
Yeah.
Skills out the window.
You're gone.
Right.
So, right.
So like, you know, yeah, it's.
It's talked to great playerswhen they're on a roll.
It's like, man, I feel like Ihave so much time through the

(49:58):
hitting zone, whether it's apitcher, hitter, golfer, right?
Like a golf pitcher will belike, man, I get to front leg
strike and it's like, I canliterally like, I can hold the
ball.
They can pick a scene that theywant to throw off of, you know,
a golfer can talk about how theycan hold the face.
They can turn it down.
They can do whatever they want.
Totally.
Right.
But that's, that is, again, is Ihave the ability to like tune as
I came into this landingposition.

(50:21):
100%.
And there's been a lot ofresearch that has actually shown
cause we talked about skill, Ithink two episodes ago, but the
things that separate afunctional shot and a
dysfunctional one areobjectively incredibly,
incredibly, incredibly small.
Like it differences in quarterof an inch of impact spot
differences in half of a secondon a clock in face to path

(50:41):
variability.
So.
What we're seeing is that thebest players in the world and
the research has shown is thatthey're not organizing those
skills the same way every time.
There's variability in thesevery, very, very small amounts
prior to that release point,prior to impact, to get the
outcome.
Consistently inside theirdispersion of what they're

(51:03):
trying to do.
They're not doing it the exactsame.
So this way, like golfers arewant to be consistent.
Well, no, you don't, you don'twant to be consistent.
You want to be able to tune,right?
You want to be able to be awareof where that face is to
relative to the task of the shotthat you're trying to hit.
Right?
You want to be able to tune thespeed of the club relative to

(51:24):
the shot that you're trying tohit.
Um, that's a great word.
I'm going to start using thatactually.
Tuning.
Um, because that's what we dowhen we do skill development.
We say, okay, can you create arhythm?
Right?
And then can you get the face alittle open to the path, a
little close to the path?
Can you hit it a little out thetoe, a little out the heel?
And we're trying to facilitatethis, this skill, but then what
happens is they get on the golfcourse and like, oh, this

(51:45):
thing's got to be, this thing'sgot to go my way.
Like, now I've got to clamp downand control this, and then they
lose access to their skills.
They can't tune anymore.
Yeah, that's, I mean, like, andso, like, my job from a, how I
can, you know, interact with theplayer is, is I, I would like to
give them the greatest access torelative motion that they could
have.
Available.
Right?
Because if they have greaterrelative motion than they are,

(52:06):
you're typically gonna, and, andthey're of practice and they
have got a coach that can, youknow, like they've got, they've
got all the other stuff onboard, then they've got,
typically, then they're having agreater chance to, to create
space and time to tune, right.
Um, so yeah, you know, you know,you can take someone's range of
motion by, you know, away byliterally putting them in a

(52:27):
hallway.
Right.
It's like, if I, if I crowd youand I take away your space, it's
like, you're going to lose,you're going to lose extra
rotation.
Is that why when we see peoplehit drivers and doors,
oftentimes they swing slower?
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
You lose extra rotation space.
ER is fast.
That's what it is.
ER speed, right?
ER speed.
And like, if I take away, if I,if I crowd you and I take away

(52:49):
your external rotation space, Ilose the ability to produce
velocity.
I can still do it, but I imagineyou're going to see a lot of
like, Compensatory IR bets andthings that you don't want to
see.
Oh my gosh, I see people's swingchange dramatically when they go
outdoors than indoors.
Especially with driver, it'sweird, like, Pitch shots and
iron shots can be kind ofsimilar, But for whatever
reason, when you get a driver inpeople's hands indoors, it's
just a freaking mess.

(53:09):
Yeah, I've been teaching indoorsfor two weeks a week.
I have hit no driver, basicallyno drivers with students for
that reason.
Almost none.
It is amazing.
Yeah.
Now we know why.
Thanks, doc.
It's a representation, likerange of motion, we try to think
of it like, because I'm tightand I can't move.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no.
It's a representation ofbehavior.

(53:30):
It's a behavior, right?
And you may have like thespectrum of a behavior where I
can, you know, move in and out.
Right.
Um, you know, but for such anopen environment game as golf, I
want to give you.
you don't know this until youstart messing with people and
seeing an individual is likewhat their access to spaces and
how much they need in order toplay well.

(53:52):
Um, so, you know, for like ahitter, like a very time
component thing, I'm going tosqueeze them pretty tight a lot
of times for golfer.
It's like, you know, I'm goingto stay away from the trap bar
deadlift on a lot of these guysor these sort of things, because
it's all I'm doing is stealing,stealing relative motion that I
might need.
They're going to needeventually, uh, or they will
leave.

(54:14):
That's awesome.
So cool.
All right.
So we've got some listenerquestions.
Have you still got time doc?
I got.
Yeah, I'm good.
Okay.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Um, so the first one, uh, is areally, so, um, Hunter Brown
asked.
Uh, what are some of thepotential ramifications of some
of the more popular trends inposture and setup strategies

(54:36):
over the years?
So you know, there's a, a goodexample would be like, all
right, you get somebody on forceplate, right?
So they're here, they're, here'stheir feet, right?
So sorry for our podcast folks,but I got my lead foot, trail
foot, lead foot's flared outsome amount force plate data
showing that the lead sidevertical is peaking late.
Right.
So what am I going to do?

(54:57):
I'm going to take that lead footand I'm just going to like
square it off.
Right.
So like for like, when mightthat be appropriate?
And then why would it not be?
And then like some of theramifications of that strategy.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's so like,you know, when someone like if
they ER, let's say they ER theirleft foot, so they turn it away
from midline.

(55:17):
Right.
Yeah.
You know, it's typically it's tohelp them.
Give a sense that they can cleartheir left hip so they don't get
stuck.
Yes.
That's fair, right?
Um, and then, you know, theycan, it's essentially, it's a,
it's a, it's a time saver,right?
It's giving them more time,right?
Um, whether, you know, the, I'malways hesitant to tell someone

(55:43):
to turn their foot away frommidline, like turn it out.
to do anything.
I would do it in the gym for avery specific reason in order to
capture like a joint position,but to then to accelerate
someone through that with a golfclub, I think that's a That's a
thing that like can work forlike two weeks and then all of a
sudden you look at them and youhaven't seen them in two weeks

(56:05):
and now they've got this crazy,crazy right side bend and you're
like, where did that come from?
They had to slow things downbecause now they've got all
this, they created a space openthis direction and now they're
just squishing everything outthat way.
hold on to it to a longer andlonger degree.
Um, you know, and just becauseI, you are my foot or I are my

(56:26):
foot, like in this case, let'ssay I turn my foot inwards,
right?
It doesn't mean that I amturning the tibia inwards
either.
Right?
So it's like I could then nowcreated like even a bigger
twist.
So let's say I turn, let's sayI've got like a, the front part
of my shin.
My left shin is turned out awayfrom midline.
So I've got what we call like avery externally rotated left
proximal left tibia by my kneeis turned away.

(56:48):
So just because I turned my footin doesn't mean that my tibia
came in.
So now I've got even you justcreated a bigger twist.
I've got, I've got, I've got anMCL problem really soon.
I've got, I've got a left SIjoint problem coming really soon
maybe.
So it's, it's, it's, it'stricky, right?
It's not like, you know, yeah.
Tweaking one little like youcould tweak.
That's the that's the thingabout dealing with complexity,

(57:10):
right?
It's not a hierarchy.
It's a heterarchy or any smallthing.
Things can change and have ahuge, huge consequence of what
we're looking at.
So, but then it's like if you'vegot a good coach's eye and you
look at that, you know, like Youknow, and you don't just look at
ball flight and a track, man,and you say like, all right,
like, yeah, the path is better,but look at that right side

(57:30):
bend.
Look at what he's doing from hisright, look at what his right
foot's doing now.
Is that something that I want tosee perpetuated over a month
period?
Yeah.
You have to see, right?
I'm not saying do it or not, butI think it's something you just,
you have to manage.
You can't just be looking at onepiece of data from it.
Totally.
And then, like, what are some ofthe I guess getting off topic

(57:52):
now, but off of that question,but like, what are some of the
things that, just as like acoach, seeing players come in
and out the door, like, I thinka big part of our job is injury
prevention, right?
So what are some things that youwould want, just like your, the
masses of coaches, to keep aneye on when it comes to

(58:15):
preventing injury?
If there's anything, I knowthat's probably a loaded
question, but.
Um, you know, I think like themassive majority of injury is me
creating force from like aposition away from midline.
So it's like, I'm, I'm creating,I'm trying to create force from

(58:35):
an ER position.
So, so I, I, I move away frommidline a lot and now I've, now
I created this.
It's external to station spaceto move into and I'm not saying
it's good or not.
I'm just saying it's spaced.
That's the only thing you can dois move space, move into space
to move into.
But now I, I own this space,right?
So now I have to push down intothis space.

(58:56):
Um, so you know, like from a,like what looking at, it's like,
all right, let's say I got a guywho, you know, who can't turn
unless he rolls out the outsideedge of his foot.
It's all well and good, buthe's, he's, unless he can get,
recapture that foot in time andget himself to turn back and
left, like he's still got topush in the ground.

(59:17):
And if he's going to push in theground from an ankle sprained
position or a rolled outposition or a back foot
position.
He can still push in the groundwith a lot of force, but we have
to figure it, realize where it'smost likely coming from, and
that's going to be more of likea spine push.
So then I push hard down from atop down position, and then I
have to create another big yieldquickly, other, somewhere else,

(59:37):
so then, you know, you can getthis kind of disky type of
connective tissue, connectivetissue type health.
So, preventing injury wise,like, yeah, I look at that type
of stuff, um, for, you know,Things should be vanilla y,
right?
Kind of boring.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(59:58):
So if I see like, you know, anywild side bends and twists and
things like that, um.
That's a cool rule of thumb.
I think that's a decent way tolook at it.
Like you're gonna.
It's like the smell test, right?
So like if you just seesomething and you're just like,
nope, that doesn't look right.
Right.
Things are supposed to, we wantthings to be distributed.

(01:00:19):
Right.
Yeah.
So I'm not saying like whenpeople talk about the spine,
side bends and twists and doesall those things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Sure.
A hundred percent.
But that's also why we have armsand limbs and stuff like that to
distribute these crazy sidebends and twists and turns that
you can do just because youcould do something.
It doesn't mean you ought to doit over and over and over again.
Right.
Yeah.
I want to distribute it ahundred percent.

(01:00:45):
And then just kind of goingthrough, Oh, there's a, yeah,
definitely want to get to thisone.
What are your thoughts on overspeed training?
Over speed training?
Like, uh, um, we won't, we won'tmention necessarily the
companies, but like, uh,different weighted clubs that
you're going to swing.
Yeah.

(01:01:05):
got you.
I got you.
Um, I mean, I guess it becomeswho, what, when, where, right.
And that, that would be the onlyissue I ever have with.
Any of this stuff is that thereand I don't expect them to talk
about this But it's like what'sthe negative implications of
using your trading aid, right?
And it's easy for me to saybecause I don't I'm not talking
a trading aid, right?

(01:01:26):
But you know, but like, you knowLike, you know, like that would
be my thing is like, all rightWhat what is what is gonna cause
a problem and what does itbecause you don't hear about
this and they don't know whattalks?
about about the about Whathappens when I say I have a
weighted club as my, as my speedtrading thing, right?

(01:01:48):
Um, you know, so like, thinkabout, think about the, have you
seen, like, if you look atsomeone, like, if someone's
squatting with like, maybe likewith chains on the side of the
bar, right?
Like a super, could be a really,really useful strategy.
But what it's doing is it'sincreasing my time to produce
force, right?

(01:02:09):
So if I increase my time toproduce force over a period of
time that when I take the clubaway and I move it, it might
give me a greater ability toproduce force for a period of
time to bend this club and moreeffective way to create more
velocity, hit the ball further.
Um, but again, it's like, whenis it become too much?
And then what are the strategiesthat are being used in order to
create?

(01:02:30):
The, the velocity of the bands,right?
You know, if the shaft, if it's,you know, you're going to have
to, in order to turn this thingaround, I'm gonna have to
squeeze my axial skeleton in ananterior posterior position
harder and harder and harder inorder to turn this thing around.
If I can pop out of that, that'swhy I create velocity, right?
So I go to the top and Isqueeze.
I've got some videos that Icould took.

(01:02:50):
It was kind of interesting wherelike you, I load, fully loaded
up a club and made some swingsand then you could kind of see
like how squeezed everything ison me.
Um, in my, like my ribcage andskeleton, right?
Um, so I squeeze and stopbecause that's how I stop.
I have to make myself like arectangle to stop, right?
But then in order to pop out ofthat, you have to then go, you

(01:03:13):
have to expand pretty quickly,right?
So as long as you have theability to expand, squeeze all
you want.
Like I would love people if theycould, if you could trap
Arndella 405 pounds, you canmove it off the ground like
that.
Awesome, right?
I want you to produce force.
But when you have to thencontinue to squeeze through the
velocity component or theturning component of this force,

(01:03:34):
then we have problems.
And then what, what's going tobe your indicator that you, that
you've overshot your speedtraining, right?
It's not, this isn't like a,it's not like, let's say this is
my spectrum of capacity of,right?
If I go to, and I swing at 116and now I swing at 124, it's not
like I just went like this,right?
It had to go like, I had to golike this to get over there,

(01:03:58):
right?
Yeah, exactly.
So I have to give up somethingon the other end of it.
Everyone talks about that.
Oh, I got more accurate when Iswung harder.
It's like, sure, but like, canyou control a flighted yards
anymore?
And if you're a 10 and you don'tcare, that's fine.
But if you make a living playinggolf, that's a pretty important.
Yeah.
Right.
So, not, not good or bad ornegative.

(01:04:19):
Just context dependent.
It totally is.
It's just.
Who, what, when, where, why.
Yeah.
I think there are, I think thereare much more efficient longterm
ways to go about getting speedgains in people than just
putting a weight on a golf cluband having them do it to get
that.
Right.
Just say rip it.
Yeah.
Well, I want, like, it's, it's,it's like anything else.

(01:04:39):
It's like, you know.
I was watching some of theYouTube series of a guy trying
to increase his club head speedand he goes and sees these
amazing instructors and peopleand it's all they do is talk
about is like, you need toproduce force earlier, you need
to produce more force or youneed to like, but it's not for
this conversation about like,look at this, look at the, look
at the human being that's infront of you.
He can't, he can't produce forceearlier.

(01:05:01):
Stop jamming his knee furtherinto the ground.
He can't get out of the ground.
Yeah, this guy has got a top ofhis rib cage that is so
compressed.
There's nowhere for him to pushup into.
So if he tries to one, wait, he,no wonder he can't straighten
his leg.
He's just bouncing back down.
It just gets pinned, right?
So you can have him try to pushhard and squeeze her, but he's
going to push from a tibialfemoral position that you're not
going to want.

(01:05:21):
And, and let's say he bumps to180 for a month, like, all
right, like, is it such an egothing?
You're not going to maintainthat.
So what's the, it's just thepure ego thing, you know?
So, but it's not, it's not, youknow, trending the direction for
a three years, four or fiveyears of that type of speed.
Yeah.
And that's the other thing Iwould say, right, are people

(01:05:43):
maintaining their speed withthis type of things?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or the moment they stop, is itgone?
Yeah.
And that's where I say, like,hey, you've got to get through
18 holes.
Right.
A lot.
You've got to get through 36holes.
Right?
A lot of folks got to getthrough 72 holes.
What is their, yeah, what'stheir mode?
So what's the strategy?
Yeah.
What's their mode to recapturethat?
Right?
Like, the range of motion youhave on hole one is totally

(01:06:04):
different than what you'll haveon 12.
Do you have strategies torecapture during the round?
Are you adaptable enough tocapture the further round?
So those are all, those are allreally important questions.
Yeah.
Well, uh, I think we've gotmaybe just one more.
Um, let me get back to my, mynotes here.
So, uh, the last one.

(01:06:27):
I thought it was a really goodone.
This was during our sub stackfrom, uh, Chris Blackmore, if
you remember Chris from, uh, ourprevious code breakers events.
Um, he's like, what are somethings that we would likely see
or, or common ramifications whensomeone's posture doesn't match
their ISA?
So maybe beforehand, like, let'sjust hard to do, but like real

(01:06:48):
quick, just talk about likeposture, uh, likely, likely
differences in someone's posturefrom a wide to a narrow.
And then if someone's not.
I'm accessing that space, whatwe would likely see like
ramifications of that.
I just asked you a 30 minutequestion.
Five minutes.
Here we go.
Oh, perfect.
Yeah.
I was like, I do have apublisher.

(01:07:08):
Um, not helping with thepodcast, but, um.
Yeah.
So wider is going to have morespace.
Like, so sacrum, right?
From a side view, wider is goingto have more space, that's going
to be more of their sacrum look,right?
So you can see that I've then,I've got a center of gravity
that has a greater chance tomove down and back a little
more, right?
And back being relative, butdown at least, right?

(01:07:29):
So from the side on view, thiswould be like, very
traditionally, quote unquote,like, S posture look?
This would be like a sacralnutation look.
This would be an S posture look.
This is where this gets screwedup all the time.
That's a great point, right?
Cause, cause I could have that.

(01:07:51):
And that.
And look where my spine is,right?
So this is, this is relativemotion.
And the sacrum doesn'tnecessarily move that much, but
like, but this is relativemotion.
Right.
So this is what this is.
This is, but if I have a, if Ihave a lower compression, your
strategy and I've got a sacrumthat's new to it and I turn this

(01:08:13):
direction and it's like, oh,he's got, you know, he's got
right.
All these sort of things.
But so this is like your, thisis your rudder, right?
So like your wide is going toprobably have more access to the
backside of the pelvis.
So you're going to see maybe alittle more, you're going to see
more of like a vertical shinpresentation for them at setup.
If they have access to relativemotion, the problem is you might

(01:08:37):
take a wide that doesn't haveany access to relative motion.
You're like, you need a verticalshin position.
Well, how are they going to dowith their center of mass like
this?
Then they just arch harder fromtheir back to try to push their
shins back in that position.
Versus a narrow, right?
A narrower guy who's got more ofa sacrum that's kind of here,
right?
They're going to have a shinposition that's a little bit
more, uh, like a little morepositive shin, shin angle.

(01:09:01):
They're going to be a littlemore vertical.
They just don't have the sameaccess to internal rotation that
a narrow, or a wide would havemore access to internal rotation
than a narrow would have.
But you can see like the narrowis going to have more greater
access to like externalrotation, ability to turn,
versus a wide will have more ofan IR.
Tell us.
So, fair to say, wide's a littlehinge ier, um, narrow's a little

(01:09:22):
bit more of like a sit.
Yeah, they just, careful of theword hinge, it doesn't mean
anything, because I can show youa way a narrow would hinge and a
wide would hinge and it's like,it wouldn't be the same.
Right.
Like they could access the samethree dimensional space, but
then the narrow might be doingit through a lot of lumbar
flexion.
The wide would be doing itthrough like a different, like
a, like a sacral position, uh,different, like, like a lumbar

(01:09:45):
position.
Um, I, I would just say yard orI think would be the shin, the,
yeah, the shin angle, your lookat chest, like in how the, how,
like everything else, chestresponds off of that.
Um, the, you know, you'll tendto see a narrow with greater
access to like, Uh, like midback expansion, and then a wide.

(01:10:07):
A wide might have more of like apump handle or like an expansion
in the front of their chestspace.
Um, but yeah, that's what Iwould look at, that type of
stuff.
So if you've got a, let's sayyou've got a narrow who, um, has
a very kind of more of like thatvertical shin, and is not really

(01:10:27):
matching kind of their ISA, whatwould you tend to, like what are
some of the ramifications ofthat?
I think you, because I, this isa tough question, right?
Because it's like the narrow,this, this narrow might have
access to internal rotationenough to have a more vertical
shin positioning.
So I'm going to look at likethe, the, maybe the bias of the

(01:10:49):
weight in their foot, right?
If they look like they've got agood, of good IR representation
of their foot in the groundthere, that maybe they have some
access to this space here.
Right.
Um, Um, this is the, this islike, I guess the challenge of,
of, again, saying a wide versusa narrow setup, um, because

(01:11:12):
it's, you're going to seeidiosyncrasies.
You have to coach this and lookat a foot and look at a shin and
look at, cause all these otherthings that are going to go into
the interplay of how this personsets up.
Um, you know, that's, I thinkthey're trying to, I guess,
differentiate this from say likea, any other golf model or
system.
Uh, it just puts a lot more onuson the coach to coach and see

(01:11:35):
the segments, see everythingversus just again, just say
like, this is a narrow, this isa wide setup.
You know, all things beingequal, wides will have greater
access to internal rotation atsetup.
Narrows will be a little, have alittle higher center of gravity,
so they'll have a greater accessto, they'll be in more external
rotation at setup.

(01:11:56):
What that looks like up and downthe chain is going to be related
to kind of those positions.
Would you tend to see a narrowcenter of pressure at setup?
Like closer to like a little bitmore forward, like just inside
the balls of the feet maybe?
A little forward.
Yeah.
And then why would be a littlebit more?
They're going to have to, yeah,a little more, yeah, a little
deeper, right?
So then, you know, that's the,the greater my ability to do

(01:12:19):
that with relative motion isgoing to be my greater ability
to then access the deeper partof my heel.
While maintaining my first medhead, because it ain't just
rolling on and squeezing on theback of the heel and letting
everything go.
Right, so that's the, that wouldbe this, the, the, the
differential like with a wideversus a narrow.
But I like, I like the footpressure, if you've got access

(01:12:41):
to that.
Yep.
Mm hmm.
Eric, got anything else?
Got nothing else.
That was awesome though.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Any questions, but yeah, youdid.
You were great.
Um, why don't you tell the folkswhere they can find you have a
sub stack, right?
I do.
Yeah, I do a sub stack with, uh,my partner's, uh, Mike

(01:13:03):
Camperini.
It's a context driven.
Cool.
Yeah.
And we do a kind of a weeklypost on all sorts of stuff.
Um, I'll be doing more.
I'll be doing more golf herecoming up.
Uh, Putting together some likegolf athletic development stuff
speed programs and then We'll beout in South Carolina probably

(01:13:26):
here.
Yeah, so then Use thisopportunity to plug code
breakers retreat That's gonna beFebruary 24th 25th at the cliffs
at Kiwi Springs We still havespots open our kind of our soft
Registration deadline is comingup, uh, January 24th, so please

(01:13:46):
do us a favor if you plan onattending, uh, register prior to
that date, uh, no pun intended,but it's going to be, uh, Dr.
Mike Kay, uh, Helix GolfInstitute with, uh, Tony Greco
and Chris Walkie, as well as Dr.
Raymond Pryor.
So it's going to be a really funtime.
We hope to see you there again.
Uh, again, thank you, Dr.

(01:14:07):
K for, for all you've done andall, all you've shared with us.
It's going to be a lot of funto, uh, to keep exploring.
Yeah, I appreciate having me.
Thanks guys.
Oh, thank you.
Well, uh, we hope you enjoyed itand, uh, we'll look forward to
continuing this, uh, series on,uh, swing exploration next time
on the golf intervention.
Have a good night.
Peace.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EP 39: Swing Science: How Unique Body Shapes Can Impact Your Golf Performance with Dr. Mike Kay

Episode Transcript

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

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EP 39: Swing Science: How Unique Body Shapes Can Impact Your Golf Performance with Dr. Mike Kay

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