November 21, 2025 • 37 mins
GS#449 August 12, 2014 Long time Golf Smarter Member Michael Hamel plays at least 36 holes everyday...in Ontario Canada! So far this year, he's logged 237 rounds, and he's not slowing down. In only 6 years of playing golf, Michael has brought himself down to a 3 handicap...although he'll say "up" to a 3 since he was in the 2s. He's also been a Personal Trainer for 25 years. When he fell in love with golf, he went for his TPI (Titleist Performance Institute) Certification so that he could become a better golfer, and to help others to be in better golf shape.
This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker with over 300+ locations to help you find your next pair of glasses. You can also head over to warbypaker.com/golfsmarter right now to try on any pair virtually!
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If you have a question about whether or not Fred is using any of the methods, equipment or apps we’ve discussed, or if you’d like to share a comment about what you’ve heard in this or any other episode, please write because Fred will get back to you. Either write to golfsmarterpodcast@gmail.com or click on the Hey Fred button, at golfsmarter.com
This episode is brought to you by Warby Parker with over 300+ locations to help you find your next pair of glasses. You can also head over to warbypaker.com/golfsmarter right now to try on any pair virtually!
This episode is sponsored by Indeed. Please visit indeed.com/GOLFSMARTER and get a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT. Terms and conditions apply.
This episode is sponsored by HIMS. Start your free online visit today HIMS.com/golfsmarter and received personalized ED treatment options.
This episode is also brought to you by Policygenius. Secure your family’s future with Policygenius. Head to policygenius.com to compare free life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save.
If you have a question about whether or not Fred is using any of the methods, equipment or apps we’ve discussed, or if you’d like to share a comment about what you’ve heard in this or any other episode, please write because Fred will get back to you. Either write to golfsmarterpodcast@gmail.com or click on the Hey Fred button, at golfsmarter.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Golf Smarter number four hundred and forty nine.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction never gets old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
We are a society of sitters. I think the average
for the American adult is around eight to ten hours
a day. So what happens in that situation is you
place muscles in a shortened state, hamstrings being one of them.
So there's your low back issue. And then you also
put muscles in an elongated state. They're stretched out, and
(00:47):
when you elongate a muscle, you weaken a muscle overtime.
And one of the muscles that does elongate when you
sit are your quad, your step muscles in the front
part of your thigh. Now those are important muscles for
stability of the knee joint. So when you get weak quads,
that tends to impact the knee.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
How to cope with common golf injuries featuring Bob Foreman.
This is Golf Smarter welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast. Bob.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, I appreciate the invite.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Well that's just great. You've got the invite. Now make
it worthwhile.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Always make it worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, absolutely so. All right, it's summertime, it's it's camp time.
So everyone sing along with me. Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
knees and toes. Golf injuries.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That takes me back to my kid's childhood.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Exactly, yeah, exactly so. But golf injuries, it's head to
toe and it's it's all of us. And I want
to know some ways we can learn how to what
the injuries are. What if we're feeling something wrong, what
is that? And what are the things we can do
(02:09):
to improve those things? And that's why Golfit Carolina is
back on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, yeah, gosh, I mean, you know, it's unfortunately, it
keeps a lot of people from playing as much golf
as they'd like to, and in some cases it's kind
of forcing some golfers to hang up the clubs. I mean,
injury related to golf or golf related injury is kind
of a hot topic, you know, given even given the
(02:37):
the litany of injuries that you hear all these tour
players have and their swings are good, and that's one
of the you know, the factors that lead up to
amateur injury is the fact that our mechanics aren't as
good in addition, in addition to the fact that you know,
overuse uh always tends to play a role with injury.
(03:01):
But you know, it's very prevalent amongst all level golfers.
It doesn't matter if you're a male or a female,
if you're a junior or a senior.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
You know, it's there and it's a part of the game,
and it's something that you know, if you know how
to prevent it, you know you can, you know, you
can kind of keep those injuries at bay if you
kind of take the proper steps to keep yourself healthy.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Oh that's good to know. Yeah, it's amazing because even
on the first day of the PGA Championship, guys were
just like walking off the chorus right dropping like flies.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I mean, you know, you got a koocher didn't even
show up because of back spasms, and you got tigers
on going back issue and.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
The biggest story of the entire tournament, it's like, is
he gonna play? Is he not going to play? Should he?
Should he play? Should he not play? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
You wonder gush. You know. I remember reading and somebody
telling me too that once you have a low back injury,
you are considered cured if you don't have any pain
for two years.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And your thought on.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
That, well, I think, you know, I think there's there's
a lot to that, because I mean, there's there's there's
a lot of mechanisms in the back area, but it
is prone to injury. And then when you combine it
with the explosiveness and the torque of the golf swing, uh,
(04:36):
you know, and then you add to that, as we
talked about, especially with amateur golfers, the fact that the
mechanics aren't always as ideal as they should be. In
addition to the fact that probably ninety five percent of
us I may even go as far as saying one
hundred percent of us have the anatomical deficiencies in the
(05:00):
form of muscle tightness and muscle weakness, and all those
add up, you know, and make a perfect storm for injuries.
So yeah, you know, it's once you have low back,
it's it kind of hangs around for a while and
you've got to really kind of.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Treat it gingerly, so you buy or don't buy the
two year theory.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Uh, well, two years is kind of a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I just think that anybody who's going to get away
from golf for two years is gone.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah yeah, yeah, oh yeah no. But again I think
you know, there's ways that there are things that you
can do to quicken or or hasten the recovery and
prevent the back injury from coming back. Definitely.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Wow wow. So is back the most prevalent injury or
lower back or what part of the back?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah? For back by far, by far the number one
in golf. And again that's to everybody, professionals, amateurs, men, women. Uh,
and there's there's good reason for it. I mean, you know, again,
it's an explosive type activity. It's a one sided activity,
so it's repetitive in nature. You know, as they mentioned,
(06:18):
many of us have muscle deficiencies and imbalances that you know,
forget about golf would lead up to back injury by itself,
and then again when you add that that turning and
twisting an explosive you know, swing, it just adds to
(06:39):
the incidents and the risk levels.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
You know, when you and I spoke earlier, and you've
been on the show a couple of times. Actually, if
people want to go back and listen, it's episodes three
forty seven, three fifty nine, and three sixty. We talked
a lot about and I was always trying to focus
on my lower back issues and I'm happy to say
that they are not bothering me that much. And there's
(07:05):
two things that I can track back. And I don't
know if either of them are why. I'm probably gonna
add a third. But if why, it's better or I'm
it's just a coincidence. But I can track a couple
of things. First of all, my golf swing. I learned
how to quiet my lower body. I don't have the
(07:28):
sway that I used to have when I'm swinging the
golf club. That could be one of them. Secondly, is
I've become a side sleeper versus a back sleep, a
stomach sleeper. That could be another one. Yeah, good, thank you.
A third, I was doing a lot of yoga. I
(07:49):
don't do it that much, if at all, anymore, because
I found that there were a couple positions that really
hurt my lower back.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
And then actually the last one, which I think maybe
the biggest contributing factor to my back being better is
I swim a lot.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Now, well that's a good one too. Yeah, swimming's great
for low back discomfort.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Well, I just what I love about swimming is that
there it's a high resistance and no impact. And yeah,
people say, oh, it's so boring. It's like, yeah, I
love that part of it. When else in my life
do I get to be bored for twenty minutes to
a half hour, you know, and get one of.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Those ear plugs and so you can play music while
you're swimming.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
No. I love to have my mind go nuts. I mean,
because you know, like I watch runners, and even a
runner who's like out on the street, not unnecessarily in
a treadmill, they have to pay attention to where they're going.
You know, you really have to pay attention when you're running.
When you're swimming in a pool, I go, I just
do laps. But when I'm swimming, I just go to
(08:57):
the edge and then I turn around and go next
to the And that's all I have to think about,
is where am I and I really get into this
meditative deep state where my mind and the longer I'm
in the pool, the farther my mind goes and I
kind of enjoy that. But from my back, for the
strength of my back and overall conditioning on my core,
(09:20):
I think that that has been a major factor.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, swimming is definitely one of the better exercises for
individuals that do have you know, chronic lower back discomfort.
And then when you mentioned the yoga, you know, flexibility
also plays a big part in injury prevention, and especially
as it relates to the lower back, and you had
mentioned about you did a lot of yoga. You know,
(09:44):
there's definitely a window of flexibility that you want to
kind of monitor because if you're tight, that increases the
risk in many cases for injury not just in the back,
but in other parts of the body. But then again,
if you're too flex and you don't have the lex
you know, the the the joint stability, that can also
(10:06):
lead to injuries in the in the body as well.
So there's definitely a window. Not too many people are
hyper flexible, but you know, and those are usually like
dancers and stuff like that. But again, if you take
yoga and you do that a lot, you know, you
could get into that category.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Well I am I am always have been very flexible,
even more than my children. Yeah, I've always been. I've
even had a couple of messuses call me Gumby.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Really you're a rarity.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
But I do get you know, like the tight hamstrings,
and I think that that also is a is another
back problem contributors tight ham strings right.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Oh yeah, gosh, tight hamstrings are probably one of the
biggest factors that lead up to a low back injury.
And the ham strings, I mean are in the you know,
the back of the thigh. And a lot of people
kind of look puzzled when I mentioned that in some
of the workshops, you know, because they're like, well, those
are down you know, in the legs, but my back
(11:08):
bothers me. What's the relationship? And what happens when the
ham strings are tight is the hamstrings attached to the
hip bone and over a number of years they'll they'll
the tightness will pull that hip bone and rotate it
backwards sort of, you know, towards the tightness. So what
happens is the low back muscles which are attached or
(11:30):
fanned out across the top of the hip bone and
then all kind of converge into the lower spine. The
lumbar curve and the lower spine. When the hip bone
rotates down and back, it takes those low back muscles
and it stretches them out and it leaves them in
a taunt position. So early signs and symptoms of that
occurring are if you sit for a long period of
(11:54):
time and you get up and your back's a little tight,
that could be a sign. If you play golf or
you work in the yard and the next day or
two your back's a little tight, that could be a sign.
The more serious consequence is what happens when that hip
bone rotates and those back muscles get taught. It also
takes that normal curve in your lower back than normal
(12:18):
lumbar curve, and it actually straightens it out a little bit. Now,
you don't want to deviate from that natural curve because
if you deviate, if you straighten the curve out, or
if you increase the curve, you start to put more
pressure on the disks, you know, those jelly doughnuts that
are in between the bones and the spine, And over
(12:39):
a period of time, that wears the disc south faster,
and you get the space between the two bones starts
to decrease and that can put pressure on the nerve
that comes out between the two bones, you know, and
that can cause issues like the you know the sciatica
of the typical sciatica with the pain radiating down one
or both legs, numbness in the foot, you know, numbness
(13:03):
in the foot or weakness in the leg, or you
could also get you know that that disc to rupture
or to slip and it actually bulges out into that
space where the nerve is and that puts pressure on
the nerve and that causes the same type of discomfort.
So yeah, so tight hamstrings are number one probably one
(13:26):
of the bigger factors in muscle and balance that lead
up to back discomfort.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Let's talk about other parts of the body you know
that the golfers are having issues with. Do you see
more people complaining about like their shoulders or their elbows
and wrists?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yes, elbows probably, second shoulders probably, you know, depend upon
who you read, third or fourth wrists are in their
wrists are a lot from more impact type injury, you know,
hitting the root or yeah, digging into the turf that
(14:17):
tends to cause more wrist injury.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, I noticed that, Like if I, if I like
try to really dig it out in the bunker or something.
It's like, oh, that's my wrist.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, you know. And then the computer too. You know,
the fact that since the computer ages come around, I mean,
obviously you see a lot of more wrist injuries because
of the fact that a lot of people are using
the mouse, and you know, that kind of leads to
an imbalance in the in the forearm structure. You know,
(14:48):
we tend to have imbalances in our forearms anyway, because
the flexer muscles on the underside of the forearm tend
to be stronger than the muscles on the top part
of the forearm because we're always gripping things. You know,
you're constantly gripping things. You don't really do too much
to strengthen the muscles on the top part of the forearm,
and that's extending the fingers out. So we're stronger with gripping,
(15:12):
we're not as strong as we are extending. So that
imbalance leads to things like carpal tunnel and it can
also lead to things problems in the elbows and in
the shoulders. So then when you get into a sport
like golf, now where again you're gripping the golf club
and you're putting the wrists through you know, all types
(15:34):
of range of motion, both extension, inflection, and then also
what's called adduction and adduction which is kind of like
a sideways flection of the hand, which is probably more
prominent in the golf swing than theflection and extension. But
then again, you know, if you have that imbalance in
the forearm, that just increases the probability that you're going
(15:57):
to have some issues in the wrist, elbows, shoulder.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I should have gone in this order, since this program
we focus on the mental game so much. We start
at the top of the head. I should have gone
to the neck next before I got to the shoulders.
But do you see a lot of neck injuries and
issues with golfers.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, not too many, really, not too many neck injuries. Now,
shoulders are pretty prevalent. Like I say, elbows tend to
be probably the second biggest injury in amateur golfers, and
a lot of that is due to the fact that
a lot of golfers don't have the range of motion
(16:38):
in the respective side shoulder, especially what's called external rotation
of the shoulder. And you can kind of test yourself
out to see whether or not you have adequate external
shoulder rotation. If you were to raise your arm up
so that upper arm is parallel to the floor, and
(16:59):
then well even your whole arm is parallel to the floor,
but your elbows bet and ninety degrees and then try
to rotate the hand up like you're gonna make the
boy scout or girl scout sign, and keep going and
see how far you can go. If you can get
past ninety degrees, then your chances are your external shoulder
(17:21):
rotation is pretty good. If you are having trouble getting
to ninety degrees, then you're going to be probably one
of those individuals that's going to develop some sort of
elbow problem. Because in the golf swing, as we bring
the club back, you know, when we'll use a right
handed golfer, the right hand is going to rotate and
(17:46):
the right shoulder is going to externally rotate. And if
you don't have that range of motion in the shoulder,
what happens is you put a strain on the elbow.
So again, over time, the repetitiveness of the activity, you know,
it starts to wear out the you know, the tendons
and put pressure on the tendons, and golfer's elbow is
(18:08):
basically classified as an inflammation of the tendon on the
inside part of the elbow where you tend to see
a lot of issues, you know, so a lot of
golfers will go out and buy one of those forearmed
bands and wrap it around their forearm to take the
pressure off the muscle, which tends to relieve some of
the pressure, but you know, it tends to mask the injury,
(18:31):
and you definitely want to take steps to correct the
injury and don't rely on that band because it won't
get any better if you do.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
That's interesting, and there are a lot of products on
the market that make claims to helping relieve pain reduce injury.
Do you have favorites or is it all bunk?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Well, I mean it's good, you know, if you're in
discomfort and you want to get out there and play,
I mean it's good to to use like in this case,
you know, those forearm wrist or the I'm sorry, the
forearm bands, because again it will kind of put take
pressure away from the muscle as you're kind of bringing
the club back, and that's usually where most people will
(19:14):
feel the discomfort when they've got that what's called epic
und delitis. You don't want to depend on it for
too long because you know, you're kind of taken away
from the job of the muscle and so the muscle
can actually kind of weaken. So in between your rounds
(19:35):
of golf, you want to make sure well. First of all,
you want to make sure that your ice the area
for about fifteen to twenty minutes after you play golf,
so that you prevent any inflammation, further inflammation of the area,
because it's the inflammation that causes the discomfort, and the
more inflammation you have, the longer the rehab period. And
(19:57):
you never put ice directly on the skin, makes there's
a little thin layer of cloth in between you and
the ice. And then in between, you know, you can
do some mild stretching for the wrist and the forearm
to help heal the process, and you can also do
some mild strengthening exercises, and you know, I won't go
(20:19):
into all of them, but you probably want to contact
somebody who is knowledgeable about that, a physical therapist or
even a golf fitness instructor, a certified golf fitness instructor
who can kind of show you some simple exercises with
light weight to do to help strengthen the muscles in
the forearms so that you can alleviate and prevent the
(20:39):
problem from coming back.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
What about various supplements and liquids and roll ons that
are saying, you know, you know that there's a product
golf fuel, right and urgent joint support, and there's roll
on to relieve pain. Is that just are we should
be you know, is this just ibuprofen or are there
(21:07):
supplements that are supposed to help joints? And who knows
if supplements work? And what about any of these roll
ones that are supposed to relieve the pain. Is it
something that's just being marketed with a golf name on it.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Well, I'll tell you, fred, I really haven't run across
anything a supplement wise that seems to be on the
market for very long. And you know, to me that
that's kind of the the you know, the signal that Okay,
you know, I've read a few articles about this thing.
There seems to be some consistency as to the you know,
(21:42):
the product and the fact that it's effective. You know,
these things kind of come and go, and not no
one of them seems to hang around for very long.
So you know, personally, I wouldn't use any of that stuff.
The anti inflammatories, you know, the the bills and stuff
like that. If you're not allergic to that stuff is
(22:03):
good to take to help you know, relieve again the inflammation.
As I mentioned, anytime you have an injury, definitely the
first twenty four to forty eight hours you want to
go with ice because again the idea there is to
try to reduce the inflammation because that prolongs the rehab process.
Then once the inflammation has stopped, you know, usually after
(22:27):
a couple of days, two or three days, you can
go to moist heat and you know, like a wet towel,
wet hot, tael tolerable hot. You know, want to burn
yourself because the moist heat will penetrate into the joint,
especially going back to the low back. I mean, you've
got quite a thickness of muscle there and to where
(22:51):
you know, to use these kind of bombs, you know
that you know, they tend to pride themselves on the
fact that it brings least to the area. They pretty
much just kind of warm up the superficial layer under
the skin. They don't really penetrate deep into the muscle layer.
Moist teat. It's free, and it's probably the best thing
(23:14):
that you can do. You just got to be consistent
with it for three or four or five days, you know,
putting it on there once it cools off after about
eight and seven eight minutes, to do it again, you know,
for about seventy eight minutes, and you be surprised what
a difference moist heat can make in terms of helping
(23:35):
the recovery process.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Well, I can tell you that you said two words
that I think the golf smarter audience gets perked up
every time they hear it free and best, So moist
heat is going to be high on the list for
everyone at this point.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah, I mean, what I do? You know what I do?
You know, I get a little lower back tweak every
once in a while. I'll just take a towel, wet it,
you know, dunking and water, wring it out, throw it
in the microwave for a couple of minutes, and again
microwaves will vary, so you may want to start with
a minute and a half. You don't want to burn yourself,
you know. You take it out, you put a piece
(24:18):
of plastic on the floor so that you don't get
your carpet wet. You put the wet towel on the
carpet and then you gingerly lay yourself down onto the
uh you know, the warm, very warm towel.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
And I tell you it's it's it feels great and
uh you know, after a few days, it does a
good job at relieving the little spasm.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
One of the things that you said that I'm curious
for you to expand on it. You said, when you
have an injury. My question is when do we know
it's an injury or if we're just sore.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Well, yeah, I mean that's a good question. A storness,
I mean usually I think you can you can kind
of feel. It's more of a feel, you know, like
when you do something in the next day you feel
a little bit, you feel a little tight, and you
feel a little stiff, And I think that's more kind
(25:18):
of a soreness classification. When the injury when you get
up and you can't move a body part, I mean,
I think that's that's more of kind of an injury
related to classification.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
No, No, that's that's just aging. When I get up
in the morning, I'm not injured, I'm just getting older.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Well, if it doesn't get better as you start to
move around, then you can probably classify it more as
an injury. Okay, but yeah, I can relate to that too.
But yeah, I mean either case, you know, the you know,
the the the advils always work well to kind of
alleviate some of that. But you know, anytime you do
(26:01):
you get into something new, a new activity, you should
expect a little bit of soreness the next day or two, uh,
you know, and as you continue to participate in that activity,
that soreness should go away.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Excellent, all right, let's move down the body, get back
on track here, and and so we've now done upper body,
you know, let's get to the lower body and go
to the knees. The golfers, uh have knee problems.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Yeah, really, they're probably in the top five as well
terms of injury and stuff. And you'll tend to see
probably more injury on the lead leg than you do
the target leg because that's usually where all the weight
ends up in the in the golf swing.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So for a right handed golfer, that would be the
left leg.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Right Okay, yes, yes, the left leg. You know, and
again it depends on the mechanics of this of the golfer.
If their mechanics are kind of off, you know, if
you do have some of that sway and especially some
of the slide, which is an excessive lateral movement of
the hips in the downswing and again towards the target.
(27:18):
I mean, I've seen some golfers where their knees are
almost ninety degrees laterally bent. I mean, it's just you
got to wonder, at some point, you know, when are
they going to start to feel this in their knee,
because again, you know, it's those things you know, where
everything in life is chronic, and it's usually you know,
if you if you maintain this, the these poor mechanics,
(27:41):
you know, something's going to give at some point. The
other thing is is again going back to the anatomical deficiencies.
I mean, we are a society of sitters, and we
tend to sit. I think the average for the adult
American adult is around to ten hours a day. So
(28:02):
what happens in that situation is you place muscles in
a shortened state, hamstrings being one of them. So there's
your low back issue, and then you also put muscles
in in an elongated state, they're stretched out, and when
you want to elongate a muscle, you weaken a muscle
over time. And one of the muscles that tends to
(28:25):
elongate or does elongate when you sit are your quadrcep
muscles in the front part of your thigh. Now, those
are important muscles for stability of the knee joint. So
when you get weak quads, that tends to impact the knee.
The other thing that I find in a lot of
golfers is that a lot of golfers will have a
(28:49):
weak gluteous medius, which is part of the glut group.
You know, your butt muscles, And the gluteous medius is
a hip stabilizer. It's on the side part of the
hip and it's responsible for holding the hip bone still
so that when the other muscles that are attached to
the hip bone move, they have a solid foundation to
(29:11):
move against. So when the gluty's media is the hip
stabilizer is weak, the hip bone will move when the
individuals move in the legs, so the injury potential goes
up a little bit. Plus it will allow the thigh
bone to kind of internally rotate a little bit, and
that tends to put pressure on the knee itself. The
(29:34):
knee cap won't ride up and down the groove as
nicely as it should, and that can lead to need
discomfort as well. So, you know, one of the things
that I always check for in golfers is you know
the strength of their gluties medius and it's a fairly
easy assessment to do, but it's an important assessment because
(29:54):
if they are weak, then you definitely want to do
some strengthening exercises to strengthen at gluteus media so that
you and prevent those knee problems from happening.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And that's different than the so as muscle, right.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yeah, the so as is part of the ilioso as
is part of the hip flexers, which is kind of
more it's mainly in the front part of the hip.
That's one of those muscles that, if tight, can lead
to back injuries. And that's one of the muscle groups
that tends to be tighter in women. And what happens
is instead of the hip bone rotating down and back,
(30:29):
the tight hip flexer will pull the hip bone forward
and down. And what that does is it increases the
arch or the yeah, the arch in the lower back
and you kind of get that sway back posture with
the butt sticking out, and that does the same thing
and puts more pressure on the discs and at least
(30:49):
the disc problems rupture discs, lip discs s ia attica.
And that's why a lot of young female golfers, I mean, gosh,
there's a lot of them that are in the high
school college ranks that have back issues, and a lot
of them because they're in that s posture, that sway
back posture because of tight hip flexors.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Fascinating, fascinating. Do you see a lot of feet injuries
from golfers? Is this because of walking or is it
just other injuries they get involved with golfers.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Well, with the feet, you know, a lot of it
is One of the things that people don't really kind
of check or have checked is their gait. You know,
the way they walk, and there is a there is
a normal pattern of walking. It's called pronation. You land
(31:45):
on the outside part of your heel and then you
kind of roll a little bit to the inside part
of your toes so that you kind of push off
kind of your big toe. You know, there are a
lot of people who tend to overpronate. So what happens
is they tend to roll the ankle in a little
bit too much, and that can lead to some issues
(32:07):
in the ankle. It actually can lead to a lot
of issues all the way up the chain, you know,
from the ankle to the knee, to the hip, to
the back, to the shoulders and so on. Some people
tend to stay more on the outer part of their
foot and they're called supinators, and that does the same thing.
It tends to put more pressure on the outside part
(32:28):
of the ankle, the outside part of the knee and
the hip and stuff like that. So most of the
foot injuries you know, you see tend to relate to
gate when people, especially are walking the golf course. So
that's why it's important that you get, you know, fitted
properly for shoes. And I remember Callaway a few years back,
(32:50):
they were coming out with a line, you know, like
like running shoes. You know that if you did overpronate,
if you did roll your ankle in too too much,
they are going to have a shoe that gave you
a little bit more inside support to prevent you from
rolling in. And I don't know whatever happened to that line.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I guess the easiest way to check your pronation is
take an old pair of running shoes or just you know,
tennis shoes type of thing, jim shoes, and look at
the bottoms of them, right, and you can tell where
they're wearing tear is Yeah, do you get more people
(33:30):
who more injuries from people who are carrying their bags
than just like driving in a cart or pushing a
push cart.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
But still definitely, definitely. And you know why people tend
to have more problems carrying back because they tend to
carry the bag on the same side all the time. Well,
at least back a few years back. Now with the
you know the straps that they have where you.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Can pretty much wear it like a backpack.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, so that'serated a lot of discomfort. But you know,
anytime you're you're toting around ten to fifteen pounds on
your back, I mean that always tends to you know,
and you're not accustomed to that. I mean that tends
to wear the body down a little bit. And you know,
when you're tired, tired as a precursor to injury because
(34:24):
you know, the body is just not working as efficiently
as it should. So you know that can lead to
injury from you know, a golf swing because your body's tired.
It could lead to you know, stepping in a hole
or something and twisting your ankle or a sprinkler head
or something like that. So fatigue is, you know, also
one of those factors that you you kind of want
(34:46):
to make sure that you stay in shape so that
you can push that threshold of fatigue back, especially if
you do carry your clubs.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Great. Well, listen, I know you have to get going
because you're going to be doing more interviews like this, right,
You're on other other programs. Congratulations, Let's get an update
of what you're doing these days and how to get
in touch with you.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Well, still doing the golf fitness assessment and training mainly
in the Greensboro, North Carolina area and down in Myrtle Beach.
I have a website that people can go to. It's
got a bunch of educational articles on all the stuff
we talked about more and they can go to golffit
(35:32):
Carolina dot com and it's just one F and one T,
so it's g O L F I T Carolina dot com.
I've got a book that kind of details the more
common anatomical deficiencies golfers have. You know, from working with
hundreds of golfers over the years, you definitely see commonalities
(35:55):
in terms of which deficiencies tend to be more prevalent.
So I kind of wrote a book about that. So
what those are, how to do self assessments to determine
whether or not you're deficient in those areas. They're really
not that hard to do. How those deficiencies impact the
golf swing and or injury potential. And then there are
(36:19):
also over forty exercises and drills, golf specific exercises and
drills that are in the book that help you correct
those deficiencies if you should have them, or just good
exercises to do to help your golf game in general.
So if people want to get a hold of me,
they can get a hold of me at Bob at
golffit Carolina dot com. And again one F and one T.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
And what is the name of the book.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
The book's name is The Functional Golf Fitness Training, and
it's on Amazon and you can get printed copies at
the book patch.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
The Functional give me the title again, Functional.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Golf, Functional Golf Fitness Training.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Fitness Training. Okay, it's in my notes and it's gonna
be in the website. Awesome. Hey Bob, it was great
talking to you again. Thanks so much for your time
and for this education.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Thank Fred, my pleasure anytime.
Golf Smarter number four hundred and forty nine.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction never gets old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
We are a society of sitters. I think the average
for the American adult is around eight to ten hours
a day. So what happens in that situation is you
place muscles in a shortened state, hamstrings being one of them.
So there's your low back issue. And then you also
put muscles in an elongated state. They're stretched out, and
(00:47):
when you elongate a muscle, you weaken a muscle overtime.
And one of the muscles that does elongate when you
sit are your quad, your step muscles in the front
part of your thigh. Now those are important muscles for
stability of the knee joint. So when you get weak quads,
that tends to impact the knee.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
How to cope with common golf injuries featuring Bob Foreman.
This is Golf Smarter welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast. Bob.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, I appreciate the invite.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Well that's just great. You've got the invite. Now make
it worthwhile.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Always make it worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, absolutely so. All right, it's summertime, it's it's camp time.
So everyone sing along with me. Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
knees and toes. Golf injuries.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
That takes me back to my kid's childhood.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Exactly, yeah, exactly so. But golf injuries, it's head to
toe and it's it's all of us. And I want
to know some ways we can learn how to what
the injuries are. What if we're feeling something wrong, what
is that? And what are the things we can do
(02:09):
to improve those things? And that's why Golfit Carolina is
back on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, yeah, gosh, I mean, you know, it's unfortunately, it
keeps a lot of people from playing as much golf
as they'd like to, and in some cases it's kind
of forcing some golfers to hang up the clubs. I mean,
injury related to golf or golf related injury is kind
of a hot topic, you know, given even given the
(02:37):
the litany of injuries that you hear all these tour
players have and their swings are good, and that's one
of the you know, the factors that lead up to
amateur injury is the fact that our mechanics aren't as
good in addition, in addition to the fact that you know,
overuse uh always tends to play a role with injury.
(03:01):
But you know, it's very prevalent amongst all level golfers.
It doesn't matter if you're a male or a female,
if you're a junior or a senior.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
You know, it's there and it's a part of the game,
and it's something that you know, if you know how
to prevent it, you know you can, you know, you
can kind of keep those injuries at bay if you
kind of take the proper steps to keep yourself healthy.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Oh that's good to know. Yeah, it's amazing because even
on the first day of the PGA Championship, guys were
just like walking off the chorus right dropping like flies.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I mean, you know, you got a koocher didn't even
show up because of back spasms, and you got tigers
on going back issue and.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
The biggest story of the entire tournament, it's like, is
he gonna play? Is he not going to play? Should he?
Should he play? Should he not play? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:01):
You wonder gush. You know. I remember reading and somebody
telling me too that once you have a low back injury,
you are considered cured if you don't have any pain
for two years.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And your thought on.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
That, well, I think, you know, I think there's there's
a lot to that, because I mean, there's there's there's
a lot of mechanisms in the back area, but it
is prone to injury. And then when you combine it
with the explosiveness and the torque of the golf swing, uh,
(04:36):
you know, and then you add to that, as we
talked about, especially with amateur golfers, the fact that the
mechanics aren't always as ideal as they should be. In
addition to the fact that probably ninety five percent of
us I may even go as far as saying one
hundred percent of us have the anatomical deficiencies in the
(05:00):
form of muscle tightness and muscle weakness, and all those
add up, you know, and make a perfect storm for injuries.
So yeah, you know, it's once you have low back,
it's it kind of hangs around for a while and
you've got to really kind of.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Treat it gingerly, so you buy or don't buy the
two year theory.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Uh, well, two years is kind of a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I just think that anybody who's going to get away
from golf for two years is gone.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah yeah, yeah, oh yeah no. But again I think
you know, there's ways that there are things that you
can do to quicken or or hasten the recovery and
prevent the back injury from coming back. Definitely.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Wow wow. So is back the most prevalent injury or
lower back or what part of the back?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Yeah? For back by far, by far the number one
in golf. And again that's to everybody, professionals, amateurs, men, women. Uh,
and there's there's good reason for it. I mean, you know, again,
it's an explosive type activity. It's a one sided activity,
so it's repetitive in nature. You know, as they mentioned,
(06:18):
many of us have muscle deficiencies and imbalances that you know,
forget about golf would lead up to back injury by itself,
and then again when you add that that turning and
twisting an explosive you know, swing, it just adds to
(06:39):
the incidents and the risk levels.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
You know, when you and I spoke earlier, and you've
been on the show a couple of times. Actually, if
people want to go back and listen, it's episodes three
forty seven, three fifty nine, and three sixty. We talked
a lot about and I was always trying to focus
on my lower back issues and I'm happy to say
that they are not bothering me that much. And there's
(07:05):
two things that I can track back. And I don't
know if either of them are why. I'm probably gonna
add a third. But if why, it's better or I'm
it's just a coincidence. But I can track a couple
of things. First of all, my golf swing. I learned
how to quiet my lower body. I don't have the
(07:28):
sway that I used to have when I'm swinging the
golf club. That could be one of them. Secondly, is
I've become a side sleeper versus a back sleep, a
stomach sleeper. That could be another one. Yeah, good, thank you.
A third, I was doing a lot of yoga. I
(07:49):
don't do it that much, if at all, anymore, because
I found that there were a couple positions that really
hurt my lower back.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
And then actually the last one, which I think maybe
the biggest contributing factor to my back being better is
I swim a lot.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Now, well that's a good one too. Yeah, swimming's great
for low back discomfort.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Well, I just what I love about swimming is that
there it's a high resistance and no impact. And yeah,
people say, oh, it's so boring. It's like, yeah, I
love that part of it. When else in my life
do I get to be bored for twenty minutes to
a half hour, you know, and get one of.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Those ear plugs and so you can play music while
you're swimming.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
No. I love to have my mind go nuts. I mean,
because you know, like I watch runners, and even a
runner who's like out on the street, not unnecessarily in
a treadmill, they have to pay attention to where they're going.
You know, you really have to pay attention when you're running.
When you're swimming in a pool, I go, I just
do laps. But when I'm swimming, I just go to
(08:57):
the edge and then I turn around and go next
to the And that's all I have to think about,
is where am I and I really get into this
meditative deep state where my mind and the longer I'm
in the pool, the farther my mind goes and I
kind of enjoy that. But from my back, for the
strength of my back and overall conditioning on my core,
(09:20):
I think that that has been a major factor.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, swimming is definitely one of the better exercises for
individuals that do have you know, chronic lower back discomfort.
And then when you mentioned the yoga, you know, flexibility
also plays a big part in injury prevention, and especially
as it relates to the lower back, and you had
mentioned about you did a lot of yoga. You know,
(09:44):
there's definitely a window of flexibility that you want to
kind of monitor because if you're tight, that increases the
risk in many cases for injury not just in the back,
but in other parts of the body. But then again,
if you're too flex and you don't have the lex
you know, the the the joint stability, that can also
(10:06):
lead to injuries in the in the body as well.
So there's definitely a window. Not too many people are
hyper flexible, but you know, and those are usually like
dancers and stuff like that. But again, if you take
yoga and you do that a lot, you know, you
could get into that category.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Well I am I am always have been very flexible,
even more than my children. Yeah, I've always been. I've
even had a couple of messuses call me Gumby.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Really you're a rarity.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
But I do get you know, like the tight hamstrings,
and I think that that also is a is another
back problem contributors tight ham strings right.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Oh yeah, gosh, tight hamstrings are probably one of the
biggest factors that lead up to a low back injury.
And the ham strings, I mean are in the you know,
the back of the thigh. And a lot of people
kind of look puzzled when I mentioned that in some
of the workshops, you know, because they're like, well, those
are down you know, in the legs, but my back
(11:08):
bothers me. What's the relationship? And what happens when the
ham strings are tight is the hamstrings attached to the
hip bone and over a number of years they'll they'll
the tightness will pull that hip bone and rotate it
backwards sort of, you know, towards the tightness. So what
happens is the low back muscles which are attached or
(11:30):
fanned out across the top of the hip bone and
then all kind of converge into the lower spine. The
lumbar curve and the lower spine. When the hip bone
rotates down and back, it takes those low back muscles
and it stretches them out and it leaves them in
a taunt position. So early signs and symptoms of that
occurring are if you sit for a long period of
(11:54):
time and you get up and your back's a little tight,
that could be a sign. If you play golf or
you work in the yard and the next day or
two your back's a little tight, that could be a sign.
The more serious consequence is what happens when that hip
bone rotates and those back muscles get taught. It also
takes that normal curve in your lower back than normal
(12:18):
lumbar curve, and it actually straightens it out a little bit. Now,
you don't want to deviate from that natural curve because
if you deviate, if you straighten the curve out, or
if you increase the curve, you start to put more
pressure on the disks, you know, those jelly doughnuts that
are in between the bones and the spine, And over
(12:39):
a period of time, that wears the disc south faster,
and you get the space between the two bones starts
to decrease and that can put pressure on the nerve
that comes out between the two bones, you know, and
that can cause issues like the you know the sciatica
of the typical sciatica with the pain radiating down one
or both legs, numbness in the foot, you know, numbness
(13:03):
in the foot or weakness in the leg, or you
could also get you know that that disc to rupture
or to slip and it actually bulges out into that
space where the nerve is and that puts pressure on
the nerve and that causes the same type of discomfort.
So yeah, so tight hamstrings are number one probably one
(13:26):
of the bigger factors in muscle and balance that lead
up to back discomfort.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Let's talk about other parts of the body you know
that the golfers are having issues with. Do you see
more people complaining about like their shoulders or their elbows
and wrists?
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yes, elbows probably, second shoulders probably, you know, depend upon
who you read, third or fourth wrists are in their
wrists are a lot from more impact type injury, you know,
hitting the root or yeah, digging into the turf that
(14:17):
tends to cause more wrist injury.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, I noticed that, Like if I, if I like
try to really dig it out in the bunker or something.
It's like, oh, that's my wrist.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, you know. And then the computer too. You know,
the fact that since the computer ages come around, I mean,
obviously you see a lot of more wrist injuries because
of the fact that a lot of people are using
the mouse, and you know, that kind of leads to
an imbalance in the in the forearm structure. You know,
(14:48):
we tend to have imbalances in our forearms anyway, because
the flexer muscles on the underside of the forearm tend
to be stronger than the muscles on the top part
of the forearm because we're always gripping things. You know,
you're constantly gripping things. You don't really do too much
to strengthen the muscles on the top part of the forearm,
and that's extending the fingers out. So we're stronger with gripping,
(15:12):
we're not as strong as we are extending. So that
imbalance leads to things like carpal tunnel and it can
also lead to things problems in the elbows and in
the shoulders. So then when you get into a sport
like golf, now where again you're gripping the golf club
and you're putting the wrists through you know, all types
(15:34):
of range of motion, both extension, inflection, and then also
what's called adduction and adduction which is kind of like
a sideways flection of the hand, which is probably more
prominent in the golf swing than theflection and extension. But
then again, you know, if you have that imbalance in
the forearm, that just increases the probability that you're going
(15:57):
to have some issues in the wrist, elbows, shoulder.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I should have gone in this order, since this program
we focus on the mental game so much. We start
at the top of the head. I should have gone
to the neck next before I got to the shoulders.
But do you see a lot of neck injuries and
issues with golfers.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, not too many, really, not too many neck injuries. Now,
shoulders are pretty prevalent. Like I say, elbows tend to
be probably the second biggest injury in amateur golfers, and
a lot of that is due to the fact that
a lot of golfers don't have the range of motion
(16:38):
in the respective side shoulder, especially what's called external rotation
of the shoulder. And you can kind of test yourself
out to see whether or not you have adequate external
shoulder rotation. If you were to raise your arm up
so that upper arm is parallel to the floor, and
(16:59):
then well even your whole arm is parallel to the floor,
but your elbows bet and ninety degrees and then try
to rotate the hand up like you're gonna make the
boy scout or girl scout sign, and keep going and
see how far you can go. If you can get
past ninety degrees, then your chances are your external shoulder
(17:21):
rotation is pretty good. If you are having trouble getting
to ninety degrees, then you're going to be probably one
of those individuals that's going to develop some sort of
elbow problem. Because in the golf swing, as we bring
the club back, you know, when we'll use a right
handed golfer, the right hand is going to rotate and
(17:46):
the right shoulder is going to externally rotate. And if
you don't have that range of motion in the shoulder,
what happens is you put a strain on the elbow.
So again, over time, the repetitiveness of the activity, you know,
it starts to wear out the you know, the tendons
and put pressure on the tendons, and golfer's elbow is
(18:08):
basically classified as an inflammation of the tendon on the
inside part of the elbow where you tend to see
a lot of issues, you know, so a lot of
golfers will go out and buy one of those forearmed
bands and wrap it around their forearm to take the
pressure off the muscle, which tends to relieve some of
the pressure, but you know, it tends to mask the injury,
(18:31):
and you definitely want to take steps to correct the
injury and don't rely on that band because it won't
get any better if you do.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
That's interesting, and there are a lot of products on
the market that make claims to helping relieve pain reduce injury.
Do you have favorites or is it all bunk?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Well, I mean it's good, you know, if you're in
discomfort and you want to get out there and play,
I mean it's good to to use like in this case,
you know, those forearm wrist or the I'm sorry, the
forearm bands, because again it will kind of put take
pressure away from the muscle as you're kind of bringing
the club back, and that's usually where most people will
(19:14):
feel the discomfort when they've got that what's called epic
und delitis. You don't want to depend on it for
too long because you know, you're kind of taken away
from the job of the muscle and so the muscle
can actually kind of weaken. So in between your rounds
(19:35):
of golf, you want to make sure well. First of all,
you want to make sure that your ice the area
for about fifteen to twenty minutes after you play golf,
so that you prevent any inflammation, further inflammation of the area,
because it's the inflammation that causes the discomfort, and the
more inflammation you have, the longer the rehab period. And
(19:57):
you never put ice directly on the skin, makes there's
a little thin layer of cloth in between you and
the ice. And then in between, you know, you can
do some mild stretching for the wrist and the forearm
to help heal the process, and you can also do
some mild strengthening exercises, and you know, I won't go
(20:19):
into all of them, but you probably want to contact
somebody who is knowledgeable about that, a physical therapist or
even a golf fitness instructor, a certified golf fitness instructor
who can kind of show you some simple exercises with
light weight to do to help strengthen the muscles in
the forearms so that you can alleviate and prevent the
(20:39):
problem from coming back.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
What about various supplements and liquids and roll ons that
are saying, you know, you know that there's a product
golf fuel, right and urgent joint support, and there's roll
on to relieve pain. Is that just are we should
be you know, is this just ibuprofen or are there
(21:07):
supplements that are supposed to help joints? And who knows
if supplements work? And what about any of these roll
ones that are supposed to relieve the pain. Is it
something that's just being marketed with a golf name on it.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Well, I'll tell you, fred, I really haven't run across
anything a supplement wise that seems to be on the
market for very long. And you know, to me that
that's kind of the the you know, the signal that Okay,
you know, I've read a few articles about this thing.
There seems to be some consistency as to the you know,
(21:42):
the product and the fact that it's effective. You know,
these things kind of come and go, and not no
one of them seems to hang around for very long.
So you know, personally, I wouldn't use any of that stuff.
The anti inflammatories, you know, the the bills and stuff
like that. If you're not allergic to that stuff is
(22:03):
good to take to help you know, relieve again the inflammation.
As I mentioned, anytime you have an injury, definitely the
first twenty four to forty eight hours you want to
go with ice because again the idea there is to
try to reduce the inflammation because that prolongs the rehab process.
Then once the inflammation has stopped, you know, usually after
(22:27):
a couple of days, two or three days, you can
go to moist heat and you know, like a wet towel,
wet hot, tael tolerable hot. You know, want to burn
yourself because the moist heat will penetrate into the joint,
especially going back to the low back. I mean, you've
got quite a thickness of muscle there and to where
(22:51):
you know, to use these kind of bombs, you know
that you know, they tend to pride themselves on the
fact that it brings least to the area. They pretty
much just kind of warm up the superficial layer under
the skin. They don't really penetrate deep into the muscle layer.
Moist teat. It's free, and it's probably the best thing
(23:14):
that you can do. You just got to be consistent
with it for three or four or five days, you know,
putting it on there once it cools off after about
eight and seven eight minutes, to do it again, you know,
for about seventy eight minutes, and you be surprised what
a difference moist heat can make in terms of helping
(23:35):
the recovery process.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Well, I can tell you that you said two words
that I think the golf smarter audience gets perked up
every time they hear it free and best, So moist
heat is going to be high on the list for
everyone at this point.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah, I mean, what I do? You know what I do?
You know, I get a little lower back tweak every
once in a while. I'll just take a towel, wet it,
you know, dunking and water, wring it out, throw it
in the microwave for a couple of minutes, and again
microwaves will vary, so you may want to start with
a minute and a half. You don't want to burn yourself,
you know. You take it out, you put a piece
(24:18):
of plastic on the floor so that you don't get
your carpet wet. You put the wet towel on the
carpet and then you gingerly lay yourself down onto the
uh you know, the warm, very warm towel.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
And I tell you it's it's it feels great and
uh you know, after a few days, it does a
good job at relieving the little spasm.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
One of the things that you said that I'm curious
for you to expand on it. You said, when you
have an injury. My question is when do we know
it's an injury or if we're just sore.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Well, yeah, I mean that's a good question. A storness,
I mean usually I think you can you can kind
of feel. It's more of a feel, you know, like
when you do something in the next day you feel
a little bit, you feel a little tight, and you
feel a little stiff, And I think that's more kind
(25:18):
of a soreness classification. When the injury when you get
up and you can't move a body part, I mean,
I think that's that's more of kind of an injury
related to classification.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
No, No, that's that's just aging. When I get up
in the morning, I'm not injured, I'm just getting older.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Well, if it doesn't get better as you start to
move around, then you can probably classify it more as
an injury. Okay, but yeah, I can relate to that too.
But yeah, I mean either case, you know, the you know,
the the the advils always work well to kind of
alleviate some of that. But you know, anytime you do
(26:01):
you get into something new, a new activity, you should
expect a little bit of soreness the next day or two, uh,
you know, and as you continue to participate in that activity,
that soreness should go away.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Excellent, all right, let's move down the body, get back
on track here, and and so we've now done upper body,
you know, let's get to the lower body and go
to the knees. The golfers, uh have knee problems.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Yeah, really, they're probably in the top five as well
terms of injury and stuff. And you'll tend to see
probably more injury on the lead leg than you do
the target leg because that's usually where all the weight
ends up in the in the golf swing.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So for a right handed golfer, that would be the
left leg.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Right Okay, yes, yes, the left leg. You know, and
again it depends on the mechanics of this of the golfer.
If their mechanics are kind of off, you know, if
you do have some of that sway and especially some
of the slide, which is an excessive lateral movement of
the hips in the downswing and again towards the target.
(27:18):
I mean, I've seen some golfers where their knees are
almost ninety degrees laterally bent. I mean, it's just you
got to wonder, at some point, you know, when are
they going to start to feel this in their knee,
because again, you know, it's those things you know, where
everything in life is chronic, and it's usually you know,
if you if you maintain this, the these poor mechanics,
(27:41):
you know, something's going to give at some point. The
other thing is is again going back to the anatomical deficiencies.
I mean, we are a society of sitters, and we
tend to sit. I think the average for the adult
American adult is around to ten hours a day. So
(28:02):
what happens in that situation is you place muscles in
a shortened state, hamstrings being one of them. So there's
your low back issue, and then you also put muscles
in in an elongated state, they're stretched out, and when
you want to elongate a muscle, you weaken a muscle
over time. And one of the muscles that tends to
(28:25):
elongate or does elongate when you sit are your quadrcep
muscles in the front part of your thigh. Now, those
are important muscles for stability of the knee joint. So
when you get weak quads, that tends to impact the knee.
The other thing that I find in a lot of
golfers is that a lot of golfers will have a
(28:49):
weak gluteous medius, which is part of the glut group.
You know, your butt muscles, And the gluteous medius is
a hip stabilizer. It's on the side part of the
hip and it's responsible for holding the hip bone still
so that when the other muscles that are attached to
the hip bone move, they have a solid foundation to
(29:11):
move against. So when the gluty's media is the hip
stabilizer is weak, the hip bone will move when the
individuals move in the legs, so the injury potential goes
up a little bit. Plus it will allow the thigh
bone to kind of internally rotate a little bit, and
that tends to put pressure on the knee itself. The
(29:34):
knee cap won't ride up and down the groove as
nicely as it should, and that can lead to need
discomfort as well. So, you know, one of the things
that I always check for in golfers is you know
the strength of their gluties medius and it's a fairly
easy assessment to do, but it's an important assessment because
(29:54):
if they are weak, then you definitely want to do
some strengthening exercises to strengthen at gluteus media so that
you and prevent those knee problems from happening.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And that's different than the so as muscle, right.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Yeah, the so as is part of the ilioso as
is part of the hip flexers, which is kind of
more it's mainly in the front part of the hip.
That's one of those muscles that, if tight, can lead
to back injuries. And that's one of the muscle groups
that tends to be tighter in women. And what happens
is instead of the hip bone rotating down and back,
(30:29):
the tight hip flexer will pull the hip bone forward
and down. And what that does is it increases the
arch or the yeah, the arch in the lower back
and you kind of get that sway back posture with
the butt sticking out, and that does the same thing
and puts more pressure on the discs and at least
(30:49):
the disc problems rupture discs, lip discs s ia attica.
And that's why a lot of young female golfers, I mean, gosh,
there's a lot of them that are in the high
school college ranks that have back issues, and a lot
of them because they're in that s posture, that sway
back posture because of tight hip flexors.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Fascinating, fascinating. Do you see a lot of feet injuries
from golfers? Is this because of walking or is it
just other injuries they get involved with golfers.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Well, with the feet, you know, a lot of it
is One of the things that people don't really kind
of check or have checked is their gait. You know,
the way they walk, and there is a there is
a normal pattern of walking. It's called pronation. You land
(31:45):
on the outside part of your heel and then you
kind of roll a little bit to the inside part
of your toes so that you kind of push off
kind of your big toe. You know, there are a
lot of people who tend to overpronate. So what happens
is they tend to roll the ankle in a little
bit too much, and that can lead to some issues
(32:07):
in the ankle. It actually can lead to a lot
of issues all the way up the chain, you know,
from the ankle to the knee, to the hip, to
the back, to the shoulders and so on. Some people
tend to stay more on the outer part of their
foot and they're called supinators, and that does the same thing.
It tends to put more pressure on the outside part
(32:28):
of the ankle, the outside part of the knee and
the hip and stuff like that. So most of the
foot injuries you know, you see tend to relate to
gate when people, especially are walking the golf course. So
that's why it's important that you get, you know, fitted
properly for shoes. And I remember Callaway a few years back,
(32:50):
they were coming out with a line, you know, like
like running shoes. You know that if you did overpronate,
if you did roll your ankle in too too much,
they are going to have a shoe that gave you
a little bit more inside support to prevent you from
rolling in. And I don't know whatever happened to that line.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I guess the easiest way to check your pronation is
take an old pair of running shoes or just you know,
tennis shoes type of thing, jim shoes, and look at
the bottoms of them, right, and you can tell where
they're wearing tear is Yeah, do you get more people
(33:30):
who more injuries from people who are carrying their bags
than just like driving in a cart or pushing a
push cart.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
But still definitely, definitely. And you know why people tend
to have more problems carrying back because they tend to
carry the bag on the same side all the time. Well,
at least back a few years back. Now with the
you know the straps that they have where you.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Can pretty much wear it like a backpack.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, so that'serated a lot of discomfort. But you know,
anytime you're you're toting around ten to fifteen pounds on
your back, I mean that always tends to you know,
and you're not accustomed to that. I mean that tends
to wear the body down a little bit. And you know,
when you're tired, tired as a precursor to injury because
(34:24):
you know, the body is just not working as efficiently
as it should. So you know that can lead to
injury from you know, a golf swing because your body's tired.
It could lead to you know, stepping in a hole
or something and twisting your ankle or a sprinkler head
or something like that. So fatigue is, you know, also
one of those factors that you you kind of want
(34:46):
to make sure that you stay in shape so that
you can push that threshold of fatigue back, especially if
you do carry your clubs.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Great. Well, listen, I know you have to get going
because you're going to be doing more interviews like this, right,
You're on other other programs. Congratulations, Let's get an update
of what you're doing these days and how to get
in touch with you.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Well, still doing the golf fitness assessment and training mainly
in the Greensboro, North Carolina area and down in Myrtle Beach.
I have a website that people can go to. It's
got a bunch of educational articles on all the stuff
we talked about more and they can go to golffit
(35:32):
Carolina dot com and it's just one F and one T,
so it's g O L F I T Carolina dot com.
I've got a book that kind of details the more
common anatomical deficiencies golfers have. You know, from working with
hundreds of golfers over the years, you definitely see commonalities
(35:55):
in terms of which deficiencies tend to be more prevalent.
So I kind of wrote a book about that. So
what those are, how to do self assessments to determine
whether or not you're deficient in those areas. They're really
not that hard to do. How those deficiencies impact the
golf swing and or injury potential. And then there are
(36:19):
also over forty exercises and drills, golf specific exercises and
drills that are in the book that help you correct
those deficiencies if you should have them, or just good
exercises to do to help your golf game in general.
So if people want to get a hold of me,
they can get a hold of me at Bob at
golffit Carolina dot com. And again one F and one T.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
And what is the name of the book.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
The book's name is The Functional Golf Fitness Training, and
it's on Amazon and you can get printed copies at
the book patch.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
The Functional give me the title again, Functional.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Golf, Functional Golf Fitness Training.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Fitness Training. Okay, it's in my notes and it's gonna
be in the website. Awesome. Hey Bob, it was great
talking to you again. Thanks so much for your time
and for this education.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Thank Fred, my pleasure anytime.
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