Dr. Stuart McGill: Is stronger better for golfers? Physiology & Neuroscience of the back

Episode #168
Dr. Stuart McGill – Physiology and Neuroscience of the back, Muscular sequencing and patterning of the golf swing, Training for golf: Why stronger isn’t always better.

Dr. Stuart McGill (IG: @backfitpro, X: @drstuartmcgill, FB: @Backfitpro, YT: @backfitpro9992) is a ‘distinguished professor emeritus’, University of Waterloo, where he was a professor for 32 years. His laboratory and experimental research clinic investigated issues related to the causal mechanisms of back pain, how to rehabilitate back-pained people and enhance both injury resilience and performance. His advice is often sought by golfers, trainers, therapists and others from around the world. His work has produced over 245-peer reviewed scientific journal papers, several textbooks, and many international awards and he has mentored over 37 graduate students during his scientific journey.
He continues as the Chief Scientific Officer for Backfitpro, Inc. Difficult back cases, and elite performers, are regularly referred to him for consultation.

Be sure to check out Dr. McGill’s books:
‘Back Mechanic’ CLICK HERE
‘Gift of Injury’ CLICK HERE

Also be sure to watch Dr. McGill’s video:
‘The New Science of Golf’ featuring Dr. McGill and WLD Champion Lee Brandon CLICK HERE.
‘Back Mechanic Book w/ Video Streaming models CLICK HERE

You can learn more about Dr. McGill’s work and view more of his books and videos on his website: www.backfitpro.com

Dr. McGill has also offered our listeners a 10% discount on all purchases, so be sure to use code BFPGOLF360 at checkout.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Dr. Stuart McGill
03:07 Understanding Back Anatomy and Physiology
05:46 Muscle Sequencing and Pulsing in Golf
09:01 The Role of Anatomy in Golf Performance
12:08 Geographic Differences in Golf Swing Mechanics
14:58 Injury Mechanisms and Rehabilitation Strategies
17:51 The Importance of Muscle Activation and Stability
21:04 Training Strategies for Golfers with Back Pain
23:57 Measuring and Analyzing Golf Swing Mechanics
26:48 The Impact of Coaching on Golf Performance
30:06 The Science Behind Back Pain and Recovery
33:02 Conclusion and Key Takeaways
53:23 The Role of Coaches in Athlete Recovery
56:37 The Importance of Humility in Coaching
57:43 The Balance Between Recognition and Purpose
01:00:11 Strength Training in Golf: A Double-Edged Sword
01:05:49 The Neurology of Strength and Speed
01:10:06 The Importance of Relaxation in Athletic Performance
01:15:11 Training Cycles: Strength vs. Speed
01:23:25 Finding the Right Training for Individual Needs
01:38:22 Building Athletic Foundations
01:41:57 Understanding Individual Needs in Training
01:43:40 Core Athleticism and Fine-Tuning
01:45:01 Exploring Alternative Training Methods
01:49:22 The Importance of Multi-Dimensional Training
01:51:16 Assessing Athletic Potential
01:53:57 The Dangers of Overtraining Young Athletes
01:57:03 The Role of Coaches and Parents
02:00:02 Navigating Misinformation in Sports Training
02:03:25 Evolving Understanding of Biomechanics
02:10:31 The Impact of Technique on Performance
02:12:21 Virtual Surgery and Back Health
02:16:24 Concluding Thoughts on Training and Health

If you would like to be added to our weekly email list click here: http://eepurl.com/dw1j7T
Sponsors:
Want to know why our communities and nation are struggling? Could the answer be our lack of leadership and quality LEADERS? Find the answers in this eye opening book; ‘Why do we call them LEADERS?: The disgraceful collapse of Americas leadership standards’ by Rande Somma. BUY HERE
https://amzn.to/3xkoflG
Affiliates:
Morozkoforge is the world premiere ice bath. It’s not a cold plunge or a cold tank, it’s a true bath that makes ice. If you want to experience all the health benefits of ice baths and feel better than ever go to https://www.morozkoforge.com/ and use discount code GOLF360 at checkout to save $500

The Stack System is the games premiere training device to increase your swing speed. Check them out at https://www.thestacksystem.com/ and be sure to enter GOLF360 at checkout for your discount.

Payntr Golf Shoes are changing the way shoes help you improve by using traction in three dimensions. This helps you improve your ground reaction forces and ultimately your swing. Check them out at www.payntrgolf/GOLF360 to enjoy a more comfortable way to play golf.

Get your 15% discount on your next order of JustThrive Probiotic at https://justthrivehealth.com/ (use code: GOLF360)
Looking to play one of the best golf courses in the Hilton Head Island area? Be sure to check out Old South Golf Links and have one of the best days ever https://www.oldsouthgolf.com/
Listen to all episodes:
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Lm6wxs
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2PnsaFR
Golf 360 website: https://www.thegolfparadigm.com/golf-360-podcast.html
Follow us on social media at:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/g360podcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Podcast360
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/G360podcast/

Hello ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, golfers of all ages, and welcome to another episode of the Golf 360 podcast. My guest today is the famous Dr. Stuart McIll. Dr. McIll is a distinguished professor ameritus from the University of Wateroo in Ontario, Canada, where he was a professor for 32 years. His laboratory and experimental research clinic investigated issues related to the causal mechanisms of back pain, how to rehabilitate back pain people, and enhance both injury resilience and performance. His advice is often sought out by golfers, trainers, therapists, and others from around the world. And his work has produced over 245 peer-reviewed scientific journal papers, several textbooks, and many international awards. and he has mentored over 37 graduate students during his scientific journey. He continues on as the chief executive officer for BackFit Pro and works on difficult back cases and elite performers who are regularly referred to him for consultation. I will say that Dr. McIll was very gracious to give all of our listeners a discount for any of the books or videos on his website. Simply enter BFP Golf 360. Uh that will all be in a summary as well as his books that I highly highly recommend. Back mechanic uh gift of injury which he wrote with uh prior guest Brian Carroll and the videos the new science of golf where he was featured alongside world long drive champion Lee Brandon and you can also get the back mechanic book with video streaming models as well. Now to get into today’s show, we really have three different sections and we discuss in the first section the basic anatomy of the back, the physiology and the neuroscience. We follow it up with a great discussion on measuring uh the muscular sequencing and the patterning and Dr. McIll gives a great description of what pulsing is and why that is so important. And then we finish off the episode with a discussion really focused around training and training for golf specific and for example is why stronger is not always necessarily better. Uh what’s more important pliability or strength for you in your golf game and the importance of rest for adaptation when training especially when returning to golf from a back injury. So, obviously a wonderful show with arguably one of the best people in the world when it comes to rehabilitating the back and the spine uh to get you back to being active and playing golf and doing the things you love. So, please, as always, sit back, relax, and give a very big Golf 360 welcome to my guest today, the worldrenowned back and spine specialist, Dr. Stuart McIll. very lucky uh to have worldrenowned expert back expert Dr. Stu McIll. So, Dr. Thank you for taking time out of your vacation to sit down with me and talk about all things back and golf. Thanks very much, Pete. We’ve uh just enjoyed a beautiful breakfast together here on Hilton Head Island and uh it’s been a joy so far. So, let’s uh let’s dive in. Yeah. G getting into golf uh and the back in particular is the back is the number one cause of injury uh for golfers across the planet across genders, age groups, levels of play, beginner to the best professionals in the world as we’ve seen. Um but I thought before in getting into that I I think having a general understanding of some basic physiology and neuroscience to give the listener a a a base level understanding of things that we’ll talk about throughout this show. Uh so can we can we start there with the physiology and the neuroscience of the back? Yeah. Well, when I started my uh career as a young scientist, I only had one question and that was simple. How does the back work? And from there I would present at different medical meetings and then eventually some sport meetings and whatnot. And golfers would come to me and say, “Oh, well that’s, you know, really interesting what you’re learning about spine function. Could you see me for your back?” And I ended up seeing uh, as you know, quite a a number of top level golfers. And the other component of that was I didn’t just see them as a clinician, I measured them. So we uh developed very special instrumentation to measure their muscle activation sequences, three-dimensional spine motion, uh the force imparted through their feet to the ground which worked up through the linkage to allow us to determine uh their strategy that they would use with the hips and working through the linkage of the spine and putting energy into the golf club shaft as it deflects and watching it kick and boring the ball and all of these things. uh but to understand what we were seeing we do have to get back to the features of being a human which is a true spectrum. So when you think of something as basic as muscle contraction, everyone is aware that the brain activates muscle to create force. But what they often miss is the act of creating force also creates stiffness. So if you maximally contract, squeeze your fist and contract your your your bicep muscles and the muscles around your elbow, you can’t move your elbow. It’s stiff. So if you are going to hit a tennis ball or throw a punch or hit a golf ball, you cannot use too much force and muscle activation because the muscle becomes so stiff you can’t move. So we realized in measuring these different sports that the great athletes are actually muscle pulsers. And the hallmark of many great athletes and golf being one of them is the rate of the onset of the contraction. But even more importantly the rate rate of relaxation that allows you know you can think of a punch. There’s an initial uh pulse of muscle, then relaxation of the muscle to create closing velocity from the fist to the target. Uh think of uh going into full back swing and then initiating the down swing with just a little bit of a pulse. But if you try too hard, you never hit a long ball because of the stiffness that accompanies that. So the art of it all is to create uh that initial pulse and down swing and then allow through tuned stiffness F= KX K being the stiffness X is the deformed uh distance of the elastic member which as we know is not only muscle but the muscles uh you know I I know people talk about muscles being agonists and an antagonists but I learned to appreciate that these don’t exist. the fascia and the elastic tissues of the body uh create all muscles as being agonists to that controlled you’ve heard of tensegrity where this this is balanced um and uh that is what creates the uh speed of the club head but just before the club head hits the all uh there is a little bit of a cracking of the whip and a pulse of stiffness usually originating out of the trailing glute. So if you shoot right it’ll be the right glute and then it emanates down the leg. Uh and we can talk about force production on the ground and the spectrum of how this pulse is uh unleashed. So I’ve talked already now some neurology in the rate of muscle onset and offset. I’ve talked about basic muscle physiology. Uh but now I need to talk about the spectrum of anatomy. If you take a thin willow branch, you can twist it and bend it over and over again and it will not break. However, if we held that branch up and loaded it with some compressive load, put something on top of the branch, it would bend and buckle and break very quickly. The polar opposite of that would be a thick branch that you could also load in compression and it will withstand the load but if you twist it just a little bit it shatters. So most golfers being tuned elastic pulsing athletes do not have a heavy skeleton. they have a more slender style of uh spine anatomically and that so facilitates the storage and recovery of elastic energy uh together with resilience. Every spinal joint has three major articulations. You’re aware of the disc being between each vertebral block of bone and then the two joints behind that are the facet joints. As it turns out, the angle of the facet joints determines whether even in fact you will be able to play golf and twist your spine or not. So me as an example, I have what are called closed facetses. The uh joint angle, the interface articular angle of the facet joints is very for and aft on my spine, which means I can flex and extend with no stress. the glides, the the the joints just glide past one another, but they butt up against one another when when you twist. So, I’m not a good twister. Um, however, when I’ve measured the great golfers and I go through their uh MRIs because they come to me not for golf coaching, they come to me because they have debilitating back pain. Their facet joints are open. And what I mean by that is the angle of orientation is right to left which allows them to allows it to move. It allows them to twist without very much stress at all. However, if they arch backwards now, they put uh a real stress concentration into what’s called the PARS, which holds the facet joints on. And uh you’ll see uh the incidence of those kinds of uh achy backs uh in golfers. So the mobility now becomes uh very strategic if you are rehabilitating or trying to first desensitize that person’s specific back pain. I’d like to take a brief break to acknowledge one of our affiliates. Are your golf shoes an accessory item or are they a piece of your equipment? Well, at Painter Golf, it’s definitely viewed as a piece of equipment and with that something that can greatly enhance your game. Painter’s technology platform is really grounded in their ability to deliver traction that’s going to allow the golfer to better harness ground reaction forces. If you look at their outsole technology, it’s about looking at traction in three dimensions. They want to prevent rotation. They want to support horizontally, but what really sets them apart is their propulsion plate. It’s really about the modern golf swing and what coaches like myself are teaching. They’re talking about pushing into the ground. You push into the ground, you get that back an energy return. And that energy return is what the golfer uses to bring power and speed to the golf ball. You can check out Paintergolf Shoes via the link in our summary or at www.paintergolf. That’s p a y nt trgolf.com 360. C can I ask you a question on that? Sure. as you as your career goes back many four decades give give or take American golf in relationship to European golf because largely because of the weather conditions and we’ll use the UK as an example Scotland Ireland uh Britain and the wind particular that the the swing style at least going back to the 80s and 90s when I was coming up playing golf that the swing style was was more of a level finish without the arching of the lower back because in in Europe and the UK because they want to keep the ball flight down. But in America, there just the architecture of the golf courses and the difference in in the US we only tend to play in the summertime or when the weather is good and limited wind and and the the course design where you had to bring the ball in from much higher that there was the more of the the old classic reverse C type finish. So the the question that immediately pops into my mind and maybe this you’ve had experience with this, maybe you didn’t at the time, did you see more issues with American golfers given that the swing characteristics of what they were adhering to of the reverse C versus people coming to you from Europe that did not employ that type of swing methodology or was at the time they just weren’t golfers had not gone to you as much as they did let’s say in the last 20 years? All of that. Okay. Yeah. So I haven’t noticed a geographic uh region particular to a certain uh pain generator mechanism in golfers. Um I do see very specific patterns based on their anatomy, their neurology and their physiology. And uh on top of that, they may have gone to a guru coach who changed their style to fit what the coach thought was the perfect golf swing. And as uh we all recognize now, that doesn’t exist for everybody. The perfect golf swing is only perfect for that individual because of where they are on the spectrum of all of these uh traits of function that I’m talking about. Um so uh that’s that’s my answer. the the assessment that we do of each individual will reveal uh their potential that you can develop uh but also the mechanisms of their uh current pain that you really have to avoid and allow it to desensitize and train them strategically to adapt whatever that mechanism is if possible. You just may have to stay away from it. So it it might be damaged to a point that even the great Stu McIll’s magic is is only going to get them so far as far as their health of their back is concerned. Correct. The dam damage has been done basically. Right. But that’s not always the kiss of death. Occasionally it’s very difficult to come back to being the top player, dominant player uh once that uh damage has been uh substantial. uh the discs if they are uh delaminated and what I mean by that is the the disc is not a ball and socket joint and too many athletes particularly the elastic mobility athletes like golfers treat their spines as though they are uh ball and socket joints but they’re not. The discs are considered a adaptable biologic fabric. So, if I was to take uh my shirt and uh with both hands, I’d work the shirt back and forth creating stress strain reversals. The fibers may not tear, but what they do is they pull apart, they dilaminate. So, the material that holds the fibers together uh in the disc is a certain type of collagen. So, the the collagen fibers are predominantly uh type one, which is the strength collagen. uh there’s about typically 20% or so that’s the elastic type of collagen type two and then there’s a third uh type of collagen that binds all the fibers together uh to be exact they are types 3 through 10. The biological variability is really in the binding collagen. So there are some people who just through their parents were gifted with a type of collagen that can take many stress strain reversals and the fibers are held together and there are others where it just uh debonds and dilaminates uh much more quickly. Now it doesn’t mean that they are excluded from uh a lifetime of golf. What it does mean is they have to be much more specific and judicious over the style of training that they’re doing. So those who want to be a very elastic golfer with a high X factor in the spine and that kind of thing really want to think twice about strength training because the mobility that they are developing with golf and if they have the type of collagen that allows the fibers to uh daminate and give them a bit more mobility. It’s the kiss of death now if they get too strong with the weights being too heavy because the architecture of the disc is the collagen fibers form a ring around the nucleus and the nucleus is a gel. That gel being fluid and pressurized during weight exercises are seeking the weakest part of the wall in the annulus and they will seep through where the daminations are leading to the disc bulge that so many golfers know what I’m talking about. And then the cascade starts. If a disc bulge occurs, uh, consider letting a little bit of air out of your car tire. It bulges on the road, but now your car is a little bit more sloppy driving it on the road. Well, the disc loosens up and it’s called joint instability. Uh, and again, the cascade is not only anatomic, it’s also neurological. When the brain sees or feels the the slight micro movements though that are occurring in a shear mode uh with uh golf and uh shall we say poor form weight training uh the brain has inhibitory loops that get triggered and the brain will shut down those uh the power. So consider if you’ve damaged your knee ligaments as an example and the person walks down the stairs and their leg gives way. Well, nothing broke or gave way. The brain shut off the neural drive for that instant in time and they collapsed. So that’s an example of what we call neurogenic inhibition because of unstable behavior being perceived at the knee. The spine is exactly the same way. So golfers will experience in those episodes of back pain when they get a flare up and these neurogenic loops form uh they will feel a real tightness forming typically not in everybody but it’s typical that they will feel a facilitation a neurogenic facilitation in the so muscle in the front of the hip. So, when they’ve been sitting down and standing up after a meal at a restaurant, for example, it’s hard for them to pull their hips through um and then they want to stretch their hip flexors rather than realizing that was a neurological response to the pain and they should be looking at that as the intervention rather than just more hip stretching. Um and the other major inhibition would be at the glutials. So the brain will inhibit the glutials which again is uh the kiss of death for a golfer in that if they are an external rotator and that’s the primary source of their power in the pulse just before uh ball impact uh they’ve lost that that that power. So you can imagine if you were cracking the whip, cracking the bull whip. It isn’t the person who has the biggest hand motion on the handle of the whip that gets the best crack. It’s the person who has controlled stiffness and can snap the handle and time it so that the coil unfolds down the whip and really creates a a wonderful unleash of the elastic recoiling uh energy. So there’s a little bit of a a a start I suppose into really tuning this system elastically, neurologically, taking advantage of the anatomy and tuning the strategy on how that pulse is created. We can go there if you like. Yeah, the the the pulse you had mentioned that the glutes perform a trail hip glute or the trailside glute is a big pulser. I would have to imagine is the lumbar spine has limited rotational capacity. Couple degrees at at most. Well, it isn’t. It isn’t. It depends on the thickness of the spine. Okay. So the more slender skeleton will uh allow much more range of motion in that storage of elastic energy than a thicker spine. Uh and it also depends on the facet angle that I mentioned even width of the hips and the architecture the ball and socket architecture of the hip joint which follows a very large spectrum. some uh you know it’s very difficult to to find a excellent golfer who doesn’t have fabulous internal external mobility of the hip can they deep squat does it matter not really the the um the reason one of the the pulsing I’m just curious is along I while it’s moving this might be you might think well this is a dumb question I hope not but as the pulsing happens and it it happens as you get closer closer and then to impact. The the s the the the neurological message goes very quickly and then the muscles activate very quickly along the the muscles that that go along the spine are and then the deeper it goes are they being engaged more as your golfer gets closer to impact. Yes. stabilizing. In my own mind, I would think that the the lumbar spine muscular stabilizers are going to stabilize the impulse is going to be much stronger and then as you work its way up the spine, it would not be as strong as the spine is meant to rotate the higher you go as a whole. Am I on the right track there? Yeah, but there’s a spectrum in that. There are some very fluid golfers and you can see this in the kinematics of the golf swing as they approach uh uh ball impact. Uh the hips continue through the arc of motion without much of a a speed angular speed change. Uh but the real pulsers you will see the hips really slow down as that glute stiffens which starts the whip through the spine through to the shoulders to the arms and uh depending on how much energy is stored in the club shaft. Uh you ideally you want to unccort uh the energy from the uh uh club shaft. It’s called the kick as you know. And that should occur just prior to uh ball uh impact. So that whole sequencing now it depends how long is the person’s spine, what’s their torso to leg length uh ratio, how strong is the fascial architecture around all the muscles that act as that tensey uh network to turn all the muscles into a singular muscle. if if that makes sense in my uh description. But you will see the beginning of the pulse that really is dominant in the trailing uh glute. If you shoot right, it’ll be in the right uh glute and you will see that pulse continue up through the spine into the shoulders down to the arms and even on the uh hand grip. Now um having said that when we look at the spectrum of the pulse creation different golfers have different strategies. So I’ve mentioned the right trailing hip that’s very typical of the type of golfer who gets the transmission into the ground of that pulse. It’ll be external rotation of the right foot if they’re shooting right. So, those are the golfers who say, “If you will allow me 12-in golf spikes, I will take them.” And we we measure tremendous ripping force of the upper of the shoe away from the the sole. And we all know golfers who that is their primary uh pulse production genesis. I I tell you, not to interrupt you, but I got to because you’re a Canadian and a hockey guy. I I I mentioned who I used to play with here locally when he still lived here. But when I was playing, traveling around and doing Monday qualifiers and thing. I was going to Detroit, my family is to to do the Buick Open. I got there a few days early to do the pre-qualifier and the qualifier and and he said, “Well, I have this friend uh that plays for the Red Wings, Joey Kosher.” He said, “I’ll give you his number. You call him, keep your mind sharp when you have a few days off.” I met Joey and we got to play. And I don’t know if you know Joey’s build, but he’s built like a bulldog. I He’s one of the has no knuckles left cuz he’s used them so much on people’s faces and helmets. But uh he he told me cuz after we were swinging, I said, “You put a pretty good torque on those shoes.” He said, “Yeah, I go through about three pair a year.” Yeah. And he would blow his shoe out, right? Cuz he was torquing so hard. Not not to interrupt, but I thought you would find that kind of interesting. Well, it’s amazing how many great professional hockey players their passion is golf. And when you look at the mechanics of cutting V’s on the ice to accelerate, it’s uh tremendous external rotation horsepower. And uh when we talk about training, that becomes a real training target for uh some people who completely neglect the external rotation power in the hip in their in their golf training. Um anyway, just to finish off that idea of those who are on this spectrum of using external rotation as the driver of the pulse, the other end of the spectrum are what we call the leapers. So when we have those golfers on force plates, we actually see they leap. And we both know of some famous golfers who who actually leave the ground and that is their upward thrust through the hips that adds that stiffness, slows the hips down in a transverse rotational sense and really propels the transmission of the pulse up through the uh spine to the uh eventually. There’s a there’s much discuss not maybe not much anymore but in in the golf coaching world I know Jim Mlan had a post of Jack Nicholas’s swing the other day where there the argument is should people keep their rear end let’s say if there’s an imaginary wall back there should they keep the rear end one of the glutes on the wall the entire swing and the other is early extension which is what I think TPI kind of coined that phrase early extension is a bad thing but even though everybody extends in the swing but the to go to your point on the vertical People have very very high verticals when you look at ground reaction forces have more of an extension at that point. But uh Jim had posted a picture of Jack Nicholas and even Rory Mroy where their their rear end came off of the plane that was behind him closer to the ball. Didn’t early extent, but it came in towards the ball. But I I don’t know Rory’s numbers, but I’d have to imagine Jack Nicholas had some pretty serious verticals given how high he hit the ball and how straight and everything else. But uh and it just shows that people are going to do what their body allows them to do or the way that as you said that they’re built their their natural biological structure. They’re going to swing uh in a particular way and if you try to change that you’re recipe for disaster that the timer starts ticking on how soon that that’s going to blow up on them. Well, I I don’t know if you want to comment on that or not, but if you you would. It gets back to that idea of uh the great coaches in my view are the ones who recognize the spectrum of the uh athlete that’s in front of them and how best to pull out that performance and resilience from what that person is is showing them. Uh, and yet there are other golf coaches and I would hazard a guess and say, well, it’s not a guess. It’s it’s my experience that they know what the perfect golf swing is because they’ve studied Jack Nicholas or you name the golfer and this is the way everyone should golf. Well, uh, give them three golfers. one will suit that particular uh mechanic, shall we say, and uh they’ll do very well, and they will build their name on that one golfer. One golfer, it makes no difference on. And the third golfer is a patient who we will be seeing, and it’s only a matter of time. It’s only a matter of time. So, uh, that’s, uh, it it I will say that of every progolfer that I’ve seen, somewhere there was a golf coach that they got involved with who created stress concentrations in their body that didn’t suit them, and that was their demise. I’d like to take a brief break to acknowledge one of our affiliates. As many of you know, one of the questions that I ask at the end in our emergency 9 is, “What book is our guest reading or is currently on their nightstand?” And I want to make you aware of a couple books that you might not have heard of yet. And they are most needed in today’s world where our communities, our states, our nation, and our world are lacking in significant leadership. Someone to take the reigns and be the beacon of light for what everybody can benefit from. And that comes in the form of two books. One of them is Why Do We Call Them Leaders? The disgraceful collapse of America’s leadership standards. And the other one is called Leadersh. A look at the broken systems in corporate America that allow leaders to be really good at being bad. Both of them are written by Randy S and is an insider look behind the curtain in the corporate world and the rest of our society to illustrate what a lack of leadership will eventually lead to. You can get both of these books by clicking the link in the summary of this episode or by going to find them on Amazon.com. see it a lot or I do you know being I I know plenty of well myself probably being one example but a number of friends who showed all the promise in the world and it switched coaches for one reason or another and started doing something different and then all of a sudden even after some success all of a sudden not just the game went sideways but the the body could not they they were injured like repetitively over and over and over and as many golfers know injury in golf is it’s bad and it’s painful But it’s not debilitating early on. It gradually builds over time. And golfers are so notorious, maybe passionate for trying to play through it through medication or they go to physical therapy and they don’t take the time to do the so I hope we get into a little later the the virtual s virtual surgery. Uh that they try to play through it and unknowingly only making the the problem worse because they’re doing something that their body is not conducive to doing right. um golf itself. I want to get into a little bit about measuring uh sequencing, patterning, etc. We talked a little bit about pulsing, but c can you go into uh your measuring and and the muscular sequencing as you’ve touched on a little bit, but um as far as a swing is concerned, c can you can you describe that a little bit and and what your data re research over so many decades have shown? Right. Well, as I said at the outset, when I was a young professor 45 years ago now, uh my only question was how does the spine work for everybody? And we developed uh the first laboratory which was designed to uh understand the internal stress distribution of a person doing anything. But the technique had to be sensitive to the individual strategies that the person employed. So you could just watch someone in a factory. You know, there there were studies being done at that time by my colleagues at the university of of uh people who built cars on on the GM assembly line. How come some had back pain sufficient that they missed days off work every year because of acute back pain and yet there were other colleagues who would get through their whole career without debilitating back pain. What was the difference between them and uh it wasn’t random. It was those who created stress concentrations in their back. So when they bent down to pick up a car door to mount on a a Camaro going by the assembly line every 52 seconds, they lifted with their backs. The person who never had a problem lifted with their hips. Now that that might sound strange to people because uh most people are are thinking that well you lift with your legs. Not necessarily. It’s it’s called a hip hinge which you’re familiar with. Unfortunately, after 30 years of training, it took until Brian Carol actually showed me how to hip hinge. And I’m like, it’s that that’s it. I’ve been doing it wrong the whole time to the lift with your legs and all this and probably doing damage to myself um unknowingly. Yeah. Uh but it’s and we studied police officers for five years. Uh we studied uh military groups, athletic teams, uh uh firefighters was an extensive study we did in Pensacola with the the Pensacola Fire Department. Those who had repeated episodes of disabling back pain created stress concentrations at the site where the pain was the greatest. Now, that would have been exacerbated by other issues that they had. Maybe they were favoring a damaged knee or they had so-called restricted hips or tight hips as as they’re known or uh who knows what. But uh a a very thorough assessment getting back to the science um will reveal where these stress concentrations are. So our instrumentation uh used electromyiography to measure the muscle activation profiles that the person if you think about it they chose to use that pattern. Well no they didn’t consciously think about it but that was their uh it’s called an engram. So uh you don’t think to activate your quadricep or your shoulder muscle or anything when you’re walking. you are running a movement tape and uh it’s those movement tapes that repeat that stress concentration over and over again. If it’s appropriate, the person will probably have a good life. If it’s maladaptive, either through learning or that’s just the way they do it. You know, you can I used to watch my kids play sports and sometimes I’d forget my eyeglasses and I couldn’t read the numbers on the players jerseys, but I knew who every player was by how they moved and they all had their movement uh signatures. Anyway, uh we would measure people and their stress concentrations and we learned that that would give us very big clues as to where they were eventually going to break down. The next laboratory we built was a spine uh cadaavver laboratory. So, we had a few humans uh but we couldn’t get too many volunteers to, you know, donate their spines. So, we used a lot of animal spines. As it turned out, a pig neck uh mimics a human lumbar spine very closely. In fact, if I handed a spine surgeon, a human spine surgeon a pig uh C4C5 joint, uh I would have to tell them that that’s not human. That’s amazing. The spine, the cad uh the the heart, the valves in the heart, which I know are replaced from pigs. It’s amazing. I don’t want to pig skin is we have very football you know I don’t want to say it but there was something else that very closely resembled human yeah well a lot of the digestive enzymes are are similar which isn’t my area however uh that one particular and when you think about it you know the lay person says well the pig’s a quadriped how can that be close to a human spine but a human neck just has to support the weight of the head so it’s a slender highly mobile uh architecture the lumbar spine has to support the whole weight of the body plus whatever you’re lifting etc. Well, a pig is a rooting animal. They root for food and they have a very strong lumbar spine in their neck. It’s not very mobile. Uh so when you when you match form to function that way, it makes sense that they have a lumbar spine equivalent uh in their neck. But anyway, what we would do is we would uh get 50 identical uh pigs and uh we would load those spines and match very specific loading regimens, lots of motion or lots of load or uh rate of load uh repetition of load and we would observe what injuries occurred. So we became educated what really does cause a herniated disc or an implate fracture or spondyololisthesis or whatever the the case may be. The next laboratory we built was a uh an imaging lab. We had uh micro uh CT for example u cat uh well what’s known as a cat scan um plain film x-rays uh uh ultrasound imaging etc. So when a patient came in we would uh be able to much better interpret the specific anatomical changes that the radiologists were reporting but didn’t know the original mechanism. So, you know, I’d be asked to be an expert witness on a court case. Here’s an individual. Uh, this is what their MRIs showed. Is that consistent with the alleged scenario being it could have been uh a crime or uh you know, someone uh at fault or negligent being the the criminal or uh legal uh foundation of the case. Uh and then my dean came to me and said, “Okay, hot shot, you’re doing all this uh uh science and now you’re uh seeing a few patients. Why don’t you start a experimental research clinic at the university?” And the unique thing about that was I didn’t have to follow the restrictions of a traditional medical model. People came in and I set aside two hours for the first assessment. Well, my medical colleagues would look at me and say, “Two hours? What are you going to do with a back pain person for two hours?” And uh do you know, Pete, after the first year that went to 3 hours and we learned to talk to the person and say, “Tell us your story.” And they would reveal all kinds of things that the traditional medical approach never found out. what were the impediments that guaranteed their failure with the 10 previous clinicians that they’d seen? If we can’t deal with those identified impediments, we will fail, too. So, those impediments could be uh they do their very good exercises or whatever the intervention is, and then they go and sit and watch TV on on a very floppy couch at night, not realizing that their hips are being bent past what the joints will uh support. bending their spine, increasing the size of their disc bulge and when the the exercises and how they were moving throughout the day was actually helping. So, they were undoing. Anyway, we would learn these kinds of things and then we would say to them, um, uh, if they, let’s say they were an athlete, I would say, well, okay, I see your training program. And I would look at the training program and I couldn’t see a consistent philosophy. the the the coach and the trainer was just throwing the kitchen sink at it doing exercises. Well, that doesn’t work in a spine that’s already compromised because it’s in pain. And I would say, what if I could give you one athleticism, what would that be to really help you to be resilient and get back to the game you love or the game that you’re making many millions of dollars to play? And sometimes they would say, “Um, uh, well, I’m going to have to think about that.” And I would say, ‘Stop, fire your coach. And they say, ‘What? And I said, ‘D do you mean to tell me your coach hasn’t identified what you need the most and that is now the target of your training? And that hit them like a ton of bricks. So the efficiency of training is very important because the person has reduced training capacity. They’re they’re hurt. So that was a whole another layer that came from the uh experimental research clinic and and two more we call these the six pillars of our science. The the the the fifth pillar were epidemiological studies injuries form clusters that are very revealing. Why do gymnasts have a very high rate of spondyololisthesis? Why do many senior golfers have uh I hate the word degenerated discs, but shall we say flattened hype compromised discs at the bottom of the thoracic spine and the top of the lumbar, the thoracco lumbar junction? That’s very interesting. Yeah. Um why do some get a certain type of disc bulge that is a very focal disc bulge versus a disc tear or a damination and I know we were talking about that uh earlier and then the final pillar was we ran clinical trials. So is what we were converging upon truthful and effective? So we would then take different groups and train them. So I can tell you exactly what our score is clinically. I can tell you exactly if a person comes in with extension intolerance from a facet arthritis. I can I know how many of them after 2 years in a follow-up would say I am happy now. I am at a place in my life I’m not 16 again but but I I can do the things that I want to do as long as I follow the new rules. So following back injury the rules change a little bit and uh you know an athlete will say but I I just want to get or or a duffer golfer someone here at uh Hilton Head will say well I just want to get back to playing golf again 5 days a week. and I’ll say, “Yeah, you could have done that when you were 21, but you cannot now.” And you’re going to have a graded recovery, allowing your body to adapt. I don’t think you can go play two rounds of golf 5 days a week. That’s not going to work out well. You’ve gone right back to the mechanism that caused you to get into this condition in the first place. Mhm. But would you settle for two or three games of golf that doesn’t leave you painful afterwards? And that is doable. If you want to make that concession and follow these new rules, here’s a plan to roll that out. Anyway, that was the six pillars of our science and how we uh converge on many of the opinions uh well that I currently have and uh how we organize our our training and I know we had a talk about this in the morning. There’s so many people on the internet who have no idea about what they do and they, you know, they think, “Oh, well, Miguel works on pigspines or something.” And when you look at our published literature, it’s not even 10%. I think that that is something that is grossly lost or misinterpreted. when you look online or you talk to people, I talk to a lot of them and uh any critics of of your work, it is often taken out of context or it’s a a snippet or a sound bite of something. And I think that the biggest thing that people miss when they discuss your work versus fill in the blank of someone who might have a different opinion is your work is very often dealing with athletes or individuals. uh every everyday people who come to you who are already injured and they’re in pain. And some of these other coaches or again another fill-in-theblank person who might disagree with you is usually working with people who are just out of shape uh or athletes who have not been injured and they need to get them to go from being a division one to professional or professional uh journeyman to to top tier or top tier to one of the top in the world. Uh, and that there’s a major difference in that when you’re dealing with somebody who’s injured, as someone who who has experienced injury, played I didn’t get to the PJ tour, but I played at a very high level. I mean, razor thin margins, but it’s a world of difference. Um, but when you’re dealing uh with with injury versus something that’s just out of shape or has has had a layoff for any multitude of reasons, that that is a completely different animal uh than working with an athlete who has not ever been hurt. and what you’re allowed to do with them versus what you have to sacrifice to get them to just to be able to play again. There’s only so many Brian Carols in the world and I would say that there’s a lot less of them than there are the latter where you can take an injured person a broken vertebrae or cracked vertebrae and get them back to world elite level. Um, I think you were even surprised in in talking to Brian and reading Gift of Injury and and the listening to the entire story as you were on his show. Uh, but that that is not the norm. And people who have that expectation, whether they call you or they call a Ben Shear or somebody at that level, to to have significant damage from a car wreck or lifting incorrectly or a lifetime of wear and tear, to think that even though you’re world experts in your field and have helped many people, that to take someone at that amount of damage and get them back to playing at a high level like that, it’s the body can’t take that anymore. It’s been it’s been broken. uh to fix it, to get back to enjoying it. I I think people’s expectations needs to be changed and people’s understanding of your work, careers worth of work is largely been with at least what’s been out to the masses has largely been with people who are injured versus others who might disagree with you or with athletes who have not been injured. Big big difference. Well, well, people only come to me and are trained clinicians because they have back pain. That that’s the only reason. But I should point out when uh we are dealing with an elite athlete or an individual who has aspirations of being an elite athlete uh I usually work with experts in that particular sport or endeavor if it’s if it’s not a sport. Uh for example, if we take golf, um there are quite a number of players uh active uh on the tour now where I saw them and they came to see see me primarily for their back pain. So my job was to get them out of these repeated acute episodes which they thought they had chronic back pain. In fact, they didn’t. They had many acute insults to their back unbeknownst to them throughout the day and throughout the week that kept them in chronic pain. But the mechanism was not chronic. The mechanism was was mini acute. Anyway, uh my job was to get them out of that pain which has several uh stages, you know, assess them, then get rid of the many acute insults to their back in whatever strategy we’re going to use, and then build a resilient foundation to move. What What would be an example of an acute insult on in somebody’s back? Okay, let’s say uh they had a posterior disc bulge that we would measure if they sat down on a floppy couch or in a chair and slouched, the bulge would grow and they would say, “Oh, my back pain is increasing or my left toe is going numb or whatever the the the sign is. But going for a walk takes my pain away.” So, if we’re dealing with that person, unbeknownst to them, you cannot sit on that floppy couch anymore. you’re going to need a more firm supportive chair with a lumbar support and now you’ve just created a capacity to go and train without pain. But until you do that behavior, you’re going to be in pain and you know rather than what they have been doing which was to take a analesic drug and then go and hit more balls again. The guilty is charged right? So, um, that’s my role to build a base athleticism and resilience, but then I turn them over to the many expert coaches who are in my circle around the world. So, in golf, uh, I would send them, you’ve had Ben Shear on your, uh, podcast, uh, or Clayton Skaggs in St. Lewis who uh has uh he he was uh set up in Jupiter uh for a while and had uh access to some of the the great ones there. But uh someone like Ben or or Clayton will then take that athlete and do the finetuning to tune their body to really express their athleticism at a high level. So they’ll strategically work on uh mobility might be hip mobility it might be knee shoulder uh they’ll work a little bit more on very sportssp specific timing and uh uh no doubt stability so that tuning of the mobility stability spectrum uh and so you know I have my uh coaches if uh they want to get back in the NHL for hockey or NFL football or uh world class rowing uh uh mixed martial arts um got quite a few athletes uh in the combat sports um etc. So, I I have my coaches that uh I’ve worked with in the past, I have great confidence in, and we compare notes. Uh so, I don’t want to say I’m the guy who gets them back uh on the tour. Uh but I play the first half. Yeah. The the role, the first step, if they’re want if they’re in step three and want to get back to step five, it’s like, hey, wait a second. You might need to go back to step one, right? or even step negative and we got to because if you don’t fix this, you’re going to be back here again in 6 months, 9 months, a year, and you’re going to waste all that time and possibly do more damage. Yeah. And the and the humbleness of those great coaches is important as well because if things aren’t progressing uh at their high-end uh tuning or training, shall we say, they’re humble enough to say, “Oh, yeah, you better go see uh Miguel or one of the McGill whatever.” uh ju just to reestablish that uh base pain-free resilience again and then come back and and you know that’s a beautiful partnership. Yeah. uh especially at that level because you see so many people who achieve a certain level and that is their beacon achieving that level to get the notoriety and they don’t have the commitment to uh they I think they all start out with wanting to help people but some people might get uh there’s a divergent that they maybe get a little addicted to the the claim that they’re receiving and the notoriety and it can it’s just another um enemy along your journey in life that the enemy becomes uh maybe a little addiction or a dopamine hit when someone tells you how good you are. And the higher you go, at least I noticed cuz again, I did not get to the elite level on the PJ tour. I got pretty high. Player of the year here uh Hilton Head little area, but it’s still an accomplishment that I like to that’s up on my wall. It’s hidden, but I I I know it. When when people start telling you how good you are, it’s very easy to fall into wanting to hear that over and over again. And you lose sight of what got you in your field to begin with, in this case, helping uh somebody. And um it it’s very unique and that’s why there’s so many that are only so many that are at that level because they’ve climbed that mountain and maybe if they got veered off a little bit, they somebody or got them back on track to say, “You’re drifting. You need to get back.” Or they caught themselves and they said, “This is not what I want. and I want to help. This is my sole purpose and the thing that drives me. I want to get back to helping people. Uh I know one therapist that we discussed earlier that I had worked with for some time. Uh he left a certain worldass golfer because and his reasoning was uh I had been to his house every day for six days a week at minimum for three years. And he said my purpose was I want to get back to helping the masses and not just focus on a certain individual that required that type of attention. So I told that person we had to part ways and you know I did what I could do and he he was going to need to go on his own. We remained friends but his professional career he wanted to get back to helping people. Um didn’t mean to get off on a tangent. Well I I know I often say to athletes I hope I never see you again. Yeah it’s a good good problem to have. And that that that then I know I’ve uh done my job. However, if they want to uh send me tickets to the Super Bowl or whatever it is, uh yeah, there was one year uh two or three years ago where we had an athlete in the Super Bowl, an athlete in the World Series, and two in the Stanley Cup. Wow. And then I thought, yeah, this is uh and and you know, Pete, I’m not a sport fan. that that’s my daily job. But all I want to do is watch it for 10 minutes, watch them move and perform well and not get hurt. And then I just as soon go out to my shop and weld a pipe or something. If they were in the in the snowmobile world championships, I would have to imagine that you would want to be out. Oh, you’ve heard about that? Yeah. I I I do have a little bit of a a passion for hot sleds. Yeah. See, I I I’ I’d like to take some uh uh professionalism that I’d like to do my homework when somebody’s on regardless of how well known they are. I’d like to find something that they’re passionate about that might not be known to the masses. Uh if we could discuss uh training in particular in golf, as strength training has become come to the forefront. I think there’s some golfers Bryson Deamble really brought to the forefront in the last couple years. I I you know, golfers have always trained. you go back to Gary Player in the 50s and 60s and 70s. Um, but I think uh when Tiger came along, he he really made it popular to the masses based off how he changed his body type. And then Bryson has taken it to a whole new level as far as the strength training and mass and swing speed and and the common thought process in the golf coaching world even with some of the trainers that are out there uh who who seem to be very good may maybe they’re they’re not doing the best service to the golfers is that if you become stronger not necessarily putting on mass but become stronger then the the neurological system as we discussed earlier which I’m I’m thinking they’re they’re maybe skewed in their vision after listening to to what you said. But the the general consensus is that if the brain senses that the body is stronger and it can hold position better, that it relaxes the governor on it the body’s ability to move faster. But in studying your work, stronger doesn’t necessarily equate to being able to move faster. So I wanted to get in a little bit of that and and to to just add more on that which you’re probably never supposed to do when asking questions is in particular the Olympic style lifting is that has become very very prevalent I would say over the past 15 to 20 years at the pro level at the division one level and it leeches down junior golfing and you see kids 13 14 15 doing these type of lifts deadlifts squats I don’t know if they’re doing clean and jerks and things like that but even going down if you go as I travel around it and even in this area some of the private clubs or some of the gyms where the trainers are. You see people who you know play golf because we’re a island that’s 40,000 people. It’s like a big university. Uh retirees training in in these Olympic style lifts and and I know that in studying your work and listening to you in other podcasts that that is often not the best recipe for golfers in particular as you mentioned pliability earlier. That’s a lot packed in. It is. That that’s a huge question and I’m wondering what is the most logical start on putting together I mean it requires an essay to answer it. Um well let let me start uh this way. I think strength is popular among coaches and trainers somewhat because it’s the easiest thing you can measure and build quickly in an athlete. But when I measure some of the hardest strikers in MMA, which I have done, when you find a person with very large muscles and they look very impressive, and when you measure their punches and the kinematics that they use to create the punch, they’re pushing their punches with these big muscles. But when you find this someone who doesn’t look very bulky, they snap the punches. So if you can imagine this, and I’ll try and draw a visual image for the listeners, I could push an object with muscle very slowly, or I can bend my fingers back, load them elastically, and snap them. That’s the difference between someone who really hits hard. So as we measured in uh we we measured five top UFC combat athletes, they created what we called the double pulse. So they would be in standup guard position. They would create a pulse turning about the trailing toe and ankle in the ground and they would create a thrust line through their body. So that force was directed up through the leg through the core and with the shoulder turning they would get an inline thrust line all the way and then just at impact or the millisecond before impact they had a second pulse where they turned their body to stiffened granite. In other words, every muscle became an agonist in that fascial bag, shall we say? You’d rather be hit by a Honda than to be hit by a welterweight who knows how to strike hard. So, it’s a real education for people. So, now I can use the same analogy uh for golf. The bigger the muscle, the more the club is pushed. When the real determinant of that uh uh performance is a pulse to create the stiffness at ball impact to transmit the pulse usually generated at the hips and propagated down to the ground to create an anchor point. and propagated up through the spine to not to be completely flaccid but not to be overly stiffened either. It’s that beautiful magical amount of stiffness. F= Kx. K is the stiffness. X is the deformation in that elastic tissue to create the highest pulse. And now shorten up the time of the pulse. Activate the muscles faster and deactivate them faster. When we measured the top UFC fighters, three of them had fought for their championship at their weight division. So these were top top people in the world. They relax their muscles six times faster than the graduate students in the laboratory who are the supposedly the average of the human spectrum. That is astounding. So that’s what allows them to create a high closing velocity of the fist to the opponent, taking the muscle right down to almost zero K because the activation created both force and stiffness. But then at the instant just before contact, the activation of the muscle allowing that stiffness. And we see it in guys who hit home runs in baseball. That instant before the ball hits the bat, they pulse through the core, the hips and the chest are aligned and the rotation is through the shoulders and the uh the hip joints, not so much through the spine. Of course, once the ball has been struck, now the relaxation occurs to allow follow through. So, it’s the same as in golf. It’s somewhat the same as in tennis. It’s somewhat the same as in shooting a slapshot. So, the neurology of many aspects of hockey parallels golf. So, is this strength? We were talking about a great NHL player before the podcast who was a resident here and and I I there were whenever I have a great athlete who’s a who’s an old-timer like myself, I I say to them, who did you really hate playing in the NHL, not because they were a dirty player, but because they were so dominant and if you went into the corner with them to dig out a puck, you knew you were going to get hurt. You were going to pay the price. That’s right. And it was exactly the same pulsing neurology. When you hit that person, it was granite. But leading up to the speed of coming in before the collision, they were loose. You’re not going to get speed with muscle activation. You have to have that re maybe a little bit of activation to to get it going. That’s right. But it’s like to me it’s like a wave that builds and then all of a sudden that wave crashes into something and then it’s gone. We spoke earlier about, you know, what what’s this great attraction to golf when, you know, I I find it terribly frustrating, but the there are uh there’s that one shot in a hundred when you weren’t thinking, you weren’t trying, and you uncork the ball. It’s true and long. It’s the the best feeling. Now, why can’t I do it for the other 99 shots? Well, that’s obviously the the the tour players do it for 97 out of a 100red shots, shall we say, and they’ve just got that grooved in of only trying a sufficient level. Whereas a duffer like me, I try and hit a long ball and it never works because of this stiffness. I call I call that have for some time efficiency of motion, right? that that you’re you’re and that you in your video that I highly recommend, I’ll have a link to it in the summary with Lee, the the female long drive champion. Yes. We uh you talk about that energy leaks in the swing. Right. That was very good. Yeah. So, you’ll see in there we actually give demonstrations of a lot of drills that are strength pulse drills. So, yes, you need a base strength. Mhm. Right. But uh after that you will get more bang for the buck in your training of creating faster onset and offset. Now let’s go to all our strength coach friends and you tell me tell me how many of them emphasize the rate of muscle onset and offset and it’s almost zero. Yeah. I I had not really heard of that until pulsing I had heard of because I talked to Ben about it and obviously listening to your information there is a Dr. Tyler Standerford is a bomb mechanist professor at Utah. I don’t remember the university, but he was on the show last month and he’s doing a lot of work with ground reaction forces with smart to move company and the old uh going back to the you’re very familiar with the Russian training models and you know Bulgarians back to the 20s from last very familiar. Yes. So the the the old uh eentric model was you would do roughly a a 10-second eentric uh lowering of the weight for let’s say a bench press. you’re going to lower it for people who might not understand eentric versus concentric. But what Dr. Standerford is finding out with with the ground force uh models and the ability to measure that is a 1 second eccentric uh loading and de loing is is proving to be far superior to to the anyone who might come in and say, “Well, I’m going to do a 10-second.” He said, “No, it’s 1 second.” Now, I don’t we didn’t get into a lot of that when he came on. our our discussion revolved mostly around his work with that but we did touch on that and the the pulsing uh that was the first time I had really heard of it and then Ben came on I think a week or two after I asked him about it and he’d explained pulsing but uh and then obviously your work has been doing with that dealing with that discussing that for many many years uh should be out there more in my opinion hopefully this will some sort of role it in in terms of payoff and you talk about efficient training Uh, here’s an example. If I held out a dowel, a stick of 3 ft long, and then I would say to the golfer, “Hover your hands over the stick.” And you look at me in the eyes, and I’m going to drop the stick, and you have to grab the stick before it goes down too much. Now, it’s falling at 1g, 9.8 m/s squared. Do you think any amount of strength training will increase the ability of that golfer to snatch the stick? Mhm. It will almost always make them worse. So what we do is relaxation. Slower actually makes them slower. It does make them slower because of the stiffening action of the muscle. So we give them relaxation drills. We give them pulse drills. Uh it might be just simply holding the breath with a power breath. If if that audible sound that I just did on the mic, I relaxed. I built a little bit of pressure in my mouth and then I just let it go. Now speed it up even faster. Can I get uh uh relax standing and put a twitch through my body and focus on relaxing it even faster? Can we get them to lay on the ground in a ball address kind of a posture and just twitch their arm and leg behind a stiffened core? Now, I will say to some people, do a really fast chin-up. And what they do is they try and use so much muscle force they’re slow. They can hardly do a fast push-up, a chin-up, pardon me. But when they learn the magic of stiffening the core, centrating the shoulders, and impulsing as quick as they can to create the chin up. Yeah. You uh your Brian’s page I think had you were working with him on that and at his size, the speed at which he Well, people think he’s a freak of nature, too. Well, he is, but every powerlifter I’ve worked with, and probably uh 40 world records in powerlifting come from people I’ve worked with. All of them post injury, shall I say, as well, cuz they that’s what Yeah. And people think the powerliffters, I’ve heard the term, they’re the dump trucks of the athletic world. I will so disagree on that. Every worldclass powerlifter is has a very fast twitch strength neurology. So if they’re not picking up a,000 pounds, they’re very very quick, but they’re using that fast twitch large fiber strength dominant uh very fatiguable. uh you know they’re they’re not uh that that was uh if I can ask you because I I think that that is somewhat of where the the basis of some of the trainers in the golfing world are coming from and that I I agreed with because I I didn’t study under him. I studied a lot of his information was Charles Poloquin many 15 years ago when the economy was in the tank I had nothing else to do but read. I I don’t like to watch TV. It’s very toxic. I learned that a long time ago. So I would read uh Paul Czech’s information, Charles Polloquin’s information. In fact, I learned about Poquin versus through the Czech system. They were I guess very close at one time, but the the amount of this was a theory I adhere to and I started hitting it longer, but then as I look back and as I got into your information, uh that the heavier lifting the neural drive I found increased for the as you just mentioned. So the uh the ability to push 90 to 105 lb dumbbells in a chest press, I was moving it slow, but for listeners out there, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, of course, but the neural drive to push that was off the charts. And then the transference into the golf swing, I think that the common thought was your neural drive is going to be very high. Now put a gram a 290 g driver head and a 65 g shaft and a 20ome gram grip and now you’re going to move that and you have that neural impulse to move faster. So I think that’s where the at least it’s my theory that’s where the thought process from training side came from that if you can increase your neural drive by lifting heavy you’re going to swing faster. But what I don’t think anybody really understood was if you’re going to do that, maybe you do it in short periods of of time as far as training, but you’re not going to do it over gradual period of time because as your work illustrates over decades, the you’re not you’re going to damage the body. You’re not going to make it pliable anymore. You’re going to make it more to it’s going to snap. Well, certainly the joints are going to wear a little bit. Now, then we get into the discussion loading a joint. Is it good or bad? It can be either. It’s governed by a thing called the tipping point. So if you’re under the tipping point that and and with sufficient rest uh the joints will become more resilient. But if you cross the tipping point either through too much load, too much motion or uh too much volume of training without rest, you’ll cross the tipping point and now the system becomes catabolic for the joint rather than uh than anabolic. Yeah. And golfers, regardless of level, that they’re so I’ll use passionate as the word. Uh yeah, I I know if they’re going to do a heavy training program, let let’s just say it’s going to be a four to six week program, they’re not going to take time off of swinging a golf club, which is going to work to their detriment as far as their body’s recovery and their ability to be healthy. And then they’re undoing any benefit that they’re getting, which is going to lead to delamination. It’s going to lead all these this whole list of issues. Yeah. Um that you’ve discussed today. Can I use uh an analogy to illustrate that from from the world of track and field? Okay, let’s look at the typical training cycle of a worldclass sprinter. Now, I know there are a few freaks of nature that don’t follow this rule, but most worldclass fastest men and women on the world, and I’ve worked with a few, uh this is what works. The first phase is strength. And they will squat heavy and create this wonderful strength base, not really worrying about speed. And they sure as heck aren’t sprinting fast. And they’ll come out of that strength phase with a rear end as wide as this table. And you look at them and you’ll say, “You’re the fastest woman in the world.” Or, “You’re the fastest man in the world.” Yeah, you know, it’s mindboggling the first time you you work through this periodized program and then starts the neurological taper. They have the strength foundation. It’s no longer the emphasis. It now goes into neurology. So, it’s over speed running, running downhill, more speed, more on and off, more core stability and faster hips, faster shoulders. Then you taper down where you start to relax the hands and the face and the jaw. Uh you know there’s many sprinters who don’t breathe for the 100 meters. That’s amazing. That is to lock down the core because every core motion could be an energy leak. So the muscles that cross the hips, which is the centrid of the powerhouse, shall we speak, they cross the hips into the core and they cross the hips into the femur. Well, the whole goal of it is to propel the femur either even faster, but it’s the same muscle that goes into the core. If part of that muscle activation is bending the core, that’s a waste. The core should be locked. So 100% of that muscle action goes distally to the leg. So you see why they slow down. And uh then there are all of these neurological tricks to become faster with pulse onset and offset, more mobile through the hips, more core strategic stiffness, etc., etc., etc. The amount of time they spend on the track is interesting in that it’s just about zero when they are in the strength phase. uh and then uh of course the track side. So if golfers could think that way, many of them would do themselves a favor, but the golf season is a much longer season. So it doesn’t lend itself uh to that. Like a sport like hockey or NFL football, it has a seasoned off seasonason. And I think that’s a concern of many of the trainers I’ve had on is that the lengthening of the PGA Tour season where basically used to end in October, right? didn’t want to compete against football and then of course it’s a summer sport. It’s a warm weather sport. So they they had off really from mid-occtober, November, December. If they were in the tournament of champions, they played second week of January, but most of the rest of tour was so they had four months off. And and nowadays with the wraparound season there’s you don’t know what and if you’re lower on the you you’re 125 through 150 you’re getting a call it’s a Sunday night hey you’re in this week’s tournament get on a plane and fly halfway across the country because now you’re you know you’re in we got you in this field now you got to do that and it’s just it’s much more competitive much more difficult. Yeah. Anyway, you’re starting to Yeah. I know you appreciate this, but I hope the listeners are appreciating the considerations of tuning a high performance resilient athlete. Uh there are many and you know I I think of uh uh I used to travel a lot and I would go to different uh track teams around the world, Olympic programs and national programs for different countries and I’d go in there and I’ I’d do okay a little bit of strength training and whatnot. Then we’d get into speed and pulse drills and whatnot and the coach would say, “Well, you’re doing exactly what we we we got in Dan P. Dan Path is a a sprint coach who has numerous numerous uh athletes who who’ve created records. And they said, “Well, Dan showed us exactly the same thing two months ago.” And I said, “Well, yeah, exactly. Why did you do that?” Yeah. I mean, he he he believes in a good stiffened controlled core to unleash the power of the hips through the linkage. And you know, we’re a linkage. There’s only so many ways that you can get it to perform without creating stresses that damage it. So, yeah. Anyway, Dan and I used to uh laugh about that, but I I will say uh with the great uh since this is golf specific, the golf coaches and uh you know, I’ I’ve mentioned uh Ben Shear and Clayton Skaggs and and some of these people who just really get it. And we talked about psychology a little bit earlier. Mhm. And uh it’s very hard to convince some athletes that keep doing what you’re doing and you will remain in the same pain state and they are so fearful that they will lose their athleticism by doing whatever the period of that particular training cycle demands to give them a lasting resilience. But once they are convinced either because they now have been told, well, you’re beyond reproach, there’s no help. Only surgery is going to work for you and you’re going to be half a year off anyway. Mhm. Um so, uh the the psychological game of getting those athletes to uh listen and uh I I I will say that being a little bit older with white hair probably helps in in that regard and it’s going to be harder for a younger person who may be very knowledgeable on on how to do this very scientifically organized method. a as the people who might be listening or they’re at home, they watch golf on TV on the weekend, uh whether they’re a collegiate athlete, they want to play professionally or they’re a 20 handicap that just loves to play golf and they they watch some of these tour pros, some of the biggest names in golf, who are doing deadlifts, who are doing squats, and and you can see in their physical structure compared to where they were 5, 10 years ago, how much bigger and stronger they got. And they’re hitting balls predigious distances. I mean, off the charts and it it seems to grow every year. and they look at this thing and then they they listen to an episode like this uh and they look at some of your work and they say, “Well, so and so is doing this and they’re elite athlete.” it the question that even if they want to believe because obviously your history and your experience and everything else is proven over time with so many different athletes. The question that I could see running through their mind is is there not any where within my golf training that I should do some type of heavier lifting at certain points uh in in my training if they’re going to go down if they want to get into training. They don’t want to be a couch potato. Uh and and just if I could add on to that, so for example, take someone friends of mine. They’re 50 plus. They’re they’re through the era of the 30 to 50 where they had kids, they had work, they may have been athletes when they were younger. Uh they went through a period where they didn’t do much and now they want to get back into it. So, how do you weigh for somebody who might be listening that fits into that category the health benefits of bone density uh overall health of training even if it involves some heavy lifting versus the ability to play golf uh in particular let’s say an axial load type exercise another loaded question well again that that’s a you you’ve you’ve asked a lot of elements that could be a whole semester well can we talk about bone health as a could you can I take out the answer first and we’ll come back to that all right okay golf was transformed 15 20 years ago with some influential people who started to train quite heavy they’ve had not good outcomes in their career there were some who I’ve been associated with who were under that influence Once they started, they started to get sore backs and sore knees and they realized in time that this isn’t taking them to a place that they want to be, not only in terms of being pain-free, but it really didn’t add uh length to their long shots. So I think people have to be uh uh honest with themselves and know what it is they need to be increasing both resilience and performance. So that’s a start of that essay. But now the first theme that I think we developed is the spectrum of being human. And if I had a per I can’t give you a blanket answer to that, but I if I Yeah, I know you hate generalities. Yeah, I I can’t do it, but if I was able to assess that person and determine what it is they needed, uh what is their current level of fitness? Do they have pain and an injury history? Uh what is their body type for all of the anatomical, neurological, and physiological variables that we mentioned earlier? Uh, and then I say, “All right, um, what is the thing that you need the most?” And if it turns out that they need to store and recover elastic energy better to bore the ball in a long drive, then they ought to know the answer to that question. And if a deep squat or an Olympic lift will be the best tool because an exercise is simply a tool to achieve a goal. So know the goal and choose the very best. So you know and and then someone listening to that will say, “Oh, Miguel hates deadlifts and and Olympic lifts.” I’ve worked with the top. I’m not against it. I mean, one of the lovely things of Olympic lifting is it teaches pulse relaxation, pulse sequencing. Imagine an Olympic lift. The person, the lifter gets into what’s called a wedge, a lifter’s wedge, grips the bar, and rips it off the ground with a pulse. But it can’t be a full-on maximum effort pulse because the muscles become so stiff you couldn’t move. It is very much a a a incredible uh precision event. And then as the bar comes up uh before they and and the bar, you know, gravity’s pulling down the bar. So as soon as they get the bar up to about chest height, they finish off with the shrug and then they have to completely relax to snap under the bar to get into a snatch catch of the bar. So, you need a relaxation to get under the bar because if there’s residual stiffness, you won’t make it. You’ll lose the lift. You’re never going to get there. And then you got to snap to get under whatever, whether it’s 50 lb or uh 200 kilo. It’s an incredible trick of neurology. How nuts do you have to be to relax as that bar is coming down on you, but you must and then snatch it with even faster uh onset. So, in that way, you could justify an Olympic lift as a tool for teaching pulse neurology that hopefully transfers to golf. But now, I’m going to say that Olympic lifting isn’t what everybody should aspire to. Olympic lifting is a sport that finds the athlete. The athlete doesn’t find Olympic lifting. It’s very, very different. So if you don’t have mobile hips that you can hold a bar over your head. So the thrust line is straight down through the shoulders, down through your hips, and down through your knees. Uh your shoulders, uh won’t be able to create that thrust line. So where is it going to go? Probably into your back and your knees. Yeah. And most golfers, the general public, we use them because that’s probably majority who’s going to listen to this this show. uh as they’re sitting for eight, nine hours a day at their desk. They’re driving, let’s say, an hour to work each day each way. So there’s two more hours. So now they’re 10 hours a day. They go home, they eat dinner, they’re sitting, there’s another hour, 11. Then they go watch TV and that soft sofa. That’s 12, 13 hours a day. They’re sitting the kyphotic portion of the thoracic spine. And now you’re going to tell them in the gym, even if it’s just a big dow rod, I want you lifting this over your head. And by the way, when you go practice golf, maybe an hour in the evening or hour or so on the weekend or you’re going to play four hours, the the default position is to be even more kyphotic as they bend over and get into the golf posture. And now you’re going to put whether it’s a a a dowel rod, long dowel rod, and you’re going to have them practice these movements or you’re going to just let’s say, well, we’ll start you easy. We’ll just give you the bar at 45 pounds. They’re never going to get their arms extended over their head, right? Because they’re bent so forward. It’s so I I will come out and say I don’t recommend Olympic lifting as the tool of choice to enhance golf performance and resilience. But let’s keep thinking along those lines. I have never seen a golfer do a squat on the golf course. Uh I’ve never seen a hockey player unless they’re in a tussle on the ice uh doing the same thing. But what we do see is incredible hip internal external rotation. So the hip airplane exercise which you’re familiar with standing on one leg keeping the core somewhat controlled the rib cage and pelvis stay together and the uh you stand say on your left leg your stance leg your right leg is stiffened straightened out behind you which will greatly increase your balance and then only through the hip internally rotate and externally rotate rotate throughout the full range of motion. There would be the beginning of a beautiful hip greaser that translates to golf. Now, let’s start putting some pulses into that. Let’s start getting into what we would call a standing prayer and quick off the mark. Turn left and go both sides. Uh these are all pulsing drills that translate to golf because of the emphasis on internal and external rotation and and and that’s using in in the video that you did with Lee that that’s using uh hips to drive a swing and not spin driven swings, right? It’s a beautiful combination of creating a pulse that creates eventually the whip that you’re trying to create through the linkage to the hands to the golf club shaft. So these things have been thought through and uh uh that to me would be a much more golfspecific transferable tool of choice for training to uh enhance that with very little risk of crossing the tipping point. Mhm. So, Olympic lifting requires a lot of skill and uh hence we’ve seen uh I I don’t know of any pro golfers who are doing it at the moment. Maybe you do. No, I but it’s now off. I look at those things and um for example, there was I was watching I was scrolling through social media and there was I think it was the Korean Olympic team. Bunch of young guys. Maybe it was a the teen Olympic team, not the I couldn’t tell, but they’re younger guys and and they’re doing the uh and they’re not bulky. They’re they’re obviously well built. But what was fascinating to me about them that got me thinking about this is as we were talking when we were going to schedule this was they were goofing around in the gym and they had the 45 and 90 lb plates stacked and they were probably four feet high. I think they started them and they were going from a standstill. they’d squat down and jump up to the top. So, the spring-l like burst, the pulsing I guess would would be your terminology maybe in that uh effort that they could jump that high evidently because they’ve trained in Olympic style lifting. And I got I I just ran through my head like these guys aren’t too bulky and they have explosive power. Could that not be used for golf? But if if the risk reward is not there, like you the risk is too high for the reward that you’re going to get? Well, I don’t know about that. So, they’re not lifting those plates in a deep squat. They are doing a pulse that is not out of a deep squat. It’s a very modest uh squat. But, but the the training that I I would have to imagine that they’re training with deep squats and all the other training they’re doing makes that easier for them to to jump up to a 4ft 5 foot high stand. No, I I I would disagree with because of my work with some of the best basketball dunkers and training the drill exactly as we’re uh describing it. So, the mechanics of that leap, it’s not a deep squat leap at all. Now, it really depends and you you you with your genetic background, you you you may appreciate this. Uh I don’t know. when you look at a a longlegged um uh MBA power forward who when I sit down beside them were the same height. In other words, they have short relatively shorter bodies and a longer leg length ratio. They don’t do a a deep squat. They do a uh a beautiful pulse out of the glutial muscles which power the leap into the air. Very short range stiffness spring. It would be the analogy in uh engineering. There’s very little power developed through the ankles. In fact, all I need is a linkage of stick. But the power of the hips extend the hip which in turn extend the knee but they push the heel down into the ground. And when you measure a lot of them watch them take off from the ground and there there of course there’s a tiny little bit of push off on the ball of the foot. But the main thrust of the power is through the heel down into the ground. They land on the heel and the bulk of the power production into the ground is through the heel. the the foot the the the the push off through the ankle comes a little bit later just as they’re they’re leaving the ground for a tiny bit of added value. Now you take uh a basketball dunker who probably isn’t as good a dunker, but they’re longer in the body, shorter in the leg, and much heavier in the leg, heavier in the calf and whatnot. And their jump, it’s much more of a vertical jump. the the forward lean of the body doesn’t change that much but the knees come forward and it is a leg strength pulse vertical jump and uh so that is a front squat style of strength expression the longer leg is a hip hinge back squat style do do you see the difference and now you start putting some pulse the mechanics of the of physical structure, the length of the femur in the ball in the socket of the hip is going to play a role, right? Hip bend. Olympic lifting favors a shorter leg, longer torso, uh, architecture. And so so golfers if they’re going to if they’re going to employ some of these things, if they want to they want to add some strength because they’re let’s say they’re going to they they want to go from playing once a week to two, three times a week and they they know that they’re they haven’t done any training or they’re minimally strong as far as overall body strength and they want to be able to absorb the wear and tear. Maybe they’re going to go with friends once a month and on a road trip six, seven hours Pinehurst from here, you know, five, six hour drive. They want to be able to absorb that the travel and the more play. And if they employed some of these things, it would be very very important for them to employ the right one based off of their physical biomechanic structure because if they employ the wrong one, they could unravel everything. Yeah. So, I’m not in saying I’m not saying avoid squats, but maybe it’s just a half squat or a quarter squat that is going to transfer to go. I think that’s important because I don’t want people again going back to some people who are critics of you that that note you you you’re not an anti- deadlift. You’re not an anti- squat. You’re not an anti-olympic lifter. It’s does it match what the person needs? Is it the medicine that they need? That’s all it is. Is it the best tool to accomplish the goal? What form of that exercise are they using? And does it match their physical ability or physical build? Right. So, let’s go back to the Korean leapers jumping up onto a stack of plates or a box. Basically, it’s a box jump. Uh, Olympic lifters are very, very good at that. In fact, uh, I have a metric being that you place the height of the box, the height of the athletes nipples, and they have to jump with a very small counter jump, not a deep squat at all. They have to jump onto that box in an Olympic snatch catch position to even qualify to start training. And if you can’t do that, starting with an Olympic lift is not the goal to create the pulse strength neurology that we’re uh that we’re looking for. Um but now, you know, again, I I don’t know how this stuff gets on the internet. I I don’t hate anything. I love it all. It’s just as you say, it’s the match. So, I say an athlete could do the metric test that I just described as a qualifier to start taking some weight with an Olympic bar. They’ve got the basic foundation now. I would like to see them leap up onto the box and land like a cat. I don’t want to hear it. Very quiet. So, now they’re demonstrating their ability to relax and they’re honing it. Then I want to hear the opposite. I want to hear the foot plant. bam on the box at the top. Now they’ve created the stiffened pulse that will then translate into an ability to catch the bar safely and and uh athletically. So, you know, that’s amazing. It’s a big Yeah, we we I could go on for hours on how we’re going to train that sequence to again create an a resilient, sustainable athleticism. Is it for golfers? It wouldn’t be my choice. Well, I I know um and I’m big fans of theirs. Uh Dr. Rose at TPI and Greg Phillips. Uh and just they have some very uh good videos out there where they it’ll be 20 30 minutes long of players that have come in whether they’re on whatever tour they’re on or their uh social media personalities that that warrant being on their channel uh due to their following. Uh but one of theirs that I was watching on leg strength was uh one of their criteria and and and their question is should you train for strength or should you train for speed? One of their criteria was you’re you should be able to do 10% of your body weight in a split lunge squat. So if you’re 200 lb uh 50 lb dumbbells in each hand, you should be able to do five reps on each leg. And if you can’t, then you’re strength deficient. But if you can or you can do more, then you need more speed training. It’s a It seems like they’re trying to keep things in somewhat balance or based off what the individual needs. But you’re going way way deeper obviously. I mean, you’re that was your career. You know, you athletes all over. Well, and I’m sure they they do. I’m just looking at what they’re putting out there. I haven’t sat down and talked to Greg or Yeah. You mentioned Charles Polloquin earlier and I think that would have been uh Charles past now, but he he’s that that would be what I would think of as one of his great legacies. He measured cohorts of uh both Olympic and professional athletes of a very high caliber. And he he would just do all these strength tests and he’d say, “Okay, what does the average medalist cross-country skier do in a leg extension machine, an arm curl, a squat, uh with some uh technique criteria on top of that?” Okay. These are bodies that have uh proven content validity. They’ve done it that that’s what’s uh required and and that’s what they are. But having said that, if I gave you three swimmers, three wrestlers, and three high jumpers on the podium at the Olympics, or three shot putters, and three discus throwers, or three javelin throwers, a an astute person would know exactly the sport that those three are tuned for. So that body type suits a certain distribution of mobility and strength throughout their body. Will it fit you or me? No. No. That that’s the thing. You know hopefully people will take from this that you know you look at a John Rom or a Bryson Dambo completely different build than a Justin Thomas a walking Neman and you would never train the two the same. If you did you should have your criteria license taken away right? Uh so it’s it’s identifying what’s needed as hopefully everyone’s taken from this. We’ve talked about a lot of different sports in relation to golf to give examples, but the the the bottom line is pick what find out what you need. That that’s the the biggest thing. And then what exercise will give you that uh nutrition, right? So to speak. So to to summarize this because we’re leaving the listener a bit uh at sea here so to speak there is a base athleticism that I will stand by because I’ve measured this as a commonality among the spectrum of uh golfers that being internal external hip rotation ability plus pulse uh production plus core control. Um there are I don’t know if we’ll call them non-negotiables, but there is a corebase routine there. And then get with an expert and fine-tune it. And uh as I was saying, that’s uh my relationship with a lot of the great coaches who I I trust and that’s their role to do that finetuning. That’s where they come in. Yeah. Anyway, I I hope that gives a uh a plan, shall we say, to the listeners who are wondering, well, where can I start with this? Okay. Well, at least there’s a base program here for the sport. Yes. And and hopefully that clarifies your position that no, deadlifts are not necessarily bad or squats are not necessarily bad if that’s what that individual needs. Right. Well, as I went through with the box jump, it it it’s a fabulous neurological trainer, and we’re going to potentiate that with landing hard, landing soft, and and playing with those variables. Um, to do a deadlift, boy, that is a very stiffening, slowing. In other words, the best deadlifters really wedge in and stiffen under the bar. And if you’re flexible, it’s a kiss of death. You’ll leak energy, you’ll overload joints. It’s not a good place to be under underweight. Um, however, think of the golfer’s lift of the golf uh ball out of the cup. You know, plant one leg, project the other leg out behind you, bend over through the hips, and pull the ball. Okay, now let’s uh workshop that a little bit. Uh why don’t you pick up a uh a very modest 12-lb kettle bell with exactly the same strictness of form. Now, uh, let’s stiffen up the core. Little more chest pride, shall we say? A little bit more of a push of the heel behind you. Uh, a little bit better balance. If you can’t stand on one leg, I don’t care how much you squat. It’s really important for me that you can stand and hold that for 25 seconds because that is what’s determining the thrust line down into the ground. That’s what the pros repeat, repeat, repeat time and time again. the duffer uh when we put them on the force plate there’s a there’s a big variability there and once in a while by dumb luck they get it right. Well, okay, let’s at least lock in that ability to balance. To your point, uh, the one-legged deadlift of a kettle bell would be much more important in my hierarchy and line of thinking than a deadlift that will that will hide a lot of the translational athleticism more applicable to this to that sport, that movement, right? I I one thing that I I saw uh on one of your YouTube page or somebody posted uh was the cable hip hinge exercise. Yeah. So as an alternative to deadlifts because it it’s so again we get into riskreward uh you know and and and you get into eagle somebody said I can do that deadlift it’s only 100 pounds I want to do 200. And next thing you know they’re bulged a disc or herniated now they’re out who knows how long. It could be indefinitely. They need surgery. their golf careers over. Um, but the hip hinge with the cable as I employed that it it was for me it was much better to keep uh the alignment of the spine as opposed to trying to deadlift whether it was off pins or off, you know, blocks or whatever it was. But I I found the hip hinge the the weight I now I don’t know if I’m I’ve lost that much strength or not through my history, but I I think I was doing 50 or 60 lb plates and that was plenty enough for me to to get the benefit for some for some hip integrity and some strength especially again as I’ve crossed the 50 50 I’ll call it the 50 yard line not the 50y year line. uh in you know trying to maintain uh some general health bone bone intensity or uh bone integrity and so on. But that that that was a good alternative. And I know that there’s others that the the uh the bridge, you know, for for posterior chain development, people on the ground that has limited risk and you know, you could put a plate on or a dumbbell, you know, in your in your lap as you do that and get it. Well, you know, you can go down that adding of the load and the amount of muscle activation uh is not proportionate to the load. Believe it or not, it will bottom out. So, uh as a variant of that, think of this. Uh do a hip thrust or whatever you want to call that exercise with both legs. Mhm. Uh, then I want you to pretend you have a $100 bill in your butt cheeks and someone’s trying to pull it away from you. Don’t let them have it up and down. Now straighten one leg. So your left leg, the knee is bent and you’re pushing the heel down and thrusting up the hip. Your right leg is straight and stiffened to your torso. So, uh, there’s a rot there there’s a rotational component, but you are anti-rotation in the strength. Then what I want you to do is your left leg is bent and the driver for the hip thrust. Now, put that leg against the side of a coffee table or a weight rack or something. So, so the knee doesn’t bulge out. I want you to push out. Oh, now try and do that exercise. I haven’t increased the weight of the load on the pelvis or the load on the spine. Now, we’re going to see how athletic that hip external rotation mechanism is in a anti-rotational core. And then tell me how that sharp that’s multi- I would guess multiplaner multiplane simultaneous. Now tell me about your long drive and your slapshot in hockey and uh your your uh miles an hour on your fast ball and that kind of thing. So do do you see how the tool to me is very important and that’s why over the years we spent so much effort trying to quantify the mechanics in terms of motion, joint stress, muscle activation profiles. what is the translation to the sport and even if it is linked we we we to the sport ultimately I mean we talked earlier about okay well people talk about performances on the NFL combine tests and yet how many of those tests actually predict who’s going to be a superstar in the in the NFL the the actual predictability is very low um NBA basketball by the way is is much better some of Those tests are much more predictive on of how many um uh rebounds. Have you ever come up with ju just as uh doodling wasting time, not that you waste your time, but uh did you ever come up with or have some ideas that you jotted down as far as golf is concerned on what things would test would be conducted that would illustrate somebody has a few in our new new science of golf video. So there are some assessment tests and if the person is unable to do competently do the test, here are some remedial exercises to address the the the deficits. And then uh some more um multi-dimensional uh training and uh getting down to that final taper to play the game well. that that seems to be something that is not very well known to the masses. Uh and I I I had heard this again, not to jump a different sport, but I had heard this a few years ago. Uh and now I I just saw it again about Luca Donuch, the basketball player, where he was not obviously he’s not very quick, doesn’t have jump great jumping ability yet. He’s arguably one of the best players in the NBA, but what they found out was he was off the charts on his eccentric uh abilities. Well, his ability to change direction. So, when you look at the NBA combine, there is the NBA lane agility test. Very predictive and correlative with performance. So, there you go. So, uh you know, even with uh NFL receivers, what what’s the metric? Well, could be a 30 meter dash or a 20 meter dash or whatever uh that is. And then, you know, I go back to some of the players uh years ago and and uh some of the great ones were terrible on those scores, but they could catch a ball, turn, come back, twist. Uh in other words, their ability for directional change uh was that was the thing that was off the chart, but it’s not measured by just a straight in line speed off the mark. I’ve had uh Conrad Ray who’s the golf coach at Stanford. He’s a friend of mine. Um Michael Buren was at Wisconsin and now he has a under park consulting where he helps place kids in college. I’ll have to ask them reach out to them to say have have you guys found anything? And Conrad and I did talk about this as far as recruiting because he said kids today, teenagers, all of them can shoot under par. It’s like a given where when I was a kid, if you shot under par, you consistently one or two under, you could probably pick your choice of division one schools to go to where nowadays you better be four, five under. Well, maybe you should ask that question of Greg Rose because at TPI, they have a few metrics. Yeah. But what are you guys finding that can be a predictor in a recruitment process as far as measurements that a kid is going to be boy or girl is going to be have greater potential than what they’re showing right now? Right. Well, I would not be the best person for that. I’m I’m the one who says, uh, I can tell you why I see a lot of the junior golfers. Dad brings me the golfer. The young woman or young man has just received a scholarship for a prestigious golf uh, school and now they’re so injured that they are on the disabled list before they even start. What can you do, Doc? So, I can tell you the commonalities there and it is almost always uh someone got them to go out and just see how far they could hit balls and 30 of them in a row. You just don’t do that. Uh weight room bravado would be the next one. The next one is dad has the golf athlete with the strength coach three days a week, the sports psychologist two days a week, the mobility stretching coach 2 or three days a week, the golf technique coach plus the psych, you know, whatever it goes on and on. And I look at the young athlete and I say, “When was your last day off?” And the room is silent. And I have to be very careful at that point because I I I don’t want the athlete to hear all of this. But I try and have a good talk with the parent and say, “You do realize that no pro that I know of trains as intensely as your 17-year-old.” And uh some of them uh don’t want to hear it, but they say, “Okay, you’ve given me something. I I I see that and uh and here’s my opinion which you’re paying for to have a a workable intervention here. But anyway, those are some of the things that I can tell you are common among the young athletes who get sent and they’re they’re they’re already heavily compromised before they even it’s mindboggling that that that exists today with all the literature that has come out to the public that used to be maybe in the university level like uh uh Tudor Bmpa’s work uh Dr. Greg Hass work I think they wrote periodization to train. Yeah. Yeah. All fa fabulous books. Yes. But it’s it’s the pattern. Um I I don’t know if you want to go here in in this podcast or not, but again, this is the power of pattern recognition. Dad will call me or email me and he doesn’t talk about his son or daughter. He talks about we we are training for this and we are doing this and then that is the number one red flag right out of the gate. Sir, it is not we. This is your son and daughter, the love of your life. Mhm. And it’s not because this is what you wanted to do when you were younger and couldn’t because you had to support your family or whatever the story is. This is your child who lives under exactly the same laws of science that every other human uh lives under. And you have to play by those rules. And uh with that kind of a a talking to we can create a foundation where uh but you know all of the other experts the various coaches involved don’t even know what the other coaches are doing. So the first thing I’m I’m I I might say as part of the strategy, get everybody around the table and each one says what their objectives are with this person. Listen to what everybody elsees are and can you make this a program that follows the rules a little bit and give this young athlete the best chance, you know, and you have to love their passion. here’s dad spending all their money to uh try and help this happen, but I don’t know if that has a place in our conversation or not. I I think we could have a whole multi-hour episode on junior golf and junior athletes in general and the helicopter parents that are pushing them is as you said the we meaning they’re wanting the kid to to do what they were for any particular reason were unable to do or pursue and now they’re living and usually unknown. Uh I don’t think that they know that they’re consciously aware that they’re doing that. Uh absolutely. They have the best of intentions. Oh, absolutely. But they don’t know tutor bumpa and and uh this I I would suggest that today with the world uh the way it is with with internet coaches. Many of them wouldn’t even know who the classic contributors to the very robust science that exists on creating resilient performance and even so to to go so basic is not specializing until they’re in their mid to late teens. Uh and even David um what was his name? He wrote range the book range and the sports gene. Um, I know who you’re talking about. He’s the New York Times writer. Uh, Weinstein. Yes. Is it Weinstein or Goldstein? Can’t I got both his books. So, you’re like, they’re they’re fabulous. And he goes over the same thing. It’s like it’s not okay if you subscribe to the bumper if you know who he is. Okay, that was decades ago. Maybe the new data, new science has changed. No, here here come um uh range and Schwarz gene that that basically say the same exact thing in the modern era. So no, science has not changed. The physics of a an anatomy have not changed. Well, this is the thing. You’re correct. The human hasn’t evolved in the last 10 or 15 years. Uh but all of the so-called experts on the internet who are experts only because they’re good marketers, they don’t have to display their success rates or anything else to prove. It’s just they’re allowed and sometimes they’re crass, which gains attention. and why the public buys into it, I’m I’m not quite sure, but I think it’s because some of the things they say are either they have the scientific jargon down very well and they sound like they know what they’re talking about and might even have some success at a at a local or even a regional level, but it’s it’s not extended success. Um, I was recently at the PGA show and they have a an event called Open Forum that is a I’m surprised they haven’t asked you to talk at this thing. Of course, with your demands, you might have other things to do, but maybe it gets you to Orlando in January for a couple days, but it’s coaching, technology, and fitness is what their three main things are. And it starts about 5:00 on Tuesday and runs till about 11. And Chris Ko is is involved. He he’s one of the the uh people that that put it together. Um but there was a discussion um about ground force reactions this year because there was one individual who put some things out on social media that that contradicted what Dr. Rose and Sasha McKenzie and uh James Lights and all these people are finding using the the technology and it was contradictory. Um, but it and I have nothing against the individual who did it, but in looking at some of his posts on social media where I could see somebody who’s not very familiar and even some of the coaches who might side with him say, “Okay, he’s right and the rest of the industry is wrong.” Um, it can be very appealing to somebody who maybe just in general is goes against the grain and wants to go do something else. So, I think just as a whole, and again, nothing against that individual. if anyone knows him and they’ll know what I’m talking about. Uh just using his example, but someone who gravitates towards anti-establishment, let’s say, or to they’ve done things their own way and that they’re going to gravitate towards someone who seems to be doing something similar. It’s a way that they do something and not necessarily the the information that they’re buying into that. That’s kind of what I see. Right. Well, N equals one in that instance. So, I don’t know if that’s industrywide or worldwide. Yeah. I see a pattern as you as we’re talking about patterns. You see a patterns in things. Why why would someone gravitate towards someone who’s who’s so out there? Um it just hasn’t proven over time. I mean, there’s been outliers. I remember a guy in pitching back in the 80s or 90s had a very unique way of pitching coaching. Uh it was a very much over-the-top movement that that supposedly would save the elbow and the Tommy John surgery which was so prevalent. Uh and there were a few guys in the in the majors that that used that and employed that theory, but it never really uh th those players never did anything that would warrant a whole flood of people going to this individual. So happens in all sports and I think golf with the utilization and the instruction and so many things involved in playing good golf, not just the body, but the way you think and the way you swing and the way you train and clubs and da da da. You know, the list is endless. So many things involved that people can get lost and especially they get on the internet now they start searching the internet now they’re now they really get lost be a deep chasm it’s just too much right right I I I know I it’s why I just have to keep going back to the science and use that as a foundation otherwise I would become uh uh influence shall we say which uh is there anything as you look back on your career that that you were certain that you were 100% correct at the time that later on you said had an aha moment that said oh no oh shoot I I was I was good intended but I was wrong on this and now I changed was there any moments like that specific but this is certainly science and biomechanics uh specific so as a young biomechanics professor I would teach that muscles are agonists and antagonists and if you understand their activation and force you will be able to describe human uh as uh I evolved I realized that that didn’t explain so it will explain a very slow movement and uh perhaps with a moderate load but it never explained high performance sport. So remember, I was the guy measuring the role of all of these muscles and how they uh created the final execution of speed and power and balance and whatnot in in the sport. Um, and it wasn’t until I appreciated that there are no this separation of a muscle being an antagonist or an an agonist, they’re all agonists. And then I realized that there are many muscles that don’t even connect to the skeleton. They only connect to the fascia and the fascia is tightened and loosened. And uh you know I I could show you with an experiment. Uh say you did have neurogenic facilitation of your so muscle because of chronic back pain. Uh, I could show you that we could load that uh uh muscle and you could stretch it and it really wouldn’t release until we took your hand, put it overhead with a very strict arm push, bend away from the if it we’re talking with a left so bend to your right, drop the uh uh left shoulder back, it’s the left arm that’s pushing to the ceiling. Then push the heel of the hand to the ceiling and internally and externally rotate the arm. And now tell me if you can feel the so change. Some people it won’t matter. They don’t have a strong uh anterior line of fascia. The next person it goes from pain with internal rotation to no pain with external rotation. A heavy fascial connection. So now you start to realize that to release that so you better release that whole chain on some people. So it was that that I it really pulled together the idea of technique. So we were talking about George St. Pierre earlier and how uh there was a point in his career where all of a sudden his jab just became perfection. He would rotate the hips, stiffened core, turn the shoulders, got the long reach, and then that perfect pulse of muscle, and every single body, every single muscle in his body just about contracted at the same time to turn to granite. And that was the devastating jab that was so it’s it’s just an example of there were no antagonists there. It was a perfect thrust line, but without fascia, it never would have happened. So, I couldn’t teach undergraduate biomechanics anymore. And now things got a little bit complicated. All my um professorial colleagues and by the way, I’m chair of department at this time and I have to change my curriculum and they weren’t buying into it. They, you know, you have to start somewhere and teach grade one biomechanics before you can go to grade two and grade three, etc. But it was it was such a difficulty and I would show these athletes and how I would measure them and what really created performance and uh I I hope I got that right in my uh last few years. But there would be an example of an evolution of a very basic idea and how even to this day uh I don’t think many people really appreciate why a very modestlooking individual has set a world record in something. Yeah. You can look at some people and say that’s a world record holder. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. swimmers certainly have a uh a profile. Um some of the fighters are so modest looking. Mhm. Uh some of the best martial artists I know and I don’t know any MMA people I know cuz the guys who I know are now in their late 50s and 60s. So MMA really wasn’t sport there in their era. They they came up in kind of the Bruce Lee era, right? But had learned and trained in in China and Japan and and and you look at them and their age now and and I don’t they one of them looks like not disparaging at all just to paint a picture of like a Vietnam veteran who might be down on his luck, you know, hair’s a little longer. He’s got a big thick beard. Yeah. Um, but as you’re the pulsing when when he would punch, if he had his ghee on, he’d break open a new ghee and once he got warmed up and started practicing punching, he would fray the end of his ghee. Yeah. By the third punch, right, it it was so fast. And you you we talked earlier before we uh got on the podcast today of Andrew Huberman’s podcast, The Humorman Lab, and he had uh Pavl Satselene on last week. Pavville, a good friend of mine, uh, is about my size. He’s about 6 foot 180 pounds. He’s got the strongest core I’ve ever measured. So, he’s the Russian Mhm. kettle bell master who, you know, special force training. Oh, he Pavvel is astounding. But you know, if you walked up to Pavville on the street and you didn’t know his strength and his abilities and his knowledge and his dedication to training with good form, with good structure, with good programming, with good intervals, you you wouldn’t think much, but grab a hold of him in a little Greo. I’d rather not a a little Greco Roman hold or uh just to have an arm wrestle with them. We’re the same size. It is such an education for I I wish some of these internet gurus could uh yeah ju just go meet Pavvel and uh you you’ll get an education on what it is I’m talking about with technique and uh the astounding performance and strength out of a very modestl looking man. Amazing. Yeah, I don’t want to burn up. I’ve taken so much of your time today. You’ve been so gracious. I I I could talk about back hygiene and uh virtual surgery and but I I hopefully we can save that for another time when you come to visit Hilton Head and we can get get together again and have another good breakfast or lunch or dinner and another episode. If if people are interested in that, I wrote a book called Back Mechanic. It’s on Amazon and that’s my best effort for those who are having back pain that’s limiting things they want to do in life. It talks about the tool of virtual surgery which in a nutshell is to pretend you had surgery and now recover as if you did. Mhm. And there’s a natural de lo there. Pain tissues desensitize and now you rebuild the body strategically with um sufficient strength, sufficient mobility and really tune it to suit your body. And uh believe it or not uh uh if I took people who came to our experimental research clinic and if they fell into the category that they’ve tried everything and they were told that surgery is your last hope, don’t do the surgery. Do the virtual surgery as described. 95% of them in a two-year follow-up said they are happy with their lives and they’re glad that’s what they did. Now, that’s not to say surgery doesn’t work. Surgery is, you know, it’s it’s for the right person. It’s Yes, it’s needed for it’s absolutely needed. Surgeons are at their best for, you know, the stenotic spine and nerves that are, you know, heavily compromised and compressed and whatnot. So I’m not suggesting that that surgery doesn’t have its role. However, for the people who have been told and they just didn’t realize it was their movement habits and they were continuing the practice of keeping their tissues angered. Yeah. The high their spinal hygiene is not as terrible, right? So uh I’m sure you picked that up from uh Brian Carol who uh I’m actually going to another great friend who I’m going to see on Monday. But um there’s there’s that book to uh when people read it, many of them don’t ever need to see me or any of our uh clinicians. Got it in the car. It’s with me often as a reference. Good. Well, I hope it helps a bit. And you um you have you’ve been retired from professional uh your profession professor and professional career for number of years now I left the university. But you have you’re backfit pro which your daughter I believe is managing and you have a a certification right a whole bunch of people that that you’ve taught uh passed on the knowledge that you had. Right. I realized that I simply couldn’t handle the volume of people requesting consults. So, I set about training special clinicians starting 10 years ago. And they’re on our backfitpro.com website with their uh contact coordinates. And uh I’m proud of them. They uh don’t help 100% of people. No one ever does, but they help the majority. And uh as far as a website, Backfit Pro uh is y’all’s website. I’ll obviously have a one-click link to that. And for if you’re in De Moine, Iowa or if you’re in Switzerland or if you’re in somewhere around the world, you it’s all done by it’s very easy to navigate. You can click on whatever country you’re in. You can click on wherever you are and you can find somebody in your area or region if you’re having issue. If you read Back Mechanic and it maybe you don’t know if you’re doing it right or have confidence, you can find one of your practitioners all around the world. That was the plan. It’s worked. It’s a good plan and it came to fruition. Yeah. anything that we I mean we not that we could talk a lot about a lot of things but anything that we missed as far as training and golf and spine and well not from my perspective but only to say from our uh conversations leading up to today to make this happen and our breakfast together this morning uh you’re extremely well read and knowledgeable. Uh so uh thank you for all that you do in uh trying to help uh specifically the golf world to uh hit a little further for longer shall we say. It comes out of necessity having back issues myself. I would prefer to help others avoid the issues and and going through the trial and error of maybe doing a number of different disciplines or thoughts or theories and some working some not some helping more than others and uh at least trying to get to people like yourself to to expose more people that might not have heard of you. I mean, I’ve been in golf for 40 years or around it since I was a kid and really didn’t hear. I kind of heard who you were about 15, 18 years ago, but never followed. Maybe I should have. I wouldn’t I could be playing in where they playing this week. Um, wherever they’re playing in Georgia, I don’t know. Florida swing. I think maybe I’d be playing still playing the champions tour, but that wasn’t meant to be. But uh hopefully my experience and good and bad can help somebody avoid or get better so they can get out to play and they can find your information and utilize it the best they can. Well, I I uh hope but thanks for all of that and uh it’s been a really enjoyable time here, Pete. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to today’s show. If you enjoyed it, you can find more information on today’s episode and other topics at golf 360.blog. There you’ll find the show notes and links links related to this episode as well as any other episode that we’ve done so far to date. If you’re interested in improving your game and would like to learn more from yours truly by taking a private lesson, a half-day or multi-day school, club or putter fitting, you can reach me through the blog site or by email petolf360.blog. So, some of you may be asking, “What is the golf paradigm?” All you have to do is click on the homepage while on my blog site to discover how you can start playing better than you ever thought possible. Or you can simply sign up again on the blog page for my instructional videos where I give regular tips on all areas of the game to include the swing, club design and fitting, health, fitness and nutrition, the mental aspects, and equally as important the integration of all those things together. I’m also on social media and you can find me at the golf paradigm. That’s P A R A D I G M. And I’m on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, also under the same name, The Golf Paradigm. Facebook is usually the best way to reach me for questions and or comments, and I look forward to hearing what all of you have to say. This podcast is brought to you in part by Old South Golf Links. A short ride across a bridge from Hilton Head Island is one of the area’s finest golf courses and a hidden treasure. Set up on towering pines and ancient oaks with sweeping arch vistas truly makes Old South Golf Links a one-of-a-kind golfing experience. The Clyde Johnson design was named one of the top 10 new public courses when it opened. And it also takes full advantage of the natural beauty of the Low Country. Old South is a fun and unique challenge for golfers of every skill level and a favorite of both locals and visitors. Whether it’s your first time here or you’re a regular, you’ll be treated and feel like family. From the backdrop to check-in at the fully stocked pro shop with both men’s and women’s apparel to breakfast or lunch before or after your round, the staff is always ready and willing to help. Experience for yourself why Old South is one of the premier golf courses in the Hilton Head area and why it will quickly become a favorite of yours, too. Visit them in person or online at www.oldsouthgolf.com. Or to make a tea time, simply call the pro shop at 843-785-55353.