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Guest: Bo Watson & Shannon Shuskey (In the Zone Mental Training, Authors In the Zone Secrets) Host: Jeff Pelizzaro Episode Number: 371 Podcast: The 18STRONG Podcast Partners: Linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul], 1stPhorm [http://1stPhorm.com/18strong] ---------------------------------------- SUMMARY Join us as we explore the intricate dance between the mind and the golf swing with mental training experts Bo Watson and Shannon Shuskey of In the Zone Mental Training. Together, we unravel the significant impact of mental coaching in conjunction with golf instruction. Hear about Bo’s personal struggles with golf and the pivotal role Shannon’s expertise played in not just refining his game, but transforming the way he—and any golfer—can harness the power of visualization. From the tee box to the final putt, this conversation is a treasure trove for those looking to elevate their mental game and savor the joy of golf like never before. Listen in as we discuss the transformative power of mindset in sports performance. Shannon opens up about his journey from anxiety-ridden to confident, culminating in becoming a national champion speed skater, and how that mental shift can be equally effective on the golf course. Skepticism meets evidence when Bo applies a custom mental trigger, leading to astonishing improvements in his game after a two-year break. This dialogue will leave you pondering the potential for mental techniques to revolutionize sports and how a single change in perception can be a game-changer. We round out our conversation with an insightful look into mental imagery’s role in sports performance and technique, the concept of ‘caveman golf’ for achieving flow, and the psychological intricacies unique to golf. Discover how legends like Tiger Woods and Sam Snead leverage mental imagery to perform under pressure and how these techniques can empower you to reset mentally on the course. As Bo and Shannon share their book insights and their passion for the game, this episode is not just a lesson in golf—it’s an invitation to transform how you approach every shot, mentally and emotionally. BO AND SHANNON’S BACKGROUND Bo is the Co-Founder of In The Zone Mental Training and Co-Author of the new book called In The Zone Secrets. He has been a host of 2 Consistent Golf Summits and the Road2TheTour Golf Summit, which collectively drew over 20,000 registered attendees. These Summits featured some of the world’s best coaches such as Sean Foley, James Sieckmann, David Orr, Mark Broadie, Scott Fawcett, Nick Clearwater, Dr. Kwon, Andrew Rice, and many others. The primary purpose behind these summits was to help golfers shortcut their path to consistent golf! Shannon was the Operations Manager of the largest Golds Gym on East Coast and Mental Performance Mastery Coach for 20 years, Sports Performance Specialist for 30 years, specifically working in the sport of speed skating, coaching hundreds of high level athletes in including several Olympic qualifiers and medalists. It was Shannon’s mental training techniques that helped his athletes achieve such high levels that intrigued Bo to try them on himself for golf. The success of this “experiment” led to the partnership that is now the helping golfers all over the world shoot their lowest scores ever. Bo and Shannon’s mission is to help 100,000 golfers shoot their new lifetime low rounds. They currently work with Tour Players, College Golfers, and the everyday golfer who wants to play their best golf yet! ---------------------------------------- MAIN TOPICS (00:03) The Mental Edge Mental coaching and visualization can enhance golf performance and enjoyment, discussed by In the Zone Mental Training. (11:06) Triggering Performance Excellence Transformational journey in sports performance, from anxiety to confidence, using custom triggers to improve without practice. (21:45) Mental Imagery in Sports Performance Nature’s mental imagery in sports includes basic visual and kinesthetic techniques for skill acquisition and muscle memory. (29:02) The Power of Caveman Golf Nature’s “caveman golf” focuses on target and flow, contrasting with pursuit of perfect swing. Psychological aspects and influence of Alex Morrison also discussed. (36:26) Mental Imagery in Golf Techniques Exploring mental techniques of top golfers like Tiger Woods, importance of protein for athletes, and power of positive mindset in golf. (47:14) Mental Imagery and Performance Enhancement Mental approaches in golf, interest-curiosity mindset, anxiety and reward value, “ball reset” technique, positive self-talk and imagery, Sam Snead’s success. (59:00) Golf Book and Course Recommendations Bo and Shannon share insights from their book, discuss impactful books and dream golf foursomes, and recommend inspiring social media accounts. ---------------------------------------- FOLLOW BO WATSON & SHANNON SHUSKEY Instagram * Bo Watson: @schooloflifetimelowrounds [https://www.instagram.com/schooloflifetimelowrounds/] * Shannon Shuskey: @shannonshuskey [https://www.instagram.com/shannonshuskey/] LINKS MENTIONED Website: IntheZonementalTraining.com [https://www.inthezonementaltraining.com/home] Book: InthezoneSecrets.com [https://inthezonesecrets.com/book-only-new-sales-page---skool-page] ---------------------------------------- EPISODE PARTNERS: linksoul [https://18strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/linksoul-logo-vector.png] LINKSOUL: For your 20% discount on LINKSOUL gear, go to 18strong.com/linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul] or click the logo above. 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(CLICK THE “+” 👉🏻 [https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f449-1f3fb.png]) 0:00:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro the 18STRONG podcast, episode number 371, with bo watson and shannon Shushkey of in the zone mental training. What’s up, guys? Welcome back to the 18STRONG Podcast, where we’re here to help you build a stronger game, because we believe every golfer deserves to play better, longer. In this episode we have Bo Watson and Shannon Shushkey, the creators of the In the Zone mental training and the authors of the recent book In the Zone Secrets. And today’s episode is awesome because we’ve got the mental side, we’ve got the golf side. Bo’s background is in golf instruction and is a high level golf coach and went through a period of time where he was a little frustrated with the game, ended up actually leaving the industry. But when he met Shannon Shushkey, who is a mental game coach, performance coach, but really his background is in speed skating and working with speed skaters, but learned how to teach them and work with them on getting in the zone, when the two paths crossed, they started to figure out that this could be a game changer for the game of golf. So in this episode we go deep into visualization and what it looks like to really visualize to help your performance on the golf course, what it looks like when you step on the tee box and what that mental rehearsal and work really should look like and ends up looking like if you’re going to shoot lower scores. We also talk about how you can accelerate swing changes. Often we hear that when you’re working on the mental game, should you be looking at the shot or should you be looking at what your body’s doing? So we talk about how working on your mental game and your visualization can actually help accelerate your swing changes and how you can drop your scores without physical practice. So we’re going to go into depth on controlling the images that you see, controlling your emotions out on the course and ultimately enjoying the game even more. You’re going to really enjoy this episode with Bo and Shannon. Our partners over at Link Soul have been providing us with the best apparel for both on the course and off the course, from polos to t-shirts like the one I have on right now. Everything that they have is meant to be worn from the golf course to wherever you’re going next, whether that be casual, whether that be to the beach there’s all different options over there. So go to 18strong.com slash Linksoul. You’ll get 20% off of anything in your cart over on Linksoul’s website. So again, 18strong.com slash Linksoul for our favorite brand of apparel for anything on the golf course and off. Now let’s get to this week’s interview. Brand of apparel for anything on the golf course and off. Now let’s get to this week’s interview Bo Watson, shannon. 0:02:51 – Bo Watson Shushkey, welcome to the 18STRONG Podcast. 0:02:54 – Shannon Shuskey Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us. This is exciting. 0:02:56 – Jeff Pelizzaro Absolutely. This is going to be an exciting one for me and our 18STRONG crew. I know, bo, I kind of heard of you guys through your connection with Carl Morris and being on Carl’s show and Carl’s one of our favorites over here at 18STRONG and you guys did a great episode with him that I’m also going to encourage everybody to listen to and we’ll put that in the show notes. So I know that just by listening to that episode going through your book, the philosophies are so aligned with what we believe here at 18STRONG, just as far as the intention of the game is really for us to really enjoy it. And I think that you know, obviously by playing better you enjoy it more. But you guys go so much into the idea that you know putting this intention into playing better allows you to really enjoy the game more. And it’s about even bigger things than the game too. So first of all I just want to kind of preface that to our audience that they’re in for quite a ride here with you guys. I would love to start out with and, bo, I’ll kind of throw this at you I’d love for you to start out with a little bit of the background of how you two met because I think the story of your connection and where you were mentally in your career and everything, bo, is really crucial to the story. And then how Shannon came in. 0:04:10 – Bo Watson Yeah, it’s always a funny story to tell, because where I was is where I think a lot of people are kind of in their game right now or have been at some point in their golfing journey and so kind of give a little bit of a context behind that. In 2016, I actually stepped away from the game Like I closed down my golf school. I was a very successful golf coach up to that point. I’ve been blessed to learn over some of the best in the game. You know the who’s who, so to speak, and mainly that’s because of my relationship with David, or those of you of you that aren’t familiar with David Orr. David’s considered the best putting coach in the world. Him and Phil Kenyon are kind of battling neck and neck for that title. But the thing is, because of that relationship, because I was at school at Campbell and I fell in love with teaching a game, I left school, opened my own golf school and I’m having a lot of success. But the problem was, as a coach, I’m a type, a type personality. Every person that comes and sees me I want to help and, you know, kind of give you some background on our track record. We were averaging 4.7 shots dropped across handicaps, uh, for every student that we worked with, on average in about a six month time span. So we were doing a little bit better than the industry average at the time. You know, golf Tech prides themselves on seven strokes in a year. We’re doing a little bit better than them. So I kind of like to say that and rub that a little bit in the Clearwater space a little bit. But the thing is, at the end of the day I still had, you know, a few students coming to me and I couldn’t help them. And the ones that I couldn’t help, jeff, were the ones that were like hey, bo, why is it that I always start terribly on the front side but then I play amazing on the back? And it could be vice versa. I mean it could be. You know, they play really well, shoot like 36, 37, 35 on the front, and then they go to the backside and shoot 46, 48. And you know, some of them would have this trouble of getting to this one hole and it’s a negative habit loop and that’s like no matter what they do, they always hit in the water. And it was those kind of students I didn’t have an answer for and I’ll tell you. It came to a head in september 2016. I’ll never forget it. It’s september, it’s late in the evening, he’s my last lesson of the night and we we basically had an honest conversation where I said you know what? I can’t help you and the the interesting thing about this one particular student was that, on paper, strokes gain data. When we go out and be playing lessons together, we go out and play a few holes, the data is showing that he should be in the 70s and even on top of that when we do lessons and we’re working on his game ball striking wise, this guy should be a low, single digit handicapper. But the issue was, when you go and play in tournaments, it would be high 80s, low 90s every time he goes out and plays and I, finally, I just I don’t have an answer and we decided to part ways. I got fired that evening and, uh, that was like the final straw for me because it finally came to head, where I was so frustrated, not only not being able to help my students, but the biggest reason was because, personally, as a player, I still had yet to overcome these obstacles in my own game, and then I, when I left that evening, I shut down the golf school. I started putting out resumes and I started applying to different jobs, and then I left the game of golf for good and had no intention of ever coming back into the game until two years later. I meet this guy, shannon Shushkey, at a dinner one night. And then, you know, I got to say and be honest, my game changed, but then my life also changed as a result of it. 0:07:52 – Jeff Pelizzaro And that’s why I’m now here and loving what I do on a daily basis. So, Shannon, if you could kind of pick up where you met Bo. 0:08:02 – Shannon Shuskey I know you guys went out to dinner, I believe, and it had nothing to do with golf, right? No, absolutely. I was over the ministry team at our church and I was leading prayer class and he was wanting to be on the ministry team and stuff like that, and so I wanted to go out just to get to know him. And what’s crazy is you can’t make this up he was working at a place where I just quit, probably about two years prior to that or a year prior to that, and so I was like, okay, this is first and foremost. That’s uncanny, you know, but you can’t make up the story of how we met and because, once we got there and at the restaurant we were eating and with how, everything, we didn’t even get to know each other. I was sharing with him the things that I’ve experienced when it comes to speed skating and being able to trigger my body to get in the zone on demand at the flip of the switch, and he was like there’s no way. And I was explaining to him where I was in my speed skating, how it literally transformed me as a competitor. Um, for example, what happened with me was, um, my background. I played soccer, played semi-pro, so I was pretty fast with shoes on, but then you put skates on. What in the world was going on? It’s a different monster that was out there, and I was getting last off the starting line, um, every single time. Now, here’s the thing the team that I skated for we had 22 national champions in the prospective age group, so it was kind of like me going out against a who’s who I was like a 30-year-old, you know, going against these kids, however, and so I’m getting last off the starting line in practice, not just in practice, but at meets and everything like that. But I knew that there was a mental disconnect, because whenever we were playing around and we’d have our shoes on or whatnot and we would race, I would beat them hands down, hands down. So I knew it’s just like in golf. You know how often um, you did, does your listeners and everybody’s listening this podcast, for example. You know you can play lights out on the golf range, but yeah, when it comes time to any kind of pressured situation or just going out to the golf course, the change in atmosphere, the environment and stuff like that, and it’s like, okay, where did my game go? That’s what was going on with me and so I was getting mental reps in and literally after I figured out with this concept and this system that I developed, literally within one month I started beating. I would say I was probably getting about halfway through off the starting line and then, within a little over a month, I was winning every single start. And then a month and a half I was winning every start, not just practice, but at meets. And then there was a huge shift, even like literally my I was not nervous before any race. That changed. I was going in more confident and as a result of that, on top of that and it was like, okay, a name is, is just a name. But when I stepped up to the stop of mel, whether this is true or not, a name is just a name but mentally, going up to the starting line, I knew that I was the one to beat. Now, whether that was true or not, I mean I would race world champions knowing that I wasn’t, you know, on the same level as them, but mentally, a whole shift. And so I’m sharing with Bo on this system I literally the whole, I mean probably an hour and a half and I’m sharing with him how to trigger his body and stuff like that. Now his reaction was not what I thought was going to happen, because he was laughing at me. He was like there’s no way, you can’t do this, not for the game of golf. And then he’s laughing. He’s like I’m going to go out and I’m going to prove you wrong, right? And so then I was like, well, I pulled out my phone and I started showing him a few things. But now I’m going to transition. I went, you know, uh oh and by the way, not just, not just me when it starts either becoming national champion and breaking the record in speed skating, and so that was a huge game ship game changer for me. But then I’ll let uh both kind of finish the story on what happened the rest of that night and then the next two months yeah, I’ll see what everybody is is probably thinking right now at this point, and that is this is totally full of crap. 0:12:52 – Bo Watson and that’s what I said to shannon that night when he said, you know, I wasn’t able to get my speed skaters or trick their bodies in the zone down. To get some context for you guys, he had coached 142 national champions, eight world champions, two Olympic medalists. Now that’s a hall of fame resume. And that’s what prompted me to be like well, that’s amazing, like what did you do? And then that’s when he dropped the bomb on me, so to speak, and he said I was able to get my speed skater stricter by his end his own and I I literally laughed, and I still laugh because I feel like there is absolutely no way this could be true. Because I said look, from my own experience, you know, when I struggled in high school and when I started, you know doing everything under the sun like getting, you know, training days, reading all the books and living on Golf Channel Academy Live and I’m trying to do everything I can to get the edge in my own swing. You know, again, kind of falling into the trap of the search for the perfect swing and unfortunately that made me worse and then, as a result, it sidetracked me to a point where I thought everything was mental. So I read all the mental game books out there and you name it, I read it and I read those outside of the game of golf. And I said, shannon, you realize that sports psychologists and these authors have all said what the zone looks like, but nobody has ever found a step-by-step process on how to get there. And you’re telling me that you figured that process out. And he said yes, and I said I still don’t believe you. And it was at that point when Shannon said earlier, he pulled out his phone and he starts like going through and he’s finding these text messages of all of his world champions, the Olympic medalist that he coached and these other national record holders, and they’re all saying the same thing Jeff, custom trigger, custom trigger, custom trigger. And I said you know, okay, this may work for speed skating, but I said, jeff, it’s not going to work for golf. I said there’s no way. And he kind of pushed me a little bit further and then he walked me through an exercise and we can get through that in a second. But it really opened my eyes and I said, all right, this may work. And I said, Shannon, if this does work, this is going to change a game of golf overnight. And I said you know what? I’m the best prime candidate that could prove this, if it does work for golf. And I said here’s why. I said I haven’t touched a club in two years, I haven’t played around in two years and nor do I even really have a desire, but this is intriguing enough to where I will come out and go and play and see if this thing actually works or not. And I said here’s what I’m gonna do. I’ll take what you’re gonna teach me. I’m not gonna practice. I’m not even go to range, I’m only gonna go straight to the first tee. I might hit a few pots on the day of the time I’m playing, and that’s it. That’s what I. Eight rounds in the second half of 2018. I go six out of the eight rounds under par. I go from an index before the 2.4 plus 1.7 within that same time frame, and the rest is history. We’ve done some amazing things ever since, but yeah, that’s kind of a quick run around how we came together. 0:15:40 – Jeff Pelizzaro I mean it’s such an incredible story and I love hearing it again. I mean it’s such an incredible story and I love hearing it again, and just like I can only picture you sitting at that dinner table, you know, just kind of like laughing, like, yeah, okay, this guy, you know, and then he starts rattling off. You know like who he’s worked with and you start to see those, and then it’s kind of like, okay, let’s. But you were saying that you thought it’d be different from golf, because golf is so different from other sports, right? And so, shannon, first I want to ask you it sounds like you first kind of figured this out for yourself and started to implement it into your own practice speed skating, into your own endeavors athletically, then started to teach it what, like where did the shift come from? Or what is that missing ingredient that so many other coaches have not been able to put their finger on, that you were able to just kind of inherently figure out for yourself. 0:16:35 – Shannon Shuskey So what’s interesting is? It’s funny because this is even mind blowing to me, because all the books that I read up until that point I was doing it plain wrong than what they were saying. But it actually goes down to when Psychology 101 actually took that in college and if anybody’s ever taken that as an elective or as a psychologist, we’ve worked with doctors and psychologists and stuff like that too. They’ve heard of Pavlov’s dogs and which is so in the, in the study. With Pavlov’s dogs there would be a light or a buzzer, a sound or anything like that, and then what would happen is food would drop down for the dog to eat and then what happened is they noticed two different things in classical conditioning. They noticed the behavior of the dog, but then also salivating. We hear a lot about the salivation part of it, but we don’t really necessarily talk about about the behavior, and everybody has a dog can do this. You, as soon as you get food out, what’s going on? The dog starts jumping around, it starts doing in circles and stuff like that. Right, that’s the behavior, but also the salivation that was going on with the dog. The light would come, the food, and then what happens is a week later they were come the food. And then what happens is, a week later they were training the dog. So then what happens is two couple weeks later, or a short term, spin came they. They noticed that when the trigger went, that the light or the buzzer went off, and then that would not drop food, the dog would. Behavior would be the same thing, but also the dog would be salivating. And see, that’s what I was doing. I was figuring out okay, I’m going to do a trigger to get my body there, but then I’m also going to put the pieces of the puzzle together using kinesthetic mineral imagery. And where, at the time, I didn’t know anything about kinesthetic mineral imagery, it just so happened that the definition of it actually is exactly what I was doing, right, um? And so the important thing is like, when you’re doing mental imagery, um, you have to have all your five senses activated, I mean at a high level. You know, you want to be attention to detail, like, for example, if the wind is blowing, can you feel the wind? You know, and not just that, you know the sights. What are you seeing? Can you see the dimples in the in the ball? Can you hear? You know when you swing your club, you know, going to hit it, uh, and stuff like that. So then I was that’s what I was doing with my mental imagery was I was making it so real, getting all five senses, uh, involved. But however um, I like to use it this way when it comes to mental imagery, there’s actually seven senses and getting seven senses involved. The reason why I say that is because, number one, you got to have limb movement, your arms, your body, body movement going into it. You got to feel it, you got to do it and, matter of fact, the more that you do it, matter of fact, there’s been numerous studies when people have been hooked up with electrodes and EMGs and stuff like that. And when you’re doing mental imagery, the ones that are making it real, they actually their muscles are twitching, they’re firing and stuff like that. But then also that the seventh sense is adding emotion to it, because your emotion can change, how focused you get, how dialed in that you can get, for example, making the target feel like a magnet pulling you to it. You know what I’m saying when it’s almost like okay, even though aim small, miss small, but it seems like that target is huge because you’re just so dialed and locked into it, and so that’s what I was doing. I was getting those three pieces, the trigger with the emotion and the mental imagery in there. So then, when it came time for me to perform, I was doing it. So that’s what I was sharing with Bo that night. But I was going step by step by step on how to do it, and so that was basically a long answer to your question there. 0:20:47 – Jeff Pelizzaro No, that’s great, and I want to get as much as we can out of this short time that we have together so we can give some people some actionable steps. And then obviously you know we can’t put a whole book in an episode, so then they’ll want to go get the book and, you know, dissect every single piece. But you talk about kinesthetic mental imagery and psychoneuromuscular imagery, psychoneuromuscular training, and I want to kind of break those down a little bit. But what’s the difference between kinesthetic mental imagery and mental imagery? You guys make a distinction in the book, because I think that most of us hear about visualization and, like you just said, we picture what we’re trying to do and I think we’ve all tried this as golfers. But you guys go into so much more detail about those kind of things. But can you differentiate really between kinesthetic and mental? Is that simply bringing in the emotion and the movement, adding those pieces? 0:21:44 – Bo Watson 100%. Mental imagery is in its most basic form. It’s just simply just seeing things Like there’s no emotion that’s attached to it. It’s just, I would say, visualization 101, kind of like what most people are doing on a very basic level that they’ve been taught. I’m a big fan of Vision 54, what Len and Pete have done, and so when the people are standing back in a think visualization box, I think the simplest way to describe what mental imagery versus kinesthetic mental imagery is is. Mental imagery is you’re just simply just close your eyes and you’re just seeing the shot, like there’s nothing else that’s really attached to it. Kinesthetic mental imagery is where you’re taking it to a totally different level, meaning you’re now putting in all the awareness what you’re hearing, what you’re seeing. Maybe you can even see yourself like tasting like Gatorade, or if you’re drinking a beer in the round and you’re just walking up to the tee box, you’re hearing your playing partners over to the side. You know you’re also more engaged with the detail, like what Shannon just shared. But the other piece of this is again what Shannon just shared when moving. So you’re actually physically feeling the movements as you’re doing it and then, last but not least, the emotion that’s attached to it. And so when you look at the two types and then you look at all the studies there have been numerous studies and we have a lot of those referenced in our book at the end of the book but I guess it’s really fascinating when you see what kinesthetic mental injury is doing for people when it comes to like rehab, when it comes to, you know, even strength gains. You know there have been numerous studies out there where people are just doing uh, shannon can reference that in a second but like there are numerous studies where people just do tennis, study mental injury of them doing an exercise or workout and yet they’re still seeing amazing strength gains versus just doing it physically only and so like when you do the combination of two, I mean it’s like a massive, like knockout punch, so to speak, and so you can really accelerate things. And this is true even when it comes to the swing and how you want to improve your swing and you want to do a swing change. This is how you would do it and you can accelerate in a shorter time span. But I will say this about kinesthetic mental injury because shannon kind of alluded to it earlier. One of the best early examples was in 1980. The author of the study was Suinn S-U-I-N-N. You can go look this up. And what was so cool about the study is they studied an Olympic downhill skier and what they did was they had him actually physically go out and do the actual training of the course, where he was running down the slopes and everything, and they had his muscles hooked up and so they’re measuring off the ekg I think that’s what it’s called and they’re seeing the muscle activity. But then they sat him down and he is physically sitting completely still and they’re having him go through the course in his mind and he’s engaging all the sensors and what was fascinating is that his muscles were actually firing at a even higher level than when he was doing it physically well so that was one of the big I guess you would say um hallmark studies, that kind of like got a lot of other people on board and so this has been a big, heavily researched topic over the last like 40 years, uh, since that one study came out. It has been really fascinating. People go down a rabbit hole really quick when you get on the kinesthetic mental imagery. 0:25:10 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah. So, shannon, when you’re talking about the kinesthetic and feeling the limbs moving, you’re not actually standing up and like practicing a swing. You’re literally just trying to tap into the feelings that you would have when you’re out there. Is that correct? To tap into the feelings that you would have when you’re out there Is that correct? 0:25:25 – Shannon Shuskey Yeah, absolutely. However, what we want to do is because, for example, a beginner, when it comes to doing mental imagery, what we would have them do is physically do a swing and then do mental imagery of that swing and go back and forth. So then that way you’re getting the feeling of it dialed in right, because it’s fresh on your mind. You know, we always say when you’re going out, you know, when you’re on the golf course, you’re doing your swing twice, you’re playing the round at least twice. It’s sometimes three times or four times, not just once, because mentally you’re rehearsing it over different, different shots over and over again in your head. And so that’s one of the things that we’re doing when it comes to that like and and then you. Then there’s levels of mental imagery that we actually talk about in the book. We call them five levels of mental imagery, and that’s the basic level, and the elementary, preschool level is all right. Let’s get the feeling dialed in, and that’s how you get it done. Like you can go out to the range, for example, get your balls there, go through your pre-shot routine, hit the ball and then do mental imagery of what that felt like, and then just keep alternating back and forth and then do more mental imagery going in there. So then you’re actually feeling it. So then, but then when you get your mental reps away from the course, that’s where all your gains are. A lot of people think that their gains are on the golf course. No, that’s just, that’s like taking your test right. You’re getting everything away from the golf course before you even get there. Because if you wait till you get there, it’s too late. Your body’s going to react to what you’re, what you’re, what we’re saying here for. So you got to get your reps away from the course. It’s just like you know, going to the gym, you know somebody is trying to lose weight, they go to the gym, you know, to the gym, you know somebody’s trying to lose weight. They go to the gym, you know. And then they come home and then they look at uh, look in the mirror. They’re like, well, nothing, nothing happened, I’m done. No, that’s not how it works, right, you have to give your body time to start reacting to it by going to your mental gym and getting those reps in and getting the feeling of that swing. Um, not just that, because here’s the thing your driver’s gonna feel a lot different than your putter. So you gotta get them all dialed in, not just one, and it takes some work, don’t get me wrong. But here’s the thing is it hard work? Absolutely not. It’s actually pretty easy. You know you’re not going out and breaking sweat and suffering when you’re doing it, it’s just, it’s easy work, but you just got to get the work done. 0:28:06 – Jeff Pelizzaro So you mentioned there’s different levels of this and obviously we start at the beginning level and most people have tried to go and visualize, right, I think we’ve all been there and I would say that one of the big dilemmas that people come into is well, am I visualizing this shot or am I visualizing internally what my body’s trying to do? And I know we’ve had, you know, carl and Gary on the show and they talk a lot about well, does the shot create the swing? Does the swing create the shot? Is it internal focus? Is it external focus? Bo, I’m going to leave this one to you. How do we differentiate where that focus is? Is it both? Is one helping to foster the other? And what direction do you give people when they’re kind of stuck between, I don’t know, am I working on me or am I working on what that shot looks like? 0:28:55 – Bo Watson Yeah, it’s a fantastic question and it really depends on where the player is and their journey and where they’re at in the system. So, like one thing that we always want to get a player to is ultimately what we call caveman golf. We know our best performances are going to come from caveman golf. So what does that look like? It’s C target, c ball, hit ball. That would be basically a caveman’s approach to playing golf at a high level. And you know what’s funny Every time I have a conversation with a golfer in our community, you know the common denominator I always hear from every single one of them when they tell me like their best round was, or their lifetime low ground. The common denominator across every single one of them was I was in a zone, I was in a close state. Okay, let’s go down a little bit deeper. Did you have swing thoughts throughout the round? You know what every single one of them said no, I did not. And then I go and press a little bit deeper. I’ll say what was your main focus, my target? And that’s why, like, one of the most important things that people can write down and always remember is where your attention goes energy flows. And there are so many studies out there in multiple different sports that have backed up this idea that even though your technique could be off, for an example, but if you intuitively know that this is your target, your body will compensate in a way to get a ball, whatever sport it is, from point a to point b, and I mean they’ve done it in so many different studies and so many different sports. But it’s true for golf too, which is why, like, yes, working in a swing is important. You’ll never hear me say that technique is not important. It is um. But at the same time, there’s got to be a healthy balance and unfortunately and I think this is what will help a lot of people listening to us and give me a little bit more context behind why what we’re teaching is so powerful is because, unfortunately, over the last 50, 60 years, this game has gotten this unhealthy pursuit of the search for the perfect swing, and that’s not the answer. You will never hear a major champion in a press conference after they just won a major championship, come back and say you know, today I won because I was able to hit my P3 position extremely well and then I was able to get my wrist flexion at 22 degrees at the moment of contact. And then I had my weight pressure, you know, with ground reaction forces and getting everything to move back into my left heel, and that’s where I had to snap and get the left lead leg. No, you never hear a major champion say that. What do they say? They said I was really dialed in, I could see my shot clearly today. And what do they say? They said I was really dialed in, I could see my shot clearly today, and it’s all those things. Even when you look at basketball, for example, you’ll never hear you know, kobe Bryant a late Kobe say yeah, I was, uh, I was able to get my knees bent at 24 degrees at the moment of my release and then I felt my pressure go back to my right heel when I actually landed and I knew that was my way of making shots. No, it’s always like I saw the shot and anybody that’s ever shot basketball, you know that if you think about mechanics, you’ll be looking at the backboard or much less at the rim at all, but when you shoot your best, it’s always because you had a clear vision of the arc, of the approach, of the ball going into the hoop and where you want it to go in at a certain Unfortunately. Yes, it is the hardest sport in the world, which is why I had to argue with Shannon early on when we were at dinner that night and why I said this couldn’t work. But what’s fascinating is over the last two years I’ve been on a lot of research and so to kind of give context to everything we’re doing, for those of you that are very scientific-minded and still skeptical, this is a system that is a blend of classical conditioning and what’s called operant conditioning. So it is psych mesmerizing. It is blending the custom trigger with the CPR kinesthetic, mental imagery. There you go. Those are pieces. But I want to go back to why this game has gotten away from its roots when you look at the best players in the game Sam Snead, tiger Woods, phil Mickelson, ben Hogan and then Jack Nicklaus and Mickey Wright on the LPGA Tour side of things. But I want to just focus on these four players just for a second. Sam Snead, ben Hogan they both shared the same coach. Who was that coach? Henry Pickard, jack Nicklaus first childhood coach, his name was Jack Rowe. Now Mickey Wright worked with a coach named Harry Pressler. Those were the three coaches Harry Pressler, henry Picker, jack Routt, who was all three of their coaches’ mentor. It was nameless Alex Morrison. Now who is this Alex Morrison guy? When you do research you find out this Alex Morrison guy was actually way ahead of his time and, honestly, we hope our work is actually paying a tribute to him, because he was actually the godfather of the one that wrote the book in 1940 called Better Golf Without Practice and, if I’m not mistaken, harvey Pinnock said Alex Morrison was one of the absolute best swings he’d ever seen in person. And that’s amazing when you consider all the people that he’s been around right Now. Here’s the thing about Alex Morrison. In that book, better Golf Without Practice, there was a comedian. He tells the story of a comedian, lou Lohr, and this guy could not break 90 to save his life. So everybody that’s listening, you’re struggling to break 100, you’re struggling to break 90. Well, you may want to pay attention to this part right here, because Lou Lohr tried everything under the sun, could not break 90 to save his life. And finally comes Alex Morrison and he said hey, I need help. What does Alex do? The total opposite of what everybody else does in this game. He didn’t go get training aids, he didn’t go and do full. You know so many hours of physical practice and do lessons physically on the range. Now what does Alex do? He sets them down in a chair and over the next two weeks all they do is basically kinesthetic mental imagery of him rehearsing what out of the system is called the five Morrison swing keys. That’s all they did, plus while actually playing around in his mind. Now what’s interesting is Lou Lord goes out his first round back and he actually shoots 87. Now here’s what’s crazy about that. Let’s go back to Sam Snead, those of you that are Bob Rotello fans, and Jeff. I don’t know if you’ve read Bob Rotello books. Did you ever read the Golfer’s Mind, that particular book? 0:35:07 – Jeff Pelizzaro I don’t know if I read that one. I read Golf is Not a Game of Perfect and a couple of the other ones. Yeah. 0:35:14 – Bo Watson Yeah. So in the Golfer’s’s mind book, in chapter two. This is so fascinating to me. Bob Rotella is giving a seminar that can make or break his career and he details it pretty, pretty bluntly, so to speak, because he said if Sam Snead gets up and says this guy’s a crook, you shouldn’t listen to him. Bob Rotello’s career would have ended right then and there in the game of golf. That’s what was on the line for him. Now he is nervous because Sam Snead does stand up after he gives his talk, but what comes out of Sam’s mouth was actually shocking to everybody in the room. Sam says we need to listen to this young man because he has a lot of truth of what he just shared, and what was interesting is what sam shares. Next he said the reason why I was so successful in my career was because the night before I would play my rounds, I would visualize it and do mental imagery of what I would see, my perfect shots. For the next day’s round, he said, I’d fall asleep between like hole 10 and 14, wake up next day, feel, go through my normal routine and I go and play a great round. And what’s so crazy about that is that he’s tied with Tiger with the all-time PGA Tour wins. Now, why did I say Tiger? Tiger won an early 2000s clinic and it’s also in his book. Tiger shared something that was really, really interesting and it’s the key to why he has made some of the most iconic putts on Sunday final round in majors and some of these events that he’s won over the course of his career. He said on the outside it looks like I’m calm and collected, but on the inside I’m extremely nervous, like when the pressure’s on. Now we would think that would be totally, you know, untrue, right? But this is what Tiger said. And he said when I’m nervous, when I’m going through these uh putts, this is what I do, and he’s walking everybody through it. And he said when I’m standing to the side of the ball, I’ll look, and then what I’m doing is I’m taking a picture. So if you go back to those old like polaroids, you know those little click pictures, right, the cameras, and that’s what he’s doing. And he’s like I’m looking, I’m taking a picture, and then I get up over the ball, I’ll take another look, I’ll take a picture. And then he said I’ll take one final look, I’ll take a picture, and then he’ll say all right, tiger, let’s putt to the pitcher, like Papa used to say. And that’s what is basically. I mean, that’s mental imagery right there and that’s a big key of why he’s made some of the most amazing putts over the course of his career. 0:37:36 – Jeff Pelizzaro That’s unbelievable. Let’s take a second to thank our sponsors over at First Form, and this week I want to highlight their Formula One post-workout protein shake. I use this thing pretty much every day after my workouts because, let’s face it, being here in the gym working all the time with clients putting on a podcast, it can sometimes be tough to get my protein in on a regular basis, and so I know that with the post-workout shake the Formula One, first of all, it’s fast acting. So right after your workout is a great time to get your protein in to help build your muscles, get yourself stronger and repair what you’ve done in the gym, but also, if you don’t know if you’re going to be able to get your protein in in your regular meals, it’s just a great way to make sure that you’re supplementing and hitting those marks. So be sure to go over to 1stPhorm.com forward slash 18STRONG to get your First Form Formula One protein shake, and everyone that enters through that link is going to be put into a drawing every single month for free First Form products. So again, go over to 1stPhorm.com forward slash 18strong. You know you talked about how with the game of golf being different than other sports and you know we don’t focus on the techniques when we’re basketball players and, shannon, I know you have a background in soccer. I played a lot of soccer growing up and I always go back to that. Or even baseball, like you never think about. If you get hit a ground ball and you’re at shortstop, what does it take to throw the ball to first base right versus if you were in center field and still had to throw it a second base? Like you’re never making calculations in your head, or I always find it amazing that if, even if I’m going out and messing around with my son’s soccer team and helping coach and I hit a pass and I put it right to a kid’s foot, that’s like running down the line. I’m like, how do I still know how to do that? Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t happen all the time, but you do that and you’re like why is golf not like that for most of us? But you’re saying that that’s really what you’re teaching it to be by implementing a lot of these techniques and these tactics of mentally rehearsing. Shannon, what does it look like when we’re actually on the golf course? So we’ve talked a little bit about. You know, like some of the training off the course but Bo mentioned the custom trigger earlier and I know that you know when we’re on the course, how do we then take some of this and what does it look like when we’re physically implementing day of game day? You know you’re standing on the tee box. 0:40:00 – Shannon Shuskey So yeah, and so, um, standing on the tee box first, there, there’s several types of imagery that you do. Um, what I mean is is one is you want to see your shot pattern, how it’s going to go, the trajectory and stuff like that, but then you want to do your mental imagery before you know. Matter of fact, jason I believe it’s Jason day. He was notorious back when he was a PGA champion that, I mean, it was obvious. He’s there holding his club, he got his eyes shut and he’s going through his mental imagery, and so that’s one of the things that you do, because what it does is it’s teaching your body to react to it. Matter of fact, phil Mickelson I love in the interview that he was talking about, he makes it reactionary to when he makes the shot surrender in his brain. Like if you look at him and he’s staring off off and it looks like he’s in la-la land. That’s what he’s doing. He’s doing mental imagery making that shot surrender. So then when he’s confident and committed, he reacts to it, and then that’s when he steps into the play ball and then he goes and plays. That’s the important part. When you’re, when you’re going through your shots, is seeing that, and here’s a part. Here’s a thing you have to always vision the perfect shot. You don’t want to envision a bad shot, because what you’re doing is you are programming your brain and wiring your brain to perform negatively. A great example is Jacqueline Hernandez. She was in the Sochi Olympics. She was a downhill snowboard cross racer. And what was happening and you can actually look this up in the New York Times there was an article that was written because there was going around talking about mental imagery. Everybody’s doing mental imagery and all this stuff. However, when they got to her, she said that she kept seeing herself fall in this particular turn over and over again. And then what happens is she’s setting herself up as like a self-fulfilling prophecy. But here’s the thing she’s training her mind and body to react that way, going into that turn when she goes down. So here she is she’s going down, she’s making it, she’s taking her turn going down the hill and as she gets to that turn, guess what? Her muscles start reacting the way that she’s programmed it to do so many times before going into it. Where what happens is she starts feeling shaky. She starts oh no, here’s that turn. Mentally, she’s dreading going into that turn because she’s done it so many times negatively and she’s fallen. Well then, unfortunately, the hate that this happened. She actually fell and then she actually got knocked unconscious and had to carry her off because of it. Now that is like an extreme example of it. But just think in golf. It’s different. You’re shaking the ball, you’re topping the ball, you’re doing this. You know what I’m saying. So you want to actually visualize the perfect shot, but here’s the thing you can visualize coming out of a bad situation, going into a good situation. What, what? So this is the thing like when you’re going doing you know, for all the listeners going through your mental imagery. Don’t just think about you’re hitting the perfect shot off the perfect line every single time. No, you know you. Your limitation is in your imagination. What kind of lie are you in? Are you in a bad rut, deep grass? Are you hitting it off of near a root or something like that? You know what I’m saying, where there’s all these things that can actually take place. But then you’re actually performing the shot perfectly, seeing the shot shape and also as it reedmen, as in reading it. That’s the other thing too is like, when you like, answer your question again coming up, visualize the perfect shot where it goes to the, to the exact place where you want it to go every single time. And then that way, when you’re stepping in number one, you’re going to be a lot more committed, you’re going to be a lot more confident going into your shot. But then you got to trust your athleticism when it comes to when you address the ball that’s what Bo was talking about. Caveman golf, that’s what it is, it’s the less thoughts that’s going in your brain and literally trust your athleticism to pull off that shot that you just visualized. 0:44:25 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, I’m picturing standing on a tee box and we’ve all got a hole that we kind of dread, or, you know, we’ve hit a couple bad shots and we’ve got these, these mental images of you know letting that ball fly out to the right and drop into the water or whatnot. And you guys talk about controlling that image and you warn that you know you have to. You have to pay attention to what image you’re putting in. What if we find ourselves stuck on that though, Like we are, we know, like, okay, the second hole at Boone Valley has water on the right. That second shot is daunting and I’ve seen my ball go in there a couple of times, right. So how do we stop perseverating on that image and break ourselves out of that chain, Even though you know, okay, you’re staying over the wall, All right, I think we all say don’t go in the water, don’t go in the water, and so it’s, you know, focus on putting it on the green. But how do we really break that? And I know that’s not an easy question to answer right here. 0:45:25 – Bo Watson No, that’s where we have to visit with two things. One, we have to mind map the negative habit, so like when we see a pattern. This is why journaling is so powerful and it’s one of the biggest reasons why we’ve seen a college team that we work with that was outside of the top 50 and now trending into the top 20. And, honestly, if we keep on the same path you know they were averaging over 305 as a team in the fall. Now they’re averaging 284 and they just set the third lowest scoring average in school history on their most recent tournament. So we’re trending in the right direction. But I’m going to tell you the biggest reason why that’s been possible is because of journaling and being very mindful to these details, because when, when we start seeing those kinds of negative, how to lose? Like you said, when we see shots over and over on this one particular hole going to water, we have to first become aware of what behavior and what thoughts are entering our minds when that’s happening. So when we shot a spotlight on what’s going on that triggers it, we can identify the old behavior and autopilot behavior that people just seem to. For whatever reason, we just keep doing the same thing over and over again, and that’s why we like to have these hard conversations. Once we identify there’s a negative habit loop, there is, for an example, let’s say, on that hole you hit it in the water like five times out of the last seven rounds and what we identify is you tense up and you’re trying to control your swing right. There’s always a reward value in our brain where whenever we do some type of behavior, there’s some type of reward for it. Even if you have a very low success rate, your brain will always take that part. Like that one time, four rounds prior, where you are still tense and you still try to control your swing, but yet you hit it 10 yards in from the water’s edge, but you’re safe, right. You will still keep doing that over and over and over again until finally you come to grips with. I like to ask this question to our players hey, out of the last 10 times you do this, what’s your success rate? And what they’ll come back and tell us is like 10%, 15%. I’ll say, okay, now we go deeper in this in the book. But that’s where we kind of teach this interest-curiosity approach that we want to take, and there’s a lot of research to back this up. That’s really, really cool. But when we take that approach where it literally updates reward value in our brain, so to speak Dr Rick Judson talks about this in his anxiety book it’s an amazing resource for that. But what we’ve done is we’ve kind of taken that and we applied it to the game of golf and we show it how it can be even more practical for this and that’s what we’re doing with our players is now we’re able to go. That’s interesting. I’m about to engage in this behavior that only has about a 15% success rate and what it does it gives you permission to go. Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Why would I do this? And then what we can do is is okay, let’s choose a better path. And that’s where the ball reset, which is in the very next chapter in a book where we go deep on that, and what that does is it literally I’ll help shannon’s uh way to explain it but it literally becomes a washing machine, so to speak, for the brain to do a hard reset. So we can take a player from a red light state. We can go deep into this if we need to, but we can take a player from a red light state. We can go deep into this if we need to, but we’re going to take a player from a red light state in the brain where there’s so many faults happening right after another. So just give a quick understanding of what the red light state is. You know, basically your brain has multiple different wave activity going on in the brain. So, like when there’s a lot of conscious level fault, your brain can basically become inflamed, so to speak, on some of these brain scans and it’s so fascinating because whenever we miss, like a three-foot putt or something like that, we got so many negative thoughts happening right after another after another. So just think of it that there’s a lot of activity going on, but when we do a ball reset, we can get a player back to green light state within about 10 seconds. That is about the equivalent of them doing 20 minutes of meditation or 20 minutes of yoga in the brain. Now that’s powerful because what we’re doing is we’re resetting the brain, so to speak, back to a green light state where they can process things. And you know you hear people say this all the time. You know you have what’s called a fight or flight response. You know some people call it the alligator brain, and so it’s like you know, now there’s a threat and the whole prefrontal cortex kind of goes offline, so to speak. And what this reset is doing is bringing on the parts of the brain that actually can function and do things at a normal level, so to speak. And that’s what we’re doing is we’re taking them through a process where we do the hard reset, getting back to a green light state. Then we’re falling out of power talk, and then on top of that, we’re having them relive an amazing shot in the past in a similar situation. And when they go through it in that process, they’re now excited when they get to the last L of the ball reset and look forward, and they’re excited to play this next shot. Now I’ll give you an example, and this is why Sam Snead was so dang good. Not many people know about this story, but we cover it in a book and I’ll share it for everybody here on this podcast. This is really cool. Those of you that struggle with anxiety, those of you that struggle with nervousness, listen to this. Sam Snead. He is in 1936, the week before he’s going to play in his PGA Tour debut tournament at the Greenbrier. Now he’s playing at the Greenbrier the week before. Now he’s playing with Greenbrier the week before. The head pro organizes an exhibition match. It’s got two former US amateur champions, one former US Open winner, now Sam Snead’s a rookie. Now word gets out there are so many people coming to watch this match and so there is a ton of people that’s surrounding the first tee Sam’s turn. Sam gets up. He is so nervous he is having to use both hands to steady the ball on the tee. Like can you imagine? Like that’s basically on the verge of a panic attack, if we’re being completely honest. Right, so he is trying to steady the ball on the tee with both hands. That’s how bad he was shaking. Now he collects himself, he walks back Probably lucky that he actually was able to walk back in that situation. But he’s standing behind the ball and what he does is he closes his eyes, and what he does is he then relives all of his amazing shots in the past on that same hole. He gets up, goes through his routine, hits the shot the crowd gasps. And when he looks and sees his ball flying, hits the shot, the crowd gasps. And when he looks and sees his ball flying through the air, not only is he outdriving his playing opponents by about 20 yards, but he hits it about 15 yards further than all of his most successful drives that he had hit on that hole in the past. Now wait a second. How does a guy go from on the verge of a panic attack to then hitting his most successful drive ever on the same hole? It was because what he did was doing mental imagery and that’s why it’s such a major piece for a ball reset in the first L when we do a look back that right there. We just had a conversation with one of our college players just yesterday. She had a scoring average of 77 from her first two seasons and right now she just threw the first three tournaments in this spring season. She’s averaging a 72.8. She said the ball reset has blown her secret weapon and it is one of the biggest, most powerful tools that people need that have been able to get people out of these negative habit loops and actually get them to a place where they can attack these things head-on wow. 0:52:31 – Jeff Pelizzaro You talk about how you know he he was able to relax and saw his ball go so much further. I remember you guys talking in the book about how so much of this is first of all changing your state to be in a more relaxed state, but then also helping to produce a better rhythm and tempo in your swing. And I, uh and that’s really where a lot of the extra distance and power comes from. We tend to get so focused on trying to muscle through our golf swing, trying to hit a ball further. But I think we’ve all experienced that relaxed swing that just you’re like whoa, how did that swing produce that effect? And I’ve even been doing a lot of research lately just on the body and fascia and how the tempo and the way that our body reacts with contraction versus relaxation and how those things play together with the rhythm. So it’s like so many things that you guys talk about, and then even the physical components from a training side of things, how they all mesh together, and it’s just fascinating to me things how they all mesh together and it’s just fascinating to me. One thing that I heard you guys talk about on Carl’s podcast was that along with your book, you have a workbook, and I think that that’s important to mention, because so many of us have read books along the lines of what we’re trying to do here, but we tend to read the books and then go on to the next book and go on to the next book. And so, shannon, if you could tell us a little bit about, kind of, the whole structure of your program and why the workbook was so essential to this piece and for people really getting results, I like to say this Our book will put your game on steroids, so to speak mental steroids. 0:54:17 – Shannon Shuskey But the workbook will put the book on steroids Because here’s the thing you’re going to learn everything a lot faster, first and foremost. But then also, we have activations that are in the workbook, because I mean, goodness, our book would be like a novel, would be huge, if we put everything in there, then downloads and everything like that. That’s in the workbook. And so we have certain activations like going out, doing certain things, playing, um, uh, we also give them like a schedule, it’s in the workbook. Like, for example, you’re like. We also give them like a schedule, it’s in the workbook. Like, for example, you’re like this mental energy, what, where do I start? What do I do? What are the guidelines? You know what am I working on? And here’s the thing we get. We set them, we set everybody up to for success. For example, like Bo mentioned, about the college coach you know I played soccer in college. About the college coach you know I played soccer in college. Um, I would be extremely let down if my soccer coach did not have a plan. And the same thing on speed skating. You know, with speed skating, that if my coach didn’t have a a thought, well thought out process on what I should be doing now and then not just now, but two months from now and in order for me to peak or to get to a certain level, and stuff like so then what we’ve done is we actually created schedules and things like that in there. All right, what are you working on? What do you need to work on? And then you know you, you can’t neglect any golf club. For example, we actually had one of the one of our tour players that we’re working with. Um, you know, after about two months, the the putting started struggling was because they neglected putting. You can’t, you can’t neglect anything, any part of the game, and so you basically got to do maintenance work, going through and doing it. But we, we show you, like, a lot of that stuff that’s in the workbook as well, going in there. And and here’s the other thing too um, I’ve noticed, like when it,

Guest: Ryan Degale (Orthopedic Spine Specialist, Founder of Golf and Body) Host: Jeff Pelizzaro Episode Number: 370 Podcast: The 18STRONG Podcast Partners: Linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul], 1stPhorm [http://1stPhorm.com/18strong] ---------------------------------------- SUMMARY Listen in as Ryan DeGale, an orthopedic spine specialist with a 17-year tenure in strength and conditioning, shares his wealth of knowledge on maintaining spine health, specially tailored for golfers. Our discussion ventures into the realm of practical self-care for the back, steering clear of common misconceptions about back surgery and providing a rich understanding of spinal anatomy and physiology. For those passionate about golf, Ryan’s insights on specific exercises, showcased on his Instagram, offer a path to a pain-free golfing experience, reinforcing the importance of proactive measures over reactive ones. In our engaging conversation, Ryan sheds light on the intricacies of the body’s supportive systems, such as ligaments, tendons, and fascia. He details the advantages of the ELDOA method over traditional inversion tables, emphasizing how these tissues play a pivotal role in posture, injury prevention, and overall athletic performance. We also examine the overlooked but crucial concept of fascia in body mechanics, highlighting how proper technique in physical therapy and massage is vital for maintaining the health of these tissues. For competitive golfers, Ryan discusses the necessity of a tailored fitness routine, underscoring the potential pitfalls of long-distance cardio and the benefits of interval training and personalized core workouts. Wrapping up our rich dialogue, Ryan brings his clinical nutritionist expertise to the table, examining the impact of dietary choices on health and the controversial food pyramid. He offers a unique perspective on how nutrition intersects with the culture and competitive dynamics of golf. Join us for this episode as we traverse a broad spectrum of topics, from spinal health and body mechanics to the nuances of training for competitive golf and the intersection of modern medicine with nutrition, all aimed at enhancing performance and well-being both on and off the golf course. RYAN DEGALE’S BACKGROUND Born in Barbados, Ryan is a 36-year-old strength coach with 17 years of experience in the field. For the past 12 years, he has trained under Guy Voyer DO, specializing in orthopedics and body motion. With over 20 years of experience in playing golf, Ryan works with competitive players and is the proud owner of Golf and Body. His mission is to help golfers play pain-free golf.  ---------------------------------------- MAIN TOPICS (00:04) Masterclass on Golf Body Spine Health Orthopedic spine specialist Ryan DeGale shares practical approaches to back care and dispels misconceptions about back surgery for golfers. (12:31) Unlocking the Body’s Intelligent Systems ELDOA method focuses on end-range motion and creating space in the spine, training supportive tissues, and preventing injuries in daily life and sports. (23:01) Preventing Back Pain in Golf Nature’s strategies for preventing and managing back pain, including seat warmers, stationary bikes, and active reinforcement for muscular imbalances. (29:00) Discussion on Golf Swing and Posture Eyes, fascial tension, and spinal health in golf, emphasizing holistic approach and collaboration with experts for enhanced performance. (36:59) Training Essentials for Competitive Golfers Personalized fitness routines, mobility, interval training, targeted core exercises, and individual goals are crucial for competitive amateur golfers. (47:48) Importance of Fascia in Body Mechanics Understanding fascia and proper technique in physical therapy and massage, with insights from experts and resources for further learning. (55:52) Modern Medicine, Golf, and Nutrition Comparing historical diets to modern processed food, dental health, celebrity golf foursome, inclusivity in golf, and competitive dynamics of golf tours. ---------------------------------------- FOLLOW RYAN DEGALE * Instagram: @golf_body_mia [https://www.instagram.com/golf_and_body/] LINKS MENTIONED @Hormozi [https://www.instagram.com/hormozi/] ---------------------------------------- EPISODE PARTNERS: linksoul [https://18strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/linksoul-logo-vector.png] LINKSOUL: For your 20% discount on LINKSOUL gear, go to 18strong.com/linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul] or click the logo above. [https://18strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/1st-phorm-decal-black-2-5-x-4-25_600x-300x300.webp]https://1stphorm.com/?a_aid=18STRONG 1st Phorm: Try any of the 1st Phorm products with FREE SHIPPING, go to 1stphorm.com/18strong.com [https://1stphorm.com/?a_aid=18STRONG] (By using this link, you will be entered into our Monthly 1st Phorm Giveaway!) ---------------------------------------- MORE COOL STUFF TO CHECK OUT: To continue the conversation and ask any questions you may have, head over to the 18STRONG Movement group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/the18strongmovement] on Facebook. 18STRONG Pro Shop [https://shop.18strong.com/] (Get your 18STRONG gear!) 18STRONG Resources [https://18strong.com/resources/] (All of the cool stuff we recommend: products, books, golf stuff, etc – and discount codes for the 18STRONG Crew) WANT THE FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT? (CLICK THE “+” 👉🏻 [https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f449-1f3fb.png]) 0:00:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro The 18STRONG Podcast, episode Number 270 with Ryan DeGale from Golf Body. Thanks out guys. Welcome back to the 18STRONG Podcast, where we’re here to help you build a stronger game, because we believe every golfer deserves to play better, longer, and this episode with Ryan DeGale from Golf Body is exactly about that Playing golf for as long as you possibly can. Ryan is the owner and founder of Golf Body down in Miami and he is an orthopedic spine specialist. His background is in strength and conditioning, but over the past 17 years has really become an expert in the spine, especially working with golfers. So I like to think of this as being a bit of a master class for especially those golfers that are out there, like yourself, possibly like myself, that have struggled with some back pain in the past and finding ways to really help yourself to eliminate your back pain and really to give you a more optimal and optimistic outlook on what the possibilities are for you to play pain free golf in the future. Ryan is an expert at really breaking down the anatomy and the physiology of what’s going on between the fascia, the muscle, the ligaments. He’s got a great Instagram channel where he really dives in and shows different exercises for these different types of exercises and for spine health in general. So you’re really going to enjoy this episode with Ryan DeGale. Our partners over at Linksoul have been providing us with the best apparel for both on the course and off the course, from polos to t-shirts like the one I have on right now. Everything that they have is meant to be worn from the golf course to wherever you’re going next, whether that be casual, whether that be to the beach there’s all different options over there. So go to 18strong.com slash Linksoul. You’ll get 20% off of anything in your cart over on Linksoul’s website. So again, 18strong.com slash Linksoul for our favorite brand of apparel for anything on the golf course and off. So let’s get to this week’s interview. Ryan DeGale, welcome to the 18strong podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man, this will be fun. We’ve had a couple of conversations, we’ve tried to do this before and had a couple of technical difficulties, so this is going to be fun to finally dig in and get to chat a little bit more. I think that this is going to be a masterclass on the back, which is what a lot of our golfers need. I think I’ve learned myself, even as a physical therapist, just watching a lot of your content, your Instagram and just kind of learning about what you do. I’ve learned a ton, and so today, what I would love to do is make this very practical for the golfers listening on, what are some of the things that they can do, how can they understand Maybe they’re back a little bit better and the things that they need to do to help prepare themselves. So, first of all, welcome back to the show. 0:03:08 – Ryan Degale Yeah, awesome, so it’s good to get it in. Got a little bit of practice before, so looking forward to digging deeper into it and maybe just touch on a few subjects that maybe we didn’t touch before. Maybe there’s some things I left out, that I could do better this time. 0:03:21 – Jeff Pelizzaro No, all good man, yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about your history, though, because you start out in the strength training world, but you are a spine specialist and you’ve gone deep and you’ve learned from some of the best in the world regarding spinal health, and now you especially work with a lot of golfers too. So this is a perfect lineup for what our people need. 0:03:43 – Ryan Degale Yeah, so I’ve been a strength coach for 17 years. I’ve been orthopedic specialist for 12. I felt like you know if you can make the biggest difference? You know I wanted to. I love niche, right, I’m very nerdy with that kind of stuff and I kind of got put onto this, this kind of Givolié rabbit bowl where it just literally just never ends. These courses are so awesome and so practical and so useful that you can retake the same course, even the most basic ones, 30 times and learn something new every time. The you know G was a former orthopedic surgeon who studied anatomy. You know, he was tired of cadaver so just became a surgeon so he could study living anatomy, because living anatomy is living, is different than you know with like formaldehyde and all of the dead body stuff you know. So. And then he developed a series of an entire program, not just the algohm method, to prevent surgeries. And his, from his words as a surgeon, he says that 3% of all back surgeries are necessary. And so you know, you know it depends, right? So we’ll say like maybe non-contact, like disperneations, or you could have like I don’t want to get too technical, but maybe this shifting forward or backwards. They call it a retrolyzed thesis or a spondylized thesis, and you know there’s a lot of things that we can do for ourselves where we can. You know it’s a self-responsibility thing. And he says favorite quote is you are your own best therapist, and so I really love that, and so that’s pretty much what I teach. I basically teach people to not be codependent so we can get them strong and fit in those bombs. Yeah. 0:05:09 – Jeff Pelizzaro Love it, love it. So when you say that and when Guy says that you know 3% of back issues are, you know, really necessarily need surgery, what are some of the things that you see people going in for where you’re just like man if I had, if I was able to get my hands on this person. What are some of the diagnoses or what are some of the issues that people go in for that really you feel like man if I only had some time with them. 0:05:34 – Ryan Degale A few millimeters of space or the disverteation at L5S1, you know they when they have symptoms like very heavy symptoms. But you know everything with the tissues in the body there’s really not that much room. So if you create a little bit of lubrication and a little bit of space in the right area and able to, you know, restructure the pelvis, create a little more flexibility, the ribcage, and so they’re able to play golf, because you know when you most players, after they hit a golf shot, that’s when they have back pain. So you need space to decelerate the golf club. You don’t get to the top and you drop in pain. It’s mostly after the ball and so just kind of reconditioning things. You know it’s. It’s difficult because you know, you know the the medical industry is really governed by insurance these days where you have to code. A lot of the programs are coded, you know, and it’s difficult for the doctors and therapists where they’re kind of at the mercy of the insurance companies of how to treat and this stuff. And so why a lot of people have better um with private practice or cash. Not everybody can afford it. But you know I’m trying to bring small awareness to that and you know it does not have to be fancy, it just has to be right and it has to be consistent. 0:06:39 – Jeff Pelizzaro And what would you say is kind of the primary driver of that pain. That is most typical. Obviously, there’s a lot of different things that can go on with the back, but you’ve got these golfers you said a lot of times. You see that they have pain as they’re finishing their swing, they’re getting through contact. What are the typical structures, what are the typical issues that are causing that? Or, and you know, back wise, hip wise, shoulder wise, and what are some of the things that you feel like most guys or girls could prevent this if they had a little bit more knowledge of what they needed to do. 0:07:09 – Ryan Degale I think, just really a specific warm up. Because you know, like, if you look at professional sports, you see, like you know Steph Curry, he’s, you know, doing some drills on the basketball court. You see, you know, when I’m writing a program for somebody who does this game for a living, you know they’re at the gym 30 to 45 minutes prepping the tissues, getting their nervous system activated. You know, warming up the ligaments correctly and doing all these kind of things in the lower back that are specific to what golfers need. You know, maybe a few pelvic till, some spinal translations, some rolling on, roll this mind, because everybody’s so afraid of fletching. But you know, fletching we have to in sport. You know that there is a lot of our flexor chain being used and so we need to prep the body in that way where everybody’s afraid of doing extensions and flexing. But you know we have to train it in a controlled environment so that we can go out there and not have to think about it. And with the Aldo method it’s basically a French acronym for creating space in a joint segment and so you know, you can use your own body way to decompress your spine in different segments of the spine after your rounds, which is fundamental, and then you go to sleep and then the tissues will heal at that length and you’ll be able to slowly but surely rehydrate this, the body. If you give it enough the great environment, with the right tools, it can regenerate. I’ve seen it, you know. I’ve seen it in imaging studies, working with people with severe scoliosis when they were basically given a ticket of paying for the rest of their life. It’s just a management system. There’s no cures, it’s just a management system. How can I manage? You know the way I feel every day with the two of us, the tools I have, and I think that gives people a lot more empowerment than just being the sort of victim thing which is unfortunate, with the surgeries, pills and injections. And you know it’s destroyed a lot of lives and that’s really the truth. 0:08:52 – Jeff Pelizzaro So I’m sure that a lot of people listening, myself included, are thinking man, this is very refreshing to hear that you know it’s not a death sentence when you start to have back pain in your 30s or 40s or 50s. And I think a lot of people just kind of assume that either I’m on my way to getting surgery at some point down the line, or I’m going to have to give up golf, or I’m going to have to start to restrict some of my activities. 0:09:17 – Ryan Degale We are not giving out golf for our Never right, that’s it. 0:09:20 – Jeff Pelizzaro Forever. You play it until you keep swinging forever. But so, regarding like the looking at the X-rays, the MRIs, the films, so you’ve actually seen changes in the disc space and the different tissues after going through some of this maintenance stuff. 0:09:38 – Ryan Degale Yeah with my clients, and G puts up slides with a lot of cases. We’ve seen cases of some of the most well-known athletes in the world. You know he’s kind of like the guy who works in the shadows and nobody knows about. He is so paranoid about quality control, which I really love him for. I mean there is some, you know, like Bryce Turner from LDA USA. You know that he’s the best LDA teacher in America. I mean he’s worked with Kansas City Chiefs, to the LA Dodgers, to any professional hockey, baseball, you name it, and so including pro golfers, and you know you just have to be really careful because you know precision is key when you’re like in the LDA world there’s five levels, he’s creating six, but even at level four there’s only, like you know, there’s only like probably a hundred of us in the world and so there’s only four of us in the state of Florida, and so you know the supply and demand is not really there. It’s kind of mostly. You mostly find these techniques referrals. We don’t. We’re not like Morgan and Morgan Hubbubboards, and you know all this other stuff going on you know what I mean. So I know for a fact that you know guys like Woods and Cantley, and you know a lot of these other guys, have used this method. I mean, cantley had the ticket of yeah, he had a misdiagnosed disfracture and you know. You know there’s a lot of different tools but you know, sometimes I think it’s becoming a lot more popular and so you got to be a little bit careful because essentially, what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to create an anchor and then you’re trying to, with different angles of the way you position your limbs, you’re creating forces that oppose that anchor and it takes somebody the lot of experience. It’s not as simple as just kind of downloading a video and doing it right the first time. It takes. It’s a skill that you have to develop and you, quite frankly, can’t afford not to have it. I mean, I suffered from back pain. My background is track and field. I did mixed martial arts type boxing, brazilian Jiu Jitsu and that kind of stuff. When I took a break from golf I played. I started at 11, played golf every day for probably 10 years, got burns out, you know, did the martial arts thing, came back to golf and you know I’ve been, you know, enjoying it ever since, but you know, these are a lot of things that we need to take responsibility for and you know, and just not you know it takes a lot of the fear away, in my opinion, when you have a tool that you’re like okay, I feel this. I haven’t understanding what it is, and that’s kind of what ELDOA practitioners, and so our practice shares, teach people how to do. 0:12:12 – Jeff Pelizzaro So can you describe for for all of us, especially kind of the in lay person’s terms as much as possible, what’s actually happening when you’re doing some of these ELDOA techniques and why is it so effective in helping to produce the space, helping to decompress? So that’s a really great question. 0:12:32 – Ryan Degale So everybody’s seen the inverted tables, right? Yep, so you hang upside down and your ligament system is just hanging upside down and you’re creating space that way. Well, what happens like when you go like this? Then gravity takes over and then you’re like a slinky. You go back to me, decompress, you get temporarily they look pretty bulky to me. They’re not something you just carry in a suitcase, right. Right, say, if you’re with your boys and you’re playing scene Andrews and the links up over there and turmeric and all that, and you start having backman, you have your, you know, upside down inverted table, you don’t. So the ELDOA method is so, without getting too technical, it reconditions so ligaments connect bone to bone, tendons connect muscle to bone, flashes like Saranrat for our body. That creates a structure and it has intelligence and it communicates with our brain of what’s going on as far as length and tension and all this kind of stuff is extremely intelligent. And what the ELDOA gives you an opportunity to train all these systems to support that disc in gravity. Right, so you’re going to war with your tissues for a minute and so you’re actually stretching those tissues, stretching, stretching and you’re creating end range of motion with all this stuff. And then when you stop the posture and you can tensely do this, that structure is way stronger than it used to be, and so you’re able to do things and create space and fold that space and create circulation to get that disk to where it needs to be. And that’s what the difference is. 0:13:58 – Jeff Pelizzaro So it’s almost like you’re creating a space, like an inversion table would create it, but you’re forcefully doing it and while you’re doing it, you’re teaching your body how to support those structures, how to kind of you know. Watching some of your videos online, it’s interesting to see how many little muscles are all around the spine. I think most of us don’t really visualize that when we think of our backs, that there’s so many little muscles, ligaments, tendons, everything that connects all of these different pieces of the back, and so you’re helping to train all of those different pieces to basically support it, almost like a bridge, like a structure hanging from guide wires. 0:14:36 – Ryan Degale Yeah, yeah for sure, and the great thing is is that the specificity of it. Now, the inverted table is one exercise, right, there’s 120 plus L-doll postures, and so like there’s L-doll postures for the TMJ. I mean, believe it or not, the skull moves. There’s biomechanics of the skull that have two L-doll postures for which are too technical. I’m not that smart. I use the ones for the SI joint in the spine mostly for golf. The ones for the hips are really important. A lot of people have hip pain, a lot of hip replacements and stuff like that. 0:15:08 – Jeff Pelizzaro You mentioned the fascia and how basically elusive it is, but how important it is. It’s around everything in our body pretty much. How important is being able to understand its role in not just our body but our posture, our athletic ability, even from the standpoint of swinging faster or moving better. How much does the fascia and how much are we just now starting to learn about how important it is? Because it seems like before it just kind of used to be thought of as almost like a throwaway tissue or like just the saran wrap that holds us together. 0:15:39 – Ryan Degale I mean I can’t say the bare to myself. I think Europe is far ahead of America when it comes to studying the connective tissue. The people who are the best tissue specialists are in Germany and France and so they haven’t forgotten about it. It’s mostly a little bit more towards the American side. The standard of care in America is a lot different paradigm than it is in Europe. It’s not that great in Europe either, but it’s not very pharmaceutical driven as much. It’s not very surgery driven as much. It’s not as much as much as things like this. They don’t make billions and billions of dollars from pain medication. It’s not mostly an American thing. I mean it’s. Sometimes people get addicted to pain meds from back issues and that causes a whole other set of issues. The throwaway tissue yeah for sure, that’s what Guy says. He says that a lot of the American scientists they basically threw it away and then studied organ systems and everything that we’re talking about. But it’s there for a reason and it’s almost like it helps disperse energy through the body. It gives us our structure. We don’t have structure without fascia and so you know how these guys can jump off of buildings with parkour and all that kind of stuff and energy is dispersed correctly and movement disperses energy. Energy is never destroyed, it just changes its form. And so you know, you know, being elastic in the golf swing, having a good energy absorber and having normalization to that fascia and training it in its maximal length will train the nervous system so you’re less likely to have like tears with ligaments and all this kind of stuff. So you’re training that body to almost get ready for being overstretched and having intelligence and having intelligence so you don’t have sprains of lower back issues and that kind of stuff. 0:17:26 – Jeff Pelizzaro So are there specific techniques that you use? I mean, obviously we’ve been talking about the aldoes and kind of these one-minute longer postural type situations. But what about for that explosive reactive stuff, for that like the X factor that you are talking about in your Instagram series and that whole stretch and contract, and how do we train the tissue for that? Or even a situation this will ring with a lot of people that we just saw, like in the Super Bowl when that football player was running off the sideline to go into the game and tour as a Achilles. I assume he tours Achilles. 0:17:58 – Ryan Degale Crazy. Yeah, he did tour as Achilles. I was like, yeah, look at that left leg. I mean, we were just talking about that. And so bridges have cable to sway energy and so in good engineering, everything moves. The earth moves, so you have to sway energy and that’s how our tissues work. As far as that is concerned, I think it’s Hydration definitely plays a role into that sort of stuff, and also a lot of Gee teaches a lot of proprioception and neurological techniques, because ligaments are intelligent, they’re constantly communicating with the brain of like, okay, you’ve heard of the Golgi tendons and stuff like that. And so there’s ways to create awareness and some of the major ligaments in the hip for better where it is, because a lot of the times most people work on the hardware and don’t upgrade the software. I could have a computer that’s very powerful, but if I don’t have software to tell it what to do, then it’s going to be inefficient. And so with golfers, for instance, if you have issues with trail elbow stuff, there are certain ways to create awareness in the glenicumeral joint or the AC joint, or making sure that you have enough awareness in certain parts of the elbow Because, like takeaway, and then you have a lot of these different arm structures that players are plagued with and this and that, and it can be just kind of a case by case basis and that has kind of a general statement for that. So you know it goes in cycles. So you want to take what somebody needs in the first cycle, say, if they’re extremely tight, they don’t have any. You know they don’t have good motor pathways. You want to, you know, regulate that. And then you go into a lot more reinforcement and reinforcement is so important to stabilize the joint. If you lengthen you must strengthen right, and so most people, you know, have no mobility. They strengthen and then they go on speed. And then I just put up a story of a 76 year old guy who I took through a program, put him on a stack system. That guy gained over 10 miles an hour at club head speed. Dude, that’s incredible. Like he’s, at 76 years old, swinging between 96 to 104. Whoa, and he started at 89 to 92, I think he said and so, but he’s a general. You know, you put in the work. We barely used any weights. When you get elastic and your brain knows what to do and how to move, it makes the golf instructors job so much easier Because you know these guys have bodies that don’t move in front of them. Then they have to try and make a golf swing out of that, so it’s challenging for them. 0:20:35 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, if you could go a little bit further into that idea of you know many of us just kind of strengthen, then we try to throw a speed onto it. But you also said if you do end up lengthening, you got to strengthen. Why is that so important, aside from just going and trying to get that extra range of motion or go get more flexible, which is what 90% of the golfers out there think is I just need a bigger turn, I need to stretch more. 0:20:58 – Ryan Degale Power is nothing without control, and so adding stability and you know if you have if you don’t have enough stability for the body, especially in the spine area, then you’re more subject to ligament tears. You know where they overstretch and there’s not enough stability to support the joint correctly. And so I’ve had people who have programs where we do 80% stretching, 20% reinforcement and you have a little bit of awareness in there. And then I have people that are opposite. I’ve had, like there’s certain golfers who are female, who are hyper elastic, where we do 80% reinforcement, 20%. I didn’t even have them do one stretch, maybe one or two for a certain, maybe some of the internal rotators of the hip and stuff like that. But you know they’re doing, they’re being stabilized because that’s why they have pain. We’re the same guy who has a symptom where he needs to do the opposite program. 0:21:47 – Jeff Pelizzaro And when you say reinforcement, what exactly do you mean by reinforcement exercises? 0:21:51 – Ryan Degale Just strength training you know like, for instance, it depends where their weak areas are, but a lot of the time the proximal hamstrings are weak when you have, you know, your sit bones, where the hamstrings originated. And then there’s two that goes into the on the meadow part of the knee, one to the outside of the knee, and so do I want to reinforce. Is this person’s knee unstable? There are certain ways to reinforce the fibers that are a little closer to the knee or the pelvis, where the pelvis has weird things going on, where either it’s still too far forward or it has these sort of motions called torsions that cause issues. Most people think they have a leg length discrepancy, where one leg is a little longer than the other, but it’s actually a pelvis issue that you need to address. That’s pushing one side forward and the other one is back, and so you know, and then they start having like issues with plants or fascia, and you know their motion and their gall swing have done balance. Because you know if you have a lot of weight on one side compared to the other, you can cut some prompts. 0:22:47 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, many times, whatever the area is that they’re having the problem with or the pain in, isn’t necessarily what is really causing that pain. 0:22:56 – Ryan Degale Yeah, sure, it’s a structural balance thing. I think structural balance like paramount with 80% of. I have about an 80% success rate with people with orthopedic problems, mostly back injuries. They’re low hanging fruit. For me, back injuries is very, very like if they didn’t get hit by a bus or fall over from a you know a two-story building or something. I’m like you got a really good chance. You could be feeling good, and so I just like the easy cases and then I’ll have more complex cases. I had a client from a guy from Canada who had 20 surgeries and so like he’s playing golf pain free. Why can’t you? 0:23:30 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, wow. So what about the golfers that either have back pain or maybe the ones that don’t have back pain? Maybe this is an even better question. As far as, like a maintenance thing, kind of a preventative maintenance thing, what are one, two, maybe three things that you would recommend Like, hey, these are some, like you said, low hanging fruit things that you can do to maybe prevent it or, you know, help to really almost eliminate or reduce your chances of having back pain with golf. 0:23:59 – Ryan Degale I have to realize that there is a world outside of the Florida weather and there’s a lot of people out in the North. You know that it gets cold in the morning and stuff like that, and so, like I always put, I like to put the seat warmers on and that kind of gets things. You know, something very simple like that is really huge. You don’t need, like you know, sure, we can get into micro for specifics, but you know, if you go and you start, you know if there’s a gym or anything like that, or you can get on the stationary bike for a few minutes just to get circulation and heat. Most people use ice, which is a big mistake. You want to get circulation and you want to move that water and blood around to create anti-inflammatory properties to that area. And so the seat warmers definitely. You know getting on the bike and stuff like that. And you know I don’t want to be biased and say learn L-dope postures, but you know, at least have an idea. I’m sure Bryce has a few YouTube videos up that. Only look at Bryce Turner if you must, okay, because there are some things in there that G is not happy about, but Bryce is the man with that stuff. I got to be a little careful because we signed NDAs. You know it’s up to be a little bit. You know I can, you know, do stuff like this, but demonstrating it he gets a little crazy about that. 0:25:17 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, and, like you said, that’s the quality control piece. Right, that’s somebody who has really mastered their craft and doesn’t want to kind of bastardize by just people throwing up YouTube videos, and so definitely we’ll link up to Bryce’s, I guess, youtube channel if he has it. And I know that, like Dan Hellman did a course through TPI, that I know a lot of the TPI specialists. If you’re a coach you can go look at that stuff as well. You know you’re good friends with Dan and highly recommend working with Dan as well. 0:25:49 – Ryan Degale What about? Yeah, dan’s awesome, he’s actually who put me on to these methods. 0:25:54 – Jeff Pelizzaro I took a golf bomb. 0:25:56 – Ryan Degale Yeah, I took a golf bomb mechanic course with him, you know, 12 years ago, and I asked him, you know, do I take the red pill or the blue pill? And he told me the red was G stuff, and so that’s what I did. 0:26:06 – Jeff Pelizzaro So what about when you find somebody that and you mentioned like some scoliosis, or you have somebody that and I’m kind of speaking about myself you know, you look at somebody, you look at their posture. Maybe on their films, their MRI, their X-rays, you see that their spine spinal curves are maybe not ideal. Are there ways to change that stuff and what are kind of the techniques as far as like, obviously we’ve talked about some of the LDO postures, but what about even just like static stretching or static positioning? You know we’ve seen some of these different things on Instagram where you’re laying over the top of these different devices. Do any of those things work? Or how do we go about kind of changing some of that structural positioning? 0:26:49 – Ryan Degale You know we’re a little bit more in the school of thought with active versus passive techniques, and so you know not being reliant on, maybe, a machine or anything like that. You know, I just took a scoliosis masterclass with Guy last year and I learned a lot of new things that I didn’t know before. But you know, in a nutshell, you’re gonna wanna be a little bit more into reinforcement, because scoliosis is a rotational disorder. Do you have a C-curve or do you have a functional S-curve? How bad is it? Does it affect your breathing, cause the diaphragm attaches to the spine, are you? You know, I just had a woman come to me today with lumbar scoliosis and there’s very little spacing on one side of the desk compared to the other. And so you know, ldo postures are awesome for sure, but reinforcement is something you’re gonna more so wanna focus on versus just doing a lot of stretching, because sometimes areas are tight for a reason, and so what you wanna try and do is to try and focus on hey, if I’m really weak on one side, or if you look at somebody with scoliosis, they have substantial more muscle mass on one side. That’s buying for the other, and you wanna try and build up, you know, just without getting too technical, a little bit more symmetry. 0:27:59 – Jeff Pelizzaro Gotcha, the last time you and I had a chance to talk, we discussed a little bit about global posture stretching, mild facial stretching, ldo stretching. What’s kind of the differentiation between some of those and how does that apply for some of the stuff we’ve been talking about? 0:28:17 – Ryan Degale So, um, mild facial stretching is putting a chain of connective tissue under tension with a specific area. So if I want to isolate, you know the biceps from auris bicarbon, you know hamstring muscle, I’m going to do certain things. I’m gonna put a lot of other areas under tension, including the eyes are important with that, but that’s more specific right Now. If I want a global posture stretch, we’re for, say, the thoracolumbar fascia, which is like the connected tissue from the middle despite to the lower back, which is great for my X-Factor series then that’s putting a figure eight of global connected tissue under tension to support the body more in a dynamic manner, in my opinion. 0:29:01 – Jeff Pelizzaro Well, you mentioned the eyes. Why are the eyes so important in some of these? 0:29:04 – Ryan Degale So the eyes connect to the skin and the brain, called the dura mater, which is the fascia of the brain. So the brain is encapsulated by the dura mater. The dura mater has a connection to C0, which has a link to C1. And so if you want maximal fascial tension, the eyes have to be looking low, the crown head has to be pushing to the ceiling and that puts all the ligament system under tension all the way down to the lower back. For a healthy spine to be healthy, it has to be healthy from C0 to S1. It just has to. And because it’s, you know, remember the bridge, the cables on the bridge, how it sways energy. It’s that’s called tensegrity, right, and so that’s how it structures this first energy. And our body is no different. 0:29:50 – Jeff Pelizzaro So what’s, what’s one of the well, you mentioned, the guy that you’ve been working with that has, you know, has had major surgeries. I’m just wondering what’s, what are some of the more serious cases that you’ve dealt with and what were some of the things that you had to work on them with? You know people love hearing stories, stories that they resonate with as far as the pain they’ve been through and getting back out on the golf course. 0:30:10 – Ryan Degale You know, mostly guys. You know I want to be called the grave digger so because I dig those careers out of the dirt when they think you’re dead. You know, and so you know cases where professional golfers you’re like my career is over, I can’t do this anymore. I went to X and Y and tried this and that and got the surgery and it’s. I’m never the first person people go to. I’m normally, you know, people say they’re the trainer for the PGA tour or like the, or the stars or the celebrities. I’m like the desperate person trainer, you know, because you know what I do is not necessarily flamboyant and but it does have a purpose where he teaches you how to be a master of internal forces, where you can pretty much pinpoint where you need to create space and I’ve helped players, you know, get very fast in a short amount of time with minimal to no risk, because there’s a risk with anything. You know. I just feel like, if you must in golf I like train light, move fast. Um, olympic weightlifting I’m look, I know how to Olympic weight lift. I’m actually a CrossFit too, god you know like. I worked at a CrossFit gym my early part of my career and I think there’s a lot of good boxes out there too, but like I think people overdo heavy and explosive. You know I don’t mind med ball throws. I think the stack system is superior. I’d prefer to work on flexibility, neurological control and strength, like in a safe way, and then you hit the stack up and then you got a no risk. You know what have you seen and they’re moving well. 0:31:42 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, what have you seen with, like some heavy lifting, heavy deadlifts? Have you seen any issues with what that does to the spine itself or other tissues that really have steered you away from that stuff? 0:31:55 – Ryan Degale You know, I assume everybody has scoliosis. So unless you have somebody who has unless I like to get x-rays of every person I train just have a global view. Now I have done Deak teaches something called a gravity squat and there’s variations that somewhat look like a front squat. You know there are some variations that look like a suitcase deadlift, but you’re doing certain things with the pelvis and certain techniques with the eyes and the crown, the head, that put global tension and then you’re just working the lower body and the lower back. So again, it’s the small details that make something that looks almost identical, different and over periods of time that will compound. 0:32:35 – Jeff Pelizzaro When you look at it, golfers, and you know how they stand over the ball. Looking at posture, do you feel like there is kind of a? Is there somebody that you look at and you say like that tour pro has kind of the quote unquote ideal posture. 0:32:49 – Ryan Degale Yeah, sure, I think the most important thing is the gravity line. It’s basic, where our brain thinks where we are in space. So you can take, like in front of the earlobe, in front of the. If you have a side view, where you have the earlobe you have the greater Turkana, where the hip bone is, and then in front of the ankle, they call it the lateral malleolite or the mid foot. And you know a lot of people that I see their palaces are out of order and a lot of their weight shift is on their toes and so in their golf swings this makes a lot of motion from feel of the toe. You can see this. I have a pressure tracer right there. So you know we can actually test for that as well. And you know, you know there’s I hate to use the stair-tip thing like early extension, but you know that’s a cause and effect thing. So you know you can be a golf pro and you have your students. You can’t figure out why they’re having these issues with their pelvis-body motion and it could be because of structural problem, not nothing to do with what you’re saying. You know, and that’s why I, like you know, very good acquaintances with Jim McClain, chris Comon, rick Smith and you know I learned from those guys of how they look at the golf swing with. There’s just so much experience and expertise there and the guys at the top they always collaborate and I’m certainly in the collaboration mode. 0:34:11 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, that’s got to be cool being able to coordinate with those guys. I know you said you’ve worked with players that work with those guys. How much interaction do you have as far as, like when, let’s say, you’re working with somebody that Jim or Chris or one of those guys is working with and they’re working on something specific in their golf swing? How much collaboration is there between you and them as far as the physical and what’s going on with the body? 0:34:37 – Ryan Degale It really depends. You know the PGH tour players are. You know it really depends, right, and so there are certain layers. You know I’ve only really you know it’s a pretty political thing, right, and so, like with PGH tour players, it can be challenging because there’s so many different layers of MDs and physical therapists and trainers and stuff like that. Then they’re on the range every week and there’s people in the area, and so it can be challenging that way. But I mostly take a I’d step back and take a more consulting role with that. Hey, that may be a great idea and you know, this is maybe the routine before, this is a routine after. Hey, maybe they should reinforce their hamstrings a little bit. Maybe they should start working the fibers for the obliques. The obliques are huge because they terminate into the pelvis and the front of the pelvis manages the mechanics for the sacrum bone, and so you know more of a more in that net light. And I don’t like traveling, you know, and so like. This is why I built the studio. I got, you know, I got a golf course across the street. I can go coach from my Sim Room. You know I’d work 70% remote, and then I have an app where you know I download, you know the videos they need to do and that kind of stuff and more of a consultant. 0:35:57 – Jeff Pelizzaro Let’s take a second to thank our sponsors over at 1st Phorm, and this week I want to highlight their Formula One post-workout protein shake. I use this thing pretty much every day after my workouts because, let’s face it, being here in the gym working all the time with clients putting on a podcast, it can sometimes be tough to get my protein in on a regular basis, and so I know that with the post-workout shake the Formula One, first of all, it’s fast acting. So right after your workout is a great time to get your protein in to help build your muscles, get yourself stronger and repair what you’ve done in the gym. But also, if you don’t know if you’re going to be able to get your protein in in your regular meals, it’s just a great way to make sure that you’re supplementing and hitting those marks. So be sure to go over to 1stPhorm.com forward slash 18STRONG to get your 1st Phorm Formula One protein shake, and everyone that enters through that link is going to be put into a drawing every single month for free 1st Phorm products. So again, go over to 1stPhorm.com forward slash 18STRONG. What are things that you think most golfers should be doing in their training sessions, in their workouts, that you kind of feel like it’s being missed by, and let’s talk a little bit more like not the professional golfers that have a team around them, but let’s talk about the guys that are going out there playing with their club. They’re competitive guys, maybe wanting to go win a club championship, but they’re kind of doing some of this. Have a bunch of those guys, yeah, so like what are the big things that they’re missing when they go to the gym, or maybe after the round, or before the round, I think? 0:37:32 – Ryan Degale in 10, I don’t think like exercises. They all do something, but what time is it and what is it for and where is it in a program? Because exercise or just exercise until you build up programs and systems and then there’s execution behind that and so, like you know, the greatest program with somebody who doesn’t have the intent or the consistency will be out formed by somebody at the media occurred to not so great program with great attitude and consistency, and so it depends. It has to be like a blend between those two. But to answer your question, I feel like I think the assessment process maybe maybe there’s. I like specific, like I can’t think too generally, but I, like you know, I’d probably say a little bit more paramount on mobility and stuff like that. I’m taking less risk with certain things that they’re doing. I’m not a huge fan of long distance cardio whatsoever for golf. I think it just completely wrecks your knees, creates plantar fasciitis and, you know, breeze hip replacements. But sometimes you need to give those guys a look, you know, put them on some interval training, get things going, because you know they’re not on. The PGA tour ended on Nita. There’s, there’s a cardiac component to that is super healthy and so you know, you blind it up Me. I work out five days a week and I don’t only train for golf, you know, I like, I like movement. I push the sled around for sure. But what I necessarily have, you know, somebody who has, you know, it just depends on this case, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. 0:38:58 – Jeff Pelizzaro And I think that that’s kind of where a lot of our listeners fall. That’s where I personally fall too much like yourself, like you know, getting in and trying to do some sort of training or working out or exercise almost most days, whether that even just be going for long walks or so. Everything is not about golf, and you and I have talked about the importance of longevity and just itself. 0:39:20 – Ryan Degale Right, but, but knowing that there’s a come out is incredibly important, but we don’t want it to slow you down like in your golf. If you want to, you know, like how to guy I just signed up yesterday from upstate New York. He’s a plus three, he’s 40 years old, works on Wall Street and he’s a club champion at Quaker Ridge. And he’s like Brian, I don’t care about looking good, I know if I eat well, I just want to hit these high nasty bombs and beat these young kids’ asses. I was like, okay, let’s rock. All right, let’s do that. Yeah, let’s do it. And then I have. And then I have, you know, another guy who’s just like look, I want to look pretty. You know, I don’t really think that. You know, I don’t really feel great about myself. I want to, I want to. You know, get some of my, you know. And the great thing is that most of these posture and balances you need a hell of a lot of ab work. So you know, nature doesn’t fall as advertised. Normally. If you have strong abs, you know it will show and things like that. 0:40:12 – Jeff Pelizzaro So, yeah, let’s talk a little bit just about the quote unquote core. Right, we hear how important the core is and you’re mentioning the strengthening of the abs. What are some of the ways that you have found to be most effective to really train and stabilize and reinforce, as the word you’ve used so many times reinforce? Our core and how do you define the core? 0:40:37 – Ryan Degale Multiple layers, different fascial directions, breathing techniques and many kinds. But you know I like so, Guy, you know we know ab exercise for almost anything you can think of. I mean he’s, he even created a GI series dude. There’s ab techniques that create pumping through each segment of the colon to the precise area, corners, everything you think of, right, they? I mean we talked about the diaphragm only for 30 hours, you know, and so I consider the diaphragm a part of the core. I consider the spinal reactors with the logisomus, ilicastellus and transverse banalis, all layers of the core, especially the internal bleaks. I think you get both bank your buck from working the obliques man, because you know they have, they connect ribcage, pelvis, sternum, you name it, they all have. You know it’s all a piece and there’s different layers to all this kind of stuff. And so I mean we know how to. I mean whether I think he spent three days only on the TVA. I mean you know what I mean. So I think the abs are very misunderstood and I used to be a part of this school of thought where I felt like if I deadlifted, squatted and I was doing all the different things that will include the abs and then I’d work on my abs and like shit, these guys are weak. What’s going on? You know I can deadlift. I’ve deadlifted. You know, when I was doing mixed martial arts I’d deadlifted 485 with no bells or strap, maybe 165 pounds. I was really strong, but I was just like I can’t even do like roll and unroll general sit-ups for like 40, 50 reps. You know what’s that all about, right? And so there’s something. If you look at Pascal’s Law, it’s basically the. You know, when we’re talking about remember, I think, did you bring out Mackenzie, or is that another interview? 0:42:27 – Jeff Pelizzaro I didn’t, but no, I didn’t but go ahead. 0:42:30 – Ryan Degale Okay, so you have many kinds of herniations. You can herniate a disc, you know, in the front of the disc, the side posterior, and there’s a sub-sacrifice to that, and so, like you know, the school of thought is that if you do inflection all the time, then that can herniate a disc with the posterior part, which you know you could also like. For instance, if I put you know, pascal’s Law is the physics of water and how water works, and we have to understand this, because most of our bodies made of water and the spacing between the discs are, you know, it’s a synovial fluid, right? And so we need to train our abs to be complete to do certain things. Because, look look at golf swing, right, you have, you know you’re in this position, right? You’re right here, it’s been fletching and you’re doing a lot. There’s a lot of fletching going on right here and you know, with these different torsions, and so I think we need to train those abs, especially in the flexor chain, carefully, understand who’s in front of you, but we need to reintroduce that. I think you know these sort of studies were done in 1973 on six college students and it was never refuted any of the research because we asked about this during abs class because we have a ton of physios in there, so naturally they’re going to ask like, hey, this is what’s the deal. And so you know, to answer your question, they’re the obliques, they’re the biggest bank for your buck. I don’t really use a ton of cable machines. I have. I have, like the uh, the K box a little bit that I use for, you know, the eccentric training or deceleration training, but I think we get a, you know, just getting very, you know, straight in the abs with your body weight and then going to the golf course and because we don’t need to do too many things that look like a golfing in the gym. From my experience, so what? 0:44:13 – Jeff Pelizzaro what do some of those strengthening exercises for your oblique? Not that we’re going to be doing demonstrations, but I mean we’re talking like, uh, some side planks and rotation and planking positions just to get people a little bit of an idea. Planks man? 0:44:26 – Ryan Degale Yeah, I think I think anybody even with back pain if they’re back pains below five on a scale of one, it’s had for symptoms they can make sure they tuck their pelvis and they’re pushing away. And there’s so many things you can do with a plank. That is really awesome because the ground is a movable. So if I want to factor progression, I don’t like planks that last more than 30 seconds. That means you’re not pushing hard enough, right? So you’re pushing away. That means you get all the rib cage and the serratus muscles that attach to the scapula. You can take your elbows, you can bring them into the floor. That activates the upper abs and then you’ve got a pelvic tilt. That, um, actually my ebook all has this. I just wrote an ebook oh sweet, staying the game. It’s called staying the game, um, how to gain confidence and speed coming back from a back injury and I have some some stuff in there and so when you tuck underneath you get a lot of the lower ab fibers and so, like that’s complete, you’re not doing anything crazy. There’s not a lot of you know, and you know if you have back being in play safe that way, that’s totally cool. 0:45:23 – Jeff Pelizzaro I feel like the big takeaway from a lot of what you’re you’re educating us on is really the intention of it, right, the like it doesn’t. You don’t have to lift a bunch of weight. You can do. I mean, all of this, most of this is is just simply body weight and getting in a position. Yeah, but understanding what the intention is, where you’re trying to feel it, where you’re trying to push and move and and pull, and it’s those little connections from the brain to those muscles, tendons, ligaments, that really are going to make the most benefit and make the difference. 0:45:53 – Ryan Degale And it’s something somebody can do. Like what’s the number one complaint? It’s time. It doesn’t require like a ton of time. I just like I’ve had people be like I did 40 minutes of homework today. I’m like why you sound inefficient. Like how much rest are you taking in between? I told you do four things with the minute rest in between for three to four sets. How’d that take you 40 minutes, you know? Do you feel like you can do that for 20 years every day? No, so like why are you doing it like that? Now, if you’re on the LPJ or PJ, it’s why I’m like you better frigging, do that, because it’s your job. You have a multimillion dollar spine but for you know Jack and Jill, you know account and an attorney, they, you know what. What. That’s not sustainable. Yeah, yeah, you can. Efficiency efficiency dude. 0:46:36 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, you could do these things sitting at your desk and then eat lunch and then get back to your desk and you know 30 minutes, whatever it is. It’s great that you said that. 0:46:43 – Ryan Degale I have a guy who runs a fun over in Michigan. He’s like a plus one. He plays in state tournaments and stuff he’s doing. You know rotator cuff stretches in his office because that’s when he has most of his time. He walked around his thing. Of course he has his putter and you know he’s there straight. You know it is yeah. So it doesn’t have to be structured per se, it just has to be consistent. 0:47:05 – Jeff Pelizzaro All right, Last thing before we jump into our our final questions here Foam rolling. You know, we’ve talked about fascia, we’ve talked about the tissue. What about all these self-mile fascial tools and things like that? Okay, I don’t like them. 0:47:21 – Ryan Degale And this is this is just my opinion. I’ve been approached by probably five or six companies a month, three Instagram to promote their products and I was like I’m sorry, I don’t use it in my practice, like it would not come off genuine If I’m, if I’m collaborating with a product or a person and stuff, I believe what they do and you know, I just can’t associate myself. So one thing Gied noticed right, with connected tissue. And there’s also a lot of other good literature, um, a few books over here. If I could just like a hold them up for maybe some of the physios or retrainers out there we want to, you know, take a deep dive into anatomy and so pressure, very sensitive to pressure. Um, because the connected tissue like this is this is why I’m amazing massage therapist is so important to be careful of who you know works on your, on your tissues. Right, because pressure changes, listening to the body, that takes a lot of time and experience to to um, you know, acquire and so, like, most people have no understanding of the direction of the fascia and which you need to pump. Right, because everything is like a lymphatic system. Right, most people destroy their TFL and their IT band anyways and then they crush their quads. I’ve seen across the genes. They use a PVC pipes and all this crazy stuff. And so, like, fascia wants to be hydrated and it wants to have length and freedom, and that’s what it needs. And so this is why, in my opinion, the GPS, the ELDOA and the myofascial stretching are superior, because you’re using your own tissues and there’s global pressure throughout the entire chain when you’re in a posture where you don’t, where you don’t create inflammation and that’s not an opinion. I mean, dan did a great presentation at the T uh, we’re a golfing and summit on why he doesn’t like foam rollers either. So that that’s maybe I’m biased, but, um, you know, I I really trust and he’s a lot smarter than me and he’s a lot smarter than Dan. 0:49:16 – Jeff Pelizzaro So, yeah, Well, that’s, that’s why we have individuals like you on here, because you guys have so much depth of knowledge and Dan and some of the other people that have come on and, and you know the, the video that, um, I think Guy has about the tissue and fascia, uh, for me that really kind of showed how you know how sensitive that tissue is. Um, I don’t even know if you remember the, the name of the video, or or you know the video that I’m referencing, but, um, I think it was maybe Dan that had turned me on to and it actually looked like under the surface of the skin, at the, the tissue that was yeah, yeah, John George. 0:49:51 – Ryan Degale I think John George sorry, that’s a chef Um, I’ll have to check the author. Yeah, I mean, I think I have maybe around 1200 hours of of it, uh, with Guy. I’ve spent about 1200 hours with him, so, um, he’s, uh, he’s awesome. And then there’s some other. You know, like Bryce is great for El Doa. Um, you know, and these are tools that are so fundamental to helping your clients. I mean, geez, you know, you can really make a difference in somebody’s quality of life with this stuff, and, uh, it does make a huge difference. 0:50:23 – Jeff Pelizzaro Did you want to go grab those books that, uh, that you mentioned? Yeah, we’ll. We’ll pop them up on the screen. Yeah, and there’s a view of um, uh, this couple. 0:50:30 – Ryan Degale I really like Nectar’s for other stuff, you know, because I’m a picture boy, yeah, and uh, grey’s Anatomy 1908 edition is a little bit too old English for me, but uh, here’s one of them. All right, this is probably the one that you’re talking about. 0:50:43 – Jeff Pelizzaro Okay, Yep Architecture of human living fascia. 0:50:46 – Ryan Degale Yeah, and so it basically goes through the structures and you know how, how delicate things are. I mean, hopefully people don’t have a. You know, there’s a lot of anatomy in there, yeah. 0:50:55 – Jeff Pelizzaro This, this is for all the coaches and medical professionals. 0:50:58 – Ryan Degale On, on and so you and and so you know also with this, you know, go through different fascial slings and relationships and stuff like that, and I think is you know, if you want to do things at a very high level, is that okay? If I show a dead body, yeah For sure, right? So stuff like that. You need to know where the direction of fibers are and you know when you become a structure of dispersion correctly, you’re more less than likely to have these major problems. 0:51:26 – Jeff Pelizzaro Awesome. Well, so that that last text that you just showed is that where you get some of the images that you’re putting on your Instagram as a recently. 0:51:34 – Ryan Degale No, I don’t that’s from, that’s from Jason. He’s a sports Cairo from. I just took a a Pelus Balm Mechanics course. I’ve taken that course six or seven times because again, I’m still have another 28 to go before everything is clear. 0:51:50 – Jeff Pelizzaro Awesome, and so, yeah, I mean so for those of you listening, go check out Ryan’s Instagram, which is it’s golf underscore and underscore body, right, Ryan? Yeah, Go check that out. He does some amazing videos. He gets very detailed on some of the anatomy and then goes and shows a lot of different exercises. He’s doing a great series right now on the X factor, so by all means go check that out. Is that the best place for them to go and kind of follow what you’re doing? 0:52:17 – Ryan Degale Yeah, I’m starting to bring up my Facebook presence. You know there’s a lot of golfers on Facebook, especially with older guys. You know that have been transitioned to the Instagram over there. Yeah, so the first five part series is 15, 15 videos in which you know we’re the first five. I’m showing you stretches, correct, freedom. We’re going to create freedom because the X factor is essentially the, the measurement between how far the pelvis turns backwards and how far your rib case can turn over that pelvis. Okay, and so the the more explosive players like Gordon Sargent and Roy Mac around these guys, they have just the most amazing difference between those two. So the average player has a 42 degree X factor. So if your hips turn 48 degrees and your hips and your shoulders turn 90, that means you have 42. Roy has over 63. Wow, so he’s getting like probably 105 to 10 degrees of shoulder turn with X, whatever that is, you know, minus the X factor, minus what his hip turn is. And so this acts like a coil. And so when good players, they start turning their pelvis towards the target, even sometimes before they finish their back, this act, this creates a stretch. So you actually have more of a stretch with the X factor that way, and if you can’t do that in a controlled environment and not free tissues, I just never understood how you could do that with 120 miles an hour, or even a hundred miles an hour, for that matter. So the next five videos would be five neurologic goal things. Now we have all this extra space, we can now focus on major areas of the hip that our brain needs to learn how to use. And then, of course, we got the reinforcement at strength of the last five. Hey, how do I have all this Now that I don’t hurt myself, now that I have to be strong to for golf? 0:54:00 – Jeff Pelizzaro Perfect, and so that’s a. You said a 15 video, 15 video sequence that’ll be coming out. 0:54:07 – Ryan Degale Yep, I, I, I’m on a video for right now. I filmed 10 already, so I just needed to do the reinforcement section. Awesome. 0:54:15 – Jeff Pelizzaro All right, my man, let’s uh, let’s finish up with our end of the segment questions which you know. Or first one, caddy Shack or happy Gilmore. 0:54:23 – Ryan Degale Caddy Shack. He’s been a member of Grand Oaks, so where are they filmed it? That’s right. That’s right. I forgot you had. 0:54:27 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, I mean. 0:54:28 – Ryan Degale Ronnie Dainterfield man, I mean I don’t know how like that guy’s an absolute legend, you know.

Guest: Bobby Holland (Founder Hoolie Golf, Retired Navy Seal)) Host: Jeff Pelizzaro Episode Number: 369 Podcast: The 18STRONG Podcast Partners: Linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul], 1stPhorm [http://1stPhorm.com/18strong] ---------------------------------------- SUMMARY Join us as we sit down with Bobby Holland, the retired Navy SEAL whose love for golf blossomed into the creation of Hoolie Golf [https://hooliegolf.com/], a golf apparel brand embodying hard work, grit, and resilience. Listen in as Bobby shares his remarkable transition from an elite military operative to a passionate golf entrepreneur. His story is not just about picking up the game later in life, but how the competitive drive and discipline learned from the SEALs fueled his determination to improve his swing, even leading to the construction of a driving range during a combat deployment. Bobby’s journey is a vivid illustration of never being too late to chase new dreams and how skills honed in one aspect of life can profoundly impact another. Our conversation with Bobby is a tapestry of tales from action movies sparking a young boy’s dream of becoming a SEAL, to the mental toughness and training insights necessary to endure the challenges of BUD/S. Bobby brings to light the crucial role of relentless optimism and breaking down massive goals into manageable steps, a philosophy that not only saw him through the rigors of military training but also serves as a foundation for his entrepreneurial spirit. His reflections on the nostalgia of 80s action films and the camaraderie found in both military units and sports teams paint a picture of the interconnectedness of his past passions and current pursuits. In our discussion, Bobby doesn’t shy away from the personal challenges he’s faced, such as rebuilding strength after an injury or embracing the intricacies of golf fitness. He takes us through his commitment to mobility, functional range of motion, and how these have influenced his performance both in the gym and on the golf course. Through Hoolie Golf [https://hooliegolf.com/], Bobby is not just offering apparel; he’s fostering a community for golf enthusiasts and those with a growth mindset. So tune in for a dose of inspiration, a glimpse into the synergy between entrepreneurship and golf, and perhaps even pick up a few recommendations for your next walk-up song or must-read book. BOBBY HOLLAND’S BACKGROUND Bobby Holland is a retired Navy SEAL Chief Warrant Officer who retired from the military in 2021 after 21 years of service. He joined the Navy in 2000, graduated SEAL training in late 2001, and spent the next two decades in the SEAL teams, deploying nine times around the globe. Halfway through his career, Bobby was introduced to golf and has been a passionate golfer ever since. After finishing his military service, Bobby went to graduate school at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and it was there that he found the inspiration for his next career. In the Spring of 2023, Bobby co-founded and launched Hoolie Golf [https://hooliegolf.com/], a golf apparel company that offers uniquely badass golf polos [https://hooliegolf.com/collections/mens-golf-polos], and golf hats [https://hooliegolf.com/collections/golfhats] for diehard golfers. Bobby hopes that through Hoolie, he can share his journey with golf and inspire other active-duty military and veterans to connect with this great game. ---------------------------------------- MAIN TOPICS (00:04) Navy SEAL Turned Golf Apparel Entrepreneur Retired Navy SEAL Bobby Holland’s passion for golf led to building a range during deployment, showcasing hard work, grit, and resilience. (07:39) Journey From SEAL to Golf Entrepreneur A former SEAL’s unexpected journey of integrating golf into military life, leading to the creation of Hoolie Giolf apparel company. (15:29) From Action Movies to Navy SEALs Childhood passions shape our future, from action movies to SEAL training, with a nod to 80s nostalgia and camaraderie in sports and military units. (23:27) Mental Toughness and Training Insights Relentless optimism and progressive training in Navy SEALs, addressing media portrayal and underwater tests with humor. (29:59) Hoolie Golf Hoolie Golf brand’s origins, ethos, and appeal to resilient, growth-minded individuals who use mental discipline techniques from Navy SEAL experience. (41:31) Improving Mobility and Fitness Progress Overcoming physical limitations, setting fitness goals, and utilizing social media for ongoing development. (46:19) Fitness and Business Resilience Incorporating new fitness routines, grit and resilience, and the future plans for a golf community. (52:07) Entrepreneurship and Golf for Veterans Entrepreneurship and military service, therapeutic benefits of golf for veterans, pop culture debate, personal insights, and book recommendations. ---------------------------------------- FOLLOW BOBBY HOLLAND * Instagram: @hooliegolf [https://www.instagram.com/hooliegolf/] * Instagram: @leadbobholland [https://www.instagram.com/leadbobholland/] * Website: HoolieGolf.com [https://hooliegolf.com/] LINKS MENTIONED @DelusionallyConfident [https://www.instagram.com/delusionallyconfident/] ---------------------------------------- EPISODE PARTNERS: linksoul [https://18strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/linksoul-logo-vector.png] LINKSOUL: For your 20% discount on LINKSOUL gear, go to 18strong.com/linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul] or click the logo above. [https://18strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/1st-phorm-decal-black-2-5-x-4-25_600x-300x300.webp]https://1stphorm.com/?a_aid=18STRONG 1st Phorm: Try any of the 1st Phorm products with FREE SHIPPING, go to 1stphorm.com/18strong.com [https://1stphorm.com/?a_aid=18STRONG] (By using this link, you will be entered into our Monthly 1st Phorm Giveaway!) ---------------------------------------- MORE COOL STUFF TO CHECK OUT: To continue the conversation and ask any questions you may have, head over to the 18STRONG Movement group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/the18strongmovement] on Facebook. 18STRONG Pro Shop [https://shop.18strong.com/] (Get your 18STRONG gear!) 18STRONG Resources [https://18strong.com/resources/] (All of the cool stuff we recommend: products, books, golf stuff, etc – and discount codes for the 18STRONG Crew) WANT THE FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT? (CLICK THE “+” 👉🏻 [https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f449-1f3fb.png]) 0:00:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro The 18 Strong Podcast, episode Number 369 with Bobby Holland from Hoolie Golf. What’s up, guys? Welcome back to the 18 Strong Podcast, where we’re here to help you build a stronger game, because we believe every golfer deserves to play better, longer. In this episode we have Bobby Holland from Hoolie Golf. Bobby is a retired Navy SEAL that started a golf apparel company, so this episode we get to talk about all of his stories from overseas and his deployments, his training for buds and seals and how that has really impacted not only his golf game but also building a business in the world of golf. And we definitely dive into his addiction as a golfer so much of an addiction that he built his own driving range on one of his combat deployments, where he literally had to go out and shag golf balls in the moon dust to go pick up the range balls. So this episode is all about hard work, grit and resilience, which is what the Hoolie brand is all about and really what we’re all about here at 18 Strong. So you’re really going to enjoy this one with Bobby Holland. All partners over at Linksoul have been providing us with the best apparel for both on the course and off the course, from polos to t-shirts like the one I have on right now. Everything that they have is meant to be worn from the golf course to wherever you’re going next, whether that be casual, whether that be to the beach there’s all different options over there. So go to 18strong.com slash Linksoul. You’ll get 20% off of anything in your cart over on Linksoul’s website. Go again 18strong.com slash Linksoul for our favorite brand of apparel, for anything on the golf course and off. Now let’s get to this week’s interview, bobby Holland. Welcome to the 18 Strong podcast. Hi, jeff, thanks for having me. Absolutely, this is going to be awesome. I’ve been digging into the brand Hoolie a little bit, but rumor has it that you never really played golf until what it was 2011, and then took just one round and you were all in. 0:02:19 – Bobby Holland There’s it, man. I think a lot why I created this brand was this kind of out of nowhere love that I found for the game. And there’s a lot of other people like me that you’re not all Hoolie’s pick up golf late, but there’s all folks like us, like me, that did pick it up late and fall in love, man, and it just triggered that. Being a seal, being an athlete, being a competitor and then finding this thing that you can’t do very well Kind of drove me nuts and got hooked and yeah, man, it’s been a fun journey and I mean so passionate about the game that I opened up my own golf apparel company, right. 0:03:00 – Jeff Pelizzaro Crazy, that’s awesome. When I first saw, I saw a post about you when you were on Jaco’s podcast and I was like, oh my gosh, I got to get Bobby on the show because this is just. This is so cool to hear a guy that was in the seals, just like the rest of us. This game boggles our minds, completely right, and it’s so frustrating, it’s so hard and I could only imagine that you as an elite level operator coming into something. It’s just this little white ball sitting on a tee and all I got to do is hit it down there. That’s got to be easy, right. How frustrating was it coming into the game at that level, coming out from your background? 0:03:36 – Bobby Holland Yeah, I mean you’re hitting the nail on the head. Two weeks back at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am I’m not sure if you caught the video of Tom Brady Duffin it off the tee, I mean that says it all You’re talking about arguably one of the best competitors of our generation picks up a golf club and having a hard time. And yeah, man, it’s one of those things that I still struggle with because I want to be so much better. Unfortunately, life and business and other things get in the way and I just do what I can. But I love the challenge. I mean, that’s really what drives me is, every time you show up to the golf course is a legit opportunity that you can have your best round, and it can happen like that. Both of my best rounds were exactly like that. Never saw them come in. It’s not like my swing was in super great shape, so there’s a little bit of that kind of gambler mentality. But the chase, the hunt, yeah, I love it, man. 0:04:38 – Jeff Pelizzaro So for those of the listeners that don’t know your story, don’t know the story behind Hoolie and everything, give us just a little background on you, obviously Navy Seals, but kind of tell us a little. I know you played football, so give us a little bit of that. And about some of the tours, how many tours you went on, and then we’ll dive into where Hoolie came from and go from there. 0:04:58 – Bobby Holland Sure, I’m a California kid, born and raised up in a place called Fresno, Actually lived in Clovis that’s the same hometown as Bryce and DeChambeau, by the way but yeah, just kind of a wiry kid, you know. You’d like to mix it up a little bit. I played football and in wrestling. Those were my two big sports up until high school and then I was all in on football and that was just a big part of my upbringing as an athlete and it’s where I got into fitness in general. So I mean, we started strength training, powerlifting back there in high school and I’ve been doing that ever since, so kind of grew love for that as well. Well, anyways, I found myself at the end of high school the big so what that most of us face. What am I doing now? And I didn’t quite have it figured out, I went, Peter, around in a community college for a couple of years and it was in that time that I, you know, the idea of becoming a SEAL came to be and I basically devoted the next 18 months of two years to train to be a SEAL and that was like the first time I had, you know, set a goal really, and it was quite a lofty goal, had to teach myself how to run, swim, all those things. I ended up joining the Navy in January 2000 and went straight in, went to boot camp, went to A school, which is like your specialty rating, and then I went to Buds, which is the SEAL selection course, and then got through 9-11, hit and then I graduated SEAL qualification training two months later and then went to my first SEAL team and from there I just did a bunch of deployments, was pretty active. I did I think 9 deployments total. Not all of them were combat sandbox deployments, but did a bunch. Did 5 to Iraq, did a really really short one to Afghanistan, bounced around some other parts of the world, but had a really good career. Like you know, good timing. Some people may disagree but I came in the SEAL teams to do that job and you know, right after 9-11, we were busy last two decades, pretty damn busy. And yeah, we were talking before the show started. You know about picking up golf about 12, 13 years ago and kind of wasn’t meant to be. It was one of those things that I didn’t have an aversion to golf, I just didn’t get it. Yeah, you know what I mean. I mean that was it. I was cut from this cloth. I like hardcore music, I like punk rock, I like in the gym, I like doing things pushing myself. I just didn’t get it. And we had an opportunity. We were actually waiting to deploy. One of the guys suggested hey, let’s take the boys out. We had some time like our deployment got delayed, so we went out and I mean it literally happened in the course of I’m sure it was a god-awful long round of a five-hour round. I fell in love with golf. I hit a couple of shots out there and it was just perplexed Like you know why can’t I do this every time Went, got clubs and then it just metastasized from there, you know. So I was halfway into my career, being at SEAL, still operating, doing all the stuff. How do you make this work? But yeah, I traveled with my golf clubs everywhere, took them on some combat deployments. One deployment wasn’t in the combat zone but it was in the Middle East. We had this compound, this giant like moon dust compound, huge, open. Well, I ended up building myself a range there. So I got like a some plywood and I built a platform like in the middle of nowhere basically, and I brought 300 range balls with me that a golf course was nice enough to donate and I would just go. Anytime I had some off time I’d go hit in my range, you know. But yeah, so you know, fast forward. Some some years later did another decade or so in the teams and then found myself you know, my time in the teams. It just basically expired. I was at the end of my career, you know, around the 15 year mark. I transitioned from what we call an operator, which is someone who’s in a SEAL platoon being deployed to do SEAL missions. I got pulled from that and basically was in various managerial leadership positions, running training et cetera. So did that for the latter part of my career and then was trying to find something to do. Really, I mean, that’s that’s where I found myself. I knew it was my time to get out and I ended up going to business school. Ucla has a executive MBA program, so had some buddies who had gone through that and said really great things and I thought that would be a good kind of you know, runway out of the teams into real life. So went to that and or started that, I should say and near the start of that program I had the epiphany for what would become Hoolie, because it wasn’t exactly what it looks like now, but I had an idea and I brought it up. It was a concept that I brought up during a. Basically, they have an entrepreneurial pipeline, a series of classes that you take either you have to join a team or you have to build a team. So I said, to hell with it, man, let’s, let’s give it a go, see what I can do. So I had to recruit my team, had to pitch the idea to them, and then basically, we took it through a series of classes and kind of graduated from one class to the next, end up being our capstone. And then, by the end of it and I should back up, this is where I met my partner, Kevin Lee. He’s got a background in apparel, garment, sourcing operations, so perfect fit for where we are. But yeah, we, we basically built Hoolie in business school, you know, out of a shared passion for golf and in wanting to do cool things and and to create fun stuff, man. So, you know, fast forward another year. We launched last April. And here we are, man, some ten months later, you know, first year in business. Yeah, man, kind of ran through that pretty fast but uh. 0:12:06 – Jeff Pelizzaro No, there’s so many jumping off points that we’re gonna dive into. And you know most people they say like their golf addicted or they’re addicted to the game. But but you literally took your clubs on combat missions, you built it, you built your own personal driving range Overseas. You brought bucket, a bucket of balls. So like then I assumed you had to then go pick up, go shag those golf balls and bring them back and topple. 0:12:31 – Bobby Holland Amazing moon dust dude. So like I would be wearing these combat boots Because that stuff was like all over. Yeah, it was. I did not come back with 300 balls. 0:12:41 – Jeff Pelizzaro I probably came back with, you know, 30 by the end of it now Did other guys like start to catch on with you and like, hey, bobby, can I go hit hit balls at your range? Or like, was it just you, you? 0:12:51 – Bobby Holland know it started that way. Well, when, when we first picked up golf, like a lot of us picked it up and it slowly, you know, they they kind of lost their interest, a lot of them. I continued that, but no, I was solo on that deployment. I was in a a staff position essentially, so I was. I was in staff hell some of the time. I would basically get out of the joint operation center and just to clear my mind and and, and, just you know, tried to stay in touch with golf because, you know, when I picked up golf, I ended up doing another Five deployments. These deployments can range in time. Some are pretty short. Yeah, I did a couple that were two or three months, but I did some that were seven months. So it’s a long, long ways to, or long, long time to be away from the game, especially when you’re trying to pick it up and you’re trying to build that momentum and all that like. So, yeah, I had a decade worth of like, making progress, making progress and then losing all that and then starting Rebuilding and it wasn’t until I had some stability in my job Around 2017 that I was actually able to to practice and to play pretty regularly and, and and. Then I mean shocker. I got like a lot better yeah. 0:14:15 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, yeah. I want to go back a little bit to to when you Were kind of transitioning and decided to go into the seals. Is that something, what made you even Decide to pick that path? And when you do like, do you decide then like, as you’re going in, like I’m shooting for the seals, or is it once, once you get through like the initial initial boot camp, that you then decide to go that direction? 0:14:39 – Bobby Holland Yeah, I think it’s true. I mean it’s basically true today, as it was back then. But essentially my path was well, there’s one slight difference. My path was directly to the teams or to seal selection training buds. I had a ticket that was written in my contract. I did have to go to a, a you know school to. Basically, back then they used to give you a regular and I don’t mean this like in a bad way a regular Navy job, like there’s plenty of Navy jobs out there. Back in the day you had to have a Navy job in case that you don’t make it through seal training, you’d have something to fall back on. That has since changed. So now people can go basically to boot camp and then go straight to selection training. But yeah, for me, you know I Was raised on action movies, you know I it sounds silly as hell. You know a lot of people have this epiphany that, of course, like these, you know, wanting to serve, wanting to be on an, on the lead team. But I’m just, you know, a fan of action movies and just intrigued by the military in general. And you know I started looking into that. You know, obviously the military isn’t Isn’t 80s action movies, but nonetheless, you know that that took me down the path to start checking it out and looking into it, and the more I looked into it I was just really intrigued by it, you know. So back then, post Vietnam, there had been a couple conflicts, but it was just kind of clandestine missions and and working with, you know, in elite group of highly trained individuals, you know, being on that type of team, especially playing team sports, was very attractive to me. And again, I’m a young man in my early 20s, like what else am I doing? I Didn’t have some other path that I was like weighing my options. I’m sure I would have figured something out, but it seemed intriguing, seemed exciting. I was looking for a little bit of action man. 0:16:52 – Jeff Pelizzaro So there we go, yeah complete side note, but have you watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary on Netflix by chance? Yeah, that, the second portion, when they go back to all the 80s action movies, it like just brings back such a good feeling of you know, just watching him. And Sylvester Stallone is like the movie Predator and you know Cobra and all those movies. So when you said that it just brought flashbacks of that, it made me feel so good to watch. Those dude brought me back to the childhood Dude that. 0:17:20 – Bobby Holland That’s it, man. I mean, you know they used to say he view will rot your brain. Well, I mean, if this may be a case where rot in my brain, but hopefully in a good way, where I was a productive member of society, in the military, you know awesome. 0:17:35 – Jeff Pelizzaro So Then, when you are getting ready to go to the seals, you said you trained for 18 months or beyond. How did you even know what to train for, how to train? I know these days I think there’s actually like training programs built for you know if you want to be a seal, but I’m assuming back then there probably weren’t no, it was still at the early I say the early stages of the internet. 0:17:57 – Bobby Holland But, like my awareness of the internet, I guess it started, you know, 80s or early 90s, but People weren’t really using that like they do today until the early 2000s, you know late 90s. So late 90s is when I was starting to train and, no, there wasn’t a whole lot of information out there. So there were a couple books. I picked up a couple books and that was kind of it, you know. So I had an understanding they had published what the requirements were for buds training. So it’s like you know what the run times are, you know what the swim times are, you know what the pull-ups are, you know what the test gates are. To a certain degree, you know that there’s a 50 meter underwater swim, you know that there’s a drown proofing evolution. So it’s like, okay, I will just go do those things in abundance until I feel super, super confident about it. And so when I was saying before, this was my first time, you know, making a goal and achieving it, this was also my first time building a fitness plan, you know, because to this point I had done what was prescribed to me during training. You know football, wrestling, what you know, right, Whatever that is but being able to figure this out. So I ended up doing, you know, I we were running close to 30 miles a week and we built up to it. So we started doing three miles at a time, three became four and then we were doing six miles a day, doing a lot of overtraining too as well, but I was also doing a lot of calisthenics, so a lot of push-ups, a lot of pull-ups, a lot of body weight stuff and then a lot of water stuff. You know we were doing just swimming, just god-awful swimming. One of the strokes that that they mandate for seal training is called the side stroke or the combat side stroke, and it’s, it’s super boring. Had to learn that and I would swim for two miles in a you know 50 meter pool, which, oh, it’s awful. 0:19:56 – Jeff Pelizzaro What’s, what is that, sir like? Can you describe that stroke to us? 0:19:59 – Bobby Holland Yeah, it’s uh. I mean, you know, basically you’re on your side and so what you’re doing is you’re Basically gliding through the water. It’s it’s meant for to be able to swim someone out, Like a bloody, like if there’s a. You’re trying to swim out of a combat situation. You can, you can tow your buddy and basically swim one-handed, but essentially you’re you’re kind of swimming on your side and you’re just reaching, gliding through and basically trying to do it. You know, in a way, that your, your head is just barely Coming up, your mouth is just basically barely surfacing above the water, because the more that your head’s upright, the more drag that you’re creating. So you know you’re trying to glide through there. It’s a very effective stroke. I mean, I I Don’t swim that often but I could go, do you know I I could go crank out a long swim right now, just because that is a pretty efficient stroke that you can just do for a long time. But yeah, I had to teach myself that. And then, you know, had to get into all the other stuff the breath holding stuff, the, the underwater swims, the not tying, all those things and really there wasn’t a whole. I mean, if there was YouTube this would have been so much easier, because it’s like now on YouTube there’s all this stuff about breath holding techniques. You know how to get that heart rate down. You could just watch free divers, watch what they do. Yeah, this guy’s got it made. They got all the information. But yeah, you know was one of those things that I Didn’t do it perfect, but I did a lot of what I did and I was in damn good shape and I was very, very much prepared for for buzz training. So mission accomplished there. 0:21:49 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah. So let me ask you this obviously, with YouTube, we can watch and learn anything on YouTube. Now, right, and there’s so much more information. Guys and girls can go and learn a lot more about what, what the techniques are. But then and I heard this on when you’re on Jaco’s podcast and talking about like, you can have all the information, you can have all the techniques. But going into buds is different. Like being able to get through buds, I guess it requires way more than just knowing techniques and stuff. So what would you say is the differentiator between the guys that make it through and the guys that don’t make it through? 0:22:28 – Bobby Holland Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. It’s not fitness level, I mean, it’s all. It’s all in between the years and it is. It’s a Grid and resilience. That’s what it is, you don’t know. There’s tall, skinny guys, there’s short, fat guys, there’s everything in between. There’s these stilly-eyed beast You’re like that that dudes for sure gonna make it through and equates day one one. So like you can’t tell just by looking at someone and really and you can’t tell by talking to someone, because I’ve also been on the instructor side you have to put them through this crucible and you know you have guys who had some troubled childhoods and then you have guys who are elite athletes and everything in between. But I think all bring a certain amount of grit and resilience that Is baked into them. Either they were born with it or they developed it, you know, prior to coming to the teams. But yeah, that’s it, man. I mean, if you can imagine Having the worst day of your life, every single day, I mean that that is what, that is what gets people, because that’s what buds is. You were having the worst day your life and it’s even worse than the day was yesterday, and At the end of the day you get to go back to your, your barracks. You get to eat, you know dinner, and hang out for a little bit at least early on training, before you’re doing other tactical type stuff, and Then you just sit there in your bed thinking like I’m gonna have the worst day of my life tomorrow, you know, oh, my god, yeah, and that lasts for six, seven months of that. So I mean it’s kind of that mental torture of and you know, please don’t don’t focus on the word torture there. Buzz training is not tortured, but there is that mental component which is torturous, I should say of like man, how am I gonna get through this program? And the old adage how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time? And that’s it, these things. And one thing I hope that I get to do more of is talk about mindset. I think that’s one thing that we can contribute. We’re not the only ones who share this mindset, but that’s it, man. I mean it’s been able to have this relentless optimism that I’m going to get through whatever comes next. I just know I am, I know it’s going to suck, I know it’s going to hurt. I’m going to try to find a way to make it fun or do whatever I got to do to get through it. Some people can’t do that, these people who are over-programmed they’re excellent runners, excellent swimmers, elite athletes coming into the program. They’ve never been pushed that far and they can’t get through that mental component of being able to reconcile like, oh my God, I’m having the worst day of my life and it’s just going to keep going like this. Not only the worst day of your life, but it gets progressively harder in terms of the things that you’re tasked to do. You’re constantly having to do more and more and more. Aside from the mindset part of it, going through seal training and career in the seal teams also taught me how to take on goals and other things In a similar manner of you can’t run a marathon overnight. It’s not like I can just turn that on and all right, I’m going to run a marathon tomorrow. No, but you know what you can train today. There’s a methodical way to train to develop the strength, the endurance, the confidence and to get yourself there. That’s essentially what seal training is is. I mean, we start people would laugh man like for where we end up and we’re talking like tactical training, where we’re busting into rooms and firing off rounds within close proximity inches of each other, highly, extremely dangerous and making life and death decisions. All in a split second. We get there from training I mean this really progressive training pipeline to where you take off these little bites of the elephant and then one day you end up there and you look back and it’s like man, how did I get here? 0:27:11 – Jeff Pelizzaro That’s unbelievable. I mean just hearing some of the stories that you guys talked about on the podcast that I listened to and, obviously, just watching different theatrical portrayments of what you guys do, and just to think about the training that you go through. Now, refresh my memory, were you in the documentary that they did? Did I hear you guys talking about that? So for those of you that haven’t seen anything about Bud’s training, there are videos and documentaries that you can go watch, and I heard that you were even kind of like a mis-portrait in one of the scenes. Is that right? 0:27:50 – Bobby Holland Yeah, I definitely was and I make sure that every opportunity I can to clear my good name because I was very proud of in second phase. Second phase is the water competency phase and I believe it was two months back then. But there’s a series of grueling underwater challenges that you basically do where you’re threatening yourself to drown underwater. I mean, that’s basically just it. You’re doing things that are beyond your ability to without error. How long can you survive underwater, given this challenge here? So I was very proud that all those I think there were seven different tests that we did I passed all those the first time. So I was the first time. Every time guy. But yeah, you know it is what it is. They got someone else failing in evolution, but it’s all. Just man, I really don’t care. I think it’s funny, but I do give that guy shit every time I see him. That’s awesome. 0:28:58 – Jeff Pelizzaro Let’s take a second to thank our sponsors over at 1st Phorm, and this week I want to highlight their Formula One post-workout protein shake. I use this thing pretty much every day after my workouts because, let’s face it, being here in a gym working all the time with clients putting on a podcast, it can sometimes be tough to get my protein in on a regular basis. And so I know that with the post-workout shake the Formula One, first of all, it’s fast acting. So right after your workout is a great time to get your protein in to help build your muscles, get yourself stronger and repair what you’ve done in the gym. But also, if you don’t know if you’re going to be able to get your protein in in your regular meals, it’s just a great way to make sure that you’re supplementing and hitting those marks. So be sure to go over to 1stphorm.com forward slash 18 strong to get your 1st Phorm Formula One protein shake, and everyone that enters through that link is going to be put into a drawing every single month for free 1st Phorm products. So again, go over to 1stphorm.com forward slash 18 strong. So let’s talk about the name Hoolie and your role, and I mean I only know a little bit. So, from what I understand, you were a breacher, and that’s kind of where the name Hoolie came from, right. 0:30:13 – Bobby Holland Yeah, that’s it. So you know, I’m getting ready to start business school and I had this epiphany. It actually started out as a golf bag, so it was this idea for a golf bag. Within that, basically, I had the idea. I spent a whole weekend ideating and drawing on it but within that like five hour period I had come up with the name already a variation of the name, but I like the way that Hoolie sounded and, yes, like to backup, Hoolie is. It’s a tool that we use. I was a breacher. It was my job to basically gain access into enemy compounds. So using explosives, torches, mechanical tools, manual tools, Hoolie tools, basically this giant pry bar thing. Firemen use a halogen tool, Hoolie tools kind of a bastardized version of that, but it’s just normally looking crowbar thing and you know backing up before we even get to. You know the symbolism of that. It was just the name. I was like man, it just sounds kind of cool. I wanted something that connected my prior background and then something that you know connected to golf and I didn’t imagine that there would be any connection there, but I liked how it sounded. You know, and in terms of the symbolism, it’s this tool that we’re using to break open doors, to break through something being disruptive. You know I like that. And then I ended up researching the word and, lo and behold, Hoolie is an obscure Scottish golf term that means blown a strong wind. So and I got to go to Scotland last spring and I was really nervous because you read things on the internet but I was able to confirm. I was like like hey, what does Hoolie mean to you? And sure enough, man, that’s, that’s a phrase that they use in the old country and that’s the symbolism. Is just it married? I thought it was perfect and that’s how Hoolie was born. 0:32:24 – Jeff Pelizzaro So earlier you mentioned you know we were talking about getting through buds and you mentioned that getting through buds it’s grit, resilience, and that’s something that I wrote down from your website specifically is like the Hoolie golfer. It’s something that believes that hard work, grit and resilience will conquer all. So give us a little bit more about you know. Who is the Hoolie golfer? What, what is that ethos, what’s that mantra and who? Who is it? 0:32:49 – Bobby Holland Yeah, so we are a golf brand for hardcore golfers, ok, you know, maybe folks that don’t fit into the cookie cutter mold of what you know a traditional golfer is, you know, although golf has changed a lot last couple of years so you have a lot of other different types of personalities out there. But, you know, I mean really Hoolie is for minibaction, growth minded folks who are competitive about life, who like to get after it off the course as much as they do on the course, you know. So, basically, guys, you know, I don’t, I don’t see like myself in that, like, ok, how many Navy SEAL golfers are there? But there’s a lot of guys like me out there, you know, whether they’re gym rats, athletes, former athletes, hunters, fighters, surfers, these guys who are passionate about, you know, conquering life and they’re equally passionate about conquering golf. So it’s people who are essentially in the hunt, trying to find the best versions of themselves, trying to try to find that on the golf course and trying to find that off the golf course. And you know, one of the things that I love about golf, which is it’s sneaky, like you know, backing up to our earlier conversation, I didn’t get golf, you know, 20, 30 years ago. But when I got it it’s like, oh man, there’s so many parallels to all the things that I was doing, you know, as a SEAL in terms of being able to master your mind, your body, the environment, your strategy involved. Let’s talk about the golf swing. You know the intricacies there of the golf swing. You know kinematic sequence and all these fun things. But, yeah, man, that’s, you know, that’s really the spirit of the brand, and I also want to caution anytime I’m talking about who these now is. We have truly customers who are, you know, every walk of life. So I think it’s more of a shared mindset than it is a particular background. Yeah, people who have a certain spirit and, you know, just like to get after it, I guess. 0:35:08 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, that’s what really drew me to you guys is, first, just the idea and the mindset of you know this is about more than just lowering your handicap or you know, like, how far you can hit a ball although watching some of your videos looks like you can hit a ball quite far Never know. But you know it’s about the mentality of going out, having a great time with your buddies, telling to your best you want to be the best at whatever you do physically, mentally. I’m curious just from the mental side of things, because golf is such a mental game and we kind of can make ourselves crazy about it. But obviously you guys are known for your performance under pressure. What are there any techniques that you could relay to us that you go through when you’re out on the course and maybe something’s a little frustrating you hit a bad shot and you’re trying to get yourself focused and back in the game. 0:36:03 – Bobby Holland Yeah, I think box breathing is huge. So being able to, you know, reduce your sympathetic response, and that literally just means getting your heart rate down. You know one thing I love all these fitness tracker tools and so you know I have a fitness watch and that’s a great indicator I could look down and I know what my resting heart rate is, I know what my, like, active heart rate is and you know, being able to breathe, being able to get that heart rate down and control that kind of at will is extremely helpful. Because, look man, this may surprise people, but I get nervous on the golf course, like when I’m on the first tee. You bet your ass I’m nervous. I got the little barflies. I don’t want to. You know, I’m just as likely to shank a ball as anyone, you know, as the next guy out there. It happens. So being able to do that, that’s key. I mean, breathing is really, really important there. The other thing, from a mindset perspective, is just trying to approach it like like I don’t care what happens, I don’t care about the outcome, and that was something that I used, I mean, in, you know, being a seal all the time, right, so like we do things to where obviously, the more you do like like jumping out of an airplane, the more, the more you do that, the more you get comfortable with that. But yeah, especially when you’re new to that, the thought of jumping out of an airplane can be quite a nerve in, right. Yeah, but finding these little kind of mental tools that you can dig into for, you know, a variety of things whether you’re on the golf course or off the golf course, are useful. That’s. That’s kind of one of the things that you know. Just trying to take the, you know, the result. Try to take don’t worry about the result because you can’t control the result. Control your controlables and whatever is going to happen is going to happen out there, right, and you know, I think having a positive mindset and not focusing about the negative outcomes would help out a lot of people and any major swing issues that folks have, such as myself. 0:38:24 – Jeff Pelizzaro What about the physical side? Obviously you’re still very fit and that’s a big part of your life, I’m assuming. I would also imagine you’ve got some, some issues being banged up and injuries that you’ve, you know, gotten over the years, whether that be in football or combat or whatever it is. How big of a role does that still play in your everyday life and and for your golf? 0:38:48 – Bobby Holland It’s huge, yeah, and I, you know, I’m starting to evolve how I train and a lot of that is a product of a. I think I’d mentioned to you I went through a program this last month to address some of those injuries and things that I’ve accumulated over two decades of not only being a seal which is a pretty damn hard job, especially carrying heavy loads, jumping out planes, injured landings, you know, running, gunning, falling down, whatever, but being an athlete for that long Fitness has been. I fell in love with fitness, you know, back in when I started sports and it just never stopped. So, absent my love for golf, I would still be doing that and it has proven to me time and time again to be extremely, you know, beneficial to you know, I mean just your mental state of mind and avoiding illness, injury, et cetera, but so extremely important. I am having to evolve how I do things. But yeah, man, you know, in terms of how, how I think it benefits golf, I’m really excited about the program I’m starting right now, to be honest with you, because the last couple of years I’ve been training in a very linear way fitness, like basically doing straight up power lifting moves, squat, you know, pressing pulls basic stuff squat bench you know, very linear and I have been throwing in a little bit of golf things here or there, but you know, nonetheless, I think having having a natural ability to summon power right through power lifting, I think it’s helpful in all things and of course it is helpful in the golf swing if you know how to harness it. But you can look at some of the golfers out there who are skinny little beans, who do it a much different way. So you know it’s more important to have the right technique and and to have the right mobility and flexibility, and that that’s an area where I’m just starting with this new program. So, to back up, I’ve dealt with a whole host of injuries and I won’t spend much time talking about them because I could go on and on. But you know my shoulders are jacked. You know my knees I’ve had multiple knee surgeries. My back looks like an S, like my spine, you know. So, despite all this stuff, fitness has allowed me to be extremely active and to keep pain at bay. Right, and I really attribute that because I’ve had periods like man, circa 2022, I couldn’t lift anything overhead. I could not lift a bar overhead. I could not bench press, which has been like my favorite exercise since, since youth, but I was able to build up all last year. I was. I really wanted to just fight through it. I was doing physical therapy, but I was determined to build strength. I ended up putting on some weight, so I’m a little bit heavier. When you say I’m, I’m a fit guy Thank you for the compliment. I’m relatively fit. I got some work to do. I got some goals. I’m on a good track now to get better, but mission accomplished last year. My strength like went like really you know really well, and I got through you know that issue I was having there. I went from like 20% to like 90% with shoulders, same with with me. So I’m in a good spot. But what I’m really excited to be doing now, and where my fitness is evolving, is I’m doing a lot of rotational stuff, mobility stuff and trying to get more function, range, emotion out of my hips, out of my shoulders. So I’m really excited. My golf swing I golfed this morning. It’s kind of a mess because a lot of this work I did through this. The Warrior Fitness program is a month long program that I just went through. It’s a ran by the or sponsored by the Navy Seal Foundation, run by a group called Virginia High Performance. It’s an outstanding program for spec war veterans but basically it’s a holistic approach to diet, nutrition, mental health. It’s like full optimization there, went through that, was able to regain some mobility and function through that program and I’m going to keep working on that. I’m really excited Now, now that I’m able to rotate more and do some other things. I’ve got to figure out how how my new swing is going to work, you know. 0:43:45 – Jeff Pelizzaro That’s interesting. So you actually have seen so much improvement in some of your mobility that you’re noticing that, hey, my golf swing is almost a little loosey-goosey now. 0:43:54 – Bobby Holland Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a little bit. I have some things I’m trying to work out on my swing, but I’ve got some improvement with my hips and my kind of pelvic rotation. There and my right shoulder we made a lot of ground. It was, you know, again like I’ve been moving very linear, but you put, you know, certain parts of my body in awkward positions and I lack mobility. So I think some of the swing faults that I have right now are really really because of some of these deficiencies that I have. I’m unable to rotate in such a way that I have to compensate with my arms or whatever. So, tbd, man, we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully it’s not a train wreck for too long. But you know, I look forward to starting that out. But, man, I just feel better. You know, you kind of don’t know, especially as you age, sometimes the decline or the lack of mobility, it just kind of slowly tapers off. And it wasn’t until, you know, we’ve been doing a lot of back and core work, manual therapy, cairo type stuff, and then mobility exercises, and it wasn’t until I did about two weeks of that that I’m moving around. What the? It feels good. You know, it’s not like I was walking around like the hunchback and Notre Dame. You know I didn’t feel that bad, but I didn’t know what good felt like either. 0:45:20 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. So you and I talked a couple of days ago and we were talking about the Rotex motion stuff. Were you introduced to them through Virginia High Performance or was that? Did you meet Dr Joe separate? 0:45:34 – Bobby Holland I met Dr Joe separate, yeah. Yeah, one of the cool things I’ve been surprised by social media and one of the pleasant surprises has been I’ve been connected with some really, really neat people and people that just reached out, that found the brand and you know much like you did. And Joe was the same. You know he’s. He’s a old retired frogman so and we actually served in the same SEAL team not the same time, different times, but great guy, he reached out and fully support what he’s doing. He’s doing some really neat stuff there. I just started the Rotex program, really excited for that, to augment the program that I’m already working on. But, yeah, go check them out at, you know, rotexmotioncom Great products there. 0:46:16 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, so, and we love, we love Dr Joe and the Rotex. I’ve got one sitting right outside the door here was just using it with the client this morning. So just give us a little idea. How are you using it? What, what are you guys working on, or what did he kind of go through with you a little bit? 0:46:30 – Bobby Holland You know, I’m just using their app, so you go through their app and they have. So what I’m working on? The there’s a shoulder mobility set of exercises there, and then also I don’t remember what the other one is called, but you know, basically the rotational stuff, the kind of hips, pelvic type stuff, so that that is the kind of floor, floor based stuff or the floor models and the. Yeah, there’s just some great exercise man, like I love the handheld one. There’s some really cool stretches being able to, you know, internal rotation, I guess it is. 0:47:14 – Jeff Pelizzaro Well, yeah, getting getting an external rotation where you kind of like kind of going in up on the wall like that. 0:47:19 – Bobby Holland Yeah, there’s some there’s some really good ones there. So the program that that I I got out of the Warrior Fitness program has some other stuff in there, you know, non-rotex type stuff, and I think it’s really good compliment. And again, man, I just just started this program but I’m, I’m like, really excited. You know, I have a garage gym which I’ve carefully, you know, built over the last 12, 13 years I guess. So I have everything that I need here. But I’ve been working out with a new, renewed sense of purpose and energy of you know, doing doing something fun and new, and it just feels good, man, I can feel that I’m activating things that had been neglected for too long. And yeah, you know, it’s like I’m really strong at squats and bench and pressing. But these other things, you know, I think for longevity and just for all around fitness and mobility are pretty damn important and there’s huge crossover. So, aside from, obviously, the benefits I get from my daily life, I’m now doing things that I know are going to have an impact the rotational stuff, the core stuff. Yeah, pretty psyched on it. 0:48:32 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, and to be able to do it for that’s the coolest thing about golf to do it for decades. Right Like this. This is a. This is a long gameplay. 0:48:41 – Bobby Holland Well, there’s no doubt in my mind, like my best golf is is ahead of me, and I’ve there’s plenty of. You know, guys, that I’ve seen staying plenty fit into their fifties. So, and, and you know, look at Phil Mickelsand he’s been able to keep up speed. So you know, if you can keep up strength speed, you can play. You know, I’m not going to play at an elite level, but I can play with enough swing speed to play the type of golf that I enjoy playing, and fitness is the path to get there. 0:49:11 – Jeff Pelizzaro Awesome. So what’s on the horizon for Hoolie as you’re moving, you know we’re getting into 2024 and moving forward. I mean, it sounds like things are cranking and you’re you’re busy, as can be. So what’s? What’s going on over there? 0:49:23 – Bobby Holland Yeah, you know we are cranking man, but we are still a first year business. We’re still relatively new, um, you know we’re not a known entity nationally yet. So the goal is to just get the message out and, uh, get more people to fall in love with us. And you know our goal, aside from selling stuff, is to create this community of like-minded you know, golf obsessed, gross minded folks out there. I’d like to get after it and you know we’re looking to get the message out there more. You know doing, doing, uh, shows like yourself, um, continue to push the brand out there, um, get more traction where we can. And to continue to grow and to, you know, expand our, our product lines. Um, that’s it, man. You know just kind of doing what we’re doing, more of it. And again, like just very optimistic because you know we’ve reached a lot of people, um, a lot more than I thought we would in the first year, but we’re just getting started here. So, like so much room to go. And, um, we have a new spring line that comes out here in a couple of weeks, excited to launch that. We got some really, really neat designs. I’m wearing one of them right now. Um, so really cool there and it’s a. You know, that’s one thing that I’m very passionate about is creating stuff. So, uh, we have a great designer, um, kevin give a quick shout out to to Kevin there who helps us out. Um, but you know, we we also I have a creative interest in in what we do and what we make, and so being able to think of these new things and and watch people fall in love with like it’s just a really neat thing to do, um kind of scratches my creative ish as well. Uh, so we got some fun stuff to launch here and I think people are going to love it and we’ll just see where it goes. Man, yeah. 0:51:17 – Jeff Pelizzaro What would you say is something that you’ve taken from your your time as a CEO and just all of your training that has really helped you from the business aspect of things. 0:51:25 – Bobby Holland I think what we were talking about earlier, that grit and resilience, is key. There’s a lot of parallels to my career as a special operator, to what I’m doing now. If you look at, I’m in a ambiguous environment, you know. Maybe Don’s are stacked against me. Um, you know, over task, under resourced. That’s what every startup, uh, you know, experiencing the same thing. Right, how do we figure out this problem? How do we get better from our mistakes? How do we develop capacity to do more? Um, I mean, they’re all parallels. It’s the same thing, it’s a different environment, it’s a different application. That’s part of why I fell in love with this whole thing. I I didn’t see myself as being an entrepreneur, but I had this idea and I had this kind of creative itch. I started scratching that and then then I started recognizing like, oh man, this isn’t really that much different, you know. So, for, for the veterans listening out there, you know, I I think you’ll get a lot of entrepreneurship. It’s not easy, it’s very challenging, it’s very rewarding. Um, and then backing up, talking about the grit, resilience aspect of it is not every day is easy. You know it’s. Uh, there’s ups and downs. You know when, if you’re a new business, new business. You are going to make mistakes, things are going to happen. You’re going to have to overcome If. If you can’t get through that, you just won’t survive. So, yeah, it’s all about overcoming those mistakes, getting better, improving and then, you know, just kind of head down, chin up, get after it. 0:53:05 – Jeff Pelizzaro You mentioned. You know, speaking to the veterans, I know you guys do a lot of work, or you personally do a lot of work with veterans with golf, and there’s a crossover there that and I’ve seen this with several different organizations that are utilizing golf to help veterans, whether they be wounded vets or just, you know, re-acclimating into society. What have you seen? What kind of positive benefits have you seen from golf that has really helped that population. 0:53:31 – Bobby Holland Yeah, you know, and this is an area where I would continue to love to do more. I mean, like I’m very passionate about golf and very passionate about the veteran community. I think, you know, one of the things that I hope to do out of all this is to get more veterans into golf. You know, whether they’re, you know, veterans who moved on from service, who are looking for something to engage with, or they’re you know the wounded veteran population, there’s so much to get from the game. I think one thing that veterans struggle with in general is finding purpose after service right, and purpose comes in many different forms, obviously in the form of a career, having some sort of purpose that you can connect. You know that’s. You serve your country and you do so for however many years you serve, and then you leave that some struggle with. You know what’s next. How do I replace that feeling that I had of service of purpose? And though I don’t have that answer in terms of career-wise, everyone’s different there I think golf serves this little niche here. You know, I’m not saying golf is a purpose, but it’s like a micro-purpose. You know what I mean. 0:54:54 – Jeff Pelizzaro Like it’s a reason. 0:54:55 – Bobby Holland it’s something that gets you excited to get out of bed. It’s something that gets you excited to go outdoors, to go hang out with your buddies, to have this very difficult goal that you want to work towards, that you can improve, and that it’s just it’s going to be there for the rest of your life. I didn’t golf with these two gentlemen this morning, but I often get paired with these older gentlemen that are in their 80s and 90s, you know. So there’s this just love and spear for the game that I think veterans, you know more than others, would really benefit from. And aside from that, I think the therapeutic benefits of just being outdoors I think I golf early in the morning, so that’s a whole different experience. Like this morning we saw coyotes, you know. We saw deer, it’s beautiful. We saw the sunrise. Like it’s calming. I know saying calming and golf in the same phrase and get people riled up, but I mean for me it’s a. I never really thought about it, you know, over the years I was doing it until now, but it’s kind of like therapy out there, especially if you’re out there, you’re playing, walking on a course, you know, just squeezing it in out there. It’s good man. So, yeah, I would love to connect veterans to golf. Hopefully we can do that in the process and, as we grow the company definitely look forward to partnering with more of the folks that are, you know, doing that as well. 0:56:36 – Jeff Pelizzaro Awesome. I just think that that’s such a neat objective and you see so many different organizations that are doing it and I’ve seen a couple of things that you guys have done and alluded to and, yeah, it’s just such a such an incredible game. There’s so many benefits. Like you said, it’s out in nature, You’re. You’re kind of fulfilling your competitive spirit, all these different pieces, and you’re constantly challenging yourself, you know, trying to get better. So that’s really cool. All right, my man, we’re going to close up with just a few of our traditional questions that we have here on the 18 strong podcast. Very curious to hear your answers. What’s in foremost? Caddy shack or happy Gilmore? 0:57:15 – Bobby Holland Hey, both classics, but happy Gilmore. Oh, all right, All right, I was kind of expecting you to go the other way, tristan all right, what’s like, like, like if there was split with you know what percentage of people vote which way. 0:57:31 – Jeff Pelizzaro I’m going to say it’s been. I don’t have an official tally. I would say it’s been mostly more caddy shack than happy Gilmore. I find that a lot of our guests who come from overseas across the pond are more happy Gilmore than a lot of the Americans and I typically find that if if anybody’s around my age and beyond, they’re usually usually cat caddy shack. So I’m 45. So it can be shot. But happy Gilmore, I love both of them. Love both of them All. Right, this one. I’m very curious to hear your answer. What would your walk up song be to the first T box? 0:58:09 – Bobby Holland Domination Pantera, not even a question. 0:58:11 – Jeff Pelizzaro Oh man, going hard, I like it. I like it. Is there a book that you like to recommend to people, or a book that has really meant something to you, that you’ve read or read multiple times and have even given as a gift? 0:58:23 – Bobby Holland Absolutely it is. It’s called endurance and I think it’s a I’m not sure if there’s like a a different part shackled in is incredible voyage. I mean the book is endurance. It is my favorite book and I can’t believe they haven’t made a proper movie out of it. I think it’s the best, one of the best survival tales ever told. So those themes we were talking about, about grit, resides. It follows the 1915, shackleton expedition to Antarctica and I went to spoil it for your viewers, but some stuff goes down. It’s a tale of survival. It’s amazing. I love it. I mean there’s, there’s a you know some stuff about leadership, teamwork, grit, resilience. So good, go read it. 0:59:13 – Jeff Pelizzaro Awesome, awesome. All right, if you could pick a celebrity for some and by celebrity that’s a loose term, could be anybody past present could be dead alive. Who are you picking for your for some? 0:59:25 – Bobby Holland All right, man, I’m a child of the eighties, right? So Arnie Sly Corussell. 0:59:34 – Jeff Pelizzaro I love it. I mean straight action movies, yep, awesome. All right, exclude well, I won’t. I normally say excluding Augustine and St Andrews, but you’re welcome to pick one of those. But I’ll ask you for a second one. But if we had the 18 strong jet fueled up, ready to go and I said, bobby, we’re going anywhere you want, we’re taking your celebrity for some and you get to play any course in the world, where are you going? 1:00:02 – Bobby Holland Well, you took my number one. It’s Augustine National man. That’s it. Number two would be Piners. Number two Awesome, I’ve been very fortunate. This last spring I got to play the old course, st Andrews. 1:00:16 – Jeff Pelizzaro Did you really I? 1:00:17 – Bobby Holland did yeah and would you shoot? I didn’t shoot very well. I think I shot like a. I think it was an 89. But I had a strong finish at 17 and 18. His darkness set in. Yeah, that’s good. 1:00:34 – Jeff Pelizzaro I love it. Setting the scene I love it. Okay, what’s the best piece of golf advice you’ve ever been given? 1:00:42 – Bobby Holland This is a Bob Rattella quote. So damn, I don’t even remember what book it is, but it is love the challenge of the day, whatever it may bring. I think that’s very, very sound advice, that if you’re going to be a golfer, you need to embrace that, because if you’re spinning out of control every bad shot, every bad round, I mean why would you spend so much time being miserable? Right, it doesn’t help. 1:01:14 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yep Doesn’t help at all. Okay, is there a social media account that you like to follow that you think the 18 strong crew should check out? Could be golf related, could be anything. 1:01:23 – Bobby Holland Yeah, I’m going to give you some random stuff, all right. So on YouTube, go check out. I know you’re going to like this, jeff Space Ice, and I expect you to text me back later because after five hours of binging that you’ll be like dude, so good. The other is there was a former Navy SEAL, was it John Allen? His handle is Mr Ballin and he does spooky, weird stories on YouTube. Really really good, mr Ballin, b-a-l-l-e-n. Really good. And I’ll give a shout out to my guy, the DoD King Carter. He got bounced off of his CBA golf handle from Meta for some reason. But he is that delusional confident. He got bounced off of that. Really he did. Yeah, Not sure why, but they booted his account, they shut him down. So go check out. 1:02:28 – Jeff Pelizzaro No way that’s delusional, confident Yep. Unreal. So, just for background, that’s exactly how I found out about Bobby and Hoolie Golf is because when Bobby was on the Jocko podcast you guys talked about, I think, Jocko brought up the DoD King and then I followed him for a little bit and I saw that online. So that’s crazy that that got booted. Okay, well, we’ll definitely put that in the show notes and give him a link there. For sure, bobby, this has been awesome. I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. I’m really excited to see what’s to come with Hoolie in the next year, two years and beyond, but I love everything that you’re doing. Obviously, thank you so much for your service, first and foremost, you and everybody that you served with. But taking that into the golf world, I just think it’s such a cool crossover and it speaks so much to the 18 Strong crew and the mindset that we have here just about self-improvement and working hard, the grit, the resilience that you speak so, so greatly about. So really really appreciate your time coming on. Yeah, jeff thanks for having me on, man, thanks for listening to the 18 Strong podcast and if you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to share it with your friends. And, of course, go follow us over on Instagram at 18strong. Thanks again. We’ll catch up with you next week. Train hard, practice smart and play better golf.

Guest: Cody Wescott (Founder Cody Wescott Golf) Host: Jeff Pelizzaro Episode Number: 368 Podcast: The 18STRONG Podcast Partners: Linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul], 1stPhorm [http://1stPhorm.com/18strong] ---------------------------------------- SUMMARY Join me as I welcome Cody Wescott from Cody Wescott Golf and the Swing Heavy Lift Fast Program to the show for an insightful discussion that’s sure to up your golf game and fitness routine. We kick things off by exploring the relationship between strength training and golf performance, as Cody shares his candid take on traditional weightlifting versus golf-specific training. We dig into the essence of crafting an effective workout that balances what you enjoy and what truly benefits your game, while Cody challenges the idea of personal trainers and their impact on a golfer’s progress. Listen in as we tackle the multifaceted nature of golf training, focusing on the harmony of mobility, strength, and power. We break down his holistic approach to athlete development, as seen in his “Lift Every Swing Fast” program, which has successfully been adopted by numerous golfers. Cody and I also touch upon the often-overlooked importance of cardiovascular health for recovery, endurance, and the enjoyment of golf well into one’s later years. The inspiring story of Tony, an 85-year-old fitness enthusiast, serves as a powerful reminder that it’s never too late to embrace an active lifestyle. The conversation shifts to the nuances between golf exercises and drills, emphasizing the importance of selecting the right methods to enhance your game. We address how gym workouts should complement, not replace, swing drills, and the potential pitfalls of following fitness trends on social media. As we delve into muscle building and mobility, I underscore the evolution of muscle-building philosophies and the significance of nutrition in supporting both body composition and performance. Don’t miss this episode packed with practical advice and personal insights that could transform your approach to golf and fitness. CODY WESCOTT * Cody’s journey in the fitness world spans decades, covering everything from bodybuilding and powerlifting to crossfit and pilates. * Today, his primary focus is on training golfers, treating them like the athletes they truly are. * His mission is straightforward: help golfers navigate the fitness landscape, finding the right training approach for their goals – without all the BS. * Cody’s philosophy is his motto, the namesake of his flagship program, “Lift Heavy, Swing Fast.” His program has impacted hundreds of athletes globally, helping them look, play, and feel their best for the long haul. ---------------------------------------- MAIN TOPICS (00:04) Optimal Golf and Fitness Training Nature’s impact on golf performance, incorporating fitness, traditional weight training, and the role of personal trainers. (09:44) Golf Performance Effective golf training programs include total body workouts, targeted mobility exercises, and strategic speed and power work. (14:56) Cardiovascular Health in Golf Longevity and Performance Cardio and resistance training in golf improve recovery, performance, and longevity, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing health in mid-life. (18:34) Fitness for Personal Transformation An 85-year-old man’s dedication to fitness, my sports background, and struggles with drugs and alcohol. (29:44) Golf Training and Exercise Nuances Golf exercises and drills have different purposes, with gym exercises complementing but not replacing them. Social media can influence fitness trends. (38:33) Muscle Building, Mobility, and Personal Training Nature’s muscle-building philosophy, RPE and Reps in Reserve, nutrition, golf-specific training, and maintaining muscle mass for efficient golf swing. ---------------------------------------- FOLLOW CODY WESCOTT * Instagram: @codywescottgolf [https://www.instagram.com/codywescottgolf/] * Website: CodyWescottgolf.com [https://www.codywescottgolf.com/] LINKS MENTIONED How to Win Friends and Influence People [https://amzn.to/4bsmZge] – Dale Carnegie Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business [https://amzn.to/3vYekSf] – Steven Bartlett @BioLayne [https://www.instagram.com/biolayne/] @Goob_u2 [https://www.instagram.com/p/C3AU8LhO-5p/] @menno.henselmans [https://www.instagram.com/menno.henselmans/] ---------------------------------------- EPISODE PARTNERS: linksoul [https://18strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/linksoul-logo-vector.png] LINKSOUL: For your 20% discount on LINKSOUL gear, go to 18strong.com/linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul] or click the logo above. [https://18strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/1st-phorm-decal-black-2-5-x-4-25_600x-300x300.webp]https://1stphorm.com/?a_aid=18STRONG 1st Phorm: Try any of the 1st Phorm products with FREE SHIPPING, go to 1stphorm.com/18strong.com [https://1stphorm.com/?a_aid=18STRONG] (By using this link, you will be entered into our Monthly 1st Phorm Giveaway!) ---------------------------------------- MORE COOL STUFF TO CHECK OUT: To continue the conversation and ask any questions you may have, head over to the 18STRONG Movement group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/the18strongmovement] on Facebook. 18STRONG Pro Shop [https://shop.18strong.com/] (Get your 18STRONG gear!) 18STRONG Resources [https://18strong.com/resources/] (All of the cool stuff we recommend: products, books, golf stuff, etc – and discount codes for the 18STRONG Crew) WANT THE FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT? (CLICK THE “+” 👉🏻 [https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f449-1f3fb.png]) 0:00:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro The 18STRONG Podcast, episode number 368, with Cody Wescott from Cody Wescott, golf. What’s up guys? Welcome back to the 18STRONG Podcast, where we’re here to help you build a stronger game, because we believe that every golfer deserves to play better, longer. And this week we have Cody Wescott from Cody Wescott Golf and the Swing Heavy Lift Fast Program. This episode is a fun one for me because this is the first time I get to meet Cody and talk about the growth that he’s had, first of all in social media in the golf and fitness world, and I think he’s one of the guys putting out some of the best content when it comes to education in the golf and fitness world and really taking a no BS attitude and laying on what’s going to make your program most optimal. Is traditional weight training? Is traditional strength training good for your golf game? Yeah, it can be, but is it optimal for what you’re wanting to do and what your goals are in the gym? So we have some great conversations about what that looks like, what you want to do, what are the things that you want to put into your program simply because you like them, and what are the things you need to put in there because they’re going to work. And then we talk about a couple topics that Cody’s been pretty hard lined on, and that’s the difference between golf exercises and golf drills. Where is that crossover and where is the separation? And are you doing golf exercises or golf drills and are they really being effective in your training program? And then, lastly, we touch on a bit of a sensitive topic for probably a lot of the listeners of this show, for those of you that are coaches and trainers. But talking to the golfers out there, cody discusses why you may not need a personal trainer and why that actually might be detracting from your goals and detracting from your results, and we go have a great conversation around that. So you’re going to really enjoy this episode of the 18STRONG Podcast. Right after this, our partners over at Link Soul have been providing us with the best apparel for both on the course and off the course, from polos to t-shirts like the one I have on right now. Everything that they have is meant to be worn from the golf course to wherever you’re going next, whether that be casual, whether that be to the beach there’s all different options over there. So go to 18strong.com, slash link soul. You’ll get 20% off of anything in your cart over on Link Soul’s website. So again, 18strong.com. Slash link soul for our favorite brand of apparel, for anything on the golf course and off. Now let’s get to this week’s interview, tony Wescott. Welcome to the 18STRONG Podcast. 0:02:49 – Cody Wescott Hey, thanks for having me. 0:02:50 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, for sure, man. So this is really fun to finally get to connect with you. I’ve been following your stuff on social media for a while and one of the cool things and we just had a couple other people on recently and, I said, one of the cool things about what we do at the podcast here cool things for me is being able to connect with people like you, that I really respect the way that you’re putting your content out, the content that you’re putting out. So, first of all, just keep doing what you’re doing, because I love watching it and I learned stuff from when I’m watching your content and I know that our crew is too. So I’m excited to have you on. 0:03:21 – Cody Wescott Yeah, man, thank you so much. I mean the content game, social media has been such a game changer. I think you know I’ve listened to your show a few times, so I know I’m not alone when I say that Like it really has just like opened so many doors Because I’ve been doing, you know, the fitness thing for a long time and just when you consistently start posting content, like things happen for you that I never thought would happen. So it’s really cool. Like I’ve been on you know, someone’s podcast. Like you know, if you were to go, I never would have thought about this. So this is really cool. 0:03:50 – Jeff Pelizzaro When did your? Is Instagram your biggest platform as far as your social media content? For sure, when did that really kind of take off for you? 0:03:57 – Cody Wescott You know. So I was a trainer for, like you know, 12 years before I ever like made a post about my services, right, so? But I think it was summer 2022 is when I started posting about every single day, because I was in an environment down in a gym down in Jupiter, where, like that was pretty much what everybody was doing is like that was like bigger part of our job was actually like creating social media content, and that’s when I started doing it every single day. And then I think you know, the thing is like I didn’t. It took me forever to like get up and going. I mean, I think I made. I think I posted like 90 days in a row before I got like a thousand followers, you know. So, like you know, I get like 12 likes on a post or something like that. So it was a little discouraging, but I was like you know what? Like I think it’s one of those things that you just keep trying and work hard and put out good stuff. It’s eventually going to catch on, and so that’s what I did. I just kept going, kept going, and I want to say it was probably like right around like holiday season, so probably like Thanksgiving of 2022, you know, probably like almost like six months into the thing, I got to 10,000 followers and then that’s. I don’t know if it starts like kind of snowballing or if the algorithm like kind of catches on and people are watching your stuff and then, but that, that first 10 was super hard and then now I think we’re you know what, like 14 months later, I’m at like 70,000. And that’s been really cool. Just because you know, when you’re a personal trainer, you are pretty limited on how many people you can work one on one with, right, or how many people you can really make a change for Cause I’ve done group fitness before too, where you’re coaching like 40, 50 people at once. But you know, as a personal trainer, if you’re super busy I mean, if you’re talking about doing 30, 40 sessions a week that is a very, very busy personal trainer, right. And you have, you know, people doing two or three sessions a week like what are you looking at? You may have? You might have like 10 to 12 to 15 clients, really right. So for me to go from that on a weekly basis, like I’m only touching like 12, 15 people, to reaching thousands has been like really gratifying and a lot of fun too. 0:06:05 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, when? When did you kind of shift out of the the in-person training role, cause I know you said you really just work with, I think, a single client in person. The rest is pretty much online. 0:06:15 – Cody Wescott Yeah, it’s all on my app. Now why use trainer rogue? But you know I have my programming on their app. It’s been since I moved back to Oklahoma. I moved back here in December of 2022. I moved back here and I was still doing some zoom sessions. So I’m still doing one on one. But now, yeah, for the past like I think about 12 months I’ve had just one guy that I trained a person and the rest is I’ve got some. I’ve got people that I’ve been doing one on one programming for for years now. But now I just put all my time into creating the programming on the app. 0:06:54 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, it looks great. We’ll be sure to link all this stuff up in the show notes as well, so you guys can go and check out the website, check out the app. You know everything, everything about looks really good. You know like it just kind of draws the eye in your content is great. As far as just really pointing out the, the no BS right, which I think is really one of the big messages that you, that you have, is like hey, don’t do the silly stuff. Here’s the way are here, here are ways for you to really get to where you want to go with your, your golf, with your fitness. And you know, one thing I wanted to ask you about, which is a message that continually goes through your content is not training the old way you used to train. You know it hasn’t gotten you where you want to go yet, so why are you continuing to do it? Expand on that a little bit. 0:07:42 – Cody Wescott Yeah, that’s been, that’s been a topic that’s done pretty well for me lately. So you kind of catch onto things that people kind of believe in in what you’re saying more right Cause, like that is like a truly like authentic thing for me is like I have literally experienced every possible image or every type of fitness that is out there. Right, so like I feel like I can speak to that Right Like. So I’ve done CrossFit, I’ve done bodybuilding, I’ve done powerlifting, I did Spartan races, I raced high rocks. My wife used to teach yoga. I’ve done yoga. She also taught Pilates. I’ve done Pilates. Like I’ve literally we her and I co taught a boxing class together. So I mean I’ve done like pretty much everything in fitness and I’ve also ran gyms. I was a regional fitness manager in Washington DC. I ran three gyms. Like when I tell you like that I have pretty much done everything that normal people in fitness can do, like I’ve done it. So now, like my thing is that I don’t think that any method of training is necessarily bad. Right Like. So for golf, that is like, so like I don’t think that anything that’s going to get you in better shape, like you know whether it increases your, maybe you’re doing like a orange theory. Right, it’s going to increase your endurance, you know it’s going to make you a little stronger. You know stuff like that. But any kind of workout program CrossFit, bodybuilding, whatever it is that gets you in better shape. I think it can help the game of golf, now. What I always tell people is like is that optimal for the game of golf? And my answer for some of that stuff is no, like I don’t think that training like a bodybuilder is going to help you play your best. You know can it. Is it going to be better than you sitting on the couch every single day? And will it help you play better? If you go train like a bodybuilder? Probably because you’re getting stronger and you get more mobile, you’re going to be pretty sore, so it might suck to go practice that next day or something. If you just wrecked your pecs or something and your chest and your shoulders. You know that might suck, but you know when you recover from that your chest is going to be stronger and more flexible and and so, yeah, that could help you play golf. But you know I’m here for getting athletes to perform at their best and I think what’s interesting about golf is that it’s a very unique game, right. It requires mobility, strength and power, and each one of those pro, whatever program you do out there might give you a little bit of one of those things. Right, but if we do a golf program, we can have it all. 0:10:06 – Jeff Pelizzaro So what do you feel is kind of the secret sauce of Hitting all of those boxes in a program and not going too far in one direction? Because I feel like we can definitely get into the mindset, or many of the golfers can get in the mindset, of oh, I just got to work on my mobility, or I got, I just got to work on my speed, or I’m going to get stronger, or you know how, how have you found to really tie those things together and, like you said, really become more of an athlete when you’re in the gym? 0:10:33 – Cody Wescott Right, and you know you think about, like, could you put all that stuff into a workout? You can, right, Like it can be a long workout, but you know, yeah, and how much juice is the average person going to have at the end of a 90 minute session or something like that, right? So I think, yeah, we got to be pretty strategic about how we do it. I like to give people total body workouts, right? So, as opposed to doing a bodybuilding split and yeah, I think you know you can put in, you know, targeted mobility work that also is going to prepare you, like, you know, prime you up for the workout that you’re about to do. You can put in a few reps of like, maybe it’s a plio’s, like, you know, jumps, maybe it’s a couple of mid-ball slams. I like to do the sled, you know, whatever it is that that person has available, maybe it’s just bands, maybe they you know whatever they have available do something that’s pretty fast. And I have to do that, you know, right after your warm up, your mobility, so that where you’re touching on some speed and I don’t think you know you need to do a whole lot of it, right, like, I think speed is, you know a pretty low, low volume, right, like we’re talking like a couple of sets, you know two, three sets, one to three sets, actually, right, and then that lower rep range and then hitting a couple of our compound movements and I really try to get people to do like two to three to four sessions a week and then I’ll put in like my, like my um, in my app. I have, like I call them our main workouts. They’re Monday, wednesday, friday, we’re going to the workouts going to be structured kind of like I just described, and then, like on Tuesdays, I have them just do like mobility and zone to cardio. Um, saturday is more of like an interval style, like hit training, so that we can kind of get it a little bit, little bit heart rate up a little bit higher, come back down, recover, um, things like that, and it’s still going to have some mobility at the beginning of that workout too. So I like to, that’s how I like to do it and it’s worked really well. Um, and, like you know, I kind of just took it all from every facet of training I’ve ever done and like just kind of okay, like you know, it doesn’t make sense, it just makes sense, right, like once you become, when you’re a trainer and you know what’s up, it’s like okay, you can’t put this power at the end because you’re going to be dead. I don’t put mobility at the end because it’s like it can be paired with a warmup, like so you just, it just makes sense and I think it’s really worked well for me and for the um, the hundreds of athletes now that that that are on board with a lift every swing fast. So we continue to appreciate it for everyday training and what it’s like to do sport. 0:12:46 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, that’s awesome. I love the name, by the way. Oh, it’s great. Just straight to the point, right. 0:12:51 – Cody Wescott I got the trademark, by the way, did you really, hell yeah? 0:12:55 – Jeff Pelizzaro Nice, you should have for sure. Yeah, for those of you that aren’t watching on YouTube, he’s got the neon sign. He’s in his podcast studio too, which he’s got the shooting straight podcast that he does with his wife, so definitely check that out. We’ll link that in the show notes as well. 0:13:08 – Cody Wescott Appreciate that. 0:13:09 – Jeff Pelizzaro But yeah, I mean just the breakdown of that, of that. You’re right, it just seems to make sense. I like how you then have like something on Saturday too, where it almost gives them a little bit of variety too, probably as far as the conditioning stuff, how much conditioning do you think golfers need, and is that something they need? Is that something that they want? Is that something that you like to throw in there? 0:13:30 – Cody Wescott That’s a great question. I love how you word this Something neat or something they want, right, like that’s what they come to us for, right, jeff? It’s like I’m going to tell you what you need, like, do you really want to do this? I hope so. I hope I’m going to get you to buy in and believe what I’m saying and you’re going to get excited and want to do it right, like, yeah, but yeah, so need. I mean I love zone two cardio. That has become like my really my big thing lately is going to keep on to that heart rate zone and you know, if you’re listeners out there, you can just simply like kind of Google zone two cardio and you can quickly figure out what heart rate you need to be in to get into zone two. But golf is long, right, I mean if you’re talking, you know people don’t talk. They think that golf is, like you know, taxing, and they’re right, it’s not. It’s not. You’re not playing a football game, you’re not playing a basketball game, so it’s not taxing in that way. But yeah, you’re out there for a while, I mean if you go warm up and if it’s slow, I mean we’re talking. Like my wife says, I’m out there all day right and she’s not. She’s not wrong. Like you know you know, right, like, if I go warm up for an hour, do my routine and just cause I like it, you know I don’t think you need warm up for an hour, but I like you know I work. I warm up in my gym first, not going to my club I putt, I chip because I just love it, um, and then you know you play and you know what. How long could you be out there? Six hours, right Easy. You’re up there standing, walking around shipping, putting hitting drivers, like, yeah, I think endurance plays a bigger role than people probably want it to want it to be, because I don’t think people love working on their cardio and working on their uh, vo2 max and their um, aerobic conditioning and all that kind of stuff. But I think it plays a huge role and it also plays a pretty good role in in how you’re going to recover and how you’re going to perform in your own workouts. Right, Like you’re. If you’re a better condition, you know, like a, like a heavy set of squats or presses or whatever it is that you’re going to do, like it’s going to help you recover in between those sets too, um, so then you’re able to get stronger and then, um, recovery and your power. Workouts like it benefits everything. 0:15:20 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, you know what that’s a great point that I think is overlooked is is the recovery piece of it and how that you don’t necessarily have to be conditioning yourself for the sport itself when you’re out on the golf course, and that is definitely going to help you. We we just talked to Mitch Sadoski recently talking about how golf is an explosive sport, but it’s also an endurance sport, especially if you’re a high level golf and you’re playing four days in a row. But, from the recovery aspect of during your workouts and from day to day, being in in better cardiovascular shape is absolutely going to help you improve from from set to set, from rep to rep and from tournament day to tournament day and practice session to practice session. 0:15:57 – Cody Wescott So that’s that’s awesome and, and you know, like you know, there’s so many studies out there that prove that. You know, resistance training, cardiovascular training, are like the pillars of longevity, right, and we all want to do this living well thing for a long time and we want to play golf for a long time, Like I want to play golf when I’m a hundred, you know, like, and I think we all do so. You know, if cardiovascular health is going to help me get there, then I better do, I better be doing it. 0:16:25 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t all have to be about you know, from shot to shot, what you’re doing on the golf course, and that’s the piece that I think do myself Most of the professionals in our industry yeah, we want you to lower your handicap, we want you to swing faster, we want you to hit the ball further and straighter, but ultimately, I’d love to see you play another 10, 20, 30, 40 years and do it well too, right? Not not just be out there kind of dinking it around, but be the guy that’s out there in his seventies and eighties and people like Holy cow, can you imagine or can you believe that this guy’s out here doing it? So yeah, that’s who. 0:16:57 – Cody Wescott I want to be right and like. That’s who I want everyone else to be. You know it kills me when I’m out of my club and you know I play with one guy who’s like I’m 37 and he’s like I think he’s almost 50. He’s a pretty good shape, plays really well. And then some of the guys we play with, you know they’re they’re getting a little older, I think that you know they’re in their sixties and you know their their health is, you know they’re overweight, like their their body’s starting to break down a little bit, their back hurts and, you know, sadly, I think they think that they’re going to turn it around somewhere, right, and I’m just like it breaks my heart and I’m like, if you don’t do anything about it, right, like it’s not going to match, you’re not going to get out of a slump right now. Like you know, at 65 years old, I’m sorry, like, unless we like get you moving better and drop some weight and get you stronger and maybe make you faster, like I don’t think it’s going to go up or even plateau, right, like we’re, it’s going to start sliding back and we don’t want that, sadly. 0:17:56 – Jeff Pelizzaro And yeah, and that’s a message that I wish the 35 year olds could hear and project forward right or the 25 year olds, 30, 35, 40, when we tend to get in this, this area of you know raising kids and being at a desk job or whatever your career path is, your family life is we tend to neglect those things, we tend to neglect ourselves, and then you turn into that 65 year old that is still kind of hoping that things will turn around, but it’s like no, the time is now. You got to start doing this stuff Now. Even if you start very simple, right, you start with just some mobility stuff and just getting into the gym a little bit. So that message rings true. 0:18:34 – Cody Wescott Oh yeah, I mean I had a guy worked at a country club in Alexandria, virginia, just right across the Potomac River from Washington DC had a guy mid 80s, you know like 85 years old, his name was Tony. He came in, he worked his ass off, slammed the ball around, I got him on the TRX and did some jump squats and stuff at 85 years old and that man got out there and you know he felt better than ever and so I mean it’s not too, you know. So my message is like yeah, it’s definitely not too late, and like you know people that are around my age or even a little bit younger, like you know, it’s going to be there one day. So you know, don’t let it catch you off guard. 0:19:10 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, yeah, be like Tony no. 0:19:12 – Cody Wescott Tony crushes it. Tony’s got a bitch named after him out there. He’s like oh no, bridge, not a bitch, excuse me. 0:19:17 – Jeff Pelizzaro And he’s like oh yeah, when I’m gone. 0:19:19 – Cody Wescott They’re going to tear that bridge down. I’m like no, not Tony, it’s a great bridge. Like it’s not going anywhere, I use that bridge. 0:19:25 – Jeff Pelizzaro Love it. Yeah, people use it. They can’t tear it down. We need that. Let’s take a second to thank our sponsors over at 1st Phorm, and this week I want to highlight their Formula One post-workout protein shake. I use this thing pretty much every day after my workouts because, let’s face it, being here in a gym working all the time with clients putting on a podcast, it can sometimes be tough to get my protein in on a regular basis, and so I know that with the post-workout shake the Formula One, first of all, it’s fast acting. So right after your workout is a great time to get your protein in to help build your muscles, get yourself stronger and repair what you’ve done in the gym. But also, if you don’t know if you’re going to be able to get your protein in in your regular meals, it’s just a great way to make sure that you’re supplementing and hitting those marks. So be sure to go over to 1stPhorm.com forward slash 18STRONG to get your 1st Phorm Formula One protein shake, and everyone that enters through that link is going to be put into a drawing every single month for free 1st Phorm products. So again, go over to 1stPhorm.com forward slash 18STRONG. So what kind of sports did you play when you’re growing up. Obviously you’re very fit, obviously you’re in the fitness industry, but I assume you played some sports back in the day. And then I want to know what changed as far as your training mentality and how you’ve transitioned yourself into, because I saw on the website that you’ve really amped up your game quite a bit recently too. 0:20:52 – Cody Wescott Yeah, so I mean, growing up I played baseball, basketball. I had a lot of, you know, I had some things happen when I was a kid, some some, some things with my family that really got me distracted For a little while. I think I had the talent, to be honest with you, to play, like you know, after high school and all that kind of stuff, but I just got distracted and I, you know, did some other things that people shouldn’t do. That was a big part of my life. I thought about that on my podcast was like I struggled with drugs and alcohol and things like that in my youth and even in my 20s, but I really found solace in the weight room, like when I was in high school. So, like you know, I’m 37, I’ve been working out since, like I was a freshman at high school. So we’re talking, like you know, 20-something years ago, right, and I just found a love for working out, right, like just lifting weights and I remember just working out with some of my buddies and I just felt it different. Like you know, as soon as I like did call it a bicycle curl for ease, right, I said, buy some curl. And they’re always like man, I can tell in your face that you feel that you know what you’re doing Like, and I just naturally figured it out. And then so I started like training them, you know, to try to get them like learn how to do this stuff. I’d be ripping pages out and muscle fitness magazines I mean, you know, this is 27 years ago I didn’t really, I didn’t have a smartphone to have Google Like. I just went to the store and I took my ripped up muscle fitness magazines of Jay Cutler and Ronnie Coleman and took those into the gym. And then our winter ending coach she was like in his 80s coached a tola and he just yelled at me he’s like don’t do that, you know you’re going to break your arm, like whatever you know. So and I’d be teaching my buddies. I remember this one time I had my buddy come in and the weight room was right right outside the basketball core and I was having us do walking lunges up and down the core and my buddy I don’t know if he ever worked out again his life because he was so sore Like after that maybe he’s never worked out again, but yeah. So I just really found you know, the weight room to be like my place and so, like I, when I was in high school, like I had some weightlifting records for my weight class, which was very light back then, because I’m only like five, six, I was like five, four back then like 120 pounds Almost. I think I almost did like a 400 pound deadlift back then I was able to do like 70 unbroken dips, like you know. It was cool stuff. So I was very, very into that back then. You know so. But then you know I didn’t like go to school for it or anything. You know I’m from Oklahoma. You know, when I I don’t remember like people like being into fitness, like you know, I went to the gym like it wasn’t a personal trainer back then there was no one. I went to the gym. The guy owned it like he would kind of help you out and like his son was around, but like no, there was no trainer. Like there was. This wasn’t a career, you know, I didn’t think it was. So I actually ended up in the restaurant business. I was waiting tables. It was like one of my jobs, you know and I went to the guidance counselor and she’s like, well, what do you like to do? I was like I like to work out and I wait table. She’s like, well, you know, we got a great like hospitality program. You know, I wish she would have been like hey, why don’t you get into this like exercise, science or something you know? But hey, hindsight, 20, 20, it all worked out pretty well for me. But so I was in the referral business for a long time and I actually think that really helped me and be where I am today, because they develop a ton of skills Like, if you’ve ever, have you ever worked in the referral business? 0:24:09 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, yeah. You know, bus tables and all kinds of stuff. 0:24:13 – Cody Wescott Yeah, you know. So, like I was a manager, like you know so. But anyways, and then I was at a gym working out, just like before my shift at work, and the guy comes up and he’s like the fitness manager said hey man, do you want to be a personal trainer? And I was like, okay. I was like, how do I do that? He was like, oh, just get the certification and you know, we’ll set you up with clients. I was like, oh, yeah, those are the golds of Jim. You know, like five years ago. And so, yeah, then I quit doing the restaurant business. I got all into fitness and you know so, back then, you know, like all I really knew how to do was like bodybuilding and powerlifting, like that’s really all I knew. How to lift heavy, I knew how to like get big, that was it. And but then when you get your first client, you know you’re like I’m not going to pay to come see you once a week. I’m like, what are you going to do with them? Am I going to have you do chest day? And then what are you going to do in the next like four? And then what am I going to do next week? I’m going to have you do leg beer. You know, by the end of the month we’re going to give all one month split, yeah, like, so you had to change, you had to figure it out. And I was like, okay, well, this isn’t sustainable for most people. What do we need to do? And I remember my very first fitness manager was wrote down on a piece of paper and this like kind of changed my life. He wrote down he’s like lower core upper, and I was like simple enough, right, and that was like my first like exposure into, like just very basic, like we all know this now, right, but like back then like I didn’t really know. And so, yeah, then I started kind of evolving that it’s like, okay, how can I get people the biggest bank for their buck? How can we get the most results on like once a week, okay, and then some people do twice a week. How can we get a big bank for their buck? Like, what is it going to be? And most people you know we’re talking about general population people, right, like what do they want? They want to lose weight, right, but I don’t control what they put in their mouth, so how do I keep them happy? And it’s like, okay, let’s start focusing on performance Right, and that’s where I’ve so, like a long time ago, I really figured out that to make someone happy and so I get them to continue on this journey, it’s got to be performance based Right, like. But I want to help someone lose weight, then I’ve got to really talk about nutrition. So that’s like where the whole like training for performance thing like really really started for me, like early on in my personal training career, and then I just met people along the way that you know. At the time I didn’t realize they were basically my mentors, but they were guys that like taught me like even more about like strength training and stuff like that. 0:26:31 – Jeff Pelizzaro So did you start working with a lot of athletes at that time period, or was it just more general population that you know wanted to have some sort of performance based training in some capacity? 0:26:41 – Cody Wescott Yeah, so it was. They didn’t know they were. They wanted performance based training. That’s what that’s like when I, you know, like a minute ago it was like what do they want, what do they need? I’m like, well, here’s, you know what you want, what do they need to get there, right? So like, let’s just get you stronger, that’s going to help your quality of life. So like, yeah, at first, like my first, probably three years into the business, right, like I, just general population people, right People, everyday people want to get stronger, injured, you know, wanted to lose weight, just live a better quality of life. And then you know I love golf and I really wanted to, you know, dive into golfers. And so NASM, the National Academy of Sports Medicine, where I got my personal pay or certification and had a golf certification. Did you ever see that? You know? Yeah, yeah. 0:27:27 – Jeff Pelizzaro I didn’t go through it, but I remember that coming out. 0:27:28 – Cody Wescott Yeah, so I did that. I think that was like in 2015. I did that and then I found a few golfers in the gym and like just kind of like begged them to let me like do some stuff, because they weren’t really into training. But I knew because but we had talked about golf before they didn’t want to really want to pay for training. I was like I don’t really care, like just kind of let me try some of this stuff on you. And they just, like you know because, because in Washington this is in I was living in Washington DC at the time that this happened and if you’re familiar with Washington DC, it’s like it’s not a really commuter friendly city. Like you know, it’s tough to go play golf. Like I didn’t have a, I didn’t even have a car. So, like, I took the subway, you know. So like and yeah, we did golf simulator places weren’t really popular back then. Well, like they are now I mean, this is only like seven years ago, but, oh shit, no Longer than that, yeah, it’s 2024, but anyways, they weren’t as accessible. So, like you know, to go play golf I had to literally get on a subway, a bus, and then, you know, or take an Uber and no one really wants to do that Right. So that’s my first like exposure into golfers and I just learned more and more along the way, like doing TPI and all that stuff, to get to where I am now, to where I’m just training or just writing programs for golf. 0:28:39 – Jeff Pelizzaro Right. And then you, you just recently how long ago did you move back to Oklahoma again After you were down in Jupiter? 0:28:46 – Cody Wescott Yes, I mean with Washington DC in 2015, I know 2014 and then moved from. I moved all around. Then we went from Washington DC, my wife and I. Then we moved from there to Austin, texas. That’s when I really started working. You’ve been everywhere. Yeah, that’s when I really started working with a lot of golfers was down in Austin. You know I worked. I partnered with some swing coaches. There’s some guys at a simulator place in Austin called Rock ROK, rock Golf. I met a lot of golfers there. Yeah, I partnered with the swing coaches and trade. I traded out them. I would do sessions with them, I would train them in the gym and then they would give me swing lessons. Oh, nice For a sweet deal, and then then we moved back to Washington DC, Then we moved down to Jupiter, Florida, and now we’re here. So then, back I’m called what they call it boomerang, since I left and came back. So back here. Yeah, been back here a little over a year. 0:29:43 – Jeff Pelizzaro Awesome. 0:29:44 – Cody Wescott Love it here. 0:29:45 – Jeff Pelizzaro So I was kind of I was kind of going through some of your podcasts and you know some of the topics on there really stuck out to me and you know there are questions that people have about you know what is golf training, how do you implement golf training, how does it help your golf swing? And one of the things that you had posed a question of is you know what’s a golf exercise versus what’s a golf drill? Can you break that down a little bit, because it’s kind of a gray area that I think people get confused and, you know, frankly, can be confusing for us coaches as well. 0:30:16 – Cody Wescott Oh yeah, I mean. So, yeah, you’re talking about the episode where I even asked my wife. I was like, hey, like please help me with like explaining this, because it is like very nuanced and like it can be kind of tricky to even explain this, so, yeah, so what I like to think about is like I work with the swing coach, right, he gives me a drill, that is, with a golf club in my hand, for my exact like swing issue. Right, and I think that you know that drill is much better served with a club in my hand. I don’t think I need to go try to turn that drill into grabbing a band or getting a kettle bell or something like that and try to make it into a fancy golf exercise, because it may not give me like enough like stimulus, right, like provide my body with like enough like reason, because we have the reason we exercise is that we give our body a reason to adapt to the exercise we’re doing, right, and recover and things like that. So if I’m taking this drill and like trying to turn it into an exercise, like make that exercise like might not be that stimulating to me, right, and it might not really just do a whole lot for my body. Like, it may not change my central nervous system, my ability, muscle, it might not gain mobility. It might, it’s, it’s going to. It could just end up in no man’s land, right, where, as I’d be much better off just taking his drill with the golf club and doing it a thousand times like he told me to do. Right, instead of like, oh, let me get here, let me grab this band, or let me get a million of the other toys that I had to play with. And try to like, oh, here, what if I, you know, help my, you know, get in my pit depth? What if I do this and grab this kettle bell, but with this band, and you know? But the thing is like, is that again? Is that stuff bad? Like, is it better than getting up off the couch? Absolutely Right. So I think, like, do what I need to do in the gym to make me more mobile, strong, you know, and powerful, right, instead of just messing up his drill that he gave me. If that makes like, yeah, so it’s very nuanced. But like, yeah, I think if you, if you take it out of context and try to turn in something that it shouldn’t be, it could be a problem. 0:32:20 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, it’s like what’s most efficient, right, like what are you best spent? What’s your time best spent on? Is it actually working on the skill or is it trying to come up with a way to kind of mimic it? But, like you said, if it doesn’t really create the adaptation, it’s almost like am I just kind of making stuff up? That is kind of wasting my time, where I could be either doing that drill or I could be lifting heavy or lifting something that’s going to provide a little bit more of that adaptation. 0:32:46 – Cody Wescott Exactly so we can. You know, in social media we can kind of get ourselves in that trap, right, Because you know one of my, you know when you’re, I spent a lot of my time in big box gyms. You know what kind of listeners do you have? Like the other thing, I know what a big box gym is like. 0:33:02 – Jeff Pelizzaro We’re talking like a gold’s gym or like a plan of fitness or yeah, I would say most of the listeners are either kind of the 35 plus golfers or a lot of people in our industry medical pros, fitness pros, all kind of tied into the golf world as well. 0:33:16 – Cody Wescott So like a big box gym, like a gold’s well, a gold’s is a big company. They want to make money, right. So, like one of the things I’ll you know. So, as a trainer, as a fitness manager that I was you are there to make sales and one of the things the guy would tell me is like you know what? Hey, man, I know you’re here. When I was like a, when I was a new trainer, he was like hey, man, I know you’re here to like train people, help them out, like that’s whatever trainer wants. He was like, but you cannot train what you cannot obtain. So like you have to sell him. Or now, in the day of social media, we have to like bring them in somehow. And usually the way you catch a golfer’s attention right is not by doing a 405 pound barbell back squat. It’s going to be by doing something that looks like it will help them with their golf. So I think we all have our guilty of that and like not for a bad reason, right, because it does help. But always tell people it’s kind of like the icing on the cake for like when it comes to golf fitness training, and I saw this firsthand when I worked I’ll just leave the gym nameless. But one of the guys, like you know, posted a lot on social media and it was a lot of this, a lot of the mobility stuff, right. And when the guy came in to work with him, he like put them through his normal workout, which included, like I think it was like Bulgarian split squats. He had him doing co-ops, he had him doing you know, like a trap, bar deadlift or something like you know, just some stuff like that, along with some of the other things. That guy was like no, no, no, man, I can’t hear to do all the stuff on your social media. And I had to listen to him explain to the guy like, hey, no, no, actually, yes, we do that stuff, but here’s like the big chunk of how I train. And so, yeah, I think you know we do it for a reason, so we can obtain eyeballs. And then you get people to trust you and say, hey, yes, this drew you in, but here’s what else we’re going to do and this is why we need to do it. 0:35:03 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, I remember talking to a golf fitness pro that most people listening to this would know who he is. I don’t want to share his name, but him telling me years ago, like you know, you got to give him a little bit of the golfiness, right, because that’s why they’re there. You got to do this. And he’s like, maybe that’s you working on a one legged deadlift kind of position, but maybe you do throw a golf club in their hand, maybe you do, you know, make it a little, a little golf ish, as Charlie Weingroff would say, but because that’s there to give them the buy-in and then you can. You know, we’ve always said here at 18STRONG, we kind of like we lull you in, like you’re saying we lull you in with the golf stuff, but we hopefully provide you with enough value where you then leave with, you know, more strength, more mobility, and you didn’t really know that you were coming for some of that stuff. But you then see the benefit of it and you know the balance and whatever those pieces are. But but yeah, we want to do what we want to do. So, as the clients they’re coming in, they want, they want to maybe hit some balls. They want to maybe you know, put the strap on and pretend like they’re in their golf posture, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you understand, or as long as they understand, like, why we’re doing it and it’s not just because it’s a cool, fancy looking golf move, right? 0:36:17 – Cody Wescott Oh, absolutely, and you know it goes back. I mean, it’s not just with golf, right. I mean, when you know, a big chunk of my career was training people, the general population that wants to lose weight what do most people think they need to do to lose weight? Cardio or something like very high intensity, like get really sweaty. So you know, at the end of the workout, right like we’re like 45, 50, 55 minutes into an hour long workout, what do you need to hit them with? You know you got to get them, got to get them sweaty, because that’s what they want, Right, like there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, like, hey, I just got you through this strength training workout. Here’s going to be the meat potatoes of what we did. But you still have this belief and, like you know, I’m reading a book right now and, like you know, one of his laws is, like you know, you can’t change someone’s belief. And if people believe that they need to do this golf exercise or they need to do some cardio to lose weight, throw it in there, right, like let them do it because they believe that and that helps them like get to their end goal. And you know so, fitness is so much of a mind game, right. Two like not only I probably didn’t say game, but it’s like you know it’s, it’s a lot of it is up here. 0:37:21 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, and I truly believe that if that person doesn’t really know what the intention of them, whatever exercise program it is that they’re doing, they won’t get that result because it’s not focused in on that, even if they’re maybe doing the same exercises as somebody else that’s there for that goal. There’s something about you know that whole mind-body connection, or just connecting with the purpose of it. That kind of makes you do the other little ancillary things that you don’t even think about to get you closer to that goal. So, speaking of that, one other podcast topic that you had on your show was the idea of gaining muscle. So you know, I think that, first of all, this demographic often thinks that gaining muscle is kind of in the past. You know the guys that are at 35, 40, 45 plus. But then, especially if you’re on a golf program, is it possible to still gain muscle while still helping your golf game? 0:38:12 – Cody Wescott Yeah, I mean I’m not going to say her flex on camera, but I think so. You know, a lot of it has to do with nutrition, right, like how you’re going, adequate protein, things like that to help you build lean tissue, right. But you know, when you progressively overload and you, you know, I think a lot of the. You know we used to think that muscle was built like mainly with volume, right, like high volume, like three sets of 10 or four sets of 10 was kind of like the name of the game and the bodybuilder world, right, those types of rep ranges to get adequate muscle hypertrophy. But you know, it’s just, it’s mechanical tension, and so you got to get in some hard reps, like in my, in my programs, I make sure to put in, you know, like RPE or like reps in reserve, like you know the rate of perceived exertion or reps in reserve, so that way you can get that, you know, close to failure, so that way you can build muscle mass right, and it’s going to look. I think what’s interesting is people don’t understand that that muscle looks different on everybody, right, like whatever your body composition is, like I have short limbs, like I’m only five, six, and like I have short arms. I have short legs. Like it looks like I have a, you know it looks like I’m huge, but like I mean or not huge, but I have a small area here to pack in the muscle, right, I’m not tall, you know, so like, but it just looks different on everyone. I think the people miss the nutrition part and you know I know some people are afraid to bulk up. Like I don’t need to, you know, get all big and stuff like that, and it’s like, trust me, like it’s really not going to happen as much as I would love it to happen, cause like I would be freaking jacked if I could get any you know like get any bigger, like I would be there because that’s what I want, cause I like that, cause I’m I’m a meathead at heart, right, but I’m doing all specific training. Yeah, I mean, I get that all the time where people like, hey, you know, here I’m doing your like it’s usually cause I offer a free trial. So people like start the trial and like, hey, man, there’s only like two chest exercises in here and I don’t see any arms. Like you know what? Like I want that stuff. Like can I add that in? I’m like why don’t you just give it a shot here? We got heavy pulls, we got tons of rowing, there’s pressing, there’s pushups, there’s all this kind of stuff. Like we’ve got swaths, this total body. You are going to build muscle. If you, if you, if you, if you do the workouts and you check the box and you mail it in, you’re not, you know you’re not going to get anything Right, like, even if you do that with mobility, like mobility is like I think you had a doctor, kyle, on here, right, yeah, yeah, you even talked about getting sore during mobility. I loved hearing that. Like, yeah, you got to push your mobility right. Like you know, you shouldn’t check in anything or check the box on anything. Like go hard on your mobility, like go for it. Same thing with like your power, like all your, all your exercises should be like you should be like get putting some effort into it and your body will respond to that if you give it like proper nutrients to build that up. And so I think, yeah, that’s one thing you know in my programs. Like my wife, my wife’s a nutrition coach. She wrote like an ebook that goes along with our, our lip heavy, swing fast. It’s called eat to perform. It’s not only like, it’s your nutrition, help your body composition, but it also helps your performance too. So very important. But yes, to answer your question, go all the way back around. I straw, I mean I’m, I feel like I’m living proof of like yeah, you can get pretty good sized muscles from doing a golf specific program. 0:41:31 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, and the fact that when you do, or if you do, have a good amount of muscle mass, you can still move very well. You watch your golf swing. On some of your videos you crush a ball. I saw what it was 171 ball speed on the one. Just the one swing that I saw on the website. 0:41:47 – Cody Wescott Oh yeah. 0:41:49 – Jeff Pelizzaro I’m like people think that big, strong, athletic-looking builds may not be able to move very well through a golf swing. But when you’re doing the right things, you’re training the right way and you’re not even though you know meet heads at heart even, but you know doing it the right way for the golf swing, you can still create a lot of movement and mobility and that athletic motion without suffering, even though you’re building muscle mass. 0:42:12 – Cody Wescott Yeah, and I think you know one of the topics I hammer on a lot is like is bodybuilding, because bodybuilding is popular and I think that’s what a lot of people just realize. I think that’s like the only way to train right. It’s like leg day, back day, chest day, stuff like that. Yeah, I think the common misconception out there is that like a bodybuilder, someone with a lot of muscle, is like not flexible or they’re not mobile. But I can show you tons of pictures online of like Roddy Coleman you know he is just massive man. Oh yeah, he can like do the splits Right. Like these guys are super mo they run into a problem right when their soft tissue gets so big that like say, like you know, their biceps and their pecs like hit each other and they can’t like physically grip like a golf club right. Like they are so massive that they like they’re handsy like this close together. I know a guy like that. He was my physical therapist in down in Jupiter and that’s only when it becomes a problem and most people like, unless they take a little bit of something something you know I’m talking about like they’re never, ever going to get that close right. And like I’m a decent sized guy and, like I told my swing coach, justin Kraft, I was like hey, man, look at my swing, my body can do whatever you tell me it needs to do. Like I’m mobile, I can get in whatever position. So don’t hold back. Like if I need to rotate my hip and you know, rotate my thoracic spine and get good hip depth and do this and do that. Like tell me and I will figure it. My body can get there, I just don’t learn how to do it. 0:43:42 – Jeff Pelizzaro There’s another point that you’ve made that I really like, and some of the coaches on that are listening to this may not love that we bring this up, but you say that you don’t need a personal trainer. 0:43:54 – Cody Wescott Right Like yeah. 0:43:56 – Jeff Pelizzaro So let’s talk about that a little bit, because I’ve had conversations about this and this is coming from a guy that still works with a lot of people in the gym on a daily basis. I still do a lot of in-person training, but I think there’s a lot to be said for this statement of that people don’t need a personal trainer. 0:44:15 – Cody Wescott Yeah, so where do I begin with that? 0:44:17 – Jeff Pelizzaro Wherever you want man, Just let it run. 0:44:18 – Cody Wescott You’re not going to link my phone over on here. Are you Like people harassing? 0:44:23 – Jeff Pelizzaro me. No, you’re just your social media. 0:44:25 – Cody Wescott Yeah, that’s fine, those are full of stuff anyways. Yeah, so I mean, I was a personal trainer for a long time. I still am, right, and I get it Like it’s a business, absolutely. But I always felt my job was to be an educator and not to like overly educate and talk, like you’ll probably notice, Like I don’t think I’ve said a very big word yet and I probably won’t, just because that’s not how I speak to people and I don’t speak that way to my clients, like I want to educate them, like here’s why we’re doing this, here’s how you need to do it, because everyone needs to do it differently, right, like everyone needs a squat, but you don’t have to back squat, but everyone should squat or split squat or whatever, and each person is going to do it differently just because of the way they move and the way their anatomy is, and so on and so forth. So my job is an educator and I always feel that you know that old saying like you can teach a man to fish all that you know, whatever. Yep, everyone knows how that goes. So I always feel like that was my job. Now here’s where, like now, personal training is expensive and if someone can afford it and they enjoy you right, they should keep training with you. Like I always told my clients, like I am going and this was like one of my sales pitches. Part of it I was like, hey, I’m going to teach you enough to where you can do this on your own. Now my job is also to have you enjoy working with me so much. See the results and see that I can keep bringing value to the table, that you still keep paying me, right, and the people that people will believe that, like, they appreciate the honesty, like, okay, yeah, you know I can afford to keep paying you. And there’s also the accountability piece and, like you know, you do get better results. Like when someone is watching you and pushing you and motivating you and you’re held accountable to a schedule. Like you’re not going to, you know, because I think most trainers probably have a cancellation policy. Right, you make that appointment, you are going to show up or else you’re going to lose your $150 or whatever it is that you paying, you know. So all that stuff plays a part of it. But to actually do the exercise, I feel like my job should have been to teach you enough to do it on your own, and then we can, and then you know then that person because again, I talked about the beginning of the show like you can only as a personal trainer, like 30, 40 sessions a week is like 12 people, and if you’re a good trainer, you’ve probably got people that are also waiting to get in your door. So now, so it’s like the business part of it I want to take money out of personal trainers pockets. Like now you move this person that was trading with you one-on-one to to programming right, like use an app. There’s a ton of great apps out there to set people up on customized programming if you want there, that that’s a way to you know, to to streamline your business right, to scale your business was the word I’m looking for. And then now you take that new person in it right, and then help them the same way. So, like that’s what I’ve always believed. Now, granted, I was able to keep people for a long time because, like, they just like hey, man, now I’m cranky paying you because that’s why easier for me to just pay you and people have the means they’ll, they’ll do it. 0:47:26 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, and I mean just to. To second that, there’s the accountability piece. Some people are just paying because they want. They want that meeting or you know that appointment on their calendar. They know I’ve got, I’ve got a guy, just like that. He’s like I know that I could do most of this myself, but I’m not going to do it by myself and having you on the calendar make sure that I do it to maybe three times a week. But I am 100% with you that our job as coaches is to help educate and teach people to take, take responsibility for themselves. And I can personally say that from experience. I’ve seen clients of mine that I’ve worked with continuously and then once they decided that you know what I can, I can take some responsibility here and do this, and then they really turned it on and then they’re more, you know, they’re more bought in, they start to do more, they start to kind of start living the lifestyle a little bit more. And I think it’s it’s once the person ends up making that decision that hey, this is on me, this isn’t on Cody, this isn’t on Jeff, this isn’t on whatever the coach, but I got to get in there and do it and maybe they’re still coming in once a week, twice a week, but them getting on doing it on on their own too. You know that’s, and I, I’m with you. I feel like it’s our job, and sometimes I see that the people that end up taking on that responsibility, that’s when they really start to see like Holy shit, this is, this stuff’s working and I’m going all in. 0:48:49 – Cody Wescott Yeah, and you can group them together Like right, like if you had a couple of guys like I had a couple of guys that were kind of like that, like hey, I could probably do this on my own, and like I’m like, well, this other guy is doing pretty much the same thing you’re doing. Once you guys start working out together and then I trained them together. You know that was like one on two, so I might my other time opened up for someone else, and then now they do it on their own. And then I had a client. You know before that they’re my friends now. Um, you know she’s the. The wife signed up the husband and to help him get out of a rut. He was, he was really stressed at work and stuff like that. And she even told, and then you know, he would come, he would come straight from work, bit to me about his day. I’d like, okay, cool, I gave you that five minutes, let’s get to work now. And he’d leave, you know, happy as shit, and she would text me afterwards. She’s like, oh my God, she was like I will, I will just pay for this forever, cause he comes home now, he’s in a good mood, I don’t have to deal with, like what you just went through, like that first few minutes, like my life’s better, his life’s better, like I’ll just pay for this. You know never. You never know like what kind of effect you’re going to have. 0:49:54 – Jeff Pelizzaro Yeah, and and back to your hospital hospitality background, like I think that’s where you know people that have have backgrounds and stuff like that. And you know my, my initial degree in school is psychology and I I feel like I got so much, so much out of my psychology degree compared to my physical therapy degree just with interacting with people and being able to do that because, face it, we’re like bartenders, we’re like, you know, hairdressers, where people come and, yeah, they’re doing their workouts, but some of it is it’s almost like just a session where they can just kind of let some things go, they can talk to us about stuff, and that can be just as beneficial as the workout that they get for real. 0:50:32 – Cody Wescott Yeah, I mean yeah, at the end of the day, we’re just trying to help people’s quality of life and help them play better golf too. And you know, like you know so great that it all just kind of works together. And yeah, like you know, they make like lifelong friends. Like I’m still. I still talk to these people, like actually they were in my most recent like video shoot that I did down in Austin and I called them up and say, hey, I need some, I need some subjects. You know like come, come, get in. Like you know, so it’s, it’s great. 0:50:57 – Jeff Pelizzaro Cool. All righ

Guest: Dr. Jason Selk (Peak Performance Coach, Sports Psychologist, Best Selling Author) Host: Jeff Pelizzaro Episode Number: 367 Podcast: The 18STRONG Podcast Partners: Linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul], 1stPhorm [http://1stPhorm.com/18strong] ---------------------------------------- SUMMARY Have you ever caught yourself stuck on the hamster wheel of negative thinking when facing a challenge? Dr. Jason Selk (Full Bio Below), a master of sports psychology and performance coaching, joins us to turn that wheel in a new direction with his game-changing concept: Relentless Solution Focus (RSF). Together, we unpack the transformative power of pivoting from problem-centric to solution-based thinking — a skill that not only enhances mental toughness but also potentially adds years to your life. Imagine your brain as an athlete; with the right training, it can muscle out stress-inducing thoughts and replace them with a winning strategy. Throughout our discussion, Dr. Selk provides actionable techniques to rewire your brain for success. These include daily mental exercises and success logs aimed at fostering positive neural pathways. Moreover, we explore real-life triumphs in the sports arena where a steadfast commitment to solutions has led to unprecedented victories, showcasing the profound impact of RSF in high-pressure environments. As we wrap up our chat with Dr. Selk, the conversation shifts to the greens, where golfers know all too well the mental game’s highs and lows. We talk about the importance of a clear mindset and structured goal setting, taking a leaf from Stephen Covey’s book on proactivity. Whether you’re looking to shave strokes off your game or elevate your professional performance, embracing an RSF mentality could be your ticket to resilience and success. So, grab your clubs and your headphones, and get ready to play your best round yet, both in life and on the course. DR. JASON SELK BIO * Dr. Jason Selk served as the Director of Mental Training for the St. Louis Cardinals, helping them win two World Series championships in six years. * He assists athletes, business leaders, and salespeople in developing mental toughness, confidence, and focus. * Dr. Selk is a licensed mental health professional with a doctorate in counseling and sports psychology from the University of Missouri. * He has worked with notable companies like Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, Merrill Lynch, Bacardi, and Enterprise Rent-a-Car. * Dr. Selk is a regular contributor to Forbes and Inc., featured in various publications, and has appeared on major television and radio networks. * In 2022, he co-founded the Level Up app for performance coaching. * His books, including “Relentless Solution Focus,” “Executive Toughness,” “10-Minute Toughness,” and “Organize Tomorrow Today,” have received acclaim and best-seller status. ---------------------------------------- MAIN TOPICS (00:03) Mental Toughness and Solution Focus Dr. Jason Selk discusses the benefits of Relentless Solution Focus and practical strategies to enhance mental toughness. (12:39) Changing Brain Biology to Improve Performance RSF thinking can improve performance by countering the caudate loop and shifting from PCT, as seen in sports teams’ success. (24:04) Golf Performance Thoughts and Control Mental focus and thought patterns impact golf performance, including anger and negative thinking. Performance statements and avoiding negative discussions are important. (30:40) Being Proactive, Setting Goals Proactive goal-setting is crucial for personal and professional development, with process goals being the key to success. (40:57) Relentless Solution Focus and 18STRONG Dr. Selk discusses Relentless Solution Focus and its application to improve mental toughness and performance in golf and life. ---------------------------------------- FOLLOW DR. JASON SELK * Instagram: @drjasonselk [https://www.instagram.com/drjasonselk/] * Website: JasonSelk.com [https://www.jasonselk.com/] * Relentless Solution Focus Book [https://amzn.to/47PZeeY] * Dr. Selk’s other books [https://amzn.to/48NS2RM] LINKS MENTIONED How to Win Friends and Influence People [https://amzn.to/4bsmZge] – Dale Carnegie ---------------------------------------- EPISODE PARTNERS: linksoul [https://18strong.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/linksoul-logo-vector.png] LINKSOUL: For your 20% discount on LINKSOUL gear, go to 18strong.com/linksoul [http://18strong.com/linksoul] or click the logo above. 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(CLICK THE “+” 👉🏻 [https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f449-1f3fb.png]) Jeff Pelizzaro: [00:00:00] The 18STRONG Podcast episode number 367 with Dr. Jason Selk, sports psychologist and performance coach. What’s up guys. Welcome back to the 18STRONG Podcast where we’re here to help you build a stronger game because we believe every golfer deserves to play better longer. This week we have a special guest, Dr. Jason Selk in studio to talk about his book, Relentless Solution Focus. And really just to talk about the RSF mentality, which is getting out of the cycle of thinking of our problems all the time, which tends to get us in trouble on and off the golf course and learning how to truly focus on the solutions that are going to resolve those problems or at least pieces of those [00:01:00] problems. So it’s learning how to shift your focus from the problem over to the solution. This is the number one characteristic of mental toughness, which Jason’s going to explain in this episode. He also teaches us not just how to understand this. The knowledge of it, but also how to take action and truly train our brains to do that. Just like you would train your muscles. So you really enjoy this episode with Jason. Our partners over at Link Soul have been providing us with the best apparel for both on the course and off the course from polos to t shirts like the one I have on right now. Everything that they have is meant to be worn from the golf course to wherever you’re going next, whether that be casual, whether that be to the beach. There’s all different options over there. So go to 18strong. com slash Linksoul. You’ll get 20 percent off of anything in your cart over on Linksoul’s website. So again, 18strong. com slash Linksoul for our favorite brand of apparel for anything on the golf course and off. Now let’s get to this week’s interview.[00:02:00] Dr. Silk, welcome to the 18STRONG Podcast. Jeff, Dr. Jason Selk: thanks for having me. As I said, you gotta please call me Jason. Absolutely, Jeff Pelizzaro: absolutely. First and foremost, this book, your book, Relentless Solution Focus, has been recommended several times on our last couple of podcasts. And it just happens that you’re a St. Louis guy, you live not too far down the road, and you were nice enough to come into the studio. So I can’t wait to dig into this, literally just finished it this morning, and but I want to talk to you first of all and foremost about mental toughness. Define mental toughness for us to just kick off the show. Dr. Jason Selk: We’re going to get right to it, huh? Yeah, for sure. I have had, hundreds of definitions of mental toughness over the last 25 years, but I think the one for me that sticks the most is the mind’s ability, To stay focused on solutions, especially in the face of adversity. Nobody needs mental toughness when the scoreboard is in your favor.[00:03:00] It’s when you’re losing by two or three runs, you’re down to your last out. It’s when your bank account is dwindling and you’re not sure how your pipeline is going to fill back up. It’s when you’re in a relationship and it’s not as easy as it used to be. I think those are the times where People really need mental toughness. Jeff Pelizzaro: And one of the most crucial pieces of the book is the fact that most of the time we tend to focus on the things that are going wrong the problems that we have. Can you speak a little bit to really the, that’s the big piece and some of the pieces that we can dive into to help. Dr. Jason Selk: Yeah, I think it’s important to normalize for people that, unfortunately, the way our brains are built, it is completely normal, biologically speaking, to focus on the problem. It’s called PCT, [00:04:00] problem centric thinking. Hundreds of years ago, it was necessary for the advancement of the species. That, if we weren’t always worried about the threat that was lurking in the bushes, then we were more than likely going to end up in the lion’s den. And so hundreds of years ago, it was critical for survival, for literally, for our species to advance. Fast forward hundreds of years, and we live in a very safe time now, comparatively speaking, and so that same PCT tendency Even though it, hundreds of years ago, was so good for us, it’s now so bad for us. We just went through this worldwide pandemic, and the truth of the matter is, PCT will take more lives by far than any pandemic, hopefully, that we ever face. Certainly anything we’ve ever faced. Because we actually, when we allow our minds to do what’s totally [00:05:00] normal, which is Focus on the problem. The brain releases a neurotransmitter called cortisol. Cortisol, it’s the punctuation of fight or flight. And that is where, the advancement or the survival of the species was affected in such a positive way, was us living a lot of our lives in that fight or flight mode. However, when that cortisol goes in the bloodstream, it’s a toxin for us. It causes all feelings of stress. anxiety, fear, anger, depression, guilt, but it literally is like a poison. Now, the good thing is that when the cortisol goes in, it’s such a low dose, but shoot, if you inject yourself with low doses of poison, even if it’s just small amounts and low doses over time, that’s going to get you. And here’s what I tell you, people with. RSF and RSF is, it’s the title of the book, relentless Solution Focus. I think you could [00:06:00] interchange RSF for mental toughness. I really think they’re almost synonymous. So a person with RSF or a person with mental toughness, biologically speaking, is going to live on average 14 years longer. Wow. It’s crazy. You think about 14 years, think, what were you doing 14 years ago? That’s a long time. And. The kicker is not only will you live significantly longer, but scientifically proven again that you’re going to have measurable increases in health, happiness, and success, is if you can really learn to keep the mind away from that biologically normal PCT, which we know, with some training, doesn’t take major amounts, some, we can actually train PCT to go away And be replaced with RSF. So I could say PCT is mental weakness and I could [00:07:00] say RSF is mental toughness. With training, we can all become mentally tough, just as. When I’m born, my bicep is completely weak, but with training, I can make that guy pretty strong. With training. Yeah, and that’s Jeff Pelizzaro: the big piece that I took out of it is, mental toughness to me, that’s a noun, right? But RSF is you have to take action too. You can read all the books. And one of the big pieces of your book is that it’s not just about the knowledge. You’re actually giving a way for us to train. And I remember the story in there about when you were out on your deck and came up with the idea of Hey, we train our bodies. We have to train our mind. And so speak to how important the action piece is. We can hear it all though. We hear it all the time, but it Dr. Jason Selk: really hits home. Yeah, I think it’s why I’ve had so much success in my career. I know it’s what got me the job at the St. Louis Cardinals back in 2006. That, I think you get a lot of people in the mental health field. [00:08:00] And, maybe you say in the sports psychology world where it’s very much, let me teach you certain things. And I learned a long time ago, knowing something does nothing, doing something does. And again, if you look at, The biology of the brain. That’s the part I think people must understand that all day long I can pep talk you to be strong. Jeff, you know a lot about making the body strong That’s really your bread and butter. You could teach me so many things about having strong biceps or strong legs But until I get my butt up off this chair and go out there and start doing some of the exercises nothing changes and I know You know with my approach, a mental workout, it is a, when I was working with the Cardinals, it was three minutes and 40 seconds. People in the business world, it’s a minute and 40 seconds. And there are biological reasons, I need to, with an athlete, do enough visualization where it actually starts to create muscle memory. And we know [00:09:00] you can do that. In the business world, we don’t need muscle memory. We just really need that mental memory. So we don’t need to have it as long. But, again, it’s not a pep talk. Mental toughness is no more a pep talk than physical toughness is. However, you got most people like me. are going to tell you a pep talk will do it. And I would just challenge you. And I think this is why in my career, the people I’ve worked with have had a lot of success that we don’t talk about it. We do it, we train it. And once you train it, you really can’t. Not have it there when you want it. Jeff Pelizzaro: Can you break down a little bit of what RSF stands for? How do you go from that PCT thinking to more of the solution focused thinking? Dr. Jason Selk: Yeah, so just definition, RSF is Relentless Solution Focus. And the definition I use is within 60 seconds replacing all negative or problem focused thought with Solution focused thinking, the reason we want to do it [00:10:00] quickly, the 60 seconds and I don’t know that people need to get their stopwatches out or protractors out, but the whole idea is to move your thoughts from problem to solution and do it quickly because the longer I stay focused on the problem, the more that cortisol is being pushed into the bloodstream. Now, I told you, cortisol makes you feel like garbage, but it also makes you stupid. If you think about fight or flight, your brain, the essence of fight or flight is your brain is just losing its ability for detailed thinking. Translation to me is, you become dumb. And I know this, if I’m trying to solve a problem, I need to be as smart as possible. So I want to, as quickly as possible, start working on the solution. But again, it’s completely abnormal. It’s biologically ingrained for me to think about the problem. And then most people believe, and I call this the great myth, that most people believe if you start thinking about a problem, it will naturally [00:11:00] lead you to a solution. And there’s just no empirical evidence anywhere to support that. When I first started I was doing a lot of marriage counseling. I was taking any, anyone who needed my services. I specialized in sport, but I had to pay the bills and I was doing marriage counseling. I was doing drug and alcohol counseling. I did anything any mental health person could or would do, I was doing. And so I had this couple and they were two physicians. They’d been married 30 years. Living in separate bedrooms for the last 10 years. . But I thought, okay, no problem. I, they train you something in, in in graduate school for marriage counseling. It’s called the ABCs of Communication. They’re still teaching this today. By the way, the A is you learn to say to your spouse, I feel B is when you see is in this situation. So these two come into the office and I’m really optimistic. [00:12:00] And I know they’re not doing very well, but I’ve got the ABCs, I’m gonna have them back in the rack in no time, no problem, right? So they sit down and I lay the ABCs on them, and World War III broke out. And I couldn’t control it, and they left the office, and I was very concerned. I thought I’m trying to build a practice here, and if people come in and they have 10 problems, and they leave and they’ve got 14 problems, They’re going to stop coming in pretty quickly and above and beyond that, I just, I want to help people. And so I started thinking, what did I just do? And thankfully I had this training with PCT and understood that PCT was this thing. And the ABCs are forcing people into that PCT mode. And I saw it in real life. You talk about the problems, you’re going to keep talking about the problems. And if you look at the brain, how the biology works, it’s called the caudate. It’s a little piece of your brain, and it’s built to loop, and that’s really that safety of the species [00:13:00] that I know there’s a lion over there, and I’m trying to build a shelter over here, but my brain keeps looping back to the lion, so that I don’t forget about it, because people are easily distracted, but we have a built in loop that will keep driving us back to our problems, so it’s pretty cool. What we have to do to be able to leave the PCT thought is we have to actually train the brain. Now the good news is there are certain elements of training mentally speaking that you can actually stop that loop from happening. You can cause it to have atrophy, if you will, and then you strengthen another neural pattern. And really it is, there’s a couple of things. One would be the mental workout, which is, I talked about a little bit before. It’s probably a little bit too heavy to get into, but it’s only a minute and 40 seconds daily. And I try to do it at least three times a week. And then you’ve got what are called success logs. And this is 30 seconds, and if you do those three times a week, biologically speaking, if you look at the science, you can’t stop the brain from [00:14:00] moving forward with its ability to be more RSF than PCT. So for me, because I’ve been doing this stuff for so long, When I’m around PCT, it’s just like a, it’s like somebody, I, it’s, I’m so aware of it now. It’s all over the place. So I try not to let it bother me, but I’m very aware of it. And even in my own world, when it shows up, it feels now foreign to me. I will not put much time or energy thinking, talking, behaving in that PCT mode. Here are the three questions. One. What did I do well today? Write down on a daily basis, do it three times a week, three things you did well. I’m just curious. When’s the last time you actually recognized what you did well? It’s pretty abnormal. Okay? Second question. What’s one thing you want to improve? Third question. What’s one action step you can take to make the improvement? And if you ask those questions three times a week, you create neural pathways. Your brain starts to lean into those neural pathways. That’s RSF thinking. What’s going [00:15:00] well? What do I want to improve? How am I going to make the improvement? The normal brain thinks, overlook all the good stuff, and zero in on your imperfections. You want to screw yourself up? You want to ruin your performance? Let yourself do that. I guarantee you, give me two athletes. One that doesn’t have any training, and one that will just start doing success logs and mental workouts. If they have the same skill set, there will be no comparison in two to three months. No way. And the more pressure you put on it The better my guy’s gonna perform. Sure. No doubt about it. It’s just changing the biology of the brain. It’s like you, take two athletes with the same skill set, make one of them physically stronger. Who’s gonna do better? Yeah. It’s not even a fair fight. And again, I’ve been really lucky in my career. I was with the Cardinals for six years. We win two World Series. I started with Auburn baseball a couple years ago. Predicted to be last in the SEC. We took fifth in the country. Started working with SMU’s football team last year. I’m not trying to get [00:16:00] back in the sports world, so people watching this, please, that’s not my goal. But it was a personal thing to get me back in with Auburn and SMU. But SMU hadn’t won an AAC championship in 40 years. 4 0. And we won it this year. Oh my gosh. Congratulations. Thank you. I’m not saying it to pat myself on the back. I’m just saying, it’s biology. If you change biology for the better, You’re going to have a much better chance of winning in head to head competition. Perfect. Jeff Pelizzaro: When we get focused on problems, and I’m speaking for myself too, it’s really easy to perseverate on it, like you said, the whole loop, but I feel like it’s also really easy to let that kind of snowball, and you tell a couple stories of how it snowballs from one little thing, and then all of a sudden My life is in a terrible place and I’m, and then the whole neurological and psychological physiology starts to happen too. So when, one thing that was refreshing to me, that You point out in the book is you don’t have to solve all your problems [00:17:00] either is pick one thing and you don’t have to solve that problem. You have to just take that one little piece and move forward. No Dr. Jason Selk: doubt. And if you think about whether it be competition or a relationship interaction, you’re right. It starts with one little mistake and then you’re done. Gets a little bit worse. Your performance gets a little bit worse. Performance gets a little bit worse. And every time performance gets a little bit worse, obviously the problem gains more and more momentum. So all you have to realize is And this is the hardest part is, you got to be able to recognize when it’s happening. That’s the hardest part because biologically you’re trying to recognize something that you’re built to do. It’s very difficult. It’s so normal to just get pulled into that caudate loop and let that one little problem or mistake start to snowball. So what we really want to do is, as quickly as we can, [00:18:00] interrupt that loop. And it’s simple. The interruption, but again, you first have to recognize, Okay, I’m focused on a problem and there is absolutely nothing positive that’s going to come from this. And I want to be very clear when I say this. Because some people believe. That by focusing on the problem, that’s where the value is. You do your own homework. Find some empirical evidence anywhere. If you find it, please email me because I need to see it. I’ve been searching for 20 years now and I’m just going to tell people there is no empirical evidence that focusing on the problem is going to lead to the solution or improve the performance. In fact, it’s the absolute contrary. It’s gonna totally start to devastate you. The first step is you gotta recognize, okay, my mind’s focused on the problem. And as easy as it sounds, it’s actually quite difficult. That’s where the training comes in. That’s if you have a little bit of that mental toughness, that neural patterning of the other stuff, this problem [00:19:00] centric pattern starts to seem a little bit foreign. And then you just simply, with one simple question, you What’s one thing I can do, right now, that could make this better. And I’m a big believer, I tell the Nando Parado story about one inch. Just look for an inch of improvement. Because if there’s a problem, and you can break the problem loop, And start to create momentum forward, then we start to have momentum moving in the right direction instead of momentum moving around in circles, or in this case, the wrong direction. What is one thing? Start looking for two or three things, we’re screwed. Start looking for the mile of improvement, we’re done. Find one thing, one inch, and you become relentless about one thing, one inch. You’ll love the results. Love the results. You were talking Jeff Pelizzaro: about the physiological changes, the cortisol, and I would imagine, and this kind of, since reading this, [00:20:00] what I’ve tried to pay attention to is, when I do start to get a little bit of that feeling starting to wor that’s almost you can use that as your trigger, right? Oh, I’m heading in the wrong path. At least for me, that was like, okay. I gotta, I got my 60 seconds. I gotta now pull out my sheet and figure out what’s the one thing. Dr. Jason Selk: Yeah, so if you just think right now, in the last 24 hours, how often have you experienced stress? You don’t have to answer. It’s a little bit rhetorical, but I want the listeners to think too. Were there three or four times that jump out? Was it one time that lasted for a couple hours? Was it 20 times, and anytime you experience that stress, you know your brain’s focused on the problem. We’re not even biologically able to experience stress, anxiety, fear, anger, depression, guilt. Those are what I call the nasty six. You can’t experience those without the cortisol. And the cortisol doesn’t go in without the [00:21:00] mind first focusing on a problem. So the alarm system, really the built in biological alarm that we all have is, The experience of any negative emotion and you think anytime you experience stress is an opportunity For you to start working on a solution. You just you know, you got to start looking out for stress and don’t give yourself permission stress gets a really bad name stress is actually if you think about it on a one to ten scale one two, three and four levels of stress Without them, we’re dead. I drove over here and I’m not the, I was on the phone playing on the radio on the way over here and without two or three, on that level of stress. I’m going all over, smashing into things. So 1, 2, 3, 4, I would say are healthy levels of stress. You’re not going to feel any negative emotion. It just keeps you on the correct decision making path. 5, 6, 7, [00:22:00] 8, 9, 10, all that. I want people to start viewing as unacceptable. It’s unhealthy. When you start to feel that 10, that’s when you’re self injecting cortisol. It’s like putting a poison or a toxin in you. That’s when you got to say, okay, wait, stop. I know I’m focused on a problem, I don’t even need to know exactly what the problem is, just here’s the question. What’s one thing I can do right now that could make this one inch better? And start putting your energy into that. Jeff Pelizzaro: Let’s take a second to thank our sponsors over at FirstForm. And this week I want to highlight their Formula One Post Workout Protein Shake. I use this thing pretty much every day after my workouts because, let’s face it, being here in the gym, working all the time with clients. putting on a podcast. It can sometimes be tough to get my protein in on a regular basis. And so I know that with the post workout shake, the Formula One, first of all, it’s fast acting. So right after your workout is a great time to get your protein in to help build your muscles, get yourself stronger, and repair what you’ve done in the gym. But [00:23:00] also, if you don’t know if you’re going to be able to get your protein in your regular meals, it’s just a great way to make sure that you’re supplementing and hitting those marks. So be sure to go over to FirstForm. com. So let’s shift it now to, to the golf world. I know you’ve worked with tons of athletes, I’m sure you’ve worked with quite a few golfers. So how does this show up in, in our lives? On the golf course, in our training sessions, in our practice sessions and, what’s, what are the things that first get us stuck, and then how do we start moving with the Dr. Jason Selk: RSF? Alright, so two, and I’ll just generalize here, but have you ever broken a club, Jeff? No. Have you ever thrown a club? Jeff Pelizzaro: I don’t think so. Okay. But come, but maybe a little, Dr. Jason Selk: You understand the ground. Yeah, absolutely. That’d be [00:24:00] one thing. Anytime you’re showing anger, where do you think your brain is? You’re not PCT for sure. There’s no doubt. It’s got a hold of you and you’ve let that, if we’re looking at anger on the one to 10, you’re at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. When you’re throwing clubs, you’re screaming cuss words, you’re grouchy. , any of that stuff, you’re on PCT here. Here’s the other one. The don’t thinking, don’t. Hit it in the water. Don’t go left. Don’t slice. Don’t screw this up. Here’s another one. Now, it’s not quite as evident, but when you’re starting to calculate the final score. You’re on 16 and you’re saying to yourself if this, then This is where I’m going to be when I get in the clubhouse. Anytime you’re doing that sort of stuff, any of those three, I would tell you, you got your brain focused on the wrong stuff. And so you, okay what am I supposed to focus on? Because I could say to you all day long, Don’t think about a pink elephant with blue running shoes. And I know people listening, [00:25:00] I just said, don’t think about the pink elephant with blue running shoes, and that’s probably exactly what crossed your mind. So you gotta, instead of thinking about the pink elephant, you have to have something to think about. So I’ll do it again. This time I’m going to tell you, don’t think about a pink elephant. This time I want you to think, what’s your favorite color? What is your favorite color? Green. Alright, I want you to think about a big, beautiful, green, hot air balloon. Yeah. Alright, so don’t think about a pink elephant with blue running shoes. Yeah. You got the hot air balloon? Yeah, got it. Don’t let a pink elephant with blue running shoes get into your mind. Yeah. Okay, so RSF is the green hot air balloon. But you obviously, there is value in just not thinking about your problems, but I don’t want to be that professional. I want to know what’s the most valuable thought control. Part of thought control is stop thinking about the negative and I think when you have like gratitude journals, That’s really good stuff. [00:26:00] Anything other than your problems is a good thing. Because you’re not pushing the cortisol in the bloodstream. But if I can get the most appropriate solution focused thought, or thought control. So I would, for an athlete, for a golfer, we would come up with what’s called a performance statement. So let me think about a guy I work with who’s actually on the tour. Okay head down, tempo 7. Supinate. Okay, so he just, he wants to look at one dimple on the ball, even when the ball’s gone, his tempo of the backswing for him, he likes it at a seven, and then supinate is just follow through. So instead of thinking about all the don’ts or all the things that went wrong or all the things that could happen, I want him focused on that one thought. That most causes success for him, and that, in the sports world, would be what I call the performance statement. Every athlete I work with, [00:27:00] we’re going to come up with a performance statement, and then we review that performance statement. You heard me talk earlier about the mental workout. So we’re just reminding ourselves on a regular basis, we’re training ourselves. To be focused on that one thing throughout competition. Jeff Pelizzaro: And are there times when you have different performance statements for different, say, different parts of the game? Putting versus being on the tee Dr. Jason Selk: box. For sure. So I would want, I would just want a full swing and then putting. So typically with a golfer, I want to have two performance statements. One for each of those. Jeff Pelizzaro: You mention in the book that we tend to bond with each other over our problems, right? And I’m thinking of golfers, and I’m thinking of being on the golf course, and the way that we talk to each other, the way that we talk to ourselves, and many times it’s jokingly. But is that impacting how we play? Dr. Jason Selk: Absolutely, no doubt about it. And it’s no different. You guys are on the 18th hole, but think about, at the workplace. People are hanging around the, the coffee [00:28:00] break room. What do you think they’re talking about? How great life is? Or are they complaining about problems? Here’s another thing. What about the news? Yeah. I had to, literally, I had to quit watching the news 20 years ago. And it’s a real problem in my house. My wife wants to turn on the today show and it’s just like fingernails on a chalkboard for me because. All the people want to talk about are the problems. And I’m not saying we don’t have problems. I don’t put my head in the sand. I just know this, that when a problem enters my life, I’m not going to think or talk about it. I’m going to kick its ass. And that’s not what happens on the Today Show. And that’s not what happens when people are on the 18th hole, ruminating about all the things that went wrong out there and laughing about how bad we are as golfers. I would just tell you. Don’t participate in any of that stuff. That’s not making you better. It’s making you worse. And what you’ll find is your life’s going to be a whole lot better when you stop. Hangin around all these people who all they want to talk about is problems. Which is, [00:29:00] for the most part, just about everybody out there. So you gotta be a little bit careful with that last piece of advice. Jeff Pelizzaro: Alright, last little thing I want to touch on before we jump into our final segment of questions is goals. You break down, specifically, long term goals, short term goals. And how long term goals, it’s important to think big, it’s important to, really shoot for the moon, shoot for the stars, but short term goals have to be a little bit more realistic. And this is the first time that I’ve really seen somebody break it down and talk about why. Your short term goals need to be a little bit more realistic, and you can’t, make some crazy thought of what you’re going to achieve in a short Dr. Jason Selk: period of time. Yeah, and I really, it’s, everything I do is all just science. And not textbook science. Textbook is the first place, but then it’s got to be proven in real life. Empirical evidence. I was just watching Stephen Covey. His work I didn’t love the book Seven Habits, but he has a speech, hour long speech on each of the seven habits and it’s the most mind opening. John Wooden. And Steve and Covey have opened my mind more than any other two [00:30:00] people, but I just watched Covey’s first habit. It was proactive. Be proactive. And I didn’t fully understand it when I first started studying him years ago. And really, what Covey says with the pro, be proactive, is if you don’t have a game plan when you wake up, you’re gonna be just blown around by the wind. And I think, we’ve talked about PCT and there’s all kinds of reasons that if you don’t have a direction to start the day with, It’s quite likely you’re going to end up in the wrong spot. And so Covey, his concept of be proactive. And he says, it’s the most important of all seven of the habits, which I actually agree. It’s what I call, you must have a winning game plan. Now he doesn’t really talk about the specifics of what you need to do to be proactive. He’s just saying that if you’re not, you’re going to have real problems. So what I’ve tried to do is again, take science and performance science and really figure out, okay, what. What really does it mean to be proactive? And [00:31:00] there’s three levels of goals you talked about. I got vision, product, and process. Vision are result oriented goals three years or longer. And I know you have this concept, people have this concept of with goal setting, set it high and hope to get close. You got to also be really careful of this. There’s no empirical evidence to support that’s a good thing unless it’s in three year or longer periods. In less than three year periods, it’s like the New Year’s resolution. You set a high goal, you have no chance of reaching it, and then you end up just quitting on it. And that’s a really bad thing, because without goals, we are not proactive, we’re reactive. So you have to have goals. Most people don’t. They don’t know, they’ve never been taught how to effectively set goals. So they’re just, by default, not using goals, which means they’re really going to be starting each day reactive. It’s a really bad thing for the human condition. Anyway, vision would be a product goal, three years or longer. [00:32:00] Result, when I say product, I mean result. And then your second level of goal would be a product goal, twelve years or closer. And then your third would be Twelve months. Excuse me, I’m sorry, did I say twelve years? Twelve months or closer. And then your third level would be process goals. Process goals are the daily activities that are most important that will cause product and vision results to occur. Alright, so you might say, if I give you an example, I might say, okay, I’m in sales, and let’s use a golf example. I might say, okay, three years from now, I want to have won three majors. All right, so my product goal this year is I want to win one major. My process goals, and this is where you either win or lose is process. And most people as they get so focused on the product and they forget the process. Coach Wooden, he popularized this [00:33:00] 30 years ago and science has since confirmed this is your number one way to control for results. Focus on the process. And I would just say, you never want to have more than two or three process goals, but they want to be the most important activity. So it might be, I’m going to commit to mental workouts and success logs five days a week. I’m going to do strength and conditioning five days a week. And I’m going to follow my coach’s training plan six days a week. And we want to be, in the athletic world. With process goals, you really gotta be close to 100%, especially if you’re trying to compete at the pro level. In the business world I just tell you, it’s a lot easier if you can get two or three really good process goals in the business world, you go 90%, you’re going to win a major, you’re going to win multiple majors every year. But back in the sports world, the main thing I’d tell people is, when you set goals, vision, product, process, make sure you put the most energy, emphasis, focus, by far, [00:34:00] no comparison on those process goals. Jeff Pelizzaro: I love it. All right, a couple of closing questions we ask everybody that comes on the show. Just have a little fun. Caddyshack or Dr. Jason Selk: Happy Gilmore. I’m a huge Chevy Chase fan. I love Bill Murray, so absolutely no doubt about it Caddyshack. But, Adam Sandler held his own in Jeff Pelizzaro: Happy Gilmore. If you could pick a walk up song to the first T Box, do you play a lot of golf? Do you play Dr. Jason Selk: much? It’s interesting. You’re not going to like my answer. The last time I played golf was three days before I opened my private practice, so it’s been, 25, 30 years. Okay, wow. I just, I have spent so much time working, and I also felt, you know what? I’m going to have a lot of clients that are on the tour, they’re trying to get on the tour, and they’re going to want to go play golf if they know I play golf, and I’m going to look like a real fool. Just I’m not going to go out on the baseball field with any of my players, or the football field, I’m going to keep it on the sidelines no I don’t play. If I had a walk up song, oh I don’t know what’s that Eminem song? I, over the years I’ve had some walk up [00:35:00] songs for speeches what’s the Eminem song? Lose Yourself? Yeah, Lose Yourself. I really like that one. There was an ACDC song my good friend Cole Hillen put me on to, Thunderstruck, that was a good one. I’d probably go with one of those too. Okay. Maybe Hell’s Bells even, ACDC there, get people rocking a little bit. Jeff Pelizzaro: Is there a book, aside from the books that you’ve written, that has really meant a whole lot to you, that you tend to recommend to people, or that has just been special for you personally? Yeah, I Dr. Jason Selk: think from social standpoint, really from a professional or personal standpoint. Number one book I’ve ever read is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. It’s written in 1926. The title, I think, Is a little off putting for some people. It’s not about manipulation, right? It really is about influence and the different, manipulation is I get what I want, but you don’t influences. We both get what we want. That book is so good at teaching social skills of how to get anyone involved. [00:36:00] to get what they want. Everybody wins, the more people that understand those concepts. I literally just bought that Jeff Pelizzaro: book for my 15 year old son. It’s about as Dr. Jason Selk: in my opinion, it’s the best that there is. Best book ever written, in my opinion. Awesome. Jeff Pelizzaro: If you could pick a dream foursome that you could go play golf with past historical figures, celebrities, whoever it might be, who would you put in your Dr. Jason Selk: foursome? I’d definitely put Coach Wooden in there. I was able to spend a little time with him before he passed away. It was enough to make me want so much more. I’d love spend a little time with Lombardi. I think that’d be interesting. I’ve studied him pretty deeply. And if I could get a round of golf with my dad. He passed away three years ago. I’d take it any day of the week. I’d go out and as long as it could take, I’d be out there swinging those clubs. I love it. Jeff Pelizzaro: Alright, if we had the 18STRONG jet fueled up and you could take those guys to any course in the world, where are you going to go? Dr. Jason Selk: I love going to Vegas. They got some good courses [00:37:00] out there and once we get off the course, I can show everybody a good time. I don’t know I wouldn’t mind spending a little time in Ireland. I heard they have some pretty good courses over in Ireland and Scotland, but Ireland, Scotland, or Vegas. I’ll let those three pick. Perfect. Jeff Pelizzaro: Is there a social media account that you follow in any realm that you think would be good for the 18STRONG crew to check out? I’d Dr. Jason Selk: love to say yes, but honestly, I haven’t been on social media for even one second for the last 12 months. Personally, and I’m not telling people not to be on social media. Personally, my life’s better because I’m not on it. I know I have an account myself, and I know it’s pretty active, but I You know, people manage it for me. I literally couldn’t even get on if I wanted to because I don’t even have passwords to get on. I don’t follow anyone, not to say that people shouldn’t, but me personally, I’ve found my life’s a little bit better without Jeff Pelizzaro: social media. No, I think that says a lot. That’s awesome. Alright, last one, and I know that you haven’t played golf in over 25 years. Yeah. But what’s the best piece of golf advice you’ve ever been Dr. Jason Selk: given? I [00:38:00] think I’d put it The best advice I’ve ever given that I’ve heard people say as a pattern, and it’s a centering breath. Remember, when you’re on the practice range, you really have very little pressure on you. And so it’s easy to hit the ball long and straight. You walk over to the first tee, and all of a sudden, the club’s not quite the same. And a lot of that has to do with your heart rate. See, when you put yourself in a pressure situation, your biology is built. to elevate your heart rate. When the heart rate elevates, it changes all kinds of things, including the timing of your swing. So what we want to do is keep your heart rate under control. And I would tell you before, every actual swing, maybe not every practice swing, but every time you’re going to actually swing the club, make contact with the ball, try taking a centering breath. Breathe in for six seconds. Hold for two. Breathe out for seven and chances [00:39:00] are it’s just going to make it so much easier because you’ve trained to swing the club Successfully at let’s say 80 beats a minute and when you put pressure in there that 80 turns into 88, 92 pretty quickly Centering breath will put you back at the 70 so it’ll make it a little bit easier for your training to cause success under pressure. Six, hold, count. Not as fast as you can, but do the old one Mississippi, two Mississippi, in for six, hold for two, out for seven. Jeff Pelizzaro: Dr. Sock, thank you so much for coming on. This has been amazing. Everybody go check out Relentless Solution Focus. You can find it pretty much everywhere, I would assume. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for listening to the 18STRONG Podcast. And if you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to share it with your friends. And of course, go follow us over on Instagram, at 18STRONG. Thanks again. We’ll catch up with you next week. Train hard, practice smart, and play better golf.[00:40:00]