Ok, so there’s a lot to unpack

here, but I think this is a teachable moment so at the risk of writing a book, here goes.  I think were looking at the same things, and I think were talking about the same things, sort of, but not.  I watched the second video you sent, the audio is cutting in and out, so I got about half of what you said but I think I got the gist.  

 

I wanted to start by disclosing a few parameters here. When I work with athletes, its not if they get it.  Its my job to make sure they get it. Its also my job to recognize when they aren’t getting it.  Then I have to change my approach.  We’ve all fallen in love with technology and data and to some degree we base so much of what we do on what Tiger is doing, or Justin is doing, or Rory, or Phil is doing.  Those are outliers.  I’ve spent decades working with some of the best athletes on the planet from multiple sports. That’s not reality.  Comparing them to the average guy, or gal at the country club…those or totally separate sports.  Like ice hockey and badminton.  Its a disservice and we have to stop doing this.  Its negligent and irresponsible. 

 

So as a yardstick I would expect that your answer to my question would be in terms I can understand.  I defer to the teaching pro as being the golf expert and I would expect that you be able to frame your responses in terms I can understand. If I’m a paying client with a question you would want to answer it in such a way that not only answered my question but left me thinking that you were a trusted source.  That’s just good coaching.  Dazzling me with technical brilliance rarely dazzles.  It just leaves people confused. Again I suggest the yardstick, if you cant explain it to a 5 year old you don’t know it.  I asked the following question, ” In terms of swing faults, do you primarily see them as faulty movement/motor control patterns, or do you consider them caused by physical limitations, or both?” 

 

Maybe this is semantics, or maybe were just really close here to reaching an understanding. That’s the goal right?  At least from my end.  I gain zero by being contentious with teaching pros.  The problem with the internet is this.  If we were face to face and you could show me what you’re looking at and we could have a discussion about it, we could probably get to the heart of the matter in 5 minutes.  That’s just good business.  Finding common ground with other professionals and clients is good for business.  Can we agree on that?

Lets reverse engineer this.  Can we agree that swing faults exist?  Again I make assumptions that we are in agreement on that.  As a “golf fitness guy” how do I identify swing faults? Let’s say I have a client come to me to improve their golf via fitness.  The first thing I do is find out what teaching pro they are working with.  Its my goal to ask the coach the following.  1.  what are you currently working on with the client?  2. what areas do you think we should be working on in the gym? 3.  what swing faults or swing characteristics does the client exhibit?  I’m huge on professional courtesy so I always try to start there.  It also behooves me to take advantage of the expert who happens to look at and diagnose golf swings for a living.  How I handle my relationship with the teaching pro is really important to the success of the client.  There are some presuppositions here.  I’ve had teaching  pros happy to work with me and appreciating being considered and consulted.  I’ve had teaching pros who don’t believe in golf fitness and aren’t thrilled about their client working with someone like me.  Either way, the goal is always to build bridges. I’ve had many a relationship that started hostile and I was able to turn it by being professional and respectful. 

Now what I got in between the segments where the audio cutting in and out, is that you’ve come across certain conclusions from a lot of observation and a large cross section.  I get that.  You said you had many examples to illustrate your position, and I don’t doubt that.  This is where I think we get close to being on the same page. For the sake of this discussion lets say that we had 50 of your clients all lined up and we looked at them one after the other together.  You show me what you’re seeing, I show you what I’m seeing, we realize we aren’t so far apart and the magic happens.  We start by saying, what swing faults does the client possess?  None because you’re a great coach and you’ve eliminated all the swing faults.  Touche.  Seriously, lets say we look at the 50 clients and I assessed them a percentage would not have physical limitations corresponding to their swing faults.   Because not all swing faults are caused by physical limitations.  If you’re defining physical limitations as not including stability/motor control-motor patterning)  Some people do.  But lets not devolve to semantics. 

For the sake of this conversation lets say 25 out of 50 did not have identifiable physical limitations. Again a cross section.  If we looked at 1000 clients (maybe you have that much data-anything less some would argue as anecdotal) ) the numbers could be much different than 50/50.  25 clients had physical limitations.  You’re saying physical limitations dont cause swing faults.  I don’t know how you could possibly say that unless you’re so entrenched in a position, or whatever system you use that you are willing to say anything.  Lets say a client is exhibiting x swing fault.  You make a couple minor adjustments and voila.  No more swing faults.  You’ve done this over and over for years. That’s your experience, and you have the data set to prove it.  

Listen, your job, and your expertise is to do this very thing.  If you didnt have a work around for every bum shoulder or knee or hip that you’ve dealt with over the years, you wouldn’t have given many lessons. I think we can agree  on  that. The socio-economics of our sport dictate, that unless were talking about tour pros, the majority of our clients that have the disposable time and money to pursue golf  are generally at least over 40, a period physiologically where the body starts to decline. 40% have herniated discs, low testosterone, etc etc.  That’s science. To refute that  is a position that points to an agenda. 

My question to you is as follows.  What is the cost of doing business for these simple little adjustments to knees and hips you’re making?  I’ve seen this over and over for decades across multiple sports and its the same story.   Nobody gives a crap about the cost of doing business until the bill comes.  If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  If it don’t hurt its all good.  Nothing could be further from the truth.    I defer to you as the golf teaching pro because that is your expertise but you absolutely must defer to medical professionals when it relates to injuries, unless you are totally arrogant and close minded to anything other than whatever philosophy or system you adhere to.  If you say there is no cost you’re being willfully naive.  If you are aware that there is a cost than there is a compelling case to be working on those limitations while you’re working on the swing.  

 

Let me say I was at least 15 years into a career working with athletes of all sports before I ever looked at golf and I didnt abandon all that experience or insight to take on the dogma or a position represented by a  system, whether its 3 letters on a ball or 3 words that rhyme with smack and jilt (we’re being transparent right?).  

 

Case in point.  I’ve worked with a 65 year old scratch golfer.  Who is on his way to a knee replacement.  Some-time ten years ago or so a teaching pro told him to externally rotate his right foot on his trail leg to increase rotation in his backswing.  Problem solved right?  A simple lesson in anatomy and biomechanics reveals why this is a problem. Firstly leg me say that there are a lot of factors going on here.  A very kyphotic spine (an executive..no surprise there).  A spine in flexion doesnt like to rotate.  Its expressly designed not to rotate in flexion.  Limited mobility in the hips and ankles.  Lets rotate the foot which opens up the backswing.  No problem right?  Now for over a decade, every time the client initiates his downswing hes driving all that force downward and laterally through his medial knee.  A sort of dynamic and ballistic valgus collapse. If you had to guess what his knee looked like….bony changes (understatement) to the medial knee.  Would it surprise you to know that hes underpowered in his swing.  That’s what happens when you externally rotate the foot. You dump power. If you argue that than again golf must be a special snowflake.  Would you care to guess what his follow through and finish looks like?  When you open up rotation in the backswing you limit rotation into the finish.  Only way to get around that is a loss of posture.  A trade off I guess.  

This is where it gets fun.  How transparent do we care to be here?  Do you care about the long term longevity of your clients?  Do we care because we care about them, their goals, and their happiness in an altruistic sense?  Or do we care about the revenue we generate if we’re good enough to have client for over a decade or more?  Its easy not to worry about things that live somewhere out there, across the horizon.  Not my job, not my problem right?  A bird in the hand right?  

What I got from your video is that you are adept at getting your client to perform whatever it is you’re asking in short order. You wouldn’t be any good if you couldn’t do that.  My question is, is that enough?  Are you open to knowing what you don’t know?  I’m fully appreciative that I don’t know what I don’t know which is why I asked the question.  In this case does the ends justify the means?  You’re job is to teach golf, not be a physical therapist.  OK.  Will you concede that most people over 40 (who can afford our services) or poorly prepared for any physical activity, let alone a sports as dynamic and demanding as golf?  Do you believe its your job to protect clients from themselves? 

 

There is no normalized range of motion that exists outside of anatomy and physical therapy text books.  There are huge data sets that suggest the top  pros in the world exhibit certain ranges, and the chances of anyone playing at an elite level lacking those physical characteristics are slim to none.  I’ve spent 2 1/2 decades as a professional therapist working at the highest levels of sport and I can tell you that there are no normalized ranges. I am uniquely qualified to make that statement.  In fact what I consistently see in the best world class athletes is sub-optimal ranges and presentations and yet somehow they perform at an elite level, in spite of this.  I saw NFL athletes with the worst foot and ankle mechanics hands down, and all the presentations that would chip away at performance and yet somehow they perform at an elite level in spite of all this.  Because they are special.  You cant duplicate it and we get into trouble really fast when we use that yardstick on mortals. 

 

Maybe I missed something with the spotty audio.  I regularly use motor control fixes with clients, after I rule out mobility restrictions. This is a universal law of bio-mechanics that crosses all sports.  Pain alters motor control.  Stability fixes don’t work in the presence of mobility/tissue extensibility dysfunctions.  That is also universal law of biomechanics.  If you disagree with that its because you have a vested interest in disagreeing with what is universally recognized across all sports. The laws of biomechanics, anatomy and physiology don’t change with the sport. Our positions reveal our agendas.  

I say this with the greatest measure of respect.  I don’t know you personally, but our discourse to this point has been courteous and professional and for that I thank you.  You’re willingness to take your valuable time to engage in a discourse says a lot about you.  It also warrants respect and some effort to understand your uniquely qualified view.  I don’t spend enough time networking outside my area to know who the players are but I take it on good authority that you know you’re stuff. We would probably have a great time having a beer and talking shop.   In any and all interactions we have the opportunity to create allies or adversaries.  The older I get the more I realize that you can never have enough allies and most of my enemies are imagined. If I missed the premise of your point, I apologize and ask for further clarification.  Maybe a skype or zoom?

I think teaching pros have a legit gripe.  There are way too many folks out there holding themselves up as “golf fitness” experts who are doing a terrible job and pissing off the teaching pros.  I just spoke on this at the PGA show.  So few people even understand what fitness is so is it any wonder by the time we come around to golf fitness, the waters get really muddy?  This is a problem and I’m sympathetic to teaching pros.  The reputation of the golf trainer is not great and in many cases it’s deserved.  Its a real problem.  Too many experts doing a terrible job.  Including the 3 letters under the ball folks.  They share a similar problem with another organization we all know and love.  The PGA.  Meeting the minimum standard to become a PGA teaching pro is just an entrance to the dance.  It doesn’t guarantee greatness or even competence.  I wish the standards were higher but I accept that all I can do is keep my side of the street clean and improve my corner of the world, one interaction at a time.  Greatness is  earned over time. There are levels to this game and maybe these organizations could do a better job at educating the consumer on the disparity in skill and knowledge between the levels.  

I like to do SWOT analysis.  For every strength there is a weakness, for every threat there is an opportunity.  There is a lot of work to be done, and like it or not, were in it together.  I try to do my part to foster bridges wherever I can. I wonder, if  I was in your area, and sought you out as a resource to refer clients to, would we be able to find a common ground where we could work together for the greater good of our clients?  Could we forge a working relationship despite any technical differences in methodologies.  Id like to think so.