Sporting Good Golf Game Posture

Sporting Good Golf Game Posture


[00:00:00] In your golf swing, your spine acts is the axis from which our body rotates around, and what I see with a lot of people, their muscles aren’t developed enough to be able to maintain it throughout the swing, or they simply don’t know how to do it in the first place. Your back is not meant to rotate around two different axis At the same time, I can’t rotate the lower part of my body one way and the upper part of my body.

[00:00:20] Another way, if you did, it would either get injured or one side of your spine ends up kind of winning the battle. If one. Spine is winning. That means the other side of the spine has to lose and then therefore people end up simply not turning. A lot of people when they can’t make as full of a turn as they want to, they simply need to get their spine and their body into a position where they can turn and then use an entire body turn as opposed to trying to turn around two different axis.

[00:00:46] Game on sports, fitness and health. Fans with another episode of the Sporting Good Posture Digital Radio Experience. Gear up for Coach Frank’s advice from the sidelines as he helps you crush. No matter what sports, health or [00:01:00] fitness game you play, Hey, this is Coach Frank. I’m sporting good posture, what are you sporting?

[00:01:06] Hey coach, what do you got for us today? Welcome back to another episode of Sporting Good Posture. This is Coach Frank, and I’m really excited to have this guest back on for another episode today. I had him on way back at the beginning of season two. He’s been a patient of mine and I thought it would be great to have him back on the episodes.

[00:01:24] I’ve been getting into golf more this past year, and my kids have been getting into golf. I’ve had a lot more patience that have gotten back into golf with their time off last year and the pandemic. So this episode really hits home for me, and we’re gonna get to all of that right after this. We’ve all said it.

[00:01:41] We’ve all felt it. My feet are killing me. But did you know foot and ankle pain turn out to be more than just discomfort or inconvenience? That’s why the foot leveler system is now part of the Posture Care Center at Ideal Health and Wellness. Whether you work on your feet all day, or even if you’re just up and down, your feet and ankles are part of your basic structure and [00:02:00] mean everything to how you function throughout the day.

[00:02:02] The reason, posture, it’s super simple. Most people think of posture as standing up straight, but don’t realize. Standing is part of it, making the feet and ankles just as important as the spine itself. Your feet and ankles are part of a blueprint. Mother Nature designed for your most basic functions, making posture support from the ground up.

[00:02:21] Totally essential. Perhaps you found a pair of inserts from the store and maybe even got a little relief, but relief doesn’t correct the problem. In fact, it ignores it all together. All the worst. Even if the retailer allowed you to self scan your feet, it won’t take into consideration your specific posture and support issues.

[00:02:39] Going to a retailer or even a foot care professional may provide relief on the short term, but for the best support overall posture needs to be evaluated if your feet are giving you issues or if your overall posture just doesn’t seem right. Step is a foot leveler 3D digital foot scan and posture screening at Ideal Health and Wellness Center.

[00:02:57] The foot levelers program is designed to get at the postural [00:03:00] issues that are blocking your ideal function and handle the trouble at its source. The result is a custom set of inserts that lasts years instead of months customized to your foot and your current footwear too. But with foot levelers, you’ll also have better posture, and with that comes better function.

[00:03:16] Don’t wait. Generic inserts wear out. And so does your basic s. Support your posture the way it was designed, customized to you. Get your foot levelers, 3D digital scan and posture screening today free and see where your future posture stands. Call 6 1 5 5 6 7 6 6 8 3 Now. Today I have a guest that I had on a couple years ago.

[00:03:37] His name’s Micah Hicks and he’s been a golf pro for over 25 years, and he’s the director of golf at Vanderbilt Legends Club in, in Franklin, Tennessee. And I’ve had the pleasure of knowing him the last couple years and we just recently got back in touch and, and I thought it would be cool to have him back on again for another episode.

[00:03:55] And uh, I want to introduce you again to Micah Hicks. Welcome to the. [00:04:00] Hey, Dr. Frank. Good to see you again. Uh, been a couple years, but excited about reconnecting. So springtime coming around and a, a lot of people have golf on the mind. Everybody just kind of watched some masters and players championship over the last month.

[00:04:13] So, uh, yeah man, things are good. Good to see you. You too. So, what do, first of all, what do you think about the, the masters? I thought it was pretty amazing that Matsuyama won and was the first Japanese player to ever win the masters. Yeah, no, that’s gonna be a very popular win, I think with a lot of people in the golf world.

[00:04:31] Hadi has been a, an elite player for a long time, and it was just kind of a matter of timing. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when with that guy, you know? Yeah. Um, and, and every master kind of plays out different, you know, you’d have the one where people are making all kind of birdies and stuff down the stretch.

[00:04:47] This one was more of, you know, you got a guy with a big lead and, and Kenny kind of hang on and win one for the excitement of all of Japan and the rest of the golf world and whatnot. So, had his, had his own kind of tension, but tension nonetheless. [00:05:00] Yeah, it was pretty amazing. He almost was playing not to lose at the end there instead of like, you know, trying to win.

[00:05:06] Yeah. That, that can be kind of tough to watch too, but I know I was glued to my tv, Syd, I’m sure a lot of people, other people were as well. So yeah, I definitely watched that all weekend. It was, it was really cool to see. And then the other thing that was cool was, uh, Z Tous came up and, and made a big run too, so, and he’s, I know he’s younger, he’s only been in the league a couple years.

[00:05:27] That’s right. I believe that Will is 24. Wow. And a, he’s a good dude. B, he’s a great talent to see him just mentally, you know, like cuz a lot of this stuff with golf, a lot of it’s mental, a lot of it’s physical, but a lot of it is mental. And with these guys like to, to be able to, to win at that level, you have to see yourself winning at that level.

[00:05:47] You know what I mean? Like you have to go into the. Almost imagining yourself holding the trophy at the end. And it’s a lot easier to, to say that than it is to do that. So this kid comes out and, I mean, I think last year maybe had like a top, [00:06:00] top 10 finish at the US Open and the turn to turn around and Yeah.

[00:06:03] And he doesn’t have like he does now, but you know, going into that he didn’t have any status on any tour. Yeah. And lead the masters and to, you know, hang in there and, and golly, second place fans is just incredible. Just a great. Yeah, and that reminds me too. So, you know, a couple years ago what we talked about is golfs golf players are getting more athletic.

[00:06:23] They don’t look like John Daley anymore. They look more like Tiger Woods. Yeah. So someone like Zala TAUs, do you think he’s a guy that is gonna bulk up here, or do you think he should just kind of stay the way he is? You know what I would guess, and you do have a handful of people, uh, Zach Johnson being a great example of that, mean Zach’s my age, uh, 46 now.

[00:06:41] And um, is that right? 46? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Instead, yeah. Um, so, and he was able to stay really thin. I think a lot of it’s just nasty. Gained a little bit of bulk. You know, if, if I were, if I were Will Z Tous, I would probably want to be, which he looked like he was very wiry, strong, you know. But obviously not a whole lot of [00:07:00] bulk there.

[00:07:00] Um, you know, certainly you’d probably rather have a, a little too little bulk as opposed to a little too much bulk, you know, doing that much walking and that much swinging and whatnot. But, you know, if I were will, I would probably, you know, hope to put on maybe, maybe eight to 10 pounds of the next year or two.

[00:07:16] Mainly muscle and whatnot. But, um, uh, you know, but, but that being said, you know, Justin Thomas is still out. You know, winning and exceeding on an elite level. And I mean, golly, he looks like he weighs 150 pounds. Yeah. Hitting the ball. 340 yards, 150 pounds. It’s incredible. I’m doing right now, so. So that reminds me too, we, last time we were talking a lot about posture and just preparing your body to be a, you know, a golfer.

[00:07:44] So going back to this, so just say you’re an amateur and you’re looking to play. Is there certain muscle groups that you really look to, to build up, um, to, to be able to play golf? Absolutely. So you know the [00:08:00] main area. So you have your areas of where you want strength, and you have the areas that you need to stretch more.

[00:08:04] So if I’m looking for strength in golfers, I’m looking in the shoulders, I’m looking in the core muscles. Okay? A lot. Lower back and thighs are kind of the muscles that I wanna make sure have a little bit more, uh, strength and definition. Uh, you know, when you’re talking about stretching these areas, it is kind of that same, you kind of follow that same thing.

[00:08:23] You know, we’re, you know, probably the, probably the shoulders first. Um, core muscles, hamstrings. Quadriceps. Um, these are kind of the main muscles, hip and lower back. Um, you know, there’s probably like seven main areas that we really want to try to stretch, uh, both before and after the round. Um, but you know, especially making sure that we’re strong, you know, up, up in the shoulder area where they’re taking more, more of the hit and the blow of the shot, uh, the abs and the, the thighs and, and lower back rear.

[00:08:52] The areas that we wanna be strong. So one of the things that I know that, that I’ve had problems with and I’ve seen, uh, some people with that [00:09:00] are still learning how to play golf is when they try to get that full swing where you get the, you know, the, the golf club basically parallel to the ground. A lot of people can’t get it that far to get their trunk all the way.

[00:09:12] Is there anything that you recommend that will help stretch that out and strengthen that area so you can get that full swing to get that better whip action? So I tell you what, what’s interesting about that is I see that probably more than that might be one of the most common flaws that I see, um, in instruction and, and Doc, what happens is, is whenever you’re, whenever you’re.

[00:09:36] Moving and turning, right? Yeah. So in your golf swing, I might have mentioned this last time we got together, but, but your spine acts as the axis from which our body rotates around. Okay. And what I see with a lot of people is that they will use, they either have, you know, their, their muscles aren’t developed enough to be able to maintain it throughout the swing.

[00:09:58] Um, or they [00:10:00] simply don’t know how to do it in the first place. But what I see is a lot of people that have an overly upright, lower part of the spine, which causes them to, uh, tilt or curve the upper part of the spine, which number one looks bad? Like, it doesn’t look like you want to sit like that. It doesn’t look very athletic, you know?

[00:10:18] More importantly, your your back. You know this, your back is not meant to rotate around two different axis at the same time, you know, I can’t rotate the lower part of my body one way and the upper part of my body. Another way, uh, if you did a, you would either get injured or B, using one side of your spine, use the stronger one ends up kinda winning the battle.

[00:10:39] So if one side of the spine is winning, that means the other side of the spine has to. And therefore people end up simply not turning right. Okay. So a lot of people, when they can’t make as full of a turn as they want to, they simply need to get their spine and their body into a position where they can turn [00:11:00] and then use an entire body turn as opposed to trying to turn around two different axis.

[00:11:05] I see that a lot and even, you know, as there’s always a side, you know, a stronger side that maybe has more muscle or is more flexible, usually the dominant side. And then it definitely throws a monkey wrench into what you’re trying to do when you have a balanced swing and everything. And I remember we talked about that last time.

[00:11:22] Um, as far as having the people that, that come in, um, really you look at their posture. I remember you said there was a breakdown of the swing. I don’t know if you want to go over. Again, there was some things that you looked at as part of the swing where you’re able to see what the mechanical things that are wrong and, and where they need to work on that.

[00:11:41] And I know posture was one of the first things that you really looked at. Um, do you mind breaking that down again? Um, sure. I remember you had like four or five different parts of the swing. That’s right. So whenever you’re looking at golf swings, whenever I’m looking at golf swings, um, golf happens in a certain order.

[00:11:58] Okay. And the [00:12:00] order that we, that we learn and, and, and. Should teach golf is pre swinging, which pre swinging is going to be your grip, your posture, your alignment, your weight transfer or your weight, um, your balance in between your two feet. All that stuff goes in. Basically anything that your body’s doing before the clip starts moving back, goes into, um, prew and then we have posture, which is going to be the way that we are setting our body up to the ball initially, and probably one of the most common flaws that we get here is that people that don’t have strong enough hip flexors, like I mentioned, end up putting the lower part of their spine to vertical and it causes ’em to curve the upper part of the.

[00:12:40] Which affects the very next thing, uh, which is your plane and your path being the angles of the club is swinging around your body. And then lastly, your hands. And the reason why we look at things in that order is because it’s a chain reaction. Events. The way that you were set up to the ball initially is gonna be the largest predictor of the way that your body can turn during the swing [00:13:00] or or move.

[00:13:01] And the way that your body is moving are not moving during the swing, is gonna be the largest indicator of the angles that the club is swinging on. And then the angles that the club would swing on is gonna determine what you have to do with your hands to hit the ball at your target, right? Yes. So what happens a lot of times when people mess up, They’ll, they’ll take something that like, hey, they, they’re out golfing with their buddies, right?

[00:13:23] And they got the one guy in the group that’s better than everybody else. And then, so everybody like, man, you know what you’re doing wrong. You’re coming over the top, you’re lifting your head up, whatever. Right? So when, when, when I’m doing my instruction and I go back and, and very often I’ll ask somebody, I’ll say, Hey, what’s going on with your swing?

[00:13:42] And they’ll say something. That either they have seen themselves because they’ve videoed themselves or because they’re good planned buddies, hold ’em or whatever. Um, and you know, when you’re looking at the video, you can see that those things are happening in the swing. But then if you take it a couple steps back, and a lot of times it goes back to the [00:14:00] very initial setup and they’re posture at the beginning.

[00:14:03] And then you can say, Hey look, this is what your spine is doing right now. When you know, when you’re set. If you set up like this, you can’t make this next move, so therefore you can’t swing the wave that you want to. So all these other things that you’re seeing in your golf swing are just a reaction to these things that you could affixed from the very beginning, right?

[00:14:24] Yeah. So some of these things, it’s kinda like I mentioned earlier. I mean, I would say that this is probably 50%. You know, knowing to do it and then 50% being strong enough and flexible enough to do it. Honestly, it’s about half and half. Yeah. And I know with me personally, now that my kids have gotten a little older, I’m able to play golf a little bit more.

[00:14:47] I a little bit more time again than I used to. Right. And we talked about some of the video technology and really now just iPhones are really great at just doing, you can take a slow motion video on your iPhone and really catch a lot of mistakes that you’re [00:15:00] making and. I caught some mistakes in my grip that I’ve changed and some of the pre swinging things that you were talking about.

[00:15:09] I’ve really worked on that. I was too much doing like a baseball swing, which I think a lot of people probably do if they’ve played baseball before. I was kind of rocking back and swaying back and then. Going too far through where I didn’t get enough rotation in my trunk and hip action to really get the swing across.

[00:15:26] So, um, I remember what you had said and I’ve watched some videos over the last couple years and, and, uh, I’ve noticed a big difference with, with some of the things that you talked about and some of the things I’ve watched on videos. So it really goes a long way of what we were talking about with the technology now and just, and just taking your own iPhone and filming yourself at the range.

[00:15:45] I’ll tell you what, it’s fascinating actually, cuz it used to be, I’m, I’m actually in our teaching academy now and, um, you know, all, all of us have these academies, have these like really expensive video systems and, and all these kind of things. And they’ve gotten so good with these phones. Now that, [00:16:00] you know, obviously we’re, we’re over here at, uh, Vanderbilt Legends Club and we’re the home base for both the men’s and Women’s Vanderbilt golf team, which are just incredible, you know, nasty ranked teams.

[00:16:09] And almost all these, uh, girls and guys on our golf teams, like they almost predominantly prefer to use their phone to video themselves. And they’re saying they’re getting just as good quality and whatnot from their phone as we’re getting from these, you know, multi thousand dollars, you know, forecast and systems and other things that we have in.

[00:16:28] So, um, it’s just technology. It’s gotten so much better and it’s kind of changing the way that we’re, that we’re doing. So, um, yeah, you have mentioned that you know, cuz I know that you have been an athlete, several sports, whatever, and you’re trying to play golf. A lot of things when it comes to athletes playing golf, a lot of it transfers very well.

[00:16:44] You know what I mean? Like the hand eye coordination right. Strength, just being able to move your body. You know, like, like most, most sports that you do, you have a coach or somebody telling you like how to move your body. Like this is how you shoot a jump shot. This is how you block somebody in football, whatever.

[00:16:59] So a [00:17:00] lot of athletes really do tend to be, um, how do I say? Maybe more coachable cause they’ve been used to having somebody explain to them like how to move their body to get a certain result, you know, in a sport. Um, but you know, one of the biggest differences is, is uh, a lot, most sports. Are gonna be ones where you would want to use, um, more eFlex, for example, like, you know, when they’re doing basketball, you play, you know, you play defense with your legs, not your, not your hands, right?

[00:17:27] Uh, you know, baseball, like you gotta stay down on it, you know, the quarterback crossing football, all these sports, you want to kind of stay low. Um, and golf’s not like that. Actually, we don’t want to have a whole lot of knee bend. We prefer to have much more bend in our hips. And our hip flexors to where we can keep the, the spine spray light we were talking about earlier.

[00:17:47] And for a lot of golfers, you know, bend there need too much is access swing killer. Whereas in other sports is what you’ve been training to do. Right. So, yeah, exactly. I, I think, I think the biggest thing, and this is a topic that you and I touched on [00:18:00] before, is that, you know, when you’re hitting the different type of golf shots, um, at the point of impact, Your weight needs to be at a certain place.

[00:18:09] So for example, the short, the iron is, if you are hitting, say, like a wedge, nine iron, eight iron, if I’m using those clubs at the point of impact when I’m actually hitting the ball, I would want to have probably 70 to 75% of my weight on my front foot, which as a right-handed golfer, my left foot in my left thigh pressing down.

[00:18:31] Um, as the clubs slowly get longer, The weight at impact starts to rotate a little bit further back to where by the time you’re hitting your driver on a t you actually want probably at least 60 or 65% of your weight on your back foot when you’re hitting your driver to where you can hit up on it. Right?

[00:18:51] And inevitably, um, all, all of us, we we’re all striving to be more equal. You know what I mean? I’d like to be just as strong on my left side as [00:19:00] I am on my right side, but I’m not, yeah. And, and, and I don’t think hardly anybody is. So, um, because of that, almost everybody prefers to hitting from either the left side or the right side, uh, right-handed golfer, front side or backside, I guess.

[00:19:16] And it just comes down to the players that are better at hitting from their back leg, from their back foot are better at hitting the longer clubs and their drivers, and the players that are better at hitting from their front leg and leaning into their front side tend to hit down on the ball better.

[00:19:30] And they do a lot better with their short irons and wedges. So you know, whichever side you’re better at, you’re usually more flexible on that side. Yeah, you’re stronger on that side, so on and so forth. That’s a great observation. Clubs, but you still have to hit the other clubs, so that means that you’ve gotta get your other side as strong as you can, feel almost as comfortable on that.

[00:19:53] As you did on your preferred side, if that makes sense. You know? Yeah. And that’s, that’s one of the reasons why it is so important just to [00:20:00] A, recognize what your weaknesses are. And then it’s like anything else, you know? If you know what your weaknesses are, you go work on it, right? Yeah. Nothing’s worse than hitting a nice drive.

[00:20:09] And then you get up there and you just have to chunk it, chip it a hundred yards and you chunk it. Yeah. Or you tow it and it goes to the side. I’ve done that. That’s one of the most frustrating parts of golf where you know you, when you finally hit that good shot, it’s followed by usually two or three bad ones.

[00:20:26] That’s crazy. Greatest game in the world. Yeah. It’s very humbling. Um, definitely have to have a lot of patience with, with golf, more so than I think other sports really. Yeah. Um, which brings me to something too where, you know, golf has really become more mainstream, you know, tiger really made it more mainstream, made it cool to play golf.

[00:20:44] A lot of younger guys are playing golf. Like you said, a lot of guys are in better shape. They look like football players and baseball and basketball players. They, they could have played other sports and they, they picked golf. What would you say to young kids that are just trying to start out like, you know, younger kids, you know, [00:21:00] that 7, 8, 9, 10, that, that maybe want to try golf and are trying to maybe make it into high school and play or possibly into college.

[00:21:08] Um, you know, what do you say to those people? Like where to start and kind of what to do? Sure. So obviously, you know, if somebody’s just getting into the game, the first thing that you want it to be is fun. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like if, if you’re trying to get somebody attracted to something, you know, hounding ’em with, you know, technique and rules and all that kind of stuff.

[00:21:28] Might make ’em wanna go, you know, play tennis yourself. Yeah. You start off by having some fun and then you learn just some core fundamentals. I mean, there’s a bunch of things like, you know, if you watch golf on tv, you and I addressed it kind of briefly last time, but you know, you’re seeing a lot more athletic body than you’ve seen before.

[00:21:47] You’re looking at people that look like they could have excelled in one of many different sports. They just happened to choose golf. Uh, but you are starting to see some, you know, some different looking swings as well. You have some of these guys that are just [00:22:00] saying, Hey, I’m just a good athlete and I’m gonna swing like an athlete does.

[00:22:02] I’m just gonna make sure that that’s where the club face up at impact. So you’re starting to see that more. But there are a handful of things, you know, such as the the weight position at impact. Squaring up the club face, angle of attack, some of these things that you just can’t get around. Like you have to be able to do those things.

[00:22:18] I don’t care how athletic you are, if you hit a, wed shot off your right foot, but you’re gonna hit it fat, you know? Right. So, or, or thin it. So, um, there’s a handful of things you just can’t get around and you try to get the kids to learn those fundamentals. And then I encourage him to watch the golf on tv, you know, and I have made a comment before about, you know, do you see how he looks?

[00:22:38] You know what I mean? He looks like an athlete. He looks strong. There’s a reason why, you know, he has an advantage over maybe the guy that that doesn’t, you know? Yeah. Strength. Strength is always your friend. You know, being in shape, being lean, being uh, flexible, um, no matter where you are in life is always gonna be an advantage.

[00:22:58] Um, but in [00:23:00] particular with golf, it’s, it’s even more an advantage than maybe even some of the other sports, in my opinion. Just cause how much rotation we. Yeah, definitely. So like a kid just starting out, would you just take ’em down in the range to have some fun, just hit some balls and just see how it goes?

[00:23:14] I would, and I probably would if, if you can’t, not everybody has access to this, and I can tell you this too, I mean, a lot of people have started watching more, uh, like just videos on YouTube. Yeah. As far as like. I try to do golf, like how do I do it? You know? Um, and I think that’s, Hey, if, if they get some planned, then I’m all for it, right?

[00:23:32] Absolutely. So it does help, you know, if within the first, like three or four times you’ve got somebody out, once you see that they, they’ve got an interest, you know, once you see they’re kind of starting to get hooked, that would be when you would want to try to hook them up with an instructor just so they can, you know, learn a handful of those fundamental things that I was talking about the correct way early.

[00:23:52] And the reason why I say that is because, If you learn it the correct way early, then honestly you never really unlearn it. You know what I mean? Like there’s a [00:24:00] handful of things I want you kinda get, yeah, there really are some things that can kind of carry on with you for life. Whereas I have seen and, and even, even instructed recently, um, some players who had turned out to be pretty darn good golf, not really good golfers, but pretty good golfers that use pretty bad fundamental.

[00:24:17] Yeah. And they simply athletic enough, talented enough to figure out a way to hit a golf ball using this technique, and they played their that way their whole life. Um, the only problem with that is, you know, what I see a lot of times is you can do that for a certain amount of time, but a lot of times it kind of plateau, catches up with you.

[00:24:37] Yeah. Simply cannot get any better. And then if you’ve already kind of learned it, I hate to say it the wrong way, and just kind of learned how to make compensations to make the wrong way work for a lot of people, they get to a certain point and they say, I just simply can’t change this. You know? Yeah.

[00:24:52] It’s hard to, it’s like, can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Something like that. Yeah, that’s right. So, um, I definitely [00:25:00] agree with that. Sorry, what was that? I said I definitely agree with that as far as I, I regret. Not doing that at a younger age too, because I just took my baseball skills and just said, okay, there’s a ball just sitting there.

[00:25:13] I’m just gonna use right. Hit it, my baseball swing. And I could hit it and I could hit it pretty far. But there was so many fundamentals wrong with it that I actually, I’ve had some injuries over the years from doing that, like in my wrist and my back and my knees. Um, and we touched on this last time, um, when you come across somebody, Already has some preexisting injuries on there, and maybe their swing maybe can’t be as, as fluid as they want.

[00:25:39] Um, what do you suggest them, do you suggest if they’re really getting into golf, that they, they start rehabbing that before they start, or, or, uh, or ease on the swing so that they don’t get hurt? Like, what do you usually suggest for that? I would rehab before they start, honestly. I think, um, you know, one thing that that, and I can’t remember if I’m mention this last [00:26:00] time or not, but what you see with a lot of golfers is that they will try to play through or play around an injury.

[00:26:08] Um, there might be, uh, I can’t remember which PJ played, like maybe like a Jason Day was talking about how he was having some issues. And, you know, a, it’s his livelihood. I mean, he has to play to make money. So, uh, and b maybe he just thought because he’s a strong guy, maybe he thought he’d just kind of muscle his way through it.

[00:26:24] Yeah. And, and, um, you know, and trying to play through the pain, basically. His swing got worse because he was compensating, you know, unconsciously, um, just trying not to get hurt worse than he already was. And then doing so he kind of got into some bad habit. So, um, I would always say I would prefer for somebody to get themselves healthy first, uh, before they start a moving, just to make sure that their body really couldn’t move however they wanted it to move.

[00:26:53] Um, and that they weren’t gonna try to, to, you know, um, make a bad move just to make sure that it’s not [00:27:00] hurting as bad, you know, and that’s how we get into some bad, some bad moves, just some bad compensations, you know? Yeah. And that, that reminds me, I remember a couple years ago we had talked about, you had, you had had a little injury when you were out running and you started noticing it was affecting your swing, and then even recently you’ve, you’ve had some stuff going on that, that was affecting your swing.

[00:27:20] So, um, how has it been coming along for you as well? Like, like getting through some of the injuries that you’ve dealt with? I’ll tell you a quick, funny story and you can’t make this stuff up. So last time we, you and I were talking, Um, on the podcast I mentioned how I was, uh, running with my dogs. Yeah, we were out in the field and ended up tripping and kind of hurting my left knee.

[00:27:41] Um, as it turned out, maybe a little bit worse than I thought it was. And, um, um, what was happening in my swing and I noticed it over the course of the next couple of months, my golf game was getting worse. I wasn’t hitting as good shots, I wasn’t hitting Christmas shots. Um, and I was doing a lesson, um, with somebody.

[00:27:58] I was trying to show them proper [00:28:00] weight. So I videoed my own swing as an example of like how to do it. And when I went back to look at the video at Impact, I had more weight on my right foot than I did on my left foot or my, my back foot. Yeah. With an eye. And I said, when did that happen? You know what I mean?

[00:28:15] Like when did I start? That’s what I’m telling everybody else not to do. And here I am doing it, trying to show somebody, right? So when I kind of traced it back and realized that it was kind of the fall with the dogs where I hurt my. And I think I was just simply, you know, simply trying to keep the weight off that knee.

[00:28:28] So I didn’t hurt it any worse and I was really kind of ruining my golf game. So, just recently, um, I, I was actually running and got bit by a dog, so all, all my, all my running stories have anything to do with the dog right now are pretty bad. So, I dunno, maybe I should take up cycling or, I don’t know. Yeah, swimming right.

[00:28:48] Can’t bite me in the pool. So, um, More and more recently, I, I’d given you, uh, an email. I emailed you a couple weeks back and I just noticed that I was becoming increasingly stiff [00:29:00] and tight and having more and more pain in my back and my neck, uh, in particular, yeah. And had some issues where if I was just rotating my neck, a case I’d kind of had like a shooting pain that was coming across.

[00:29:14] And, um, yeah, I remember that in, in a golf swinging. You have two, two things that rotate. You have body rotation and then you have hand in arm rotation. So body rotation makes the ball curve for a right-handed golfer. Okay? For right-handed golfer, body rotation makes the ball curve to the right or slice right?

[00:29:39] Okay. Hand in arm rotation. Cause of the ball to go to the left and draw or hook. So the combination of those two things, hopefully you have the right amount of body turn to go with the amount of hand and arm turn that you do. And if you can, then you can have straight shots. If your body turns more than your hands [00:30:00] do, then you end up being a slicer.

[00:30:02] Okay. If your hands turn more than your body does, you end up hitting hook shots. So I had noticed that when I was playing. Um, uh, again, if you’re, if you’re not much of a golfer there for a right-handed golfer, that’s a shot that starts straight and then, Curved off to the left, fairly violently in the case of some of my hooks when I get it going.

[00:30:21] Um, but you know, what I noticed was happening was I had never played that much of a pronounced draw, um, in the last decade, and all of a sudden a lot of my shots were curving pretty heavily to the left. So again, kind of went back and looked at some video. Uh, that’s why it’s good to have your camera around, have a pro put it on video, go look at it.

[00:30:39] Definitely, you know, before we start making any decisions. Um, but I looked at it on video and I did notice. My body was barely turning it all through impact. And, you know, that was forcing my hands and arms to over rotate, which was causing those big hooks. And I, for one, am not a fan of a big hook. So, um, I said, man, I gotta get my, I gotta get my body right so I can get turning again [00:31:00] and, uh, see if I can get some of that, um, handed arm rotation out of there.

[00:31:04] Yeah. So we, I know we worked on it a little bit. How is it doing now? Do you feel some improvement? Quite a bit better. Excellent. Quite, which I, I had mentioned to you when I saw you. Um, I don’t think I had been to, other than talking with you and what, whatnot, I hadn’t been to a chiropractor to get an adjustment, what, maybe 20 years or so.

[00:31:22] Oh, wow. So, you know, the stuff that you showed me with my spine and the amount that you were able to do on that adjustment was really pretty impressive, honestly. And I did, I felt, um, I, I mentioned I was, you know, hey, That was a lot of movement you had to do on my spine. So, you know, felt maybe a little bit sore the next day, but, you know, over the course of the next four or five days, that’s the best my backs felt and so long I can’t remember.

[00:31:44] So it really did help. Awesome. Mm-hmm. And good. And I remember we also, last time we, we spoke a couple years ago, um, I mentioned we even do inserts for golf shoes. Um, and just in general, people stabilizing their feet creates a better balanced body [00:32:00] and it’ll create better strength, better balance, you know, less chance of injury.

[00:32:04] So, um, that’s something else that we have and, and, uh, we’ve started using that more with, with golfers, but just athletes in general and seen a big difference. Yep. I personally wear orthotics all the time, so I know that it works and it’s really cut down on my knee and back injuries over the last five years or so.

[00:32:21] Now these, these, um, you know, the ortho you’re talking about, can you wear these in both athletic shoes and casual dress shoes as well, or do you need a different one for the different things that you’re doing? Yeah, that’s a great question. A lot of them, if you can take the bottom out of whatever shoe that you have and most dressed shoes, unless they’re, they’re really, really nice ones.

[00:32:41] Usually they can pull out the bottom of the shoe. Yeah. And you just slide in the orthotic that you have cuz it’s a thinner orthotic. Now the nice part about these orthotics, They’re very thin and flexible now, where the old school ones were very thick with hard plastic and couldn’t move much. Um, these do, they are interchangeable with [00:33:00] a lot of golf shoes and tennis shoes and dress shoes.

[00:33:03] And then also, uh, if you, but if, if you can’t take out the bottoms, they’re, they are smaller ones that can lay on top of there, um, which is really cool. So they’re, they’ve been very, more, much more functional than they used to. And I find that they also last typically three or four years before you even have to replace ’em, which is too, yeah.

[00:33:21] That’s great. Yeah. I recommend that to a lot of my patients. Anybody that comes in, we always do a foot scan, we check the posture, we, we do some muscle testing on that to see if there’s any strength difference. Uh, I know. Same thing with with you, that happens with most people. Most people, they’re unbalanced and when they stand on those, they, they’re a lot more balanced.

[00:33:41] Um, and then when we take the x-rays, the cool thing about my new office is we have digital x-rays, so it pops up on the screen right away and you can instantly see if there’s an issue or not. And, um, that’s, that’s a cool learning tool that we have too. And just, it’s good for a lot of the kids that have that come in, they’re athletes and even some of the, the adults that come in, they’re playing [00:34:00] golf like, like Alan, that they came in the other day.

[00:34:02] Uh, he was raving about you. He said he loved his first lesson, so Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I, I really appreciate you being, this is some really good stuff. I’m glad we got to expand on our, on. Our episode from a couple years ago, and I’ve gotten more into golf again, so I really appreciate what you’re saying here and I’ve learned a lot just on that.

[00:34:23] Like some of the things you said where, you know if, if your hands are more active than your body, you’re gonna hook it. If your body’s more active, your hands are gonna slice it. That’s right. I’m typically a slicer, so that’s, that’s a good thing for me to remember on that. Um, to really learn about that.

[00:34:37] And then what you said about driving, you know, is more from the backside and, and irons are more from the front side, right? I can tell now a little bit better. Some of the bad shots that I’ve hit and some of the good shots I’ve hit when I know kind of what I did right and wrong. Um, and I think it’s good to know that.

[00:34:54] So, um, as far as I know you give lessons and you, you know, you’re right there in Franklin. What’s a [00:35:00] good way for people to get in touch with you if they wanna reach out for a lesson or, um, you know, try to improve some things on their. Absolutely. So I am here at the Vanderbilt Legends Club, uh, 1500 Legends Lane in Franklin.

[00:35:14] My email address is m Hicks, m h i k s, at vanderbilt legends club.com. Um, and then our phone number here is six one five five nine. 1 4 50. Yeah. You know, we, we had just a huge uptick in golf last year with the pandemic. You know, golf’s up is one of the few things we could do, right? Yeah. So that’s very true.

[00:35:37] Golf and do nothing. Um, so we have, um, more people beginning, you know, the game than ever, whatever. Um, so, you know, uh, reach out to me. I can kind of point you in the right direction. Um, um, you know, let’s get off to a good start with some good fundamentals and make this a really great game for you. For your lifetime, right.

[00:35:58] Absolutely. That’s, that’s really some great [00:36:00] advice and, uh, I hope everybody out there that’s listening to this, you reach out to Micah. He’s, he’s very personable. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s done this a long time. And, uh, just what I’ve heard from the last couple podcasts we’ve done, it’s, you know, that’s, Great info there, but really, you know, if you want to get some fine tuning on your swing, go see Micah and, and, and he can really help you out.

[00:36:20] And, uh, I look forward to seeing you here in the future and working with you again. Yeah. And I really appreciate you being on the podcast again. And, and we’ll, we’ll, you know, have another episode in the future and, and talk about some new things that, that, that come up over the next year or two. Sounds great.

[00:36:35] Thanks for having me on, doc. All right, thanks, Mike. I look forward to seeing you soon. And don’t forget to download this new guide, how to Sport Good Posture and Tap into your natural athletic potential. It’s a way to customize some checks that you can do at home, and it’s really a blueprint for your body.

[00:36:51] To help excel in athletics, just go to sporting good posture.com/sports. Don’t forget to follow me at Sporting Good Posture on [00:37:00] Instagram. You can always DM me there. Or on Facebook at Ideal Health and Wellness Center. Tell me what’s going on and I’ll tell you what I think. Remember, the coach’s door is always open.

[00:37:12] This is Coach Frank. I’m sporting good posture. How about you? The Sporting Good Posture Podcast is a broadcast wellness production powered by Ideal Health Wellness Center, all content copyright 2021 all rights reserved. Executive producer Frank Sardella, coach Frank Pierce, courtesy of Ideal Health Wellness Center in Franklin.

[00:37:32] For more information, visit sporting good posture.com and follow Coach on Instagram at Sporting Good Posture. I am di. From the planet Vulcan. He just said, I give you, I do the thing.