sorry! Tyler and I have been working hard to get our product done and have been enjoying the summer, and all of the sudden it’s august!

anyway, we have exciting things coming up that well keep you driving toward being not only a better athlete, but a better golfer as well!

stay tuned!

Testing….Testing…

Is this thing on? Sorry, it’s been a while and just wanted to make sure this thing still worked.

Long ago, I learned from golf that as soon as you think you have things figured out, you learn that you don’t. And while this may no longer apply to golf for Dee and I, we are the Golf Fitness Guys after all!, it certainly applied to the last year of my life. I thought I had my neck figured out last fall…I didn’t. So after a rough patch, I’m back to where I can spend more time working on a computer and I couldn’t be happier to return to blogging.

I thought long and hard about how I wanted to return, but I ultimately decided that having a big return is making more a deal of it that it really is. It’s like a New Year’s resolution. I don’t know the statistics, but I know that most New Year’s resolutions fail. I personally have much more success when I just decide that I am going to try and do something more often. I’ll start today, and then I’ll try to keep it going as long as I can. I feel that with this approach it is much easier to get back on track after inevitable slip ups. Or, maybe a more golfy example, it would be like stepping up to the first tee with the goal of hitting every green. This is a lofty and difficult goal because there is so much pressure associated with each shot. A better phrased goal for golf would be, “I’m going to try and hit this shot as well as I can.” Realistically, if I hit it solidly, and I pick the right club, and the right shot, then it should hit the green. But it doesn’t create the same internal environment as if I start out on the first tee with the goal, “I will try to hit every green.” Think about it this way, you don’t go to the range and say, “I’m going to try and hit every green.” You go to the range and hit a shot. In order to perform your best you should practice how you plan to play and imagine that when you play it is just like practice.

In my case my thought process goes like this. “I’m going to blog today.” I’m not going to make an outrageous claim to blog every day or even every week. I’m just going to blog today, put blogging back in my mental picture and on my to do list. I’ll start taking notes when I read, teach, or watch golf of topics that I would love to share.

Check back soon for tips from Dee and I to help your game.

As a follow up to the last post, I guess putting blogging back in my forefront worked because I started seeing good topics everywhere I look again. Anyway, This morning, I was watching Sports Center on ESPN and they were interviewing Chip Kelly, the head football coach for University of Oregon. He was talking about a fun activity that the team does each Friday night to help get them pumped up for a game. He takes a popular movie and dubs over the famous lines with the message of the week. The thing that impressed me was the reason that they do this. It’s not to lighten the mood. It’s not to keep a bunch of 21-year-olds entertained. He does this because he said the majority of his players are visual learners. Do you know what style of learner you are? Does your instructor or trainer? I’m guessing no to all of these questions, but it may be one of the limiting factors in your improvement.

Somewhere during childhood we each hardwire our brains into a certain pattern of learning. The three common distinctions of learning are Visual, Auditory, or Kinestetic. In golf, or sport, these would be Visual, Rhythm, or Feel. The different learning styles really dictate how a person should approach practice and how they should build a preshot routine. If you cross languages, or wires, you will be confused.

Here’s a familiar example for a visual learner. Let’s say a visual learner goes to the golf course with a tip from a recent golf magazine fresh in his mind. The article talked about dropping the arms to bring the club from the inside in order to stop his slice. Sounds good right? Not for Mr. Picture. The only way that he will benefit from it is if he were to try and drop his arms but focus on what it looked like. Otherwise, this will create a fuzzy picture and for a Visual person to perform well is simple. The clearer the image for a Visual learner, then the better the result. Visual learners do well with shafts in the ground for practice so that they can SEE where the club is supposed to travel or other drills that help create a clearer image. Drills that focus on FEEL can confuse a visual learner and make the player worse.

From my experience, very few golf professionals are really aware of the different learning styles and even fewer incorporate them into their lessons. They ask every player, “How does that feel.” They stick shafts in the ground for anybody doing a path drill. Or they talk about how important rhythm and balance are regardless of who they are talking to. Let me give you an example that comes to mind when I think of how golf instructors look at students. A friend and golf pro had just finished giving a lesson when I was walking up to join him for a late nine. I could tell by the expression on his face that he thought it went well. But I asked how it went anyway.
He said, “That was one of the best lessons I have ever given.”
I said, “So if I asked your student, he would know exactly what he is supposed to work on and why?”
He looked puzzled and said, “well no, he probably couldn’t explain it to you.”
I responded, “That’s fine, could he show me?”
“well…maybe” He said as his tone changed towards frustration with me and my constant questioning.
Now I was puzzled. I asked him, “What made the golf lesson one of the best you have ever given?”
He said, “Easy, I explained what he needed to work on as clearly as I ever have and I did a great job of showing it on the video.”
“oh….good, let’s go play.” During the round, I explained my line of questioning.

An important lesson in communication is that “the meaning of a word in a given conversation is the interpretation of the listener.” I might say the most correct explanation imaginable, but if it not interpreted by the listener then it’s my fault. Usually, if the listener doesn’t get it, then I’m not speaking the same learning language that they are looking for. That might have been the case here. All those pretty words might have been lost on a feel or visual player.

My lesson to you is to know your own personal learning style. Until this concept is more mainstream if you don’t know your own personal learning style then you are just rolling the dice with your golf pro. Well, unless of course you get one of those rare special coaches like Chip Kelly of University of Oregon. I’m routing for the Ducks this year.

Tyler here with a little break from my norm.  I love a good movie, and this scene from Forgetting Sarah Marshall plays in my head anytime I hear a certain phrase during a PGA Tour Player’s interview.  Refresh yourself with the clip first.

How many times have you heard a tour pro say that they swing at about 80%?  Well, the PGA Tour average club head speed is around 112 MPH.  That means if a player were to swing all out, by basic math (112/.8) They would have a club head speed around 140 MPH, which is a typical output for a member of the long drive circuit.  So either one of two things is going on.  Either the average player doesn’t know how hard he is swinging compared to what he is capable of.  Or Brad Faxon has been really holding back all these years.  To think, he could have been driving par fours all along!

I understand that golf is a complicated sport, but we are at a place with technology where we can put an end to some of these confusing and misleading mantras, and hopefully avoid falling down the nutrition path.  To a novice, the golf swing is as confusing as deciding what is healthy to eat and what is not.  Can I eat bacon?  Whole grains are healthy still right?  Are eggs healthy these days or not?  Think about it, we have the same thing in golf.  I should swing easy?  I should keep my left arm straight?  It’s all in the hips right?  Don’t tell me chubs was lying, I don’t think I could take that one.

Nutrition goes through fad diet cycles just as golf goes through fad swing cycles and to the average consumer this creates a defeatist attitude.  The more complicated a topic is, the more opinions you will find on it.  I haven’t seen a new style of shooting free throws since the great debate between the purist and Rick Barry.

Usually, at the heart of complication is the quality of the data and the size of the sample.  Nutrition problems started by looking at small populations and making the claim that the success that population had will work for everyone.  Everyone should eat low fat because a small tribe in South America did so with success.  Golf was the same way.  Everyone should swing to parallel because Ben Hogan did.  Well, with nutrition, systems of evaluating the person first and then determining the appropriate diet have successfully evolved.  This evolution came from better data collection and identifying underlying critical factors, such as blood sugar, antioxidant levels, or calorie density.  These systems are now being used with great success to create healthy plans while still accounting for biochemical individuality.

Golf currently has 3D technology which can do the same thing which can debunk a lot of these myths.  Golfers are now going through screens before lessons to see what their body can physically do.  Then golf swings are being adjusted for these physical parameters.  The more we use accurate data to get our answers, the better our instruction is going to get.  I’m excited for the next coming years in golf and nutrition.  I’m excited to be able to swing hard…and eat bacon.