Playing your best golf after turning 50, 60 or even 70! with Josh Leyes

So our foundation has to be rotary mobility. And golfers they're like, oh, yeah, I know I need to be flexible. But people don't like to do flexibility work because number one, they may not know exactly what they need to do. It's like, you know, I can stretch my quads, I can stretch my hamstrings. I might do a few trunk rotations like this, but is that really going to make a measurable difference? And so what we found is that number one, measure the areas where we need to rotate better.

And for a golfer, those are the four key areas where we need to rotate all your neck so you can actually turn and see the ball. If you just do a trunk with your body and then you try and backseling position, then I try and rotate my head to look at the ball. I need a good amount of neck rotation. And for people that if they start to turn their head, or if you notice if you're driving and you kind of have to turn your whole body to check behind you, golfers would have to do

a shoulder check. They're finding that the next tighte that's sure sign that your neck mobility is limited.

mission is simply to help golfer has achieved longevity. We just define that as you being able to play at whatever level you want for as long as you want or whatever level you deem enjoyable. So that's that's what we love doing here.

a few minutes becomes a couple of days. When I hit forty, it just took a lot longer to recover from from minor injuries than it did in the past. And it was like I got to learn to be patient, and is this what's going to be happening the rest of my life?

brittle yet. But yeah, what what what golfers can start to do as they get older? What we typically see for it? And this is based on our research, and that's what we love to do here. We love to compile research and data, physical data on every golfer that we work with. So not only does that include swing data, but we've got the physical metrics on what their mobility's

like and what their strength and power are like. So we can tell you physically someone in their twenties, thirties, forties, every decade through the seventies and eighties, what the relative norms are, so golfers can know what to expect and what the what's possible, and where they're at, so we can set really realistic goals and say, hey, if you're only at the thirtieth percentile for clubhead speed for your age group, there's no reason to think that you can't

get it to the top twenty five percent with some heart, with some work. So that's really encouraging the golfers. But like you said, on the aches and pain side, you know, golfers typically as they age, every decade we see not only are the aches and pains going to take a little bit longer to go away, but we can we can mitigate that, and we can minimize that by doing

the right things. And we'll get into that. But every about every decade we see after thirty, so once you kind of like you said, start your forties, every decade we see about a five mile on hour drop off in club headsby So that's yeah, So that's that's the average. Some golfers are more somewhere less, but the average is about is about five miles an hour per decade, So that amounts to you know, it's probably we're probably talking fifteen yards every ten years.

third shot. That's where golfers can get frustrated, and that's where we love to help them, because actually helping a golfer realize that you don't need to do a lot of crazy things to improve and get better and hit the ball further and hurt less. You just have to do a few simple things, really really consistent, and that's what we love to do, and.

help them recover after they're playing. It's usually after a golfer play is done playing, especially if you walk the course, if you've got any more than a five minute drive home, you know, the body starts to cool off, or maybe you have a drink or two in the grow room, and then you get in your car, and then you get out of your car, and you take takes more than thirty seconds to sort of get into an upright position when you're trying to get out of your chair.

So that those are the things that we get a lot of sort of complaints about golfers is that they're just, hey, I'm starting to feel old and I don't really like it anymore. And the what we really we try and simplify it for people, and to take a very broad approach. There's a couple we'd like to talk about how we're going to help people get better. So I'd like to share a little bit about that and just give you

the illustration of a think of a pyramid. Right, So the most important part of the pyramid obviously is the foundation, because if we don't have a wide base and foundation, the top is it's not going to stay put. So in any building, we want a solid foundation and then you always start with that. You can't start a building by building a roof first, it just doesn't work. So our foundation has to be rotary mobility. And golfers they're like, oh, yeah,

I know I need to be flexible. But people don't like to do flexibility work because number one, they may not know exactly what they need to do. Right. It's like, well, I you know, I can stretch my quads, I can stretch my hamstrings. I might do a few trunk rotations like this, but what is that really going to make

a measurable difference? Right? And so what we found is that if we actually number one, measure the areas where we need to rotate better, right, and that for a golfer, those are the four key areas where we need to rotate are your neck so you can actually turn and see the ball. If you imagine me, you know, the coffers are just listening. If you just do a trunk turn and with your body and then you try and into a baseline position, then I try and rotate my head to look at the ball. I need a good

amount of neck rotation. And for people that actually if they start to turn their head or if you notice, if you're driving and you kind of have to turn your whole body to check behind you. We have the luxury of those backup cameras now, but before that golfers would have to actually, you know, to do a shoulder check. There. They're finding that the next type, that's a sure sign that your your neck mobility is limited. So that's going to limit one, your ability to make a big turn

and keep your eye on the ball. Number two, we need to rotate your trunk and your spine, and then number three is your shoulders, which are going to be more in control of the club path. So golfers that are top, if they want to be more consistent, they want to eliminate a slice. We know that that right shoulder trail shoulder. If we're talking about right handed golfers, it's the right shoulder that needs good rotation. This way

external rotation. So if I take my arm in a ninety degree position, I try and point my thumb way back behind me. We want to see that form get well behind you like that, and if it's only getting to parallel to the or perpendicular to the ground, then it's definitely limited. That's going to allow you to shallow

the club on the downswing. So for golfers that are complaining of over the top move and if you feel like, oh, you're trying to arch your back to do that, that's probably a sure sign that, oh, my shoulder might not rotate enough. So that's going to be a reason why golfers come over the top, which is a distance killer as well. And the last one is the hips. The is you know happy, No, it wasn't happy. Gilmore's chuck Peterson said, it's all in the hips, right, It's all

in the hips. Happy. So if our hips don't rotate, the hips are essentially the connection between your lower body and your upper body. But if our hips don't rotate well enough, Fred, your body is not going to be able to make a good weight shift and help you get onto your lead side in the gulf, which is essentially what's going to create a lot of your clubhead speed. Is that that weight shift from trail side the lead side.

So we make sure from a mobility standpoint that that foundation is really, really solid, and then we start to build up.

hip tests. Actually we didn't get into that one, but our hips need to internally rotate, so that would be like me, I'll just for anybody that can see, if I'm sitting and I try and rotate my thigh like this, If you're sitting and you try and rotate so your your shin actually moves outwards like that for golfers that your shin only rotates a little bit and you're trying to not lean to the side and you're just trying to rotate your thigh and the inwards, so your foot

goes out. If we don't have close to forty five degrees of rotation this way with the hip, that's a significant limitation. Most golfers are like, oh, I'm getting a cramp in my hip when I do that motion. That's

probably a sign that your hip rotation is limited. And the lead side, the left side is actually for left side for a right handed golfer, is going to be where we need the most internal rotation because that rotation is where you actually post up on this lead side, so that's where we eat a lot of that internal rotation. So if you're having trouble getting onto your lead side and if you're having trouble posting up and shifting weight, that is a real primary area that we usually target

with golfers. So that is really key. So we measure it, we test it, and if golfers don't pass, you know, in terms of how many degrees they're rotating, we just give them a very specific targeted plan for hip rotation where we can gain you know, five, ten, fifteen degrees hip rotation in a month or two and that gets them to a spot where not only will they see improvements in how their swing feels and I'm able to get onto my lead side, but we'll see that golfers

don't have this stiffle over back that they usually have after playing golf, because if those hips don't rotate, If you just think of a ball and socket joint, that ball in socket's designed to rotate, which is your hip socket. If they don't rotate and they're stuck, guess what's going to compensate? Body goes up the chain and ask the lower back, hey, can you move a little bit more than you really should to help out these hips that

don't rotate. So the lower back typically side bends and twists in an effort to kind of get through the swing, and that's where the lower back takes a lot of the stress. So all the parts are somewhat connected, but it's really important for golfers to understand that rotary mobility is that foundation to the pyramid. Usually golfers will look to, you know, one of four places to try and improve

their performance. The first two places they'll usually look for better technique, which makes sense, like taking lessons seeing a pro is great and then equipment. Those would be the first two places golfers will usually try and improve. If you think of four pieces of the pie, we've got our technique. So seeing a golf pro working on your skills,

that can be great. But if you can't physically move into the positions where a teacher is trying to get you to, it's going to be difficult for the instructor to gate to see big improve It's because, well, if this person can't rotate their trunk, they can't rotate their hips, they're really stiff. I'm going to have to work around

these limitations. Whereas if we get the golfer to move correctly, then all of a sudden, those technical issues in the swing over the top or early extension or maybe they've got a chicken wing finish, a lot of those technical issues are actually they're because of a physical restriction. So the tech the problem, it's not a technical issue in this swing. It's just a physical restriction that's presenting as

a technical problem in the swing. Because your body will just work within its within its physical limits.

this person needs help rotating. Can you can you help them? And then we definitely that's what we usually see with people that are starting with this, is that my golf pro is trying to get me to this position in the backswing or to start my downswing with getting onto my lead hip. And then we go and measure their lead hip and it's only got fifteen degrees of rotation. When that lead hip should get forty five degrees of rotation. Well, it's it's actually not a surprise that you can't get

onto your lead hip. It's not that you're not trying. It's not that you're The brain is saying, okay, get onto your lead yep, come on, but the body is if it's if there's a physical restriction, we just need to work around that. So that's where often the yeah, golfers will go to technique, they'll go to equipment, but mobility and then strengthen power are the other two pieces of that puzzle, and that's where you golfers will usually

look last. Obviously I'm biased. I think that we should go there first because make sure your body can physically handle the demands of what we're trying to get it to do. Because physically, the golf swing is a daunting task to actually place that club that sweet spot on a golf the sweet spot's probably, you know, but the size of a quarter, and you're trying to you're trying to move a club head anywhere from probably eighty to one hundred plus miles an hour in the span of

less than two seconds. It's a minor miracle that golfers actually make contact with the ball.

Josh was doing. But for those listening, thank you, and you know, let's carry on. Okay. So you're saying there's four parts, the technique, then equipment, then three and four.

they're going to need a longer runway. The golf swing. Obviously, depending on how fast you're going, we need enough runway or rotary mobility, which is your space in your body to swing freely without restrictions, so that you can get into good positions in your swing and swing at speed. You need rotary mobility to have that runway to swing at speed. And if we don't have enough runway or room to rotate, this is where we're going to see

those compensations in your swing. And if if you don't have that room to rotate, your body just ends up banging into brick walls every time you swing, which is over time that someone doesn't address it, the aches and pains get worse, and eventually we have an injury.

And this is where people often may get a little bit hesitant because they're afraid that they're going to reinjure their hip. But once you get past the rehab phase, which is anywhere from May to twelve weeks, and that should be done, you know, to restore that full range of motion. And the rehab part of it is, especially

with knees and hips, it's it's not comfortable. I'm not going to lie to you but as you've probably heard from your friends, but if you're willing to go through that and have full range of motion in the joint, we're not necessarily starting at ground zero. But a lot of the time before people got into before people had the surgery, their mobility was not in a great spot to begin with, which ultimately, if we don't have good mobility, that's where the joints are going to wear out prematurely

and going to have more wear and tear. So making sure that number one, we just if someone has a surgery, they get a joint replaced. We look at each person and say, okay, well, let's let's test everything and see where it is. Let's measure your mobility, and we also measure strength and power too, but let's measure your mobility and see where we're at, and then we know what

areas that we need to focus on. Because if someone's trunk rotates really well, and someone doesn't need to improve their trunk rotation, then we don't need to spend extra time rotating on the trunk. We need to keep it in a good spot and maintain it. But if their hips don't rotate very well, then and that's the most common I would say area of struggle for golfers is

internal hip rotation and that's the challenging one. So that's where we would spend most of the time focusing on improving that one area that needs the most attention and people. You know, again, it doesn't take a lot of time to make significant improvements in your rotation.

doing the exercises properly. We do a combination of soft tissue releases, so we do we teach people where their muscles are that they that are causing the restriction, and we teach them how to do some manual therapy or self mild fascil release or trigger point release for those muscles so that the muscle can actually calm down and relax, and then we'll give them two or three mobility exercises to follow up on that soft tissue release working within

a healthy end range of motion, So we're trying to basically re establish a new end range of motion for that joint. So we're basically helping you find out where your limit is and your end range of motion and then gradually improve that with each workout so that someone within two weeks they're usually seeing you know, you know, about five degrees sometimes ten degrees increase in range of motion, especially in the hips, because we want to see a

forty five degrees of internal rotation. And often people start in the twenties, mostly guys in their sixties, they're probably starting between fifteen and twenty five, sometimes around thirty. But that extra fifteen degrees difference makes a big impact when you're trying to get onto that lead side in your golf swing.

So if you think about you know, as I said before, the golf swing takes place in less than two seconds, and we're swinging anywhere from probably eighty to one hundred miles an hour plus depending on your age and ability and skill. So the golf swing is a power sport. It's a power event like it's it's just like doing a throwing sport, pitching a baseball like it is. It is power. So unfortunately, a lot of golfers when they're thinking about training physically, you know, they might do forty

five minutes on treadmill or a cardio machine. I might do some bicep curls and some light squats and they're they're doing ten to fifteen reps times three sets at lightweight. Well, that might help you walk the golf course a little better, but when it comes to hitting the ball further, we need to actually learn to move a We need to move and implement really really fast and get good at that.

So to get good at that, we actually need to build an engine that can handle creating force, and that's you know, strength is simply how much force can you apply to something, whether you're trying to pick something up or push it. That's strength. Power or speed is power is simply how fast you can do it. How fast can you apply that force, And that's what we're looking

for on golf. So we need to train by making sure that we can apply force and get stronger, and then we train the golfer to apply that force relatively quickly. So we need to train strength and power to increase the size of that engine. If we don't increase the size of somebody's engine, then they're going to continue swinging. And mobility will probably prevent somebody from getting maybe some

major injuries and aches and pains. But if you do not increase your ability to create power and apply like I said, apply force, then and your clubhead speed is not going to go up. It will go down as you age. So now the upside is it doesn't take you know, it doesn't take working out two hours a day to get stronger. You know, we can we can see results with somebody in ninety minutes a week. If you're willing to do three times thirty minute workouts in

a week. You will get stronger if you're doing the right things.

move that implement that golf club really fast. And we're doing that by you can you can create force against the handle of the club, and you can create force against the ground. Those are the only two things that we have, you know, the ability to put force against to create speed in your swing. The ground is a lot bigger than the handle, so that is our best low you know, best possibility to gain club head speed is getting you better at pushing against the ground. So

that looks like squats, It looks like lunges. It looks like hinging motions or deadlifts done properly. All those things help you push against the ground, which ultimately is going to give you the ability to create clubhead speed.

your age category to the eightieth percentile. You can go from the twentieth to the seventieth. And for those people that are you know, they're already near the top for their age category, they might want to they might be in the eightieth percentile for speed, but they might say, hey, I want I want to compete with guys that are younger than me. And that's when it gets really fun. Is golfer that's in their sixties is like I'm playing

with forty five fifty year olds. I want to keep up with them, and yeah, and uh or well, scoring scoring different, but scoring becomes easier when you can hit it further, obviously. But but for those people, it's really fun when they actually when we start to get stronger, and we simply when we're measuring power, we just get somebody to jump. We measure their vertical jump, and we measure their ability to throw a medicine ball from a seated position. We measure their chest pass how far you

can throw it. So those two simple tests really are going to show us how much force you can put down against the ground and how much force you can exert with your upper body against an object. And as simple as it sounds, we can pretty much tell when somebody does those two tests what their clubheads. Beat is going to be.

But it depends on the person. So some people are just like, hey, I just want to be able to play and not have aches and pains, and I want to hit the ball further. I don't. I don't feel like I have. You know, I don't my golf course.

It's it's a really tough walk. Like you just need to be able to If you ride all the time, you need to be able to swing the club and you still have to walk a certain distance, but you may not be able to you you may not need to walk up all these hills if you're riding a cart. So the demands are going to be different. We you know,

if somebody wants to walk, that's great. Then we need to make sure the golfer has the physical ability to and the endurance to walk the golf course several times a week depending on how many times they play, or if they've got an upcoming trip like some of these places, if you're going to go to Scotland or England or Island, like,

it's walking only, so there's not a choice. And if you're going to play six, seven, eight days in a row and it's walking only, we would definitely prepare somebody for that if they're not used to walking on a regular basis. And some of the courses in the in the States now, the resorts like Abandon and the one in the Sand Valley, a lot of those resorts now are they're basically walking only.

direction where you kind of moving straightforwards. You know, maybe uh, swimming, there might be there's there's very little rotation demands, especially in hiking and biking swimming, there might be a little bit pickleball, tennis. I would call all of those activities exercise, right, So we're working on what we call capacity. So how far can you walk, how far can you swim? You're biking, we're testing the capacity of the bodies, maybe muscular endurance

to some degree. So when we're thinking about golf, like I said, those four rotary centerspread the neck, the shoulders, the spine, and the hips. They all need to be able to rotate a certain amount for you to have a you know, a biomechanically relatively sound, repeatable, powerful golf swing. So if we don't have rotation around those areas, hiking and biking aren't necessarily going to help those because we're

not addressing the problem, which is hip rotation. So I'm not rotating my hip as much when I'm walking in a straight line or when I'm biking in a straight line. Pickleball and tennis, we're moving. But again that's a sort of a fitness activity, and maybe it's better than doing no movement, But you can spend ten minutes of doing dedicated hip mobility work and that's going to get you a lot farther than playing an hour of pickleball.

addressing strength and power, those two fundamental building blocks. Okay, of that pyramid that we talked about, we've got mobility at the bottom, then strength and power. The top two are basically technique or efficiency, and the very top one is speed. Right, So we're not going to chase speed unless we've got mobility and strength and power. So if so, if we give somebody mobility and we give them strength and strength and power, strength and power, they're they're going

to have the best ability to perform at golf. Uh is playing pick a ball or tennis or hiking, is it going to make them a better golfer? I think the if your if your sole focus is getting better at golf, there's you know, putting a little bit of attention into another you know, making sure those those baseline things, the mobility and the strength and power, making sure that those aren't a great spot that is. It sounds it

sounds really simple. But and that's where most people. If you can be consistent with those basics and making sure you rotate well and that you're strong enough which means I should say powerful enough so you can jump high and you can throw far, uh, we can create speed, then you're going to be in your best spot to perform well on golf. Now, hiking, biking, those things are

great things to enjoy. Nothing nothing wrong with those at all, But I don't know if they're going to translate to an improve golf performance at all.

And again it sounds really simple, but if we tested all those people, I guarantee you they would probably have significant restrictions in rotary mobility, probably lead hip that for right hand and golfer getting onto your lead hip and probably being able to rotate your trunk at least fifty

sixty degrees in each direction. So that's where if someone can't rotate, they're going to get to those spots when they're at their end range of motion and they're fifteen to twenty degrees short to where they need to be, and that's where the arms kind of fling up when they swing and they don't really get onto their lead side.

So most people, when they talk about having a lack of balance, especially in their golf swing, when we improve their ability to rotate, all of a sudden, four to six months later, they're noticing, hey, I can actually hold my finish now. Whereas six months ago I wasn't able

to do that. Those are those are the kinds of things that we typically see with people that are having balance issues, is that they can actually get through a full range of motion, and it might take your brain and your body a little bit of time to adopt those new sort of i'd say default settings for your body when you're golfing, because you've got your swing pattern in your brain. Between your brain and your muscles, or people call that muscle memory, it's not actually your muscles

don't remember anything. It's your brain that creates a sense of software program for your body to create that golf swing. So when we improve the hardware, and when I say hardware, your ability to rotate. So if we improve the parts and upgrade your shoulder, neck, trunk, and hip mobility, all of a sudden we've upgraded the hardware, we kind of have to do a software update based on the new hardware that we have in your body so that you can actually trust that your body can get into these

new positions in the swing. So that can take a little bit of adjustment period. And people are like, wow, I hit some really really good shots on the golf course and I felt like I could swing through, and then some of them were you know, in the first couple of months, it's like I hit some that were really long and straight, and then some of them kind of went all over the place. But your body is getting used to sort of those new default settings in terms of that upgraded hardware.

going it's useless for it. But I when for each quadrant in each section that I'm I'm doing my I stand on one foot and then on the next quadrant, I switch to the other foot and I try to

maintain my balance through it. Now it's gotten to the point where I use just one finger to tap on the countertop to if I start losing my balance, I can just tap on it instead of holding onto it and you know, holding on But I'm trying to increase my strength, my legs and my balance by doing that, thinking that it's going to.

rise to the ceiling of where your mobility's at. But if we can bring your mobility up, the ability for you to increase your your balance is going to be your ceiling will be higher. But there's no arm in standing on one foot and practicing at all.

if you do the right things. Addresser mobility, address your strength and power. I mean golfers that are listening to this, they've probably already tinkered with equipment, they might take lessons or you know, look at technical things on YouTube, but make sure you're addressing those those physical limitations because ultimately that's where I think the lowest hanging fruit is for most people.

it's not just for Golf Smarter Ambassadors. It's for golfers of all skill levels who love to travel and explore new courses, meet new friends who share common interests, and for many of you, escape the winter cold for some beautiful spring weather in Alabama. We'll be together from March twenty twenty six to the thirtieth, twenty twenty five, and it's going to be fun. It's going to be a blast.

We're keeping the group to only three foursomes, but there's always some last minute changes, so to get all the information pricing itinerary and reserve your space. Go to TMI golf dot com slash golf Smarter. That's TMI golf dot com slash golf Smarter. This week on golf Smarter, Mulligan's We'll Hear Part two with Mark Sweeney of the aim Point putting system. Does aim Point work? I'll let Mark explain for himself.

I took it out and tested it. I only did one slope, so I just did a basic two percent slope, and I went out and played eighteen holes and I think I had eleven putts on the front and fourteen putts on the back. And I had never ever been below thirty putts and I never made anything outside ten feet. I think I made two or three putts outside fifteen feet, made a lot more five six, seven footers, and I

remember just thinking, Wow, there's really something to this. I don't really understand it yet, I don't really know how to use it yet, but just the first time I ever tried it, I could not believe how much better my putting was just knowing what the proper break was.