The Importance of Golf Fitness -Joe Orbaczewski
Guest: Joe Orbaczewski
Release Date: 10/25/2021
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Steve Washuta: Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast. I’m your host, Steve Washuta, co-founder of Trulyfit and author of the book Fitness Business 101. In today’s podcast, we talk about golf, fitness, the importance of golf fitness, I have on Joe who is a physical therapist. He’s a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. And he’s also a TPI professional, which is a golf, fitness certification. If you’re not familiar with it, you can find Joe at pure Dr. Underscore golf physio, pH y si o on Instagram for all of his links and information.
Joe and I go over the basics of golf fitness, why it is important, what you should be looking for when you’re doing assessments with clients. If you’re somebody who has to golf, why this is important to you, comparatively speaking to all of the other areas of golfer, what I call the branches of golf, you spent a lot of money, maybe going to get fitted for your clubs, and paying lessons, why aren’t you taking care of your body? Right?
This is one of the major elements of your golf success. We’re talking about injury prevention, we talk about the muscles that are most likely to be either lengthened or shortened or weak or strong, that could affect the golf swing, we talked about what we consider a disassociation from thoracic rotation and hip mobility.
I mean, we get specific. And then we also get vague in general for those who are just again, not personal trainers, and just the general population who want to listen here. So it is for everybody. It was a great conversation. You could also see the video on YouTube if you prefer that to the audio. With no further ado, here’s Joe. Joe, thanks for joining the truly fit podcast. Why don’t you give the listeners in the audience background and bio on who you are, your credentials, and what you do in health and fitness?
Joe Orbaczewski: Sure. First off, thanks for having me. My name is Joe Orbaczewski. I am a licensed physical therapist. I’ve been practicing for almost eight years at this point. I’m also a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and a TPI Certified Professional. And basically, I work with golfers and other folks as well, mostly CrossFit athletes at this time. But I mainly work with golfers and work on helping them get over injuries but also improve their performance on and off the golf course.
Steve Washuta: Can I ask why you chose that niche? Were you in an area where there were a lot of golfers? Are you a former golfer? How’d you get into that?
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, I just really enjoy the game of golf, I play myself, I’m definitely by no means great whatsoever. But I played in high school, I just my dad would always take me to the driving range, but he never played golf.
Then I was over at a friend’s house. He had a big retention basin behind us behind his house and we were just hitting some balls and he was on the golf team. He was like, you’re pretty good you should come out for the golf team. So I did and I was on the golf team basically.
Then continued to play throughout as I got older but you know kind of dwindled a little bit I was as I was in college because it wasn’t one as popular as it is now for college-aged kids to play golf and to just was too focused on getting into grad school at the time. But still, play still loves the game. And I just love the challenge of you’re never going to be perfect and so is always something different every time you play.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, that’s certainly the case. And I’m quite jealous that you started. For anyone who starts young, I think, you know, you could probably speak to this too, just that sort of the muscle memories or the neural connections, the patterns, you build.
Just such an advantage to start young. I mean, if you put a football in my hand and I haven’t thrown one in 10 years, I can still throw a perfect spiral 40 yards down the field. But I’m sure that’s the same with a golfer, someone whose golf from six to 18 can take off for 10 years. You put a club in their hand, and they’re still striking fantastically and it’s such an advantage.
Joe Orbaczewski: Oh yeah. Without a doubt, I’ve seen folks who haven’t played for years and then they go and play and they’re a little rusty, but they’re still playing well.
Steve Washuta: So together I think we’ll do this. I’ll throw it to you first to start and I’ll add anything. Let’s explain for the audience who doesn’t otherwise know. You know, my typical avatar, I guess you would say, is just personal trainers, people in the fitness industry group fitness instructors, things of that nature.
There are some you know, there are a plethora of listeners who are just the general population too. But why exactly is golf fitness important from the layman’s perspective? They might look at golf fitness and say you want it to be an act of shape for golf like what exactly why is golf fitness important?
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, I think one I think you could see if anyone follows along the PGA Tour even LPGA Tour. Most of these golfers now that are out there, especially the young golfers who you know are changing the face of what an athlete who is a golfer looks like are in shape and they’re working out and it’s part of their everyday routine basically. I’m sure most people they follow along know Bryson D Shambo.
He’s kind of leading the pack and it’s kind of really changed the face of things and, you know, has created create a little bit of controversy with what he’s been doing. But I think if we look at it as also our, the golfer that we’re mainly going to be working with, which is the amateur golfer, the everyday person who, you know, maybe plays on the weekends may get around in every once or twice during the week, but you know, maybe hit the range again, during the week, there are your normal person that’s probably working in office jobs sitting a lot may not have a lot of time to work out.
For them to just continuously go pound balls, and not have some sort of, you know, mobility work or strength work or any of those kinds of things. They’re just asking for maybe potentially an injury to occur, and then them just stopping playing. And if anyone else, you know, besides that, to just to improve your performance, golf, fitness is a huge thing. Most golfers that I know, always want to be better at golf.
I think some of the lowest hanging fruit that people are missing, besides, you know, having a good technical swing, is, you know, mobility, getting stronger, getting faster, those kinds of things. And unfortunately, so many times, they just reach for the newest ball that comes out, or the newest clubs and those kinds of things and hoping that that will fix their swing when ultimately it’s most likely not.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, I have to echo those thoughts. And I think for trainers, it’s this is a good pitch that you can give to potential clients who are golfers who are thinking about getting into fitness or not to say, How much money have you spent on, you know, brand new clubs over the past whatever, five years?
How many sets have you bought? How many times have you seen this infomercial, with an orange ball on a stick that you bought at? You know, 1am? Because you thought it was going to improve your golf skill set? Right? How many, how many private lessons did you have, how many putts Have you hit, right? You have all these different I call them like branches off the golf tree.
But the one that’s missing typically is the fitness and whether that is we’ll get into this down the road is it’s not always strength, right? It could also be flexibility or like you, you mentioned injury prevention, which is just as important. So I want to kind of start from there. I want to start with the movement pattern of golf.
The golf swing, you know, is different than most other swings, obviously somewhat similar to baseball, but you know, as older adults, not much of us play baseball anymore, maybe softball, but what are the muscles that we should be most concerned with? And again, this is a personal training audience. So you can speak and use specifics.
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, so the golf swing, as you had alluded to is very similar to a baseball swing, I also, you know, related to a hockey player, or a tennis player, or some sort of rotational athlete who writes, you know, rotating around an axis basically. So it’s a full-body sport, there’s a lot of things involved. But I think in terms of mobility, the main areas that I look at in terms of a rotational aspect include the neck, the shoulders, the mid-back, and the hips, those are your prime kind of rotational centers.
Again, there are a couple of other areas that you need to have a good amount of mobility in, but those are probably the main drivers that I see are usually limited in most books. And then when it comes to what I look at, in terms of strength, it’s definitely the legs and lower body, particularly the glutes, the core is another really big aspect in the golf swing and transferring energy from the ground to the upper body.
You know, ultimately, the club. And then the lats in the chest actually play a very big role in strength and power in the golf swing. So those are like the true main areas that I’m looking at. Of course, it’s a, you know, it’s not always the case. And it’s a whole-body kind of experience, of course. But those are the main areas to definitely look at for sure.
Steve Washuta: Okay, well, let’s, let’s take that next step. So let’s sort of walk the audience through, I come in, and I say, Hey, Joe, I’m a golfer. And you know, my game sucks lately. I don’t know what’s going on. I want you to sort of assess me from head to toe, not necessarily my swing, but my physical prowess or my potential elements of what’s going on, what are you looking for?
Joe Orbaczewski: Right, so I’ll normally take people through TPI assessment, which is titled Performance Institute assessment, and that’s just the screen if anyone’s familiar with like the FMS, Fma, those are all, they’re all the same, same guys all the same kind of thinking for the most part.
Basically, what that allows me to do is go a little bit deeper into certain areas from what I see. So I take my physical therapy lens, you know, and take a look maybe at joint mobility, certain things if someone’s limited in the neck or the shoulders or hips or something along those lines. But like I said, we’re going to go through and look at your mobility and stability throughout your entire body. So we’re going to go through the assessment that screen to kind of dig a little bit deeper, and then I’ll go from there.
Then I like to include some other assessments as well. So I look at swing speed, I actually do have them hit and record this record their swing. I don’t talk to them about fixing their swing or changing anything in it, but I relate it to any of the physical findings we find On the screen and how they might be related, and why they’re causing XY and Z, potentially. And then also go through and look at some various strength, assessment strength and power assessments.
We’ll do like a seated medicine ball, chest pass, to look at kind of upper-body pushing power and strength. And then we’ll do like a rotational med ball throw as well to kind of look at just kind of lower body rotation, power, and then also a vertical jump, is what I like to look at.
Because all of those things kind of play a role in the golf swing, since it is a power sport, you’re only swinging for less than two seconds. So really looking at power and force output, and then kind of talk to them about what we see. And those are all really great numbers to have because you can directly affect those with your training that you’re going to do with that person.
Steve Washuta: I see a lot of the TPI professionals sort of do exercises that separate the thoracic rotation from maybe the lower body rotation, whether they’re sitting on like a Swiss ball of some sort. Is there a reason why that is how you go about it? Or do you do it differently?
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, so in that screen, there are a couple of tests that look at not only your hip, and lower body rotation and mobility. But can you also stabilize your body, while another part is rotating, if you don’t have that ability to stabilize, while another part is rotating, that can just cause some issues in the swing and kind of create, you know, very swing characteristics, which are not necessarily a bad thing, but can contribute to inconsistencies in the swing?
So if someone’s limited in their thoracic mobility, we’ll just say, Is it truly a mobility limitation because they’re stiff through their thoracic spine? Or the ribs or something along those lines? Or is it just the sheer fact that they can’t disassociate their upper body from their lower body? Both of those will require, you know, different things in terms of interventions for that golfer?
Steve Washuta: Yeah, that’s a lot to look at. I’m glad you have to do it. Not me. I’m a corrective exercise specialist. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t like doing it. Because I’m also a contrarian and I can always see why. Maybe it is the knee causing the hip issue or the hip causing the knee issue.
Everyone seems so sure why it’s one thing over another. So I know that’s probably a difficult part of your job is to say, like, no, no, this is definitely the reason. And this is causing an X y&z chain of events.
Joe Orbaczewski: Right. I mean, one of the biggest things that most golfers including myself deal with is like one swing characteristic is an early extension. So if you’re filming a golfer from behind and watching them like behind their swing, so you can see where they’re aiming.
The early extension is when the hips thrust towards the ball during the downswing, ideally, you should be able to maintain in that kind of athletic position, kind of squat posture throughout the swing until you know, you’re falling all the way through and you hit through impact.
If you come out of that position, a lot of times it’s because you have a rotational deficit. One of the biggest miss things is people think they’re lacking trunk rotation. But in reality, they can’t turn their trunk anymore because their neck is stiff, because you need to have almost 90 degrees of the rotation this way. If you can’t turn this way, you automatically think it’s a torso problem. In reality, it couldn’t be a neck problem causing that. So again, trying to tease that out is really important.
Steve Washuta: Yeah. So let’s get away from the sort of specifics and then go back to the general here, what are some exercises that any golfer can do, regardless of age or ability that you believe can help them and help their game?
Joe Orbaczewski: Sure. I think number one thing and I hope most fitness professionals will agree with me that the best exercise anyone can do. I think hands down is a deadlift, essentially, you can never go wrong with a deadlift, it gets so many things at once, and is huge for getting strong, especially in the lower body, even the upper body, right.
That is a big one. I like it because like, like with any exercise, there’s a ton of different variations and modifications that you can make for the person in front of you. So definitely a deadlift is huge. I’m one of the big believers in kind of the main movements, so like a hip dominant, so again, it did a deadlift, or knee dominant, whether that’s some sort of variation of the squat.
Again, horizontal pushing, so any kind of chest work, and horizontal and vertical kind of pulling so any kind of lat works. So pull-ups, rows on the big believer in those big compound movements first, and then you can start to dial in some of those more isolated quote-unquote, kind of like sexy exercises you might see on Instagram or something along those lines, but I’m a big believer in all those and then core and I like a lot of anti movements.
Whether that’s anti-extension or anti-rotation, anti-lateral flexion so carries any kind of like pal off press variation or some sort of chop is always great with a cable or a band.
Steve Washuta: So speaking to that, are you using typically more of the band cable type equipment to do these exercises because obviously the weather it’s rotation or anti-rotation, it’s using those pieces of equipment, you can replicate the golf swing or rotational movements better than you can, let’s say, a weight or a kettlebell.
Joe Orbaczewski: Right. I would say I’m not necessarily trying to replicate the golf swing, a lot of times, I think with some moves you do, but not every time most of the movements that you’re doing, again, those big, very foundational movements, lunges, deadlifts, squats, all that kind of upper bodywork as well are all very foundational and will translate to the swing, regardless, even if it doesn’t look like a golf swing.
I’ll use whatever is available, I’m big, I’m a big fan of free weights, because they challenge you in different ways, then obviously, cables or bands do, but also try to do things as to whatever the person has in front of me.
If they’re going to have access to certain things at their home in between our sessions, and that just band, a lot of the time, I’ll do a lot of cable and band work with them so that they feel comfortable with those exercises at home. But I will still try to get some free weight work in as well, because I think that that’s beneficial and will also be a different stimulus for them.
Steve Washuta: What are common golf injuries and we don’t have to speak to professionals but your everyday average person, what should they be concerned with? And what do you see?
Joe Orbaczewski: The most, the most common thing I see is low back pain. And I mean, there could be a myriad of reasons as to why someone has low back pain behind that is probably some sort of wrist elbow issue. A lot of times that could be like a golfer’s elbow, or tennis elbow. And those are probably the biggest things that I would see. You do get the occasional knee pain or shoulder pain, I tend to question if that’s caused by golf or not from golf. But a lot of times low back pain, and wrist, elbow issues are the big causes.
Low back pain, again, can be caused by a lot of reasons. It’s hard to say exactly one thing, right. But oftentimes, when it comes to the golf swing if you’re limited in hip mobility, or mid-back mobility, you end up robbing somewhere else, basically. So you can rotate because your body’s going to do whatever you’re asking it to do. And so if you’re limited again in your mid-back or your hips, a lot of times you’ll end up rotating through your lower back, which is relatively supposed to be relatively stable throughout the swing, and not really rotating.
When it comes to the wrist, and elbow injuries, either they end up hitting something whether you know, it’s a rock, and they didn’t know, or they hit a tree route or something like that, or it’s just a lot of repetition, I usually see a lot of like elbow wrist stuff at the beginning of the season, because most grass driving ranges aren’t open yet. So a lot of people will be heading off of mats and whatnot.
Unfortunately, the mat is not as forgiving as the actual ground is like you won’t make a divot on a mat, right? And so you just have that repetitive force through the club up through your hand in your arm. And ultimately, that can you know, if you’re having some issues or underlying issues, and you go out and you hit 200 balls, like most golfers do initially because they’re so excited that the season is starting, it just becomes overloaded and your body can’t handle that stress.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, that makes sense. I want to go back to something you said before about potential shoulder or other injuries that you don’t necessarily associate with golf. And I’m just going to pick it.
Did you say that? Because you have clients a lot of times that come to you with an injury, they sort of self-diagnose where the injury came from, but you don’t believe that came from that now. And one last caveat before you answer that. The reason I say that is because I believe most injuries don’t happen in the gym or in golf. They happen in real life.
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, I would say a lot of times people end up either one if they’d have no idea. And it just was a gradual thing, right? Usually, if something’s been building up over time, and it does happen, say on the golf course or everyday life, it probably wasn’t just that one instance, as far as I’m concerned, it was probably a thing over time that was happening, and was you know, happening and happening and happening without any repercussions or symptoms.
They did this one thing, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back, basically. So it’s not always that I always just, I feel like people will go and they’re like, Well, I’ve been walking on I related to golf, basically. And that’s why it hurts or, you know, I’ve been swinging a lot and now my shoulders are sore.
When in reality, yeah, that may be contributing to it or maybe aggravated their symptoms, but probably had some underlying stuff going on, which was aggravated before because they either one more taking care of it or, you know, we’re doing other faulty things. It’s You know, up until that point, essentially,
Steve Washuta: yeah, I’ve had so many clients who, you know, they will tell me they have a shoulder injury, and then you find out they have 110-pound dog, and they always walk the dog in the same arm and the dog pulls the armor, you know, they, they sleep in a particular way where their elbows always, you know, well above their shoulder, and they don’t have that sort of mobility to sleep like that for eight or 10 hours, right and the issue, so it’s usually it feels like, they blame it on the maybe 30 minutes of exercise that they did with me instead of the other issues.
But it’s a reason I bring that up is that I think it’s important, as you know, fitness professionals on any level, whether you’re a personal trainer, or above that, that we realize that most injuries and not most, but a lot of injuries can come like you said through repetition through the day to day tasks and not necessarily through sort of the acute process. Right. So for those trainers or golfers who were looking to improve in the game, do you recommend TPI, can you explain going through the process? How long does it take and all that encompasses?
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, so TPI again, Titleist Performance Institute, I’m in no way affiliated with them. Besides the fact that I’m certified through them, I would say that they are probably, I would consider them the gold standard in terms of golf, fitness, and performance. For sure. There are other certifications out there, I can’t really speak to them, I haven’t taken them, or done anything with them so hard for me to speak to that.
I would definitely recommend either I’ve, I know of people, other fitness folks who have taken it just because they can understand the golf swing a little bit better. For those clients that do golf, or do any kind of rotational sport, TPI is kind of ventured into the tennis in the baseball world as well in a separate realm.
I’ve even heard of regular everyday golfers who just want to get more knowledge so that they can help themselves play a little bit better. And I don’t think everyone has to go through the level one certification first, which is a very broad overview of basically how the body is related to the swing, and they connect that bodies, they make that body swing connection, and they break that down and you learn the screen basically.
Then they go off into different tracks from there. So you can have a golf professional track, fitness, track, medical track, all kinds of things. I do think it’s definitely worth it if you want to go for it. Especially as a trainer or some other fitness professional, if you truly love the game, and you want to just have a better idea of how the body is related to the swing, and you have no interest in training people or coaching people whatsoever. You’re just an everyday golfer, and you just want to learn more about it. Go for it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong and doing that whatsoever.
Steve Washuta: Anecdotally, do you think it helps your game? And do you think about some of the swing movements and the sort of Kinesiology behind it when you’re playing now?
Joe Orbaczewski: Um, it definitely helped me learn a little bit more of like, why I’m, I might be doing certain things in the swing in terms of swing characteristics. And it has obviously helped me see that more so in clients and making that body swing connection.
I tend to think that for myself thinking less while I’m out there swinging Golf Club is probably better, and not thinking about what I’m doing and just trying to, you know, just be athletic, honestly, is probably what helped me the most, when I’m out there. Because when I start thinking about too many things, things just go awry. But that’s a whole different aspect.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, you and me both. I think a lot of people probably fall into that category. I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier, I should have asked you then. But when we talked about the separating sort of your thoracic rotation from the lower body rotation is the main reason we do that test. Because we want to avoid golfers doing the sway motion where their entire body is moving, let’s say to the right during their backswing.
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, there’s a couple of reasons why we want to do that, again, to discern between if it’s a mobility issue, or if it’s a stability issue, like are they able to just again, disassociate from the rest of their body. But yeah, a lot of times, they’re a good amount of different swing characteristics that you can see that are, you know, related or can be related to certain body limitations.
If you can’t disassociate your upper body from your lower body, again, you may stand up in your swing and have what’s called a flat shoulder plane or loss of posture, basically. And you can imagine, if you kind of lose your posture, that might be really hard to get the club back down on the plane.
For an everyday amateur, this happens. You know, a lot of professionals have some of these swing characteristics, but they’re professional for the reason because they can make the right correction and they can do it consistently. But for us every day, you know, mortal folks, when we’re playing golf, it’s pretty hard to correct and be consistent every time when we’re doing that. Same thing with the lower body if you can’t rotate your hips independently.
That’s the first thing that you should be starting to see. swing with on the downswing, essentially. And that’s where a ton of power and force is created by rotating your hips and using the ground and turning through there, because basically, this is in the TPI kind, of course. But they teach it as essentially like a whip for the most part. That’s how you’re going to gain the most power production. Force for the most part is basically, by winding up and then releasing the other way. It should be legs, upper body, arms, and hands, and then club basically.
It should be in that order in terms of how you’re creating that kind of whip. Basically, if you’re kind of off, you’re going to be lacking force production. You may have some inconsistencies with that. They kind of promote that there is no one right way to swing if you look at all the pros, there’s a ton of guys who have really wacky swings, and guys who you know what you may consider a traditional swing, but all of them have made millions of dollars with different swings. So there’s no right one way there’s an efficient way to swing through. That’s kind of what they have studied and found.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, and that’s the same thing for throwing a football. If you look at quarterbacks, I mean, Phillip rivers is a very awkward motion, comparatively speaking to Drew Brees to Peyton Manning, they all throw a little bit differently. But there are certainly wrong ways to throw the football. And there are wrong ways to swing. But there’s no one right way.
But people seem to find the most efficient plane of motion for lack of a better term for their body eventually, right? through repetition and things of that nature. The one thing we didn’t hit on, is flexibility. Are you doing different exercises to help golfers through flexibility than you would for somebody else, or are these just traditional flexibility exercises,
Joe Orbaczewski: I follow the same kind of process for most folks, depending on what they want. So again, the screen will tell me what they want, I would say a common area, again, in most folks is hips mid-back, even the lats can be kind of troublesome, especially for your lead arm as you’re trying to get back into your backswing. If your lad is tight, you’re going to have you know, limited ability to get back there potentially.
So my main process, I kind of want to change the input to the brain. So whether that’s, you know, foam rolling some sort of soft tissue work first for just a short bit of time, then I like to do some sort of either passive or active stretching with the client. And they can do that on their own or with my assistance if needed. If I’m there, and then follow it up with definitely some sort of active drill to work into that new range of motion.
I just follow that process for anyone who’s looking to kind of gain mobility in any capacity, really not just golfers. But again, a golfer, depending on the screen, will tell me certain areas to work on or not work on. And again, the hips, mid-back, shoulders are big ones for a golfer,
Steve Washuta: Do you recommend a particular warm-up? Or do you do a particular warm-up? We’ve seen them online with the club above your head and rotations and things of that nature. But are there? Are you looking for certain areas to warm up?
Joe Orbaczewski: Are we talking like before we go play?
Steve Washuta: I’m talking before you go, let’s say walk 18? And it’s 7am? And you’re getting out there? What would be your warm-up? What would you recommend to just your average general population?
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, I do my warm-up that I recommend to everyone, I might give someone a specific one that’s a little bit different if they’re like my client, but I think there’s a general one that’s pretty good. And it’s basically just a general dynamic warm-up. So I could do some leg swings kind of back and forth.
Side to side first, I like to do some kind of hip hinging. With the lat stretch at the same time while holding my club kind of out in front of me. If you can kind of picture that. And then work on doing some like lunges forward with a little bit of rotation. So working on kind of that lower body stability. While working on some separation through my upper body do that on both sides. I do some side bends side to side.
Then really the other big one is just working on a kind of not necessarily the golf swing. But working on that rotation going down into that rotation almost like again. Like you would do a like a rotational shotput throw. Essentially, and really focusing on winding up. Pushing through the ground using my glutes to extend and getting through that rotation.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, that’s great information. And for those who don’t think it’s important, I worked at a Country Club. Where the web.com hosted one at an event there. And all those golfers would come into my gym in the morning. They would spend 45 minutes with their trainer rolling out and doing really like every dynamic warmup. You could possibly imagine, before they went out on the course I’m talking every single one of them. So it is now part of all of their routines. And if it’s part of their routines. And they’re already in better shape than we are. It should be part of our routines.
Joe Orbaczewski: I think that’s the one thing that we you know. As a casual viewer of the PGA on TV and whatnot. We just see these guys walk up to the first tee box and their name gets announced. They go play and We’ll see anything in the background. I mean, this is true for every sport. For the most part, unfortunately, you get to see more of it like in the warm-up. As pre-games are going on for football or basketball. Or stuff like that you see, you know, the camera pans to people getting stretched. And all those different things they’re working out. But you never see that for golf. And they’re in their little trailer, they go to the gym, wherever they’re at. They’re working out for, you know, 45 minutes doing something along those lines. Whatever their individual routine is.
I think that just gives this false sense of the notion. That they just go out and play to a lot of people. Even though they know that they probably warm up and do certain things. But they just see them go. I also think a lot of times too, people just end up getting to the club too late. Unfortunately, before their tee time.
They’re like crap, I just got to get out. And get to the first team before I miss my tee time. But I kid you not that that routine that I kind of just went over takes less than five minutes. And I would say doing that is way more important and beneficial. Than going to the range and hitting some balls or running to the putting green. And just hitting a quick couple of putts before you go out and play.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more, especially if you want to play the entire season. Right? The whole, the whole purpose of this is injury prevention. So even if it’s not helping you necessarily play better. Hopefully what it’s helping you do is not injure yourself when you get out on the course. So that you can go out and shoot terribly the next time, just like you did today.
But I also want to I also wanted to mention. And this is just sort of like asking you, do you come across? Like personal trainers necessarily are as people in the fitness industry? Who recommends people to you? Do you work in conjunction with people? How do you work with your clients? And do you have a networking set of people?
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, um, anyone, any other personal trainer or some other physical therapists that are in the area. That tend to not necessarily just like to work with golfers. They know that I’m like the person in the area that does that one. I think for me, the biggest networking benefit that I have found and have tried. To make these relationships are with the golf professionals in the area. Especially the ones that are teaching. Because they have the same mutual client basically. And they’re the most invested in that person because they want them to do well. Because they want them to come back for more lessons, right.
If you can kind of team up in that sort of way. In terms of saying like, hey, I can help this person, you know. Get more mobile, get stronger and get into the positions that you want them to get into. That’s a great team, dynamic, and relationship. And that’s definitely what TPI preaches. They look at it as the team model and, you know, look at the golf professional. The medical professional, and the fitness professional. And all three of you should work together to you know, make your golfer the best that they can be.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, that’s great information. And that’s what I was getting at. And I think it’s a lot of personal trainers. Unfortunately, don’t. Don’t think that it is necessarily their job to go out and network with all of these people. Not only is it your job on your client’s behalf. Because they’re going to get information relayed back to you through. There are other professionals in what’s going on, you can work in conjunction. But you’re doing yourself a disservice because you’re going to grow your business that way,. By making sure you send referrals to other people, and they send it back to you.
Then you’re also not stepping on their toes, you know. When I have a golfer, and he has, you know, like false leg length discrepancy. And, you know, I think his scapula is slightly rotated. I don’t know what’s causing what. I’m not going to deal with that I’m going to send him to the physical therapist. The physical therapist is going to tell me what’s wrong. And then I will, you know, do those exercises accordingly. So that’s, that’s why it’s important.
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, it’s huge. I think, you know, creating that team is initially can be the hard part, especially getting people on board. Because I think sometimes I haven’t really run into this. But I know from others’ experience kind of going into chatting with golf professionals. That they’re afraid that we’re going to like steal their clients or we’re doing something that they’re doing.
You know, for the most part. Everyone that I know that’s a fitness or medical professional. That has no training and in the golf swing is not doing that. We know our limitations. And again, I don’t think anyone would want me to coach the swing, just based off of how I play. I do understand it, but I’m not. I’m not the person that you want coaching how to how to swing and play better golf.
Steve Washuta: What is the or a common misconception amongst the general population, or maybe even fitness professionals that golfers should do or that they don’t do? And that’s sort of like a groupthink rumor that gets spread around that you just want to sort of quash?
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah. Well, first, I’ll say two things that come to mind. The first one is that strength training and lifting weights will help people. It will cause the golfer to lose flexibility. I hear that so many times from people. Especially golfers, who’re afraid that lifting weights will help them get too stiff. Will help them maybe get too bulky. Then they won’t be able to turn or rotate as much as they can. Again, lose their flexibility.
They’re afraid that that’s going to mess up their swing when in reality, we know that that’s not true whatsoever. And the last thing is basically, you see all this on social media. And most of the time you see these professional athletes. Doing things on stability balls and unbalanced trainers and stuff like that. There’s nothing necessarily inherently wrong with that. But golf is not played on an unstable surface. Most sports are not. You should not be training people on those unless it’s for, in my personal opinion. Some sort of rehabilitation kind of aspect. But if it’s truly a performance thing, there’s no translation whatsoever.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, I mean, you’re right, almost every sport now I’m a martial artist. So it’s a little bit different because you’re on one leg a lot. So there’s a lot of everting and inverting on your ankle when you’re kicking and things. But for your average sport, you’re almost never doing it. And it seems to be different if it’s integrated in. As opposed to like, sometimes it’s the sole focus of entire weeks of extra. Yeah, and it seems like overkill.
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, I can see it as an added. Like, fun exercise at the end for someone, especially after they’ve mastered the basics. But if you’re working with someone who’s still you know, again, an everyday golfer. Probably is still working on just trying to get fit and healthier. They don’t need to be doing those things.
Steve Washuta: Yeah, they don’t need to be watching Ricky’s videos one foot on a BOSU. Like catching balls with his eyes closed. And trying to repeat that if they’re shooting, you know, a 93. And they’re 46 years old with back problems.
Joe Orbaczewski: Right? That is exactly the case.
Steve Washuta: Well, this was fantastic information. Joe, why don’t you give the listeners in the audience. The links, and any information to whether it’s your Instagram, your website, and how they can find you. And also maybe how personal trainers can reach out to you directly if they have questions.
Joe Orbaczewski: Yeah, probably the easiest way to reach out to me. Is I’m on Instagram. I’m on Instagram a lot. My handle is pure Dr. Underscore golf physio. My website is pure Dr. physio calm and you can email me at Joe at pure Dr. physio.com. If you want to get in touch that way. Again, probably Instagram is the easiest way to get in contact with me.
Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.
Thanks again!
