365. JEFF FLAGG: Rotational Power Secrets from a World Long Drive Champ.

0:00:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro
The 18STRONG Podcast, episode number 365 with Jeff Flagg from Flagg Performance. What’s up guys? Welcome back to the 18STRONG Podcast, where we’re here to help you build a stronger game, because we believe that every golfer deserves to play better, longer. This episode, we have a return guest from episode number 170, Jeff Flagg. Jeff was the 2014 World Long Drive Champ and is the founder of Flagg Performance. Jeff has been working with golfers on their fitness, on their game, for several years now, and we bring him back on the show to talk about building the athleticism in your game. And he’s actually here making the case for golfers rotating more in the gym and not just rotating more, but rotating better in the gym, utilizing some different pieces of equipment. Especially, we talk about the pure motion pieces of equipment that he used a lot in his training program that helps his golfers, whether they be teenage golfers or all the way up into their 80s, move better and hit different areas of the body, different angles, different forces, to make sure that they’re able to handle everything that the golf course could ever throw at them. So you’re going to really enjoy this episode with Jeff.

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0:02:18 – Jeff Flagg
I’m so bad. I’m so bad at it.

0:02:20 – Jeff Pelizzaro
I’m so bad at it.

0:02:25 – Jeff Flagg
It’s like provided me so many opportunities in the past and it’s like I just got to tell myself that like it matters and like I just post and like get in the rhythm of it. Yeah, so that’s my 2024 goal is to get on it, because it’s just like it’s just just where people find you. It’s just like it’s kind of dumb not to.

0:02:53 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, can I give you one suggestion on yours, because the black and white that you have of you just doing some exercises just do nothing but that like, keep it simple for yourself and that will look sick and people will.

0:03:10 – Jeff Flagg
It’ll come, just it’s fun, like people just the look of it feels cool and I’m sort of played with, like the you know you talk about, like the art and science, right, like and I sort of tend to lean towards the art side of it and like my dad’s artistic, and it’s like I looked up, like I just kind of like the look of black and white and it’s like you know what makes black and white phones different or whatever, and basically like the science or whatever says you know, it’s like your, your, your eyes drawn more towards the subject and not like crazy colors, and the other part of it is like our gym at Bears Club is the ugliest shade of yellow so it’s like that was the main reason, but.

But it was like, yeah, it, and that’s kind of what I want to try to do is like like focus your eye on like what’s happening with the body and not like peripheral stuff.

0:04:08 – Jeff Pelizzaro
But yeah, like I was just kind of scrolling through and looking, I’m like this just looks cool, plus, the movements that you’re doing are cool and eye catching. You know the pure motion stuff that you use. So I’m like, yeah, if he just does this and it’ll keep it really simple myself to just shoot those kind of videos.

0:04:24 – Jeff Flagg
Yeah, and it’s just like trying to take all the friction points out as much as possible because I’m a classic like over thinker, like all right. But you know I’m showing this, but it’s like somebody’s gonna say this and it’s like, and I know there’s nuance and it’s like in social media, it’s just not. It’s not a place for nuance. You just you post it and you’re falling across the room.

0:04:48 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Well, we just had Jeff Levecchio on recently and you said you’d listen to that episode and like talking to him, he’s like man, you just gotta you put it out there. You say what you know your audience is gonna need to hear in the way that they need to hear it. And, yeah, people are gonna chirp you. They’re gonna say, oh well, your glutes don’t actually activate that way, you don’t turn muscle, you know whatever.

0:05:07 – Jeff Flagg
But it’s like no, I’m talking to the people that need to hear this, need to understand it and everybody else just it brings up and it’s like everybody’s got you know everybody’s got their you know takes, getting older and stuff like that they realize like everybody’s got their own bias, like everybody does. It’s like you’re not gonna be completely gonna make everybody happy and it’s just like you know everybody’s got different experiences and and you know view points on things and lenses to look at things and it’s like to me that’s that’s unique and that’s like it’s not something to like go, oh, it’s right or wrong. I mean, you know our field is just shades of gray, you know, and it’s like there’s nothing established really much on any end of you know exercise, nutrition, like there’s so many factors. It’s like unique perspective I feel like is is, you know, that’s kind of yeah, that’s one man’s opinion. It’s kind of like how I see things this way and you know, thank you for what it’s worth.

0:06:07 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, it’s like anything any golf pro, any fitness professional you could ask somebody to create a program. You could ask ten different professionals to create a program and they could be the smartest people in the world. They’re all gonna do something different and they could all probably critique a little bit of what the other person, what the other trainer or coach or whatever, did it. That’s just, it’s our natural inclination.

0:06:26 – Jeff Flagg
So, yeah, for sure you’re doing it, you know, and that’s it’s funny, like just going through, you know, I’ve been primarily in person and then, like you know, kind of launching an online product here shortly, and it’s like all those things going through my head and it’s like, and obviously there’s like all the you know scientific justification and you know swing speed and injuries work around it’s like. But it’s also like the other day, it’s like we’re training.

It’s like you know there’s obviously boxes we need to check, but another box that I feel like is important to check is like it’s gonna look cool, I think like I mean look at, look at look at any golf swing, you know pro golf swing, let’s say amateur, the pro golf swing, you know, in slow motion or a cool different angle, it’s like it looks cool, it’s like a cool athletic, coordinated, you know body, it’s just twisted up and it’s like it’s cool. Look at watch and it’s like eye catching and it’s like you know. Why don’t we bring a little bit of that into training, not only to prepare for what you’re trying to do, but also, like you just want to move cool, like you don’t want to walk around like a brick, you don’t want to walk around. Like you have the, you know, as we all get older, the old man shuffle. Like you know.

It’s like you, you just, whatever you do, however, whatever your talent level is with golf, it’s like, at the end of the day, I think you want to move, you know walk in. And like you walk in, you know you carry yourself well, you move smoothly, it’s like you flow. You look at all the greatest athletes. They’re all just like a swag to them and it’s like, bring it a little bit of that into into your training. It’s like, why not work on that a little bit, you know?

0:08:00 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, you know, that’s the athleticism part to me, right, like we talk about. You know you want to be an athlete when you train you want to be an athlete. Golfers are athletes, but like so. For instance, I just had a gentleman in here the other day. He’s a year younger than me, 44 years old. He if he’s listening to this, he’ll know who I’m talking about having some back pain. I worked with him years ago when I was in the physical therapy clinic. But he came back and he, you know, played high level football, played a lot of high level sports, loves golf, and he’s been having so much pain recently that he’s like dude.

I literally feel like an old man and almost to the point where it’s. It’s become depressing because he feels like the pain may never go away and this may. He may be just on the down slide right and I was like dude, you have so much athleticism in your history, in your background. Yeah, you beat your body up so we got to fix some things, but like it’s not over, you’re 44 years old, like we’re going to get this back, we’re.

And I saw like the weight fall off of his shoulders and be like are you kid? Like like, oh, that’s all I needed to hear. And now you know he’s doing some things and we’ve only met one time but like I have very high hopes of where we’re going to go with him and just to make him feel like like he’s a strong, powerful dude again. You know, he’s like a 6’3 big guy and like and he said he was golfing with his dad not too long ago and his dad’s like what’s wrong with you? You look like an old man. He’s like I feel like I’m your age, you know so, so it’s that kind of thing. It’s like, yeah, I want to be able to move and do things. And you know, like, move around and not just stick in a box.

You know, like Levecchio said, like do all my exercises in a phone booth, right like you need to be able to move like a, like a cat, you know. So I’m glad that you said that, because it’s it’s the athleticism and we we hear that word all the time, but to me that’s like really.

0:09:48 – Jeff Flagg
What that means is like no, I’m...