In this episode, Shaun breaks down the three most common pre-round warm-up mistakes that are costing golfers performance and increasing injury risk and what to do instead.

What you'll learn:

• Mistake #1: Relying on static stretching as your warm-up. Holding stretches before explosive activity tells your muscles to lengthen and relax the opposite of what you want before generating speed and force. Research shows decreases in power output, reaction time, and force production after static stretching in isolation.
• Mistake #2: Thinking that hitting balls IS your warm-up. Hitting balls on the range is your warm-up to play. Your body needs a separate physical warm-up first dynamic movement and tissue work to get blood flowing, joints mobile, and muscles activated. Without it, you're asking cold, stiff tissue to perform at a high level from swing one.
• Mistake #3: Doing the same warm-up every single day. Your body is different today than yesterday. If you flew, sat at a desk for 10 hours, did heavy squats, or slept weird your body has different needs today. Your warm-up should be customized based on how your body is moving RIGHT NOW, not some generic routine you've done for a decade.
• Why dynamic warm-ups (leg swings, hip circles, trunk rotations, arm circles) prime the nervous system for performance
• How tissue work with a lacrosse ball or foam roller on restricted areas can dramatically improve how you feel from the first swing
• Why your warm-up should look different from the guy next to you on the range his restrictions aren't your restrictions
• The power of reassessing every two weeks so you always know what your body needs
• 5-7 minutes of targeted warm-up work is all it takes to feel like a completely different golfer on that first tee

Key takeaway: There are two warm-ups one for your body and one for your golf game. Most golfers skip the first one entirely. Do both, in that order, customized to YOUR body on THAT day, and your front nine will transform.

Resources mentioned:

• Free Home Assessment
• Fairway Performance website: www.fairwayperformance.com
• Episode 109 — Why 95% of Golfers Are Ticking Time Bombs
• Instagram: @shaun.diachkoff

Have questions, feedback or suggestions for future episode? Click here to send me a text!

In this episode, Shaun takes on one of the most hyped and most misunderstood trends in golf fitness: overspeed training. This isn't an anti-speed-training episode. It's a pro-doing-things-in-the-right-order episode.

What you'll learn:

• Why speed training tools CAN work but only for about 5% of golfers who are physically ready for them
• The two baseline requirements for safe speed training: adequate rotational mobility in all four rotary centers, and power output metrics that meet or exceed thresholds relative to current club head speed
• What happens when a "ticking time bomb" golfer grabs a speed stick the compensation patterns and injury risks
• The bald tires analogy: why flooring it without the physical foundation is a recipe for disaster
• Real injuries caused by premature speed training: back injuries keeping golfers off the course for months, elbows requiring medical intervention, lingering shoulder issues
• Why the marketing around speed devices is compelling but misleading and how to see through it
• The difference between case studies and actual science (control groups, blinding, large sample sizes)
• The grip strength trend: why the data across a very large sample shows no meaningful direct relationship between grip strength and club head speed
• How to approach everything on social media with curiosity ask "how do we know?" and "show me the data"
• When speed training IS appropriate: after passing mobility screens, after building adequate strength and power, as the final layer
• Why tracking speed every swing during training sessions dramatically improves results (9 out of 10 who track vs 2 out of 10 who don't)

Key takeaway: Speed training is the cherry on top, not the whole sundae. Mobility first. Strength second. Speed last. Do it in that order and you'll gain speed safely and permanently. Skip the first two and you're rolling the dice with your body.

Resources mentioned:

• Free Home Assessment
• Fairway Performance website
• Episode 111 — The 3 Ways Every Golfer Can Add 10 Yards in 10 Weeks

Have questions, feedback or suggestions for future episode? Click here to send me a text!

In this episode, Shaun breaks down one of the most common and most misunderstood injuries in golf trail elbow pain and explains why treating the elbow is almost always a waste of time.

What you'll learn:

• Why your elbow is the victim, not the criminal — 9 out of 10 times the pain source is somewhere else
• The anatomy of what's happening at impact: flexion, ulnar deviation, and why the inside of the trail forearm gets hammered
• The medial epicondyle what it is and why it gets overloaded
• Three areas to investigate instead of the elbow: the bicep/tricep (above), the forearm and FCU muscle (below), and the lead hip (opposite side)
• The biomechanical chain: how limited lead hip internal rotation forces the trail arm to compensate for power that should come from the lower body
• Why icing, bracing, and massage-gunning the elbow only provides temporary relief
• How to use a lacrosse ball on the inside of the bicep and tricep to release tension pulling on the elbow from above
• The FCU (flexor carpi ulnaris) the hidden forearm muscle that commonly refers pain to the elbow and wrist
• Real-world results: golfers resolving months and years of elbow pain in 2-4 weeks by fixing the root cause
• The detective mindset every golfer should adopt: check above, check below, check the opposite hip

Key takeaway: Stop chasing the pain. Your elbow didn't fail something else in the chain stopped doing its job and your elbow picked up the slack. Find the root cause, fix it, and the elbow takes care of itself.

Resources mentioned:

• Free Home Assessment
• Fairway Performance website: www.fairwayperformance.com
• Episode 109 — The #1 Reason Your Back Hurts After Golf

Have questions, feedback or suggestions for future episode? Click here to send me a text!