359. Eric Schaetty: Harnessing the Power of Consistency over Motivation in Golf and Fitness

0:00:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro
The 18STRONG Podcast, episode Number 359 with Eric Schaetty from Schaetty Strength and Fitness. What’s up guys? Welcome back to the 18STRONG Podcast, where we’re here to help you build a stronger game, because we believe everyone deserves to play better, longer. This week is an exciting one for me. I have a really good friend of mine, eric Schaetty from Schaetty Strength and Fitness, on the show. Eric is one of my really good friends. We play a lot of golf together. We actually work together. He actually works outside of this facility with me, and we get to talk to Eric about his golf transformation.

Not only his golf transformation, but Eric has an extensive background in the strength and fitness and conditioning world as well, and so we’re talking a lot about both his journey as a golfer and his fitness journey, but also how he has then taken that into his professional world and what he’s doing now, working with a lot more golfers compared to his initial start in the fitness industry, which really began with him working in martial arts and crossfit and a lot of traditional weightlifting. So today’s episode is great because we’re talking about not just different training styles, but we’re talking about what Eric did himself to go from a 12th handicap last year at about the same time, down to a 4.9 handicap, and it involved much less in regards to practice and technique than you would likely think. And so we dive really deep into what he did, how his workouts impacted that, but ultimately, from a golf standpoint, what he did. Then we discuss different training styles and how he’s kind of changed his tactics from his initial start to now working with golfers and how that impacts what you do yourself in the gym. And what’s really neat is that we talk about how, if you’re somebody who’s just kind of getting started again or getting back into the gym, how you’re going to benefit so much more than somebody that’s been working out for a long period of time. So if you’re nervous about doing that, we talk about why it’s so important that you just get started. And then, lastly, we talk about the importance of consistency over everything and how being consistent with the goal is naturally just going to produce the results. But oftentimes we don’t dive into being consistent. We rely more on our motivation, which can wane, and ultimately that can lead to failure in your goals, failure in your training program, failure in your golf practice. Whatever goal you have, you have to be consistent in the process to achieve the goal. So you’re going to really enjoy this episode with, as we call them, buddy E.

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Now let’s get to this week’s interview Eric Schaetty, buddy E. Welcome to the 18STRONG podcast. How are we doing? Good to be here, glad to be here, great to be here, great to finally have you. This is cool.

So this is episode 356.

For those of you that watched it or listened to it, we had our buddy, bobby Drummond, on in our first GoForge Yourself episode.

This episode, I think, is going to be a little bit of a hybrid. You haven’t gone through the forge or anything, but I want to kind of tell your story, but your expertise is also in the fitness industry many, many years 15 plus years in the fitness industry. We work together on a daily basis. We’re running these in this podcast office Unbelievable. But you are also part of the 18STRONG crew and one of the most golf obsessed people that I’ve ever met in my life but have made a huge transformation in your golf game over the past year and then in your fitness over the past couple of decades. So we’re going to talk about all of that. So again, welcome, and I’m excited to dig in this. Finally, glad to be here. This is made it to the show. So tell the folks listening at home, the crew, a little bit, just about your golf journey just this last year, just because I think we’ll start there and then we’ll dive in everything.

0:04:45 – Eric Schaetty
It kind of started more. We was in the pit here and I was all winter banging balls in the pit, hitting, hitting, hitting, trying to shallow the club, shallow the club it’s all you hear. Now that’s the craze. I was like just trying to like make the perfect swing, record my videos over and over and over and was really trying to get after that and was really like just trying to develop a good swing, finally developed some elbow tendonitis and my elbows were bothering me. But I play hockey too. So I was thinking maybe is it from hockey, Is it from a wall to my hockey stick.

I really didn’t know what was going on so I was like, all right, well, spring comes along, we’ll get out of the pit, we’ll go start playing some golf. I joined a club, pretty much playing every day I would say Almost. I was so happy. My wife can find out for that. Yeah, so can my kids.

But just started going and just playing golf, got out of the pit and went and just started playing golf, finding out what my misses were, what my yardages were, and just started to kind of get around the course instead of being in a pit and not really seeing where the ball was going or anything like that. So it started out with just all right, what are your misses, what are your tendencies, what am I doing wrong? And it started from the tee and then worked my way towards the green. So it was like all right, what do I do with my drive? Started with that and then started kind of chipping away. All right, let’s get closer. What are my yardages for all my clubs carry. And then from a hundred yards in, that’s where, like right now, I’m truly trying to like the bread and butter of the game is from a hundred yards in.

I think it was. It was a Gary player said he gets like a 15. Any cap led him hit a tee shot and will be a three tomorrow if he plays the rest of the shots. So kind of took that and just played all summer and went from probably a 12 last year to now about 40 at 4.9, which I’m not sure I could this morning 4.9.

0:06:57 – Jeff Pelizzaro
So I think you know, as an outsider kind of looking in on this, I was able to. You know we were here. We’re banging balls together and talking, swing and, and you know, doing all this in the gym here. But it feels to me like one of the turning points was you booked a lesson with our buddy, casey, who, casey Cox, has been on the show as well and I’ll let you tell the story. But it almost and kudos to Casey Casey was almost like dude, yeah, like you don’t need, you don’t need a bunch of lessons.

0:07:26 – Eric Schaetty
So Casey, great, great coach, great instructor, I mean, he is literally like, he makes you feel so comfortable, Like as soon as the lesson starts you want to say a word, you just you just start hitting balls and he doesn’t. He just sits there, it’s got his thing going and got you all hooked up. He’s banging balls, banging balls. I’m hitting balls and he, all of a sudden he goes hold on. He’s like why, why are you here? He’s like what, what are you doing? He goes you hit the ball.

As far as I do, your path looks fine. There’s something like crazy going on. He’s like what are you here? So, and that’s why I was like well, listen, my driver distance does not correlate to my irons. I’m hitting my iron. You know my. You know seven iron, 165 carry. Why am I not hitting my driver 275 yards?

I see guys hitting 165 for their seven iron. They’re blasting their driver and I’m only carrying mine 225 yards. So he’s like all right, we’ll get your driver out. So we hit a few. He’s like all right, all right. He’s like he grabs the club. He goes give me that. Looks at it for a second. He’s like you’re playing with an old man shaft. He’s like and this head is doing you no justice. He’s like you need to get a different driver shaft, you need a different head and I think that’ll help your driver. So it was like okay. So then Andrew, our other friend, he he’s like well, I got an extra driver. If you want to buy it off me, it’s stiff shaft title list. You want to give it a try? And then, kind of after that, I was like all she wrote. Yeah, I was all she wrote. So the driver got dialed in and then it was like let’s just take those next steps.

0:09:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro
So, for those of you that aren’t watching, and even those of you that are watching, give me, give me the dimensions. How tall, how heavy are you?

0:09:13 – Eric Schaetty
I am about 55 and a half and 135 hundred and 40 pounds on a good day, and that’s on a good day and in our group so we you know mandatory golf Friday.

0:09:24 – Jeff Pelizzaro
We’ve had our trips down in Nashville.

We play with a wide array of guys, a lot of different levels of golf, and I mean I’d say you’re in the top three or four guys as far as distances, and that includes, you know, a couple former professional guys that that we play with. Yeah, so did you see, and I’m one of the reasons that I love having you on here is because you’ve done what so many of the listeners and all of us have really want to do. Right, like we all say, we want to get faster, we all say we want to do all these things, but ultimately we want to score better, we want to play better, and we want to do that having fun with the game too, and go from a 12 down to below a five handicap, right. So over the course of this last year, when you first switched out that driver I know you immediately liked it Did you see, over the course of a year, just your distance just kind of slowly get longer and longer because you got more comfortable? Was it a confidence thing in your swing? What was the change there?

0:10:17 – Eric Schaetty
It was, it was really honestly, it was a confidence. And then the feel, like the feel of the club and knowing that like if I transfer my weight, this club is not going to be whipping around and doing crazy things, and because I could feel with my other club like I would have it in my backswing and I would go to transition and it would literally feel like I had a noodle in my hands. I just did. I was yeah, I did and I just had no confidence to transfer and get to my left side and get turned over and transfer all that weight. I was just so just scared to do it.

So once I got that stiffer shaft the better than different driver it was like all right, just swing, just swing. You know that you can swing fast enough, just swing the club. So there’s more or less like all right, you got the right equipment. That’s partially sometimes issues. I was like you just don’t have the right equipment. Yes, I had no idea that I was playing with the wrong equipment. So I think it was more confidence and knowing that my body can just go and you don’t really have to think about it.

0:11:17 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about your background in sports because, you know, obviously training is what you do on a daily basis. I see what you do in the gym for yourself, I see what you do with your clientele and you start even working with a lot more golfers too. So I want to kind of talk about a little the transition of maybe how you are training them a little differently than some of the other folks you have in the past. But your background, you know, is in hockey, some martial arts, and when I watch you swing a golf club it’s a super smooth, almost feels a little effortless kind of swing. It doesn’t look like you’re trying to swing out of your shoes. But I mean your smash factor has to be so good because of the distance and we were talking the other day swing speed wise.

0:12:03 – Eric Schaetty
I mean it’s not crazy speed either, right, no, no, what your speed is Go no off the top of my head, but I would say probably 105 somewhere in there, 105, 110. Yeah, you know I’m worried if you’re really getting after probably yeah, nothing wild, yeah, and I’m not swinging like a Torpro or anything wild like that, but yeah, it’s probably around 105 to 110.

0:12:26 – Jeff Pelizzaro
So your background in those sports and I’m really curious to. We’ve talked a lot about hockey players on here but I’m even curious about, like, the Muay Thai and kickboxing and like I would imagine that that that quick hips, you know hip driven stuff, that makes a big difference.

0:12:42 – Eric Schaetty
I was thinking about that and I was like you know, the crazy thing is that you talk about the hockey and that I’m a left handed hockey player. The only thing I do, left handed, as I shoot a hockey stick the opposite direction that I swing a golf club. So it’s like that. You know people would think, oh, I will, you do. You’re swinging the opposite direction of your golf club. So I was like you know what? What is it that made my golf swing so much different than any anybody else’s or the guys would play with? And then I thought about it. There are so many leg kicks that I have thrown, or punches that where you have to rotating your hips and it’s fast, it’s over and over and over and over. Throwing leg kicks over and over and over. And I think it has a lot to do with throwing the leg kicks, throwing the punches that you’re, you’re jittering that hip, that torque and all of that speed and through your hips and through your legs.

0:13:39 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, I would imagine that really never really thought about it this way. But of all sports, something like that where you’re striking on a continuous basis, you know, when you’re you’re training, you might not be going boom, boom, boom, you know, but you’re, you’re striking, relax striking. That’s a little bit more like the golf swing compared to almost any other sport In movie tie.

0:14:02 – Eric Schaetty
They actually like you’re not. It’s not like kickboxing, and in that kickboxing you know it’s a lot of volume throw kicks and you want to throw them hard. In movie tie you are hitting to hurt. Like you throw a leg kick, you’re trying to chop their leg down, like that is literally what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to kick their leg as hard as you possibly can. So I think there’s a lot of that like transfer. It’s like, well, as soon as you get that pattern laid down, it is almost effortless. When you throw a leg kick it’s, you don’t even think about it. I mean, there’s some great MMA fighters. There was an interview I saw the other day. It was a Pereira, this guy who just fought and he was messing around Daniel Cormier and he goes all right and Cormier goes. He was Brazilian guy goes, throw 30%, 30% and he literally just barely tapped him and it looked like Cormier was going to fall over. And so it is. There is that transfer, but it’s a forceful power transfer?

0:14:56 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Do you think that that plays into? You know, talking about kids growing up and playing and we talk about speed all the time now, but kind of talking about the way that Jack Nicholas talked about this getting kids to just swing as fast as they can in order to gain speed early, because that that, Like you said, the pattern gets ingrained, the muscle memory gets ingrained.

0:15:19 – Eric Schaetty
Yeah, absolutely, and it’s you need to. When you’re young, when you’re a kid, there is no fear, and when we get older, it’s like I don’t know what’s going to happen in my back. I’m like I’m throwing my shoulder out and you know like you’re so worried about how hard you’re going to swing because you might hurt yourself. So I think a lot of it when you’re a kid, you know just as well as I do, like our kids are fearless. They do not, they will do anything. So I think, as when you’re really young and you get them into something, just let them start to say sweet spashes, you can’t go ahead. I mean because the odds of them getting hurt, I mean, are fairly low. We just swing your golf club, right?

0:15:54 – Jeff Pelizzaro
And, I think, repercussion wise, on the golf course they don’t care as much either. Right? So they’re losing dad’s golf balls, they’re not losing their own golf, they’re not typing their gin hand out. Yeah, so let’s talk a little bit about your world of fitness. What? What got you really involved in the training side of things? When did you start with the martial arts? Did you do that as a little kid or was that something? No?

0:16:17 – Eric Schaetty
So growing up it was just hockey. I mean I did you know COIC, soccer and all that growing up, but it was mainly hockey, did a little bit of D2 club hockey in college Really was just hockey I did. I really didn’t lift weights in high school. We didn’t have like a like you know, these kids nowadays you have like an after school training program. You’re going oh, why is conditioning Isn’t that? We had none of that. I mean, it was basically you were on the ice and that was it. I didn’t touch weights. I mean. Besides, you know curls in your basement, you know, get started under the bar. Yeah, the, the, the sit around, double. It’s like it really was just that.

And then basically it was in my around 2007, when I was out of college 2008, a friend of mine who worked in the bar industry with me. He was a trainer at club fitness and the old Rock Hill location, which is like a gymnastics place now, and I was just one in there one day and he kind of showed me a few things and I was like I just want to start lifting weights I’m not trying to and it was kind of the time I was getting into the martial arts a little bit and I was just like I need to learn how to lift weights, can you help me? And he helped me a little bit and through the course of like that year, I like just transformed myself. I transformed my body. Um, it was kind of like wow, this is, this is cool. Like I feel great, Like I love the way I feel, I love what I’m doing for myself, like I was like this is really uplifting.

And then me, at the time I was working in bars, I was like so that same guy. I went to him one day. I was like, hey, how, how do we get a job doing this? Like I love the way I’m done this for other people. Where do I start? Like. And he was like all right, well, we’ll get you signed up or whatever. And we, you know, you got to get this certification or that certification. So I went and got to do NASM and a little trial period. But it was literally I was basically walking in the door talking to an old friend and just kind of like you know, dove in head first, yeah.

0:18:09 – Jeff Pelizzaro
And you I mean you made a pretty significant transformation in your body, in your fitness, your lifestyle, you know so. You’ve done all of that. What was your journey then into the training side? I know you worked in CrossFit. Do you weight lift? You know weight lifting certifications. What was the journey then, kind of you know, up until where we are now?

0:18:29 – Eric Schaetty
Yeah. So when I was a little lot younger I mean, I was not even like towards the beginning of my training side, my training career I was still like even when I was doing martial arts, like some of that, I would go out after practice and I was still smoking cigarettes. I was like I’m drinking beers, like I was not the fast food, just not the bastion of health. So once I got into the training side of it, I’m like all right, this doesn’t correlate with my image. I can’t walk in smelling like cigarettes, I can’t you know be eating fast food and whatnot. And it was like, all right, well, the Muay Thai, that training was over and I was like I need something more competitive. Like I’m really ultra competitive, I’m over competitive. So I’m like what can I do? And that’s when I found CrossFit a buddy of mine, it was the old CrossFit St Louis when I was over in a hand-lead industrial. It was like a swag when they say a box. Yeah, it was literally. It was a pull-up bar, some weights and that was it right. So I got into that. That’s super competitive. With it, you know, I got my first muscle of them. I was after that like it kind of took off and that was like all right, I really love this.

I did CrossFit for a long time. I did CrossFit for five or six years something like that you ever take and I got ultra obsessed, started coaching it like was studying USA weightlifting certifications and just like was really like just engulfed in CrossFit. And I will say, like CrossFit, that’s the one thing CrossFit has done is A, is or two things actually. Community, yeah, totally Like you cannot put their community up against well, maybe ours, but you can’t really put it up against any other like community out there. Like they are so close, they’re so tight. And two, what it’s done for just fitness and weightlifting in general. You can go drive down the street now and buy barbells, yeah, and buy weights and buy plates.

Without CrossFit, none of that is possible. You wouldn’t have show me weights. You wouldn’t have a lot of these different places where, like, you can just walk down the street and like I’m going to go squat today and I’m going to go drop in while I’m out of town. I’m done that. I’m going to Florida and be like, hey, do you guys mind if I just, you know, back over in the corner and squat.

So you know, got to CrossFit, you know, got into these different certifications and just like, basically the CrossFit helped me a lot with the CrossFit, with like learning all the basic foundational lifts and all that, and then some of the other certifications are great, but it’s the experience I’ve acquired over the 15 years and it’s like I’ve just learned so much over the past 15 years as far as just in the gym experience and then just kind of like all right, what actually does work? What actually you know what anecdotal stuff actually works? So it really wasn’t. Oh well, you know I’m done with CrossFit. It was more like all right, let’s dive into the strength side of this a little bit more. And that’s when I kind of got into the strength side of it. That’s where I’ve been at kind of ever since, you know strength side and then kind of getting away from the hard cardio and diving back into the golf world.

0:21:39 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah. So you and I have been working together on a year and a half year, something over two years, over two years now. So one of the things that I noticed because we didn’t know each other at all before then was just the way that you train with your clients. You know a lot of barbell stuff, a lot of strength related stuff and, obviously, small gym. We listen to each other’s conversations, how we talk to our clients, and I really like the way that you explain to your clients. You know why you’re doing this.

You’re really big on teaching them accountability, on learning their lifts themselves and being able to do this stuff on their own right, and so I want to kind of go into some tactics on different goals that I think a lot of the crew has, because with golf it’s different than any other sport, because we could have somebody listen to the show that’s an 18 year old male or female, we could have somebody that’s a 75 year old male or female, and all of them want to get better at golf and if they’re listening to this show, they want to figure out what’s the right thing for them to do body wise, fitness wise. But, as I know that you have told so many of your clients, you have to really focus in on. What’s the main thing that you want to focus on, right? Is it your strength? Is it your fat boss? Is it you want to just move better, to swing the golf club better? Is it you want a better golf swing?

All of those different pieces are different. What would you say are some of them? And we’ll just kind of talk big rock things regarding the differences between if you want to get strong, if you want to lose some weight, and maybe the third one, if you want to just get moving better. What are some of the things that you would say like, hey, for strength, you got to do this, fat loss, you got to do this. There’s a lot of variables, yeah, yeah.

0:23:27 – Eric Schaetty
The majority of people, though I think that a lot of times a everybody is terrified to a lift weights, to go into a gym to do any of that stuff. So, first off, that you know, reassuring people that the rate of injury for weightlifting is that of non contact sports you can get hurt just as much swimming as you can, lifting weight and like. So that’s the first thing I would say to people is, like, listen, you’re not going to get hurt doing this, Just commit to it. And then most of the people that are listening are probably I’m just assuming most are not lifting weights yet, right? So most of them are going to get the best of both worlds You’re going to get stronger and you’re going to build muscle at the same time. Right? You don’t need, you, don’t? You don’t have to pick and choose which one you want to do, Because once you get more trained as you well know, is that you have to pick one another.

All right, am I going to get stronger or am I going to build muscle? That’s your point. So I would say, for the strength side of it is that I would start with just basic things as far as just picking something up off the ground, some type of hip hinge, some type of squatting and it doesn’t even have to be squatting If you would rather do a leg press because you feel more comfortable doing a leg press start with that for strength. The thing is is that strength? The definition of strength would be for your bodies to contract against an outside resistance. It doesn’t matter what it is to start, just put something in your hands, get a bar on your back if you want, but it doesn’t have to be anything like you see on TV or you hear about. So, as far as strength goes, just start doing something that’s going to put your body against an outside resistance.

0:25:12 – Jeff Pelizzaro
What are a couple of things you mentioned leg press or squatting and hinging. I mean, are those the big ones for you?

0:25:19 – Eric Schaetty
Yeah, most of my training and the most of the way I do train people, is that there’s always the three main lifts. You’re going to do something like a hip hinge. You’ll do something about squatting, whether it’s split squat or something like that and then you’ll do something like a horizontal or vertical pressing based on their limitations. A lot of people struggle with overhead pressing or an overhead press, so you can always modify those things, but you just start with those things foundationally and then find out what drives a person, because the results, the success of a program, is 100% adherence. If you’re not going to adhere to the program, you’re not going to have success. So, find something that you want to do. If somebody says to me hey, eric, yeah, squatting is cool and all, but I want huge arms, cool, I’m going to sprinkle on some arm stuff. Or you can sprinkle them for yourself, if you wanted to sprinkle on some arm stuff, or you want to do all of my back to get bigger, and you can do that. You know, sprinkle on things that you enjoy, because if you don’t enjoy those things, you’re not going to adhere to it. You’re not going to adhere to it.

Fat loss Fat loss is dependent on, you know, changing your metabolism right, the way you change your metabolism change your body composition. If you build muscle, you’re going to change your body composition. So, just starting out with just some strength training builds muscle, which changes your metabolism, and you’re already ahead of the curve because you’ve already killed two birds with one stone. You’ve built some muscle. Now you’ve changed your metabolism. Well, guess what? If you’re changing nothing else, you’re going to change how you look, yeah, and you’re going to burn some fat, yeah.

0:26:59 – Jeff Pelizzaro
And the mean time, more muscle means more, more burning of calories, which means, you know, a bit in calorie deficit, or you know. And then obviously the there’s the food component to to the fat loss, right, but Jeff is, it is a is a chat that we have in this gym many, many times and ultimately, you know, once you get past that the initial phase where just strength training is is doing the trick, then you have to start to dial that in.

0:27:26 – Eric Schaetty
Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of times people get very, I think, over the, you know, I would say, the past few decades there’s a lot of like earmongering of you can’t have this, or you can’t have that, this diet’s the best, or this diet’s the best or no, no, no, don’t touch that. Or you know, and people just like, literally, if you went through all the things people tell you you can’t have, you would almost have an empty plate. If you like, oh, there’s pesticides on those leaves. Or don’t drink that soda because that has aspartame, or, like you would literally be able to eat that tomato because it’s got yeah you’d be drinking water and that is it.

So the nutrition side of it would be pick something that you want to do, because all diets have one common factor and that’s a caloric deficit Yep. So if you want to do intermittent fasting, cool. If you want to do the keto diet, cool. If you want to do high carb, low fat, that’s fine as well. Just start picking one thing and work on that.

I’m going to eat better for breakfast, I’m going to wake up every day and I’m going to have enough protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis, which is the process of building muscle. So start with that and then just start small goals and just work your way up the ladder instead of like all right, here we go. First of the year, I’m doing it at all Right, and before you know it, like two weeks down the road, you’re like all right, that didn’t go too well, what am I supposed to do next? So I think it’s nutrition is a lot about small goals. Work on one thing at a time after you have the you know, the strength side dialed in and just little building blocks along the way.

0:29:00 – Jeff Pelizzaro
I want to take just a second to thank our new partner, which I’m really excited to announce is 1st Phorm. 1st Phorm is a company that is here in St Louis, based in St Louis. It’s a nutritional company that is doing incredible things in the world of nutrition and one of the reasons that we decided to partner with 1st Phorm is obviously we’re very impressed with their dedication to their products and the quality of their products. But really it’s the dedication to them, them helping their customers get real results, aside from just the products. We got a chance to go and actually visit the facility again here in St Louis and really walk the halls of the corporate offices. But we got to see the manufacturing plan or the warehouse. And it’s not just a place where they’re packaging supplements and shipping them out. It’s a culture, it’s a community and you can see that amongst the employees. You can see that their culture and their core values that are not just pieces of art on their wall. They’re actually living them there and they’re helping to expand those into the community and really that’s why we partner with 1st Phorm. Obviously, their products are incredible. Otherwise we wouldn’t suggest them either. We use them on a regular basis. So you’re going to be hearing a lot more about their products and what they can do for your fitness, what they can do for your golf game the protein powders, the multivitamins, the protein sticks, the hydration packets All of those products we’re going to highlight in future episodes.

But we just wanted to really celebrate our new partnership with 1st Phorm. Bring your other website, 1stphorm.com/18strong, forward slash 18STRONG and we’re going to be doing a giveaway every single month with anybody that buys through that link. So go to 1stphorm.com/18strong that’s P-H-O-R-Mcom. Forward slash 18STRONG. That’ll take you directly to their website and you can check their whole suite of products, including some of their fitness apparel and anything that is purchased over there. You’re going to be enrolled into our list for our giveaway. I know that you just recently have started working with a lot more golfers, a lot of people from your club, which is really cool. When you’re now taking a lot of your traditional training style and you’ve been doing this for yourself too, working in some things for your own golf game. Have you changed anything specifically in the way that you’re training them or in the way that you’re training also for the golf purposes?

0:31:24 – Eric Schaetty
Yes. So as far as the training goes, so foundationally and I’ve noticed this is that strength is a vital component of the golf swing in you and it doesn’t have to be the sense that people think they need a strong squat, they need to put 315 on the bar and be squatting 315 for multiple reps. No, you don’t. If you come in and say, alright, I was squatting my body weight three months ago, now I’m squatting a kettlebell that weighs 53 pounds, guess what you’ve gotten strong. Yes, and that is going to correlate over to Training. So I don’t necessarily have to do barbells with them, I don’t. I just try to get them to do some type of squat, hinge press. We’re just gonna get them a little bit stronger and then we’re throwing in.

I’m trying to and I’m doing a little more research with this is that you see a lot of correlation to Vertical jumping, height, how high somebody can jump, or the vertical force and a golf swing. You also see a lot of lateral rotation, static positions, things like that. So I do like to sprinkle in some lateral rotation stuff. I like to focus on, you know, slamming whether it’s side slam, whether it’s an overhead slam, rotations, front leg, and then the really the big thing that I am new to, especially with my clients that I’ve taken from the club, is balance.

A lot of them just don’t Understand how to transfer from the right side to the left side or a left and a golf, yet left to right. Is that a lot more balanced stuff? Transferring one leg, being on one leg, focusing on finding your balance in your feet and then being able to transfer from one side of the other so it’s still the foundations of strength. But then you’re throwing in a little snippets of like alright, we’re on balance today and you we’re gonna work on your. You know your vertical, your vertical jump or and when I say vertical Jump it doesn’t mean that I know how I’m doing like crazy box jump, right, I think. But just get them to a move faster and Be get them to move a little more powerfully, yep, so I think I’ve incorporated a lot more of that into the golfer side of it. Worse, most of my other clients were really not like I’m not gonna do a lot of that stuff with right, a little more traditional, with strength stuff.

0:33:38 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, what I found with the you know, the balance stuff. I mean initially, when somebody says balance, they think, oh, standing on one leg, those. But it’s more than that. And I find that a lot of golfers feel like they’re not flexible enough to get into whatever position. But a lot of times it’s it’s more their balance, like they just don’t know how to hold a position or the body hasn’t been there. And so once you start to put them in these different situations when you’ve got them in a split stance and then they’re throwing a ball or they’re rotating with a cable, they’re like, oh, they’re a little unsteady. But as they do that week after week, then it’s like, oh, I can actually move better through my motion. It’s not because you do a bunch of stretches and you do. You know a lot of these long duration holds where or you’re working on getting them all the way into the backswing or position holds. It’s no, you’re just more balanced and you’re comfortable and you’re understanding what your body needs to do in a swing.

0:34:27 – Eric Schaetty
Yeah, and that was another, as he was Lee Trevino. Remember watching the video about having. He said you could take you know he lives at the driving range and looked at the range. He said take all these golfers, I could work on their swing right now, we could do all these things to it. He goes, they’re gonna show back up tomorrow and they’re gonna do the same thing they were doing before I said anything.

So a lot of these people like I’m not, I’m not trying to change your swing, I’m just trying to get them to understand. Like, listen, when you get here, this is when this goes. Like I had said something to John sharing the other day. I was like you do you understand? Like, before you start the downswing, your body’s actually moving in the opposite direction. And they’re like what, wait a minute, with what do you mean? Like your body’s moving in two different directions at one point and died. So it’s things like that, like you said, getting to understand that your body’s gonna be moving in two different directions and you’re gonna have to find that balance in between those two.

0:35:17 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, this is mentioned. John and Sharon. It’s kind of cool to see that you have people from your club. You mentioned it. Randy is yeah, randy Ray, one of the first clients that came over from the club. Tell the story. Oh yeah, randy’s all the client.

0:35:32 – Eric Schaetty
So I ended up in the club championship this year first round. I just got back from Florida. The first round went well. You know, knock the guy out in the 19th hole in the first round. So the second round had a play Randy. Nobody really knew it. It’s not like we had him bar fight.

0:35:48 – Jeff Pelizzaro
What’s about the guy on the night?

0:35:51 – Eric Schaetty
The guy out. Yeah, you know I got a little iffy out there, but uh, but yeah. So I beat Tony in the first round. So I had Randy. Nobody knew anything about Randy either. So you know, these guys like, oh my god, randy’s such a nice guy, he’s such a cool guy, you’re gonna love it, like great. So I know, plan Randy.

Randy goes on a heater last four holes, shoots three under on the last four holes, comebacks, beats me. So they’re walking up back to the cars. He’s like, oh so your trainer, huh, he’s, you know, kind of shakes his head. He’s like well, have to get your number. He’s like I might have to come see you. So he’s like, after I get back for my trip, give me a call. So I texted him and next thing, you know, here I have a client now.

So it was like I I lost the match but I gained a client. I did, I gained a friendship. You know we played, you know, random golf together. Now like we’re friends now. So it’s like that Bridging the, the golf was kind of like the entry into, like this friendship and the relationship and like I see a lot of it Like with our crew, is that it’s. It’s more than like CrossFit.

When I left CrossFit and went home, that was kind of it right, like, yeah, you spent an hour with them, now was a. You went home, you know some people you got close with, but a lot of these guys like you’re spending four hours Together rent just talking about whatever, shooting the crap you know, like whatever you’re doing and it’s I think the community in golf is so it’s it’s it’s way different than anything I’ve ever like through myself. That I think it’s really opened my eyes, like it you can do, and especially with my sobriety I don’t think we’ve talked about that very much. Is that especially like yeah, I’m like 11 years, that well, 12 years, 12 years sober is that I Can go out with people that are drinking, that are on the golf course and Still have a good time and that even like on my own, it’s therapeutic for me to go play 18 holes, walk 18 holes by myself, clear my head, even if I have a bad day. It is literally like the most therapeutic thing I think I’ve ever done for my sobriety. That’s awesome.

0:38:00 – Jeff Pelizzaro
And I think that that’s what’s so cool about you know the community that we’re building here. You know you and I and the gym and Dave here at Empire Fitness Academy but 18STRONG just in general in our mandatory golf Friday. It’s like it’s taking a little bit of that that CrossFit feel. You know some of the workout stuff that we do, but then the golf stuff. I mean so many friendships have developed outside of just you know, mandatory golf Friday start out with a lot of Myself, ryan and different people that we knew that came and played with us right.

And now it’s it’s cool to see like guys in our group, like you and Bobby and Brian going and playing in these tournaments and you know getting together outside of any kind of affiliated events and it’s just so neat to see it all come together and everybody you know enjoying and I gotta give I chill it’s talking about. Yeah, like it’s so cool. I had some of the best friendships that I think a lot of us have had in recent years because you know you can, you could talk about a lot of stuff on the golf course or you can learn nothing about the guy that you’re playing with right, like, like.

0:38:58 – Eric Schaetty
I don’t know me. You’re like you guys said talk about that divorce. Oh and it’s all. How many count?

0:39:02 – Jeff Pelizzaro
does he have?

I don’t know idea, but he hit a great three wood, yeah, you know, in the dark, oh, so kind of. The last thing I want to talk about before we close up with our last questions is and I think this is one of the biggest things that I hear you discuss with your clients and is probably the most important You’ve kind of alluded to it already is the consistency factor, and I’ve heard you say over and over and over again to your clients the consistency comes before the motivation, right? So I want you to just kind of explain that a little bit and what that means to you and how it’s helped you, but how it’s also helping anybody out there.

0:39:36 – Eric Schaetty
The big thing that I had heard that quote somewhere recently, but it was for me. It happened before that. It was I was killing myself with cardio. I was rowing for an hour and a half. I was waking up at two o’clock in the morning, rowing for an hour and a half, then going to my job at five am, working all day, and then I would come home and like I guess I’ll do CrossFit, I guess I’ll live some way to take a nap. And I’m like I was a year we’re talking about the walking or something happened. And I was like you know what, let, maybe it worked. Yeah, might have been on the forge, yeah, I don’t know what it was. And I was like you know what? You always see these bodybuilders like walking.

And then a friend of mine, jordan Fagan, mom barbell medicine guy, he had always talked about walking. How it’s like, yay, the key to fat loss is walking. I’m like this can’t be right. And I listened to this guy and I was like, all right, well, let’s give it a try. So I scrapped all that and I’m like, all right, I’m just gonna walk for 40 minutes every morning, wake up, no matter what rain or shine. I’m walking for 40 minutes. I walked for 40 minutes and like three months I had lost like 10 pounds and I was like, wait a minute, this is weird. Like I’m in better shape, I look better and feel better than I did when I was killing myself with this hour and a half of rowing three or four days a week. And it’s like wait a minute, like what am I? I’m walking every day, though Now I’m doing seven days of 40 minutes, plus, when I’m done working out or working, I’m like all right, I’m gonna be the kids, we’re gonna go play, we’re gonna go play golf, we’re gonna go do this. And all of a sudden it’s like wait a minute, like I’m more active, I feel better. Like walking is the secret because you can do it over a long period of time with no repercussions. I’ll be if you can. Like there might be some, well, some limitation, do the elliptical or whatever. But it’s all of a sudden, this consistency was like wait a minute, this is really working. And then you get motivated.

Nobody walks into the gym. It’s like, yeah, I’m gonna do this for three months straight and it’s gonna be awesome. Like most people walk in like the second or third time, like I’m gonna be so sore, this is gonna hurt. Oh man, like I know it’s time for this. Yeah, like, what am I doing? And like it’s like just keep coming back, just keep doing it, just keep doing it and the consistency comes and then, before you know it, like you get your results and then you get motivated. Then the train’s on the tracks, it’s heading downhill and you’re like all right, what’s next? Like put a bar on my back right, Put a bar in my hand. Let’s do something crazy, like right. So I think the consistency people don’t understand it’s like you will get consistent, then you will get motivated. You know, just go to the gym to start going. Whether you want to or not, I promise you in a month you will change.

0:42:21 – Jeff Pelizzaro
And it works for everything too right. So it works for strengthening, it works for walking, it works for nutrition. Not trying to do it all at once, because you know that that’s just gonna fail in a week. Even if you’re the most you know motivated person initially, you go through a week of trying to do everything every single day. It just it fades, the life gets in the way. But that’s what we’ve noticed with the Forge is we don’t tell people what to do when they work out, we don’t tell people what diet they need to choose. But you have to do it for 40 days straight and it’s like just trust the process, pick these couple of simple things. Or, if you’re one of you, it’s stronger. Okay, I’m gonna go to the gym two times a week and I’m gonna lift something kind of heavy right and do that for two times a week for 52 weeks and you’re gonna see a totally different person.

0:43:09 – Eric Schaetty
And there’s I mean there’s research and anecdotal evidence and personal experience Like that produces results two days a week or what you will see results from two. You don’t have to go to the gym every day. Just don’t do a full body workout twice a week. You will get results and there’s evidence to prove it. There’s anecdotal stuff, there’s clients that we’ve had or you don’t think the proof is in the pudding. You don’t need to go every day. It doesn’t need to be as hard as people kind of make it sound.

0:43:38 – Jeff Pelizzaro
And, as you said earlier, if you’re somebody that hasn’t done that a long time, you’re a little nervous about going or you’re just kind of dreading getting that ball rolling. The cool thing is like you’re the person that’s gonna get the most out of it initially. If you’re somebody that has been training for a while, it’s harder to dial those results in. But if you are kind of starting fresh, simple little things are gonna do a lot.

0:44:02 – Eric Schaetty
Yeah, I mean, even like a couple hours a week, you’re gonna transform your body, you’re gonna do things and feel things, and I think that’s the other big thing is, like, most of the people that come in and like I think, like our crew, it’s like, yeah, they wanna hit the ball further, but they don’t want their back to hurt, they don’t want their knees to hurt oh man, I’m sick of my shoulder hurt and my back hurt. It’s like just do these fundamental things. I mean your back will start to feel better, your knees will feel better, you’ll walk nine, 18 holes and be like I feel pretty good, yeah, do it again. Right, like so. I think that’s the other side of it with the strength training is that there’s other benefits to it besides just hitting ball farther or getting stronger. Like there’s lifelong things that you can acquire down the road.

0:44:47 – Jeff Pelizzaro
The most of the people, I think, that are in our crew listening, that are in our local crew playing, playing men’s tour golf Friday, probably the 35, 40 plus, mostly male, right, like the guys that we play with and, to your point, like it, it’s not all about golf, and 18STRONG has really never been about just lowering handicaps, right, it’s about so much more, especially with my background in PT and injury and just moving better. But tell me if you see the same thing. I mean we’re now inner 40s, I’m 45, you’re 41. Good to be foreign too.

So like we have a lot of friends now that are kind of getting to that point where they’re well-established in their careers. They have kids that maybe are, you know, in late grade school, high school, some college, but they’ve been maybe at a desk for a long period of time. They kind of I feel like we get into this place, especially as guys, where you get into your career, you’re focusing on your family, you’re focusing on doing all the other things and you kind of let your taking care of yourself go a little bit. Have you found that that’s a big part of the golf community that you’ve seen and talked to work with?

0:46:00 – Eric Schaetty
Yeah, a lot of the times, and I mean even like my brother I mean my brother’s a little bit younger than me, it’s the same thing Like he’s very busy with his work life and you know, it’s like it’s like he’s a graser, really good golfer, very good golfer, but it’s like he prioritizes family and everything else over other things like that right, taking care of himself, I mean in fine shape. But I just see like little examples of like, like you said, like people letting you know their other, you know the rest of their life kind of get pushed aside or family or for whatever reason, work or whatever it is. But I mean especially my advice to them just get up and walk every morning. Yeah, just start with 15. Starts walking.

Just get up and be like I’m gonna go walk every morning 15 minutes, that’s all. Just start with that For you. I like, oh, I’m gonna do 20 minutes, I might do 30 minutes, because even walking is going to build the muscles in your legs. You’re gonna get muscle strength just from walking. So even like that, just starting with that, you know, when you get through a little, five pounds.

0:47:08 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Tell me how to go back, right, Like, just start to get a little bit of resistance, Pretty much some resistance, Exactly. I have a quick story before we jump in this last question. All right, these last questions. I’ve got one of my clients, Greg, who you probably know, but I’ll never forget.

Like we met and started working with each other I don’t know six, seven years ago or so, and he is now, I think, 75, but was just kind of retiring, play, wanted to start playing a lot of golf.

He’s a pretty decent golfer, but he said to me at one point, after we’d been working together for like six months, like man, I would give you a million dollars if you could put me in a time machine and we could have met 20 years ago. You know, like because of he just let his body get to that point and now he’s 67 years old or 68 years old, and it’s like you can’t get it back. So I guess this is my PSA to all you guys and guys out there like it’s never too late to start, but start today, right, and that’s kind of our whole mantra of no mulligans is like hey, you don’t get a mulligan for life, right, Like you don’t get to do this over. Yeah, you’re gonna go up and down with your fitness, but like, start today and start to do something, because you don’t get today back, right.

0:48:20 – Eric Schaetty
No, and then that’s I mean. I like I would say the same thing, like I wish I could go back. But the other thing is, is that people like that? What I have done in my life has led me to this point in time. So just take it for what it is and then just move forward. Right, like you wouldn’t be staying, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you if it wasn’t for all these little things that have happened in my life. So just take it for what it’s worth and then you just move forward from there.

Like you can’t, why change it? Right, it’s happened. You can’t go back. We can’t have a time machine. Right, it’s like, let’s think about, like, moving forward, the next step. So what are we gonna do next? Right, you can’t go back in your time machine. We can do something. We can get up tomorrow, we can go for a walk, we can go put a barbell in our hands, we can go to the gym, we can go find a strength coach, we can go do Pilates or bar or whatever you wanna do. But let’s move forward and not backwards, right, right, awesome.

0:49:12 – Jeff Pelizzaro
All right, brother, let’s get into these last questions. Caddyshack Happy.

0:49:16 – Eric Schaetty
Gilmore Caddyshack 100%. It was Christmas. It was always on, always on my grandpa’s house. We watch Caddyshack every year, Love it.

0:49:27 – Jeff Pelizzaro
All right, the third. So walkup song that you can pick first to the T-Box at Waterloo Country Club. Well, what are you picking? I don’t know, not really Whatever you want, but walkup songs to the first T-Box, Getting Hectic by the Urge. All right, is there a different one than you would pick at Waterloo Country Club? Um yeah, Probably.

0:49:48 – Eric Schaetty
I mean it depends. Do I want to intimidate people or probably be corn blind?

0:49:53 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Okay, how about Bill? I love it, bill loves it too. Yeah, all right, let’s see what’s our next one here. Oh, is there a book that you love, that you’ve read and that you love to recommend to people, whether it be golf, fitness, life, well, it’s an actual and it’s not a.

0:50:10 – Eric Schaetty
It’s Bobby Plaguer’s biopic Tales from the Blues Bench. It is some of the funniest stories. You like things about the 60s and the 70s and hockey that you wouldn’t even like, you wouldn’t think they would do it today and you’d be like you’re gonna jail, like some of the stuff they did, and it’s just, it’s a fun read, like it’s a great story. So yeah, tales from the Blues Bench, bobby Plaguer.

0:50:32 – Jeff Pelizzaro
All right, who’s your celebrity forcing if you could pick a forcing to go play with, you get four and a half to five hours to walk and just kind of shoot the shit with these people. Who’s he gonna be John?

0:50:42 – Eric Schaetty
Daley, michael Jordan and my grandfather so my grandfather’s the one who helped me, like learn how to play golf, but we never played like a full round together. Really, for as long as you never played a full round Cause, when I was like like drinking days and like I would love to have that back to like what I like how I am now. I would love to have that back.

0:51:07 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Is he still here?

0:51:08 – Eric Schaetty
No, he passed away three, four years ago, right around there.

0:51:13 – Jeff Pelizzaro
So we’d love to have that. Would your grandpa get in on the games too?

0:51:15 – Eric Schaetty
Oh, absolutely. He was the one in the Country Club.

0:51:18 – Jeff Pelizzaro
He’s absolutely he’d be at other games. We forgot to mention that you are the assistant to the chief gambling officer of the 18STRONG crew yeah man Turgoff, right.

So I know there’s gonna be some serious games with MJ John Daley. All the games, I love all the games. All right, if we’re, if we’re loading up the 18STRONG jet, we’re flying anywhere you want to go? What’s your bucket list? Course, and I’m gonna throw this out, like I did to Bobby too, I’m gonna take it. You can say it if you want, but you’re gonna give me another one. I’m gonna take Augusta and St Andrews off the table. Riviera, all right, riviera.

0:51:50 – Eric Schaetty
And it’s super hard. It’s Northern California, like it’s beautiful Riviera for sure, all right.

0:51:57 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Is there a social media account that you think that the 18STRONG crew should go follow, whether that be golf or whatever, but big Barbell Medicine.

0:52:06 – Eric Schaetty
Barton Barlow Medicine, jordan Barbell Medicine or Austin Barrocky at Barbell Medicine. All right?

0:52:12 – Jeff Pelizzaro
There we go, all right, and last one what’s the best piece of golf advice that you’ve ever been given?

0:52:21 – Eric Schaetty
Take your medicine, take, take your medicine, take your medicine. My grandpa used to tell me all the time just take your medicine. To get in trouble, take your medicine.

0:52:31 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Good advice, good advice. All right, brother, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you being on. Where can people go and find you?

0:52:37 – Eric Schaetty
E-Shat’s 82 on Instagram. Eric Schaetty on Facebook Schaetty Fitness Consulting. Or come see us here at Empire Fitness Academy

0:52:46 – Jeff Pelizzaro
And I’m going to try to twist this guy’s arm to do a little content for 18STRONG with us here too. So we’ll be. You’ll be seeing a little bit more of him as well. So all right, brother, thank you very much. Thank you, yeah. Thanks for listening to the 18STRONG podcast and don’t forget to go follow us over on Instagram at 18strong. And if you found this episode helpful and want to help us spread the mission of 18STRONG, please share with a friend. Train hard, practice smart and play better golf.