Aaron Goldberg: Hey everyone.
Welcome to the PJ Players Podcast.
I'm your host, Aaron Goldberg.
Today we have a great discussion with a friend of mine, Dr.
Sean Drake.
This is somebody I've learned a lot from over the left past few years,
and I'm excited to share it with you.
We're gonna hear about his background, his story, where he's at today, and what
he does with his professional athletes.
As well as athletes of all kinds.
But what we really wanna talk about is how it relates to professional golfers
recovery, uh, nervous system optimization.
These are all things that are a little bit more in the limelight for pros.
Now, this is something everyone's talking about, but I really want
to take a deep dive with Dr.
Drake on how he's come to.
The protocols that he uses today and why it's so important.
And I think the biggest question that I have and that I want to hear
him talk about is the why behind it.
So Dr.
Drake, thanks for being here.
Appreciate it.
Uh, thanks.
Uh, I'd, I'd like to start with how, how we got here today on your side.
Dr. Sean Drake:
Well, a lot of text messages back and forth.
Um, you know, obviously huge Avian fan and you know, when we got to this point,
I think it comes down to a couple things.
Number one, um, trust and rapport.
Rapport is really important to me.
And you know, when I met Eric originally and a BM and I started
to like, you know, look at, look at the energy and the frequency of the
company and the man that he is and who he has around him with his brother.
And you know, it started to trickle in like I was never
supposed to be back in practice.
You know, I was at OnBase U with Greg Rose, you know, titles, performance
Institute, doing our research, doing our care for our guys there and our females.
And you know, 2020 happened and all of a sudden, you know, we
went online and so I came to Scottsdale to learn how to skydive.
Ended up, you know, staying here, opening a small clinic.
This kind of blew up into what we're at now, and I'll tell how we got there.
But the minute that I met Eric, I realized that this is a man of God.
This is a man of humanity, and he really truly wants to transform each and every
player that he works with, not just like.
From a financial standpoint, from a generational standpoint.
And that's where we came together and I said, you know what, I'm, I'm behind you.
I'll do whatever you need.
Let's go.
And so that's how we got here.
Um, when it comes to the PGA athlete or the golfer, you know, I would've never
gone into golf had it not been for Dr.
Greg Rose and titles, performance Institute.
If you wanna work with golfers, you have to do that, in my opinion.
And you can argue swing all day long, that's not what I'm trying to say here.
But when you understand physical limitations of your athlete.
Then you can better help them be the best.
Where I've come to now is understanding the energy of the
athlete, and that's, that's what this podcast is really gonna be about.
And it started with my own journey in 23 after my divorce
where I got super depressed.
Now, I had all these modalities in my clinic prior, but I was using
them from a performance standpoint.
I was saying, okay, how do I give them athletes?
How do I get more range of motion?
How do I get more capacity?
What I didn't understand was the neuro emotional side until
it happened to me, myself.
And so I went from, you know, I have a dad who's special forces, and I have
a mom who's supplying the military.
And so I've got two, you know, dichotomy of energies going after me.
One's, you know, very A type.
Everything has to be dotted, everything has to be crossed.
And my dad's like, no.
Resilience is everything.
So understanding how to stay calm and chaos.
So when we look at the word recovery, I actually don't
use that word in our clinic.
Um, because we are not a recovery center, if you want that, there's,
my buddy owns Optimize here locally.
There's a lot of places you can go to get on modalities.
When we're working with you, we're fine tuning where your limitations are
inside your nervous system and building capacity within that, using modalities.
So I get divorced or I'm going through a divorce, I'm depressed as heck.
Um, to the point where I was suicidal.
I was on my bathroom floor with a Glock in my mouth.
And I'll never forget this day because Dr.
Greg Rose called me at that very moment.
He was checking on me every single day during that time.
And he is like, look, I, I hear it in your voice.
Something's off.
I need you to drive to somebody's house and I'm gonna give caner a plug right now.
So Brian Kane, so I drive to his house, right?
And, and he works with a lot of our players as well.
And I get there and I'm, I'm broken and I'm, you know, 220 pounds down to 150.
I.
I literally like, he just like him and his wife and just basically like coddled
me and held me and like I just sat there at his kitchen table and our other buddy
walks in and he's like, Hey, I think you should sign up for the Tempe Ironman.
I'm going to.
And I said, and my brain goes, dude, you're one 50.
You can barely get off the couch.
You're making it to the clinic during, you know, a spring training off season
to get your guys through and then you're going home and you're crashing.
And I'm like, whatever.
I took the credit card, put it down.
And it was really when I started to understand how to use the modalities
from emotional standpoint, not just a a quote recovery standpoint.
Like, I'm not just getting on this modality now to feel good.
I'm getting on this modality to transform who I am on the inside.
And so instead of using high GPMF, which is pulse electro magnetic field therapy,
I started to use lower gauss mats because I could, I could lay on them overnight
and get that energy capacity in my system.
So when I woke up in the morning.
I was ready to start doing something active.
From a depression standpoint, since we're talking about golfers, golfers
and tennis players are two of the most depressed athletes out there.
It's not talked about very often, but mental health is a massive
issue on the tour, and it's so hard to get there, right?
Like they're the top, you know, everybody on the mini tours can play at the PGA
level, but it's what's going on in between here that really allows them to go there.
And so.
As I started working with these modalities and started using the cold plunge, instead
of saying, Hey, I need to be in there for 11 to 12 minutes for brown fat, you know,
to go and to get my testosterone right.
I was using the cold plunge more from a emotional correction standpoint.
So when I'd get a different thought in my mind, a depressive
thought or a frustrating thought.
I'd get in the cold plunge as quick as I could catch my breath and get out.
So I was using it for micro, you know what I mean?
Then I was using the sauna instead of saying, Hey, I'm getting
in the sauna for quote detox.
I was using the sauna to build capacity within my own self, saying, oh man, okay.
Setting a time limit of 20 minutes and at 20 minutes I didn't, I wanted
to get out, but I was like, no, like push yourself a little bit further.
So I started to build this energy capacity up.
Then I started to realize, okay, I use the hyperbaric, not necessarily
as getting in there to say, Hey, I need to get oxygen to help out with
inflammation and help my body heal.
I used it as my safety and my cocoon to work through my emotions,
to have a place where it was just me and my own inner thoughts.
I started to use vibration more from a standpoint of just stimulus
of saying, okay, I am safe.
I am calm, I am powerful.
I started to use our light system to work the, the neuroplasticity
within my brain of those emotions.
And so like, what I started to really do is create a neuro emotional clinic of
building resilience in the nervous system.
Not just saying, Hey, I'm using these modalities because they feel good.
So once I got to the Ironman Day, you know, I'm sitting
there on the starting line.
I'll never forget this, you know, and I'm, I'm like, and if you've
ever seen an Ironman, a lot of people go out at once, right?
And you've got heats and you've got all these things.
And this relates to the PGA player, because you never
know where you're gonna be.
You know, starting on a certain day, they're gonna put
you in a different position.
But it's your prep that prepares you for those moments, for who you're
gonna be playing with and what's what course you're gonna be playing at.
And so I get to the starting line, I jump off, and within like literally
probably 300 yards, I get decked in the face like Mike Tyson punched, and
I'm sitting there and I'm like, dazed.
And I'm like treading water.
And this girl comes over in the kayak, Hey, do you wanna hold on?
I'm like, no, I'm good.
IU because of all the regulation I did from within during this training on
these modalities, I knew I was safe.
I knew how to, I knew how to course correct.
Right?
So if you have a bad shot, how quickly can you course correct within, not necessarily
in that moment, but already within.
So then I get to the bike and I do the first loop.
And out here, um, in Tempe, you've got the Beeline, which is a long, fricking way.
Down on, um, inside Scottsdale and on the second lap, I'm coming around and somebody
holds up a sign that says, who hurt you?
it brings up all the emotions of the divorce.
It brings up all the emotions of the anger, and I'm just like crying
on my bike and I'm screaming and I'm, and then I get to the beeline
and 20 mile an hour more wind.
So now I'm getting my butt kicked, right?
Like, I'm like, oh.
But it was just, you gotta keep going.
And the philosophy from when I hike Kilimanjaro Ole Poey is just one step.
Just one pedal.
Just one thing, right?
And so you got people coming by.
And what's so amazing about Ironman and, and I tell all my golfers that
it's so important to understand the resilience that it takes to do an
Ironman, but it's a community sport.
You're individual, but everybody wants to see you win.
And so often when we're in, we're in golf, we, we beat ourselves up.
You know what I mean?
We don't have that, that circle around us telling you, Hey, man, keep going.
Like, you're out there by yourself.
You know, you're, you're, you're fighting every shot.
Yeah, you've got your caddy, but in reality, you've got yourself and it's
like, you gotta know, let that shot go.
Keep it going to the next thing.
Like Vision 54 taught me a lot when I did their program on really how to do that.
So then I get around the third loop and wind's picked up another 15 miles an hour.
And so like, I'm just getting my ass handed to me, right?
Sorry.
And I get to the running portion.
First of all, I only train for three months, and my buddies are like, I don't
know if he's actually gonna make it.
And so I, I get into the run, I'm running an 11 minute pace.
My buddies who are there, Michael Kowalski, I'm gonna give him a shout out
on this too, because I would not have made it through this Ironman without him.
Brian Kane, the rest of my buddies, Mason.
Um, but it's a team aspect and this is why it's so important
to this topic on the PGA golfer.
But then I get to the run, I'm 11 miles in and there's this like guy in front
of me going super slow and I try to go around him and I jar my hip again.
I step in a hole.
And I recently injured my about seven months prior at Tony
Horton's house from P 90 x.
And if you ever watch his videos, he's got people that come out there
and do crazy workouts with him.
Well, he has this rope that you climb.
Two stories.
Then you climb over and then you get these pegs and you come down, well,
I missed the peg and I came down two stories on my hip, and so I re aggravate
this at mile 11, and I've gotta keep going because at the end of the day,
it's, it's not about giving up, right?
It's the capacity to bounce back, recovering, even thrive
in the face of adversity.
That's the definition of resilience.
Every single athlete I work with, I make them memorize that because
at the end of the day, it's not, it's not about this moment.
It is about everything else you've endured to get to this moment.
It's about, okay, don't worry about what's next.
That can't even happen yet.
Like, you've gotta be present, you've gotta be here.
So then I'm in the run and I'm going, and like I, at that, I
honestly, I felt like the most loved person that you could imagine.
I had, you know, PGA players out there watching me.
I had pro, you know, baseball players out there, wa coming to watch me.
So many patients, so many friends.
It was probably the most loving experience I'd ever had.
And so as I'm getting through to the finish line, I sprint through the finish.
And if you ever run an Ironman, take the finish and slow down for
your first one and just enjoy it.
You know, I, I grab the medal, I go to see all my friends and my family, and they're
all like, Hey, you know, congratulations on the, you know, finishing.
And it wasn't about the finish for me, right?
It was about the story and the journey of how I got there.
And so I get done with the Ironman and I'm like all the emotions
that came up during that race.
Are the emotions that, you know, my guys on the KornFerry
are going through right now.
My guys on mini tour, my females that are on their tour.
Um, like I, you know, I sponsor Ashley mean, who is the a SU Golf,
you know, grace Summer Hayes, who's, who's about to come through.
Uh, you know, I've been blessed to work with, you know, Tony au Winham Clark.
I can go down the list of players, but if you go, if you come in my
office, I don't post my players online to create credibility.
Like, my thing is, is that I want you to be your best when you're in here with me.
And so when it comes to modalities, you are the modality.
I want you to realize this.
You are the modality.
All these energy systems around that we'll break into in the rest of
this podcast, enhance that modality.
But if you've got anger, if you've got frustration, if you've got sadness that
you haven't dealt with, it's gonna show up in your performance on the course.
And so that's really where we can step into this next part of, of what I do.
As I have athletes that I have a one day, a three day and a five day program that
guys will fly into or females, and we will completely reset their nervous system,
and you're being moved from modality to modality to modality, to modality.
We're working the body, we're doing breathwork we're doing different types of
things, and it's because here's the deal is you can't just commit to one modality.
Like this is where I think a lot of players go wrong, is they get excited
about something that feels good.
But it doesn't create proper change, right?
Like there are certain things that I say like, yeah, it's awesome you have
blank, but are you thinking about blank?
And so, and if you're not, you're behind.
And when you're traveling week to week and you're traveling, you know, state
to, to different state, country to country, you're in different time zones.
You're, and the thing is, you've gotta prep for those time zones.
So this is where modalities become a true form of training.
Not necessarily recovery
Aaron Goldberg: Yep.
I, that's amazing.
I mean, so much to unpack there.
Uh, don't want to gloss over anything.
Uh, appreciate you being candid with your story and you know, everything you've gone
through, um, the depths of where you're at with depression going through divorce.
Um, but also the triumph of being able to train for an Ironman, pull out of it.
You know, some of the key takeaways I have from that, it takes a team.
You wouldn't have been able to do that without your friends, your team.
Uh, we've been lucky enough to have Brian Kane on here.
Um, he's awesome.
He, uh, also a friend, uh, one of the greatest motivators I've met, uh, in golf.
It takes a team.
You are the, the golfer or the only one hitting the shot.
But we all know how many people it takes to get you out there.
Uh, when you're inside the ropes, yeah, it's you and your caddy and you're the
only one that can pull the trigger.
But before that, there's a lot of people that are helping out, and I
think that's why we see when, when guys win, especially for the first time,
so much emotion come out, even from guys that aren't emotional or don't
seem like they'd be emotional, is it's everything that it took to get them there.
And I think one of the common comments you hear is.
Hey, I know how hard I work, but I know how hard everyone
else worked to get me here.
Whether it's parents, whether it's coaches, whether it's trainer, caddy,
whoever it is, wife, girlfriend, and it's, it's, they understand what it takes to
get to the tip of the spear to get them out there to perform at their highest.
I think what's really cool, and what I want to continue to talk about
is some of these mod modalities, you know, whether it's cold
plunge, sauna, PMF, any of these.
They're fantastic.
They've helped players, even non-athletes.
I'm gonna call myself a non-athlete at this
Dr. Sean Drake:
Well remember that if you have a body, you're an athlete.
Bill Bowman
Aaron Goldberg: I, and I love that.
I love that.
Um, okay, let's say, uh, retired post-professional athlete.
How about that?
Uh.
But a lot of these are great for what they are with, but if, if it's not,
sometimes it can be a bandaid to the symptom and not the, the root cause.
I mean, I've talked about this with a lot of people I know I.
Uh, Janet Alexander, somebody that, you know, also worked at TPI with Greg Rose.
I mean, she was probably the 10th or 15th physical therapist trainer
type person that I went and saw after my multiple back surgeries.
And I was in so much pain still and I couldn't get through it.
And I, I, I don't know what kind of depression I was in at that point, but.
I was in so much pain and she literally saved my life,
getting me out of that pain.
Um, but understanding that she can gimme all the stretches in
the world, but we gotta figure out what's actually the root cause of it.
And I think not understanding kind of the emotional aspect of it is
playing with it least one hand tied behind your back, if not both.
Um.
As we go into this next part is starting to talk about, you know, some of the
modalities and some how you operate these 1, 3, 5 day, uh, what'd you call it?
The retreats.
Dr. Sean Drake:
Well, I don't like the word retreat.
I'm gonna talk
Aaron Goldberg: Okay.
Yeah, that's, I don't wanna misquote it.
So what did you say they're called?
Dr. Sean Drake:
No, you're not misquoting at all.
Because a lot of people, often when they do retreats, they don't
set up integration and plan.
And so the, I I don't want people thinking when they come
to work with me, this is fun.
Like this is not a, this is, if you, if you think you're coming out
here to have like, you know, an easy experience, don't show up, you know?
And like Ali Carter from USA softball, she, she lets me talk about this,
but you know, she called me before she was gonna go back to Japan to get
ready for the next Olympics, right.
And I'd worked with her prior with USA softball, she's obviously the UCLA.
And she wanted me to work with her foot, and she'd had been having some issues.
And I said, ally, I go, I gotta be honest with you.
If you're flying out here to work with your foot, yeah, I'm
gonna help your foot, but that's, I, I don't wanna work with you.
And she goes, what do you mean?
And I said, if you're gonna come out here, we're gonna change your life.
You're gonna run through an effing wall.
And she's like, she was hesitant, right?
And then she's like, you know what?
I'm in.
I'll be there on day three.
She's like, I wanna run through an effing wall.
And it, it was, and it, but it took, it took three days to break
down these walls of this just like years of stuff that's built up.
And when you're, when you're driving at the highest level, like look at
Lindsay Vaughn for instance, right?
Let's talk about a recent case and you know, I know Lindsay from working,
you know, a lot of the old ski events that I used to, and one thing that
I really have always admired about her and when she was dating Tiger
was, you know, he came in with her and, um, we're on the PGA podcast,
so why not put the story in there?
One of the things that I really, truly admired about her and I still admire
about her, is that she never gives up.
And you know, if you've got a dream on tour of any part of tour, you're
just getting started in golf.
Don't give up.
You know, it's, you gotta have this resilience and you've gotta have this
mental capacity, but you gotta be able to fricking manage your emotions in a
safe environment to be able to let go.
Like you, we hold onto so much, especially in golf.
And, you know, one of the things that, and, and here's the funny stat.
So I, I cold plunge every single person that comes in my clinic, right?
And my, my cold plunge is not a normal cold plunge.
I have a orozco.
I keep it at 32 degrees.
I'm not here to play games.
I'm here to change your life.
And, you know, it's interesting to me, I've probably put a hundred,
you know, PGA slash mini tour players through only four of 'em.
Made it through two minutes on the first try.
Compared to MLBI, I'm at like a 98% compared to my fighters, I'm
at like a hundred percent right.
There's a difference, understanding the chaos of a situation and staying
calm because so often on the PGA and, and as you're building up, and,
and I see this a lot in my clinic, is it is, you know, who's next?
What's next?
What's better?
What's the grass is greener.
And so a lot of guys jump from play, you know, PTs to chiros, to PTs to chiros,
to ATS to these things because they don't, they don't give time because
there's, they, they, there's, I wouldn't want to call it the word impatient,
but they have this like, ability to be like, I can go to somebody else.
I can do the next best thing I, you know, and they have the
financial opportunity to do it.
So in golf, you really have to say, number one, and it's a, this is a
question I ask all my mini tour guys.
I'm like, do you really wanna play golf?
And it's amazing how many guys have retired from golf when they really realize
that they're not doing it for them.
And they're like, you know what, I'm, I'm just doing this because my dad, my
coach, you know, I've been good at it.
Right?
It's not truly their passion and when you're trying to become a professional
athlete, it has to be your life.
Like, you know, obviously God first family and then your sport.
But it has to be it.
You have to live and die.
Like I was just having a talk with one of my MLB guys who's
in here for spring training.
And he is, and I'm like, and I'm asking all my guys this year this
question because I'm doing a data test.
I'm like, why do you keep coming back here?
And they're like, you never stop evolving.
You always have something new.
You're always bringing something newer in to make sure that I have an edge
across the other guy on the field.
And you know when, when you're working with a professional golfer, you know,
you've gotta have your team and you've gotta have your programming routine.
Brian King talks about this heavily, right?
To me now I'm entering in the modality routine.
Like, you know, you Gotter, Scoble on the wall, Josh Hater, Corbin Carroll,
like all three of these guys run my protocols and programs, and there's a
reason why they're the best of the best.
Number one, they already have the talent, but it's what they do behind the scenes.
It shows up when they perform.
And so as a player, you have to, there's four things that I ask you.
Number one, where are you at emotionally on a scale of 1 to 10?
And I, and I'm like, no, bs like, where are you at?
Where are you at mentally?
On a scale of 1 to 10, where are you at spiritually on a scale of 1 to
10, and where are you at physically?
Within those four answers, oftentimes I can really figure out what to go
after, because here's the deal, if you don't believe in a higher power, or
you don't believe in yourself, we've automatically got a distrust, so you don't
trust yourself when you're out there.
So I've gotta, I've gotta frickin break you down into safety and calm to
get you to believe in yourself again.
Once you can see that you can believe in yourself, you can frickin do anything.
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah,
Dr. Sean Drake:
And so that's really where it comes down to, like you are
the modality, you are the abil.
You can do anything, but you're also your biggest limitation.
Aaron Goldberg: a hundred percent.
I think this is a simplistic way of looking at it, but I look at it even
as up until say 10 years ago, only one or two guys have shot 59 broke 60.
And now all of a sudden, it happens almost every year because that cap
got lifted where everyone's, not everyone, but people are doing it.
It's like, well, if they can do it, I can do it.
I believe now that I can do it.
And now it starts happening all the time.
And it's the same thing with college players playing well on PGA tour events.
Okay, I saw that guy do it.
I saw that guy win.
As a college player, I can play well it 10 years ago, that wasn't the case.
And it's same thing with yourself.
If you can't see it in your mind before it happens, it's not gonna happen.
Dr. Sean Drake:
Well, I was a miler, right?
And you look at Jim Ryan when he broke the four minute mile and you
look at exactly what happened, post that, and now, and now you have women
breaking, you know, these records.
So to me, I truly believe that, I don't even think of the word optimization.
I'm like, where's your capacity?
Like your off season shouldn't be just spent working the body.
It should be spent on building mental and physical and spiritual
resilience and emotional resilience.
If you can have all four of those above eight, I can take you and
turn you into a fricking superstar.
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah.
Dr. Sean Drake:
If you are missing one of those, you are going to fall, period.
It's gonna happen.
It's a matter of when and how and why.
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah.
No, it's, it's funny.
One of the questions I was gonna ask you today that we've already been talking
about the most is, you know, when we talk about some of these, you know, I'm
gonna use the word recovery modalities.
Are we just treating physical symptoms and trying to whether feel better and recover
or rehab an injury or something like that?
Or are we actually helping.
Kind of the mental and the resilience side.
Obviously we've had a ton of conversation around
Dr. Sean Drake:
it comes down to intention.
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah.
Dr. Sean Drake:
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you're doing, right?
What is your intention while you're, you doing whatever you're doing?
Like, I make everybody, like every, every single room or everything I'm working with
you on has a different breath work, right?
I have my guys do breath work on tour, like I give them very
specific breath patterns to do when they're in a hard case, easy case.
Before, after the round.
So like a quote, come down, parasympathetic.
I have a sympathetic breath work we do prior, but at the end of the day,
the, the, the most free modality that you have is your breath.
And if you can own your breath, you can own your life.
Yahweh, right?
Like God, like Yahweh.
It's a breath.
It's so at the end of the day, breath work's number one to me.
If you don't know breath work and you don't understand breath work, you've
gotta own it because it, that's how you regulate your nervous system.
And then from there we can add mechanical stresses of vibration.
We can put PMF in there.
We can go ahead and use light, sound, water, heat, and we can
play this accordion of your nervous system based on where you're at.
But if you can't regulate off your breath, that's, that's where we start number one.
Aaron Goldberg: It is huge.
I've.
I never focused on breath and not to relate it to my golf, but I'll even
relate it now to being a parent.
Like I feel myself losing control with the kids.
And if I remember to breathe, it doesn't take much, maybe three, five deep breaths
and I can feel an instant difference.
The key is remembering to do it, but
Dr. Sean Drake:
well, here's the thing, right?
If you go into a stress situation for anyone listening to this, use this.
Don't do it while you're driving, but like close your eyes.
Find a either love or something you are super grateful for in your body.
Breathe in the nose.
Six seconds hum on the way out.
Six seconds.
Do that for 15 minutes and expand that, that frequency.
It's gonna shift and change your nervous system instantly.
Aaron Goldberg: That's amazing.
Yeah, no, that's great.
One of the things you hit on is, okay, post round, pre-round, having different,
uh, breath work series to, to work off of.
How, how do you differentiate if we're going into specific modalities or specific
things that players can think about and work on off week versus tournament week,
practice day versus tournament day.
Obviously there's tons of variance.
You even talked about it with the Ironman.
You know, might have an am start, might have an afternoon start on the weekend.
You might be, first off, you might be, hopefully your last off, um, off
season versus middle of the season.
How are we thinking through those different parameters?
And then to tee up the following question, 'cause it may be different answers or
different things to think through is.
As we get towards summer and guys are starting to go to play over
in Europe and there's gonna be bigger time zone differences.
Right now we're recording this the Monday after Riviera guys are leaving
the West coast, going to the East coast.
Yeah, it's a three hour difference, but they're, I think players are semi used to
adjusting for that when we're adjusting from the US going over to Europe for
Scottish Open, the open championship, anything else they're playing over there.
Those are big differences.
How, so starting with the first questions on the variance of your schedule,
how are we thinking through that?
Dr. Sean Drake:
So let's start with o off week leading up to a big week, right?
Aaron Goldberg: Okay.
Yeah.
Dr. Sean Drake:
What do you need to be your best on, on, on like the, that week when
you're there to perform, let's say, like a, a, a master as a player's?
Like what do you need?
I am asking you,
Aaron Goldberg: I, you need to be, have, you need to be rested with
energy and you need to be focused.
Dr. Sean Drake:
Stop right there, right, so the week leading prior, I'm gonna charge your
body up as much as I can with the highest amount of energy possible,
using a high gas mat, using some heavy breath work, working on some
motional regulation, building massive capacity with the coal plunge.
Um, so what I'm doing is I'm, I'm creating you to have the most
resilience when you get there.
So as your energy capacity comes down, you're still higher than you
would've been, had you not, right?
The other thing that I'm doing is, depending on where your time
zone is, I'm prepping your body seven days prior, so we're getting
you onto a different sleep cycle.
We're getting you onto a different like focus cycle.
We're getting you on a different training schedule.
And that we don't do this with everybody, but some guys that have adopted it
have really seen some massive benefits, especially when we're doing a European
rider or we're doing something like that.
I'll be like, okay, cool.
We're gonna prep out two weeks ahead of time.
So we're training the system to be ready when we get there.
Um, USA hockey did a really good job of this in Milan, and you saw it in
the men's and Women's Golds this year, and I know one of their performance
coaches really well and they, you know, they were so in tune with getting
ahead of the time zone and focused.
And so you've gotta really start to think, and, and I teach this to a lot
of physicians and, and people on the speaking tours right now that I coach,
is we're in different cities every week.
Like, you know, my schedule, I don't know where I'm gonna be sometimes, but
I could be in three cities in one week.
But what I do is if I know for a fact I gotta be in New York and then
I gotta be back on the west coast, I'm gonna go to bed at this earlier
time, get up and get a workout in, and start getting my body prepared to
be prepped for that next time zone.
So it, it really comes down to understanding oxygen.
Like, you know, nano v's.
A big thing that I'm recommending to a lot of my players right now.
And like, you can do 20 minutes on that, it's gonna increase your
HRV while you're rested, while you're sleeping at your barracks.
Massive.
It's just hard to travel with.
Um, the thing I love right now is breathing in CO2, so carbon genetics.
Um, so when you breathe in CO2, you're creating stress in the system.
And then you go throw nano V on top of that, you can, you can literally
replace every cellular oxygen system in your body in a TP like that.
And these are easy things to travel with, right?
So on, on the other
Aaron Goldberg: Will you explain what nano V is?
Dr. Sean Drake:
Yeah.
So nano v think of it like activated air oxygen.
So it's light activated frequency.
Um, and as you're breathing it, it is creating a, a, your mitochondria
to have more ATP so you can carry more oxygen so you can actually
have a better result in the system.
So you're decreasing inflammation.
You're, you're increasing the ability for your hormonal
patterns to actually regulate, and then you're recovering faster.
Since you love the word recovery, I think you're building resilience
on the other side of this.
Red light's a massive thing for me, like I used Fringe red light now, like I, I
helped another company for a long time.
I'm backing Fringe, I'm backing Chroma, um, which is a, a portable,
very high powered red light now.
Um, every one of my players is non-negotiable.
I'm like, get your fricking budget.
Get it, you know, they've got, and the thing I love about Fringe, they just
came out with a, um, red light yoga mat.
So you can literally roll this thing up, you can lay on it at night.
You can lay on it pre-round, post round.
Um, so when you start to think about energy capacity of yourselves,
that's a good thing as well.
Um, Reax, which is a tool that you can use, a vibrational
component, so as a neurological component, vagus nerve stimulator.
But it also has a mouthpiece.
So you can be working your cranial nerves and your eye movement, which
is gonna improve, improve your performance and your function.
Zen bug, which is a vagus nerve, auricular point, um, ultrasound, which I actually
love more than some of the electrical stimulation ones that are out there.
So these are how I regulate my, my player's nervous systems
through the vagus nerve.
So again, if I've got a guy that's into the week, if he's high stress,
I'm gonna bring him down a little bit, you know, using a zen butter
or reax or something just to get his regulation down in the morning.
Then I'm gonna put him in a high intensity breath work and bring his energy capacity
back up right before he goes out.
So, you know, you gotta, it's, it's a really, like, what are we going after?
How quickly can we adapt?
So you, you gotta learn your athlete too.
Like some guys can adapt really fast.
Some guys that takes him a little bit of extra time.
And then what are they willing to do?
So.
Aaron Goldberg: no, it's, that last point is great in terms of every athlete's
gonna be a little bit different and how quickly they adapt or how they res
probably respond to certain protocols.
How, what's a, what's a good way for guys to start vetting new, new, uh,
types of protocols or, or test them out?
What, like a lot of guys are gonna be hesitant to test something
new tournament week maybe.
So how do they test it out?
Non tournament week.
Dr. Sean Drake:
So Greg taught me this, and I think it's so important, like even with
spring training right now, like I'm not making massive range of motion changes
in these guys because they're, they're gonna become a baby giraffe, right?
Like, you never f with something during a tournament week.
You always do it in the bubble.
And, um, you know, I coach on this, you know, you can hire me obviously, and I can
help take you through, get you discounts.
A lot of companies now are not doing free product.
I wanna make that very clear.
And I don't blame 'em.
Like, you know, we had this influencer like boom, and then all
of a sudden it didn't return back.
And so now it's getting harder and harder to get companies to back certain
athletes unless you're invested in it.
And on the other hand too, it's like you can buy the modality, but if you
don't understand how to use it for what you're using it for, it's just a wasted
tool or it's actually hurting you.
And you know, I would say depending on where you're at, make sure
that you get an assessment with somebody to know where you're at.
Get your blood work.
Dr.
R is phenomenal with this.
You know, I've taken a sports medicine, functional medicine course, and ours
been a mentor of mine for years.
Like in 2020, him and I were actually supposed to open a clinic in Lake
Nona together, but then the, you know, COVID happened and then
we couldn't get the lease done.
And so I ended up here, and then it blew up to where we're at.
But, you know, you've gotta have your blood work looked at.
You know, most men on the, on the mini two have low testosterone now.
And with the rules, you know, you can't just take testosterone, but
there's plenty of other things you can do to boost testosterone, right?
Like Vasper.
So we use Vasin here, which is a blood flow restriction device with cryotherapy.
So as you know, 40 degree water going through in 20 minutes I can do two hours
of stress while all of a sudden I drop your cortisol, I increase your growth
hormone, your testosterone goes back to normal, and now you can perform better.
So when it comes down to it, like, you know, hydros, I think hydros,
I'll have to get the actual name.
But there's a BFR suit now.
Chase, Latner is like one of the main guys of the company.
Um, I have a lot of my PGA guys, you know, warming up with that suit on to
create that blood flow restriction to get more blood flow into the muscle so you
have more power output and then you're gonna, you're obviously gonna, like,
you have a better, you know, recovery.
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah, that's awesome.
I think, what about because time's such a limiting factor,
especially tournament week and like.
Whether it's, you know, again, let's use Riviera.
Let this past week of, from when we were recording, uh, as an example,
they didn't finish round one.
So guys are finishing in the dark at 6, 6 30.
They gotta get up real early to start their next round.
They, I think they restarted at 7:00 AM which for most guys, that means
they're on the training table by 5:00 AM so they don't have much time to, to
get home, get something to eat, get to sleep, get even a decent amount of sleep.
What's like the best bang for their buck in terms of even trying to recover,
come down from that tournament round,
Dr. Sean Drake:
So that's
Aaron Goldberg: and then be able to get right back going the next morning.
Dr. Sean Drake:
get a vagus nerve stimulator, like a zen bone or a reax.
Get your body into regulation.
Do the breath pattern, the six seconds in humming on the way out.
Six seconds.
Set a timer, 15 minutes.
Visualize your game for the next day.
And then let it go.
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah.
Dr. Sean Drake:
you can control, like you've gotta let it go and say, okay,
I, I've done everything I can do.
I'm gonna give this to God, or whatever higher power I have,
and I'm, I'm gonna go to bed.
Um, if you've got a low guse mat, get on it.
If you've got a high guse mat, get on it.
Um, and then go to bed, like, and there's green light out there
that's really good for calming.
Um, you know, Tom from Roscoe Forge has come out with his own green light.
He's got, you know, eye masks as well Now.
Um, there's so many things that you can do that you can stack, like the,
the key is to stack so that, you know, I can do more with somebody in
one hour than most people can do with them in like three weeks because of
the way that we can stack systems.
So get an NOV, you know what I mean?
Like, have a red light pad, you know, so you can stack all these
things and do a 30 minute treatment.
Go to bed and be ready for the next day.
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah, no, it's awesome.
I mean, I think, you know, coming out of Torry Pines a few weeks ago, Justin
Rose wins and he's one of the few guys in his mid forties that are, you know,
full status on PJ Tour now, whereas.
10 years ago, it's very common that a, a ton of guys in their forties are,
are the best players in the world.
And, you know, there's a big feature on his recovery RV or whatever it was.
Um, but it had cold plunge and hot, hot plunge and a, a red light sauna,
red light, um, all sorts of things.
And it's like, you know, reading a lot of the comments,
it's like, yeah, that's great.
One, if you have the resources to have that traveling around with you.
That I think we can get to, and you've touched on it, like there's a lot of
things that you can bring with you and travel with that that can work.
Um, but more importantly, if you have the time, like they showed that
the feature was like, Hey, this is what he did after his morning round.
It's like, well, yeah, he can, after a morning round, he doesn't
tee off till the next afternoon.
He can spend two hours in his recovery rv.
That's totally fine.
But what about the reverse, the reverse of that, where you tee off in the
afternoon, finish at six o'clock and you're gonna be up early the next morning.
You don't, you're not.
Spending two hours in a recovery room or whatever it is, is
probably not your best use of time.
But there is a, there is a fine line probably, and I'm not trying
to say what is and isn't the best use of time, but there's, there's
gotta be somewhere to sleep.
And so do you spend, is it an hour?
I think everyone's gonna be different.
Most likely, and I'll let you speak on this, but finding that
the, the tipping point of like.
What's necessary, what's gonna help?
And then where am I gonna get diminishing returns, where I should
actually just get, go get more sleep?
Dr. Sean Drake:
Okay, so my argument on that side is that that is worth your time.
'cause you're gonna get a better sleep process, right?
If your body's regulated, you're energetic in the sense of being back
to at least baseline, you're gonna get a better sleep pattern anyway.
So, like, you know, I'll have some of my guys, they'll get on MLB at like
11 o'clock at night and I'm in town.
I'm working on them till 1:00 AM you know, for two hours going
through all these modalities and protocols and working on the body.
And then I put 'em to bed and like I wake, I wake nine o'clock, I
get 'em ready for the next start.
So I think it always comes down to, you know, what's the ultimate goal?
And if you do only have a limited amount of time, how can you maximize the energy?
How much, how much can you maximize?
The opportunity and then get them into bed as quick as possible,
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah,
Dr. Sean Drake:
they wake up, how quickly can you energize them and get them back into refocus?
Aaron Goldberg: Yeah, no, it makes a ton of sense.
And you know that quality sleep is gonna be better over quantity.
I mean, you, you touch on the MLB guys and, you know, finishing at 11:00 PM you
know, one thing you were touching on in the beginning of the podcast, and Eric,
uh, speaking of Eric April, my partner at a WM and one of our founding partners, um.
He, you know, as I've learned more and more about the baseball athlete side, like
I know the performance side, but I, you know, the ins and outs of their routine,
it ends up being fairly similar to golf.
It's just everyone has their own adaptation.
They're playing 162 games.
I'm, I should do this math on, you know, we, as a golfer, you're probably
playing close to 30 events, four rounds, an event that's 120 days.
You throw in the practice days, the amount of days you're playing and
all on the field is fairly similar.
So the routines have variance, but the, the routines are fairly
similar if we take out the hours.
And so finding those, you know, commonalities there has been
huge to be able to, Hey, how do we find best practices?
For the highest performing athletes, no matter what your sport is, whether it's
baseball, whether it's golf, whether it's football, whether it's skiing,
whether it's, you know, just running a company, you know it, a lot of these.
And so it, it's been super interesting to hear the, the different strategies,
but then also the commonalities.
Dr. Sean Drake:
A hundred percent.
Aaron Goldberg: I can talk to you about this all day and
obviously that's why you're here.
Um, I'm gonna stop it here because this is great and I know
some people are gonna be like.
You know, I could also listen to this for two hours, but I don't want to, we
don't create two hour podcasts on this.
So, um, really appreciate your time on this.
Uh, if somebody wants to find you, reach out to you, where are you at?
What's the best way to get to reach out to you or hear, hear more about
what you're doing at Modern Athlete.
Dr. Sean Drake:
So they can reach out to modern athlete.
They can follow me, Dr.
Sean Drake on Instagram.
PMF Pilates is my wife.
You know, she's a big part of my clinic.
She does all of our Pilates rehab.
We have, you know, uh, guided manual PMF that we use in our clinic as well.
So we do a lot of different work in here.
Um, but yeah, we can do that and that'd be the easiest way.
Aaron Goldberg: Nice.
If we come in, do we get to meet od and the dog?
Dr. Sean Drake:
Oh, Odin's always here.
Yes.
Aaron Goldberg: right.
I mean, that, that's as big of a plug for me to get in there as, as anything.
Dr. Sean Drake:
I love it.
Aaron Goldberg: Nice.
All right, Dr.
Drake, really appreciate it.
Uh, if anyone has any questions, reach out to him, uh, via what he just said.
You can reach out to us through the PGA Players Podcast.
Uh, as always, thanks for listening and hope this helps.