Fitness Month: Q&A with Doug Perron

May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month. Doug Perron, President and Principal Trainer of the Barrington Fitness Studio, sat down with PGA.com's T.J. Auclair to talk about his work with the Titleist Performance Institute.

Q: Doug, can you explain how you got started in personal training? It's something you've been doing for 18 years now.

Perron: I was always in the gym growing up. I was exposed to fitness and exercise at the tender age of about 14, or so. I was always working out to get in better shape and improve my performance. I guess at the time, I had some problems with some growing pains and was exposed to a good doctor - Dr. Ernie Lowe, an orthopedic surgeon in Providence - who said, 'You should be into exercise.'

From there, I started lifting weights and had the influence of my brother-in-law, who was an avid weightlifter. We started in the gym around 14-15 years old and had gone through a couple of different careers before I became involved in personal training, but I always found that common denominator with exercise, staying fit and working out.

Q: In the last 15 years or so, there's really been a boom in golf. The game has gotten younger and these guys actually look like world-class athletes and aren't nearly as round in the midsection. I guess that's where the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) comes into play. For years you've been the personal trainer to eight-time PGA Tour champion Brad Faxon, right here in Barrington, R.I. He's the person who introduced you to TPI. Tell us about that.

Perron: Prior to TPI, I had worked with some amateur golfers and your average country club weekend warriors. But, it was really Brad Faxon who exposed me to TPI back in 2005. He took me out to Oceanside, Calif., to the TPI facility and it was love at first sight, as they say. Another way to put it is, I drank the Kool-Aid right away, because I saw the program they designed and what they were offering. My first exposure to TPI, I was convinced that it was a superior model to testing and training the athletic golfer.

Q: Prior to TPI, you spent most of your life in training. What was it that was so unique and eye-opening for you about TPI?

Perron: First of all, beyond the facility, the brain power of the founders. They put together a total dream team of an advisory board, stacked with the best people in the industry, from a fitness and medical standpoint. They were looking at breaking down the body and golf connection. They have a very systematic approach to looking at how the body works in the golf swing and they have a lot of data.

Well before 2005, they started looking at data, but 2005 is when TPI was born. They had a lot of data compiled. They had worked with a lot of Tour players, a lot of up and coming Tour players. It was just very impressive to me - the whole facility and the way they look at and interpret the body and golf connection.

Q: Your wall here at the Barrington Fitness Studio is loaded with various TPI certifications. How do those certification processes work?

Perron: The process has been ongoing for the last six years. TPI is a multi-level, certification process. There are four different tracks of certification and each track has two levels of certification. Anybody who enters into the TPI program has to first achieve their Level I, which is a base-knowledge certification process. It's pretty difficult and, again, looks at the body and golf swing connection.

My first exposure was a three-day process out at TPI and then my first certification was a two-day certification, which was followed by some testing. For the last six years, really, I've gone to multiple levels of multiple certifications, including their golf fitness certification; their medical certification; and their junior player development certification.

Q: For anyone reading this who might be a little intimidated because - more likely than not - they're certainly not on the level of a Brad Faxon, why would you recommend TPI? Is it just for those serious about the game, or also for the casual golfer?

Perron: I would absolutely recommend TPI to the casual golfer. After my exposure to the TPI model, which is really a system of testing and training, I use this model on all athletes, whether they're golfers, tennis players, or lacrosse and everything in between - baseball and soccer - because it's such a comprehensive way of looking at movement.

Truly, golf is one of the most dynamic moving sports out there. This system looks at how the body moves from a static and dynamic standpoint. We take a look at a joint-by-joint approach of movement and that helps to identify any red flags, or weak links that a player may have that they need to really work on.

For example, we do some balance testing. It seems very simple, but what we find here, is that many players in their 40s and 50s and beyond, really lack balance. By helping to identify where that's coming from - if it's from a joint perspective, like an ankle knee or hip joint that's affected and limits your balance - in golf you need great balance and you need to work that particular area. We look at stability, mobility, balance, strength, strength endurance and also strength power. So we evaluate all those aspects of the player and we've found that this is a great way of looking at all athletes.

Again, you're looking at movement and you're looking at the body's ability to access the movement.

Q: You set up TPI programs for your clients with varying degrees of difficulty that become more intense as they progress. Do you notice a spike in clientele during the non-golfing months, or is it a year round commitment to TPI?

Perron: Our clientele captures both those markets. We have people who are ongoing, who are 12-month clients and come every week, sometimes 2-3 times per week. We have other clients, who go on a six-week period and then we re-evaluate and build another program for another six-week period. So, it really depends upon the individual.

Q: Can you talk a little about your relationship with Kyle Phelps, the PGA Head Professional at Rhode Island Country Club, which will host the 2011 U.S. Women's Amateur?

Perron: Kyle and I work together with quite a few clients. Very often what happens is somebody may have a difficult time achieving something in their swing. If they're a right-handed player, they might have a problem loading their right hip on their backswing. It could be a physical limitation that's causing that, or it could be ankle, knee or hip on their right side that's not allowing them to get into that position. These players need mobility training.

If you think of the average club player, who let's say is a 50-, or 60-year-old male, who is having a hard time with consistency in his swing, it very well may be a physical limitation. We run that person through a screening process that looks over the individual's body and build a program from there.

So, my relationship with Kyle is a team-based approach, where Kyle will evaluate their swing and point out any particular swing faults a player may have and then we look at the body and try to develop a program to correct any physical limitations they may have.

Q: How beneficial is that team approach to the golfer? I mean, the golfer can literally come in here with his or her PGA Professional with a video of the swing where the instructor points out to you what he or she sees as the limitation and you use your expertise to devise a plan to fix that.

Perron: The team approach is a win-win for everyone. It looks at the person's biggest red flag. If we can identify why this individual is having a hard time moving, we can pinpoint the exercise program to really improve that limitation.

It's not always a movement limitation. Sometimes it's a stability limitation, which means a person may have a hard time just getting to a certain position because their joints and their muscles won't allow them there. We can pinpoint the training program to where we really focus on the limitations, or the needs. It's a needs-based program.

Another way to look at that is, if you're going to be spending one or two hours a week in the gym, or maybe you're spending seven hours a week in the gym, make sure you're not wasting your time working on things that are superfluous. Make sure you're working on the right systems to improve not only your game, but to improve your health. There's a lot of wasted time in the gym, where people don't really know what they're doing. We're giving them direction to work on the right things.

Q: What's your clientele like for the people on TPI? As you mentioned earlier, it's really for everyone… Maybe even for the average country club guy, who thinks he's too old to go to the gym, but still wants to get better at golf.

Perron: Our clientele spans generations. We have some juniors we work with, who are 15-17, 18 years old before they go off to college. Right now I'm working with a junior, who is on his way to the IMG Leadbetter Academy for a PG year before he goes off to college.

We work with men and women. I'd have to say that the majority of the people we work with are the 40-60-year-old people, who are trying to improve their physical performance through exercise and trying to improve their game through physical exercise.

Q: What has been your most rewarding moment so far in your six years with TPI?

Perron: Certainly I feel like we've been riding the wave with TPI, because it's evolved over the last six years. And being a part of that team approach has been a wonderful experience. Being a part of the meeting of the minds with this great team has probably been the best experience.

I enjoy working with beginners to professionals like Faxon. Obviously, that's been a great experience, working with Brad.

I enjoy working with kids, working with Button Hole. We do Brad Faxon Day at Button Hole, where you're exposing kids to exercise and making that connection between being healthy, being physically fit and being a better player. It's all been a wonderful experience.

Q: Clearly, you're a professional in the world of athletic training. Why is it that TPI is the best program out there for - not just golf - but all aspects of getting fit?

Perron: TPI looks at movement. Part of the TPI program is based upon one of the advisory board members, Gray Cook, and in my opinion and in the opinion of a lot of people, he's a pioneer in movement, movement assessment and movement correction. The model really looks at Gray's work along with Greg Rose and Dave Phillips (the co-founders of TPI) and is a very comprehensive program to fix movement and I just think it's where the future of training is going. You can quote me on that. Right now, they're working on a system of evaluation in exercise prescription that is truly going to change where exercise is going.

Q: What do you think was the main reason for something like TPI being created? Is it because golf has become much younger? Is it safe to say that Tiger Woods changed the physical look of a golfer?

Perron: Early on, Tiger was with Titleist and, back in those days, he worked with Greg and Dave. They looked at film, looked at movement and really where TPI changed the way golf is, they looked at the kinematics sequence with K-Vest and with the best ball-strikers, how their kinematics sequence works. They developed a way to look at 3-D imaging of the golf swing and they were able to look at the swing you have - there's no one perfect way to swing the club, but there's a more efficient way for your body to swing the club - so what they started to realize is that, the people who are most fit, are better able to make a more efficient swing.

It really comes down to having the proper stability and the proper mobility at the right places in your body. That joint-by-joint approach, a good way to put it, your foot needs to be stable, but your ankle needs to be mobile, your knee needs to be stable, but your hip needs to be mobile, your lumbar spine and your core needs to be stable, but your mid-back - your thoracic spine - needs to be mobile, your shoulder blade needs to be stable, but your shoulder joint needs to be mobile, your elbow joint needs to be stable and your wrists need to be mobile and your hands need to be stable. There's an alternating path of mobility and stability and if one of those joints is not working correctly - if it's stable when it should by mobile - it can set up some problems in the golf swing. Not only a golf swing, but in any sport.

Again, it's a way of looking at human movement and evaluating any flaws in the movement and then correcting those flaws so the body can move more efficiently.

Q: I know you don't play much seeing as you have a young family and a small business to run, but what results have you seen in your own game by applying TPI?

Perron: That's a great question. What I initially found out is that I have my limitations too. No one is immune to it. Everyone has certain limitations. With me, it helped me to identify some range of motion limitations within my hips that ultimately affected my back. With correcting those hip limitations, I relieved the pressure in my back and swing more efficiently. Not only that, but looking at the entire model, I now have almost X-ray eyes, where I can better understand my own body and how it feels and how it effects my golf swing. My hip joint is a little limited, which didn't allow me a very efficient backswing. In fact, the way my body is set up, I'm more efficient swinging to my left. If I were a left-handed player, I'd run a little more efficiently swinging that way. Not that I can play left-handed!

Lastly, I just want to say that earlier you mentioned some older folks are going to think, 'This isn't for me, it's for a younger person.' Well, it's really never too late to start and it's never too early to begin, either.

With the junior program, they really look at the Long-Term Athletic Development model (LTAD). Golf is a late-specialization sport and human movement from gymnastics to martial arts to soccer and baseball all work on improving your golfing ability.

If you're thinking about getting your young children started with golf, really because it is a late-specialization sport, they're involvement in any other sport is going to help them become a better golfer. Rather than try to teach your 4-year-old how to play golf, teach your 4-year-old how to move properly and give them athletic movements through other sports and then slowly expose them to golf and make sure they have the proper training.

Q: People should also know, there's not a whole lot of weights involved in TPI.

Perron: That's a good point. One way to think of this is, in many cases, after we evaluate somebody, we find what we term, 'a problem.' For example, if you have a mobility problem, which means you have limited range of motion over one, or two, or maybe three joints, if you bring a strength solution to a mobility problem, you're going to create more of a problem. If you have a weakness and you're just trying to stretch out that weakness, maybe the weakness on somebody doesn't involve any mobility restrictions. Maybe they're very supple and maybe they have a perfect range of motion. Now you're trying to stretch them even more and you're going to add more of a problem.

In this case, if somebody has a strength problem and you bring a mobility solution to the problem, you're not going to help them out. So, the idea is bringing the right correction to the limitation.