Episode 1: The Fittest Podcast In Turf
What happens when turfgrass innovation meets personal transformation? In the debut episode of The Fittest Podcast in Turf, Plant Fitness Vice President of Technology Steve Loveday joins host Guy Cipriano in studio to launch a groundbreaking new series.
Together, they explore the powerful connection between peak plant performance and human wellness. Steve breaks down the core concept of “Plant Fitness”—how it’s not just about health, but about fitness—drawing parallels to elite athletes.
With Plant Fitness making waves after its August launch in Southeast Asia and U.S. debut in November, this episode dives into the brand’s bold entrance into a competitive market, its cutting-edge ingredients, and the science-backed philosophy behind it all.
Steve also gets personal, opening up about his own fitness journey and the role it plays in managing stress and staying sharp in business. Tune in to hear the full conversation and get inspired to think differently—about turf, about wellness, and about performance.
Table of Contents:
Transcript:
Guy Cipriano 0:00
Welcome to Superintendent Radio Network. I’m Guy Cipriano and welcome to episode number one of the Fittest Podcast in Furf. So what is this series all about? Well, let’s start from the beginning. In a Hampton Inn parking lot outside Chicago, three turf pros circled the hood of a rental car debating one idea, health isn’t enough. That spark became Plant Fitness, a brand built to push turf past survival into peak performance. Today, VP of Technology, Steve Loveday shares how it started, why the industry needed it, and how plant and personal fitness are more connected than you think. Let’s go!
Well, Steve, it’s great to have you here in studio at our Northeast Ohio headquarters to discuss Plant Fitness and personal fitness as we debut our new podcast series. How about this name the Fittest Dodcast in Turf? Steve, let’s start with a big, broad, bulky question, what does the term fitness mean to you?
Steve Loveday 1:13
Thanks Guy, and thanks for having me here. So to me, the term fitness really aligns with performance when I think of fitness that’s going to be an indicator of how well either someone or something is going to perform.
Guy Cipriano 1:26
In your mind, what’s the difference between something being fit and something being healthy?
Steve Loveday 1:29
Well, so health is almost like table stakes. All right. Let’s take a professional football player. I’m a Detroit Lions fan. Let’s take Aiden Hutchinson. So last year, I think it was game three-game four. He gets his leg broken in two places. You know, big deal for the Lions right at that point, he is not healthy. He’s not playing any more games set out the rest of the season. Well, he’s done a lot of great things, a lot of recuperative exercises, and now he’s back in shape. I saw a video of him running not too long ago. He’s healthy again, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to play exceptionally well when the season starts. That’s going to be determined by his fitness level. So being able to play is health, being able to perform and do what he did, that’s going to be fitness.
Guy Cipriano 2:12
I never thought of it that way. Steve, that’s a great way of putting it. Let’s get to your brand. We’re going to talk business. We’ll also get into personal fitness again, but let’s get to the business of Plant Fitness. Your brand launched last fall. How would you describe the Plant Fitness brand and philosophy to somebody hearing about it for the first time on this podcast?
Steve Loveday 2:33
Sure. So yeah, we launched last year in August in Southeast Asia. So we’re in six countries over there. We launched here in the United States in November. And really, the philosophy is pretty simple. What we do is we get unique ingredients, and we’re trying to optimize the performance of turf grass plants. You know, in our company, the majority of us, at one point in our lives, manage turf. We get it. We’ve been in this industry for 30-40, years, and we understand, you know, some of the challenges that people are up against. So what we want to do is bring new innovative technologies into the turf space to increase the fitness level of these plants so that our customers can have the utmost performance.
Guy Cipriano 3:13
I can’t even imagine launching a new brand in this market that’s a well established market, right? With a lot of connections and relationships and things that have been around for a long time. What type of effort is it, unveiling a new product line and brand a golf course superintendents and turf managers?
Steve Loveday 3:30
It’s been a lot of effort. I’m working harder now than I’ve ever worked in my life, but I’m loving every minute of it, and it’s great. You know? It’s, it’s the team that I’m on. None of us want to let the other person down. We all work extremely hard. We’re entering into, or have entered into, a crowded space. You know, our customers are distributor companies across the world, and all of these distribution companies already have brands they’re selling. So, you know, our strategy has been to bring different ingredients, different materials, different ways of making these plants or taking them to a really high performance level, and that’s our uniqueness.
Guy Cipriano 4:09
Why was this the right time to take this step?
Steve Loveday 4:12
It was the right time because we’re bringing things into the golf space and the turf management space that didn’t exist before. So we’re bringing technologies innovation that was never here. So it’s an absolute perfect time to get to kind of capitalize on that.
Guy Cipriano 4:27
What’s the most challenging thing about introducing something new in such an established market like this? You’ve kind of touched on it distribution. But what are some other things that people don’t think of when you’re going into a new space?
Steve Loveday 4:39
Honestly, for me, it’s been messaging. So, you know, I live, sleep, eat, plant physiology, turf defense, making plants strong. I read this stuff, you know, in my spare time for fun, like I just enjoy it genuinely. And so there’s a certain level of vocabulary that comes along with that, that you kind of learn over time. Time after reading, you know, scientific journals and things like that, and to be able to explain it to someone who doesn’t enjoy it as much as I do, and keep them interested and resonate with them, that’s messaging, and that part can be challenging, because you want to get across exactly what the technology or the product is going to do, but you don’t want to overwhelm someone, and you have to make it really relatable, right? So that takes a lot of time to find the perfect words, craft the perfect message to deliver that you know that meaning.
Guy Cipriano 5:31
And for listeners that are probably already wondering about some of this stuff, I’ll put a disclaimer out here. This is a multi part podcast series, so we will get into some of these things that Steve talks about in his sleep in some of the other episodes. This is an introductory episode here, Steve, you mentioned your team. Tell our listeners about the team plant fitness is assembled.
Steve Loveday 5:52
Yeah, sure, guy. So you know, these guys are my friends. They’re people I look up to, people I respect, and people that I’m willing to work very, very hard for and you know, we’ll start with our president, Rick Wohlner. So Rick Wohlner was the President of Precision Laboratories for 35 years, owner of Precision laboratories, until he recently sold that business and has moved on. And Rick is so innovative, so intelligent, and he’s one of these people. When you meet him, it’s like, I don’t care what this guy’s doing, I want to be a part of it, because if I’m a part of this guy’s operation, it’s going to make me better. And that has exactly been the case with Plant Fitness and Epoch Science the other members of the team. It’s interesting, because we all have our own specific levels of expertise or categories of expertise, and there isn’t a ton of crossover, which is nice because, you know, we can all, not to use a coin phrase, but stay in our own lanes and do a very good job with that, and then we can relate that information to what the other person is doing. So from that respect, we’re very efficient, and it’s been just a thrill to work with these guys.
Guy Cipriano 7:04
How did the Plant Fitness journey begin? You don’t have to give away all your secrets for you and your coworkers. And what do you remember about maybe your first meeting or call, or one of those early meetings and calls?
Steve Loveday 7:15
One of my fondest memories is myself and Mark Jull and Danny Wohlner In a Hampton Inn parking lot. We didn’t have the name Plant Fitness yet. We were trying to figure out what to call this, and there were a few versions that we were, you know, like 75% of the way there with they were okay, they weren’t horrible, but they just didn’t hit. And we were coming back from a business dinner, we pulled into the parking lot, and we were so engaged in this conversation that we got out of the car, but we didn’t want to go in the hotel. We didn’t want to go to our rooms, and we just sat there around the hood of the rental car, you know, kind of going through this and hashing it out for like an hour. And then finally, it was like, everybody’s talking about health in this industry, and health is not it. That’s not where it ends. You have to get to plant fitness, the fitness level of the plant, and it just dropped like a ton of bricks. Plant Fitness.
Guy Cipriano 8:05
Where was that? Hampton Inn.
Steve Loveday 8:07
That was north of Chicago. It was in Illinois.
Guy Cipriano 8:11
It’s amazing what can happen at random places like that. Our longest running podcast series is called Tartan Talks, and you’re gonna laugh when you hear this. The first episode was recorded in my car with an architect named Andy Staples in the Chili’s parking lot in Northfield, Michigan, up by where you live. Oh, no, kidding, that’s awesome. So you just never know when things are going to start or or blossom.
Steve Loveday 8:35
Yeah you don’t. And so Rick Rubin, the famous music producer, right? He said, I read his book and listened to a lot of his stuff, and he said, When the universe gives you these things, you have to seize it as that at that moment, drop what you’re doing when you have that seed, take it and run with it, right? And so that’s exactly it. It doesn’t matter where you are. You just gotta put the effort in.
Guy Cipriano 8:54
Now, I’m going to ask you about, maybe the toughest thing I’m going to ask you about, and something that a lot of us least like to talk about ourselves. You mentioned some of your co-workers. How about you? What led to you getting involved in the turf industry, and what led you to Plant Fitness?
Steve Loveday 9:09
So my turf story is similar to a lot of people’s. You know, I got a job working maintenance on a golf course when I was in high school. As a teenager, loved it, found out I could get a degree from Michigan State and continue to do this thing I love. So that’s what I did after university. I worked with the TPC, which was owned by the PGA Tour at the time, the course I was at for about five years. Then I went to a private course for about four years. And the more I did that Guy, the more I realized what I really loved about this industry was the plant physiology, soil chemistry, the interaction between the plant and the soil. And my all time favorite on the golf course was finding plants that were grown in an environment where they were challenged, like shade, poor soils, poor water, and then trying to find ways to make those plants thrive and be just as fun. Fit as the plants that were out in full sun or in a better growing environment. That when I realized that that was my love, I left the golf course, I went into liquid fertilizer sales. Did that for a while, and then I’m like, You know what? There’s all this cool, innovative technology out there in areas like Europe, where they have restrictions or limited access to chemical pesticides, to water, and they have plants that are thriving. Why can’t we bring some of those technologies into the golf space? And once I determine that, you know, that’s when I kind of shifted gears and started to kind of cut my own path, which led to Plant Fitness.
Guy Cipriano 10:38
Where do you think that passion for plants and Plant Fitness and plant physiology comes from. A lot of us get into this because we love golf or golf architecture or golf construction. Where do you think that passion for the plant itself came from?
Steve Loveday 10:50
Probably from since I was a little kid, right? I grew up in Kentucky, and my parents had, we had two really big gardens, one in the front of the house and one in the house. So the one in the back, we grow a lot of corn and beans and melons and things like that. The one up front, it was more like broccoli, potatoes, carrots, berries, things like that. And so I was voluntold at a very young age that I would be working all summer long in these gardens, which at the time was kind of like, you know, no little kid wants to go and do that. But retrospectively, looking back on it, I mean, there was such a formidable time. I really enjoyed it, and I was always fascinated by being able to put a seed in the ground, and then you grow this thing that you eat, you bring inside and eat. I thought that was just amazing. The smell of dirt. Like, who doesn’t love being on a golf course during aeration, the smell of dirt. I think just is something special for all of us. So probably from there.
Guy Cipriano 11:45
I love that term voluntold. I’ve never heard that one before.
Steve Loveday 11:48
Well, that’s what happens when you’re like, five, six years old, and your dad’s got work to be done.
Guy Cipriano 11:53
Have you voluntold your own children to do anything?
Steve Loveday 11:57
Oh, plenty of stuff. Fortunately, had two boys, and it’s voluntold told them to do all sorts of stuff.
Guy Cipriano 12:02
In your role, starting something new. You’re the vice president technology. What is a day, week and month like? I’m sure every day, every week and month is different. But what would the template look like for what you’re doing right now?
Steve Loveday 12:15
Yeah, I like this question. It’s just like everybody else really busy. You know, there’s not enough hours in the day. But maybe, maybe a great way to look at it would be to go back at February and kind of recap that. So the first week, I was in San Diego for the GCSAA conference. After that, I went to a regional trade show to support one of our new distribution partners. After that, I went to and that was in the Northwest. After that, I was in Florida, working in the field with one of our new distribution partners, so getting, you know, a lot of time on golf courses, talking to a lot of end users, which is, you know, my favorite part of this business. And then the rest of the time was in the office. In a couple weeks, I’ll be in Vietnam, supporting our group over there, speaking in an event, going to golf courses. And, you know, it’s a combination of that some things that are staples of each week, is our group has a weekly meeting. And those can be four hours, five hours sometimes. I mean, it’s, you know, there’s a tremendous amount of effort that has gone into and still needs to go into the production of this line, the messaging, you know, we’re very strategic in particular about the way we go about things. We’re not in a rush. We’re going to take it slow. We’re going to do it right. And that has been our strategy, and it’s worked great. So that’s, that’s, you know, but to your point, it changes week after week, day after day, and that’s what I look forward to. It’s that part of it’s like being on a golf course, because you never know what’s going to happen. Have you been to Vietnam before? I haven’t been to Vietnam. I was in Thailand last year. Really looking forward to going Vietnam.
Guy Cipriano 13:50
How much fun is it building a new brand? And you’ve done this a few times, from what I understand, what’s the reward of it, and what’s the joy, joy of it?
Steve Loveday 13:57
Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s a ton of work, and you have that feeling of, once it’s built, you can look at it and say, a few years ago, this thing wasn’t even here. Nobody even knew about this. This was an idea that came out of my head and now is being used. I remember the first time one of the brands I worked with previously, I was in China and Beijing, and I was working with a distributor over there, a partner that we was selling the products, and to hear them in Mandarin going back and forth. And then all of a sudden you’d hear a product name that they would spit out in English, right? And you’re like, Oh, that was the one I came up with that name. You know that that kind of thing was really cool.
Guy Cipriano 14:37
Before we get back to our high energy conversation with Steve, a word from the fitness podcast and turf sponsor. You’re hearing the surface of the story behind the scenes. Plant fitness is rewriting the rules of turf performance, built by industry turf veterans, powered by breakthrough technology and test it across the globe. This brand is built different. Want to see what it’s all about. Visit http://www.plantfitness.com and join the movement. Now back to our conversation with Steve. Okay, let’s move on to the other side of this discussion, which is personal fitness. We’ll get back to plant fitness. How passionate are you about this topic, and where does that particular passion stem from?
Steve Loveday 15:15
Yeah, very passionate about it. It’s personal fitness, for me, is so many things. It’s something that I do every single day of the week, when I don’t get to do it, I’m disappointed, you know, and it’s been a real beneficial part of my life and and it’s something that I’ve been able to share with my kids too, which has been great.
Guy Cipriano 15:35
How challenging is it to get your personal fitness in when you travel? I sometimes have to deal with that. I find it challenging, but I guess you make time for it, Right?
Steve Loveday 15:45
Yeah, somebody said it once that you do the things that you make time to do, right? So you can make time to do these things and you do Guy, that’s it. I always travel with, you know, stuff to work out. Sometimes I get to do it. Other times I don’t, but I definitely make an effort, and honestly, it’s for as much as my body as my mind.
Guy Cipriano 16:04
It’s crazy how much more stuff you have to pack when you work out on a road trip.
Steve Loveday 16:08
Oh man, yeah, exactly right. Because a great example just coming here, you know, I put my running shoes into a suitcase, and one of the small suitcases you could put in the overhead compartment on an airplane takes up like 40% of the space, right? Like, if you have to put much more in there, ain’t gonna work.
Guy Cipriano 16:23
I also found that sweaty clothes in a laundry bag, in your suitcase, will add to the weight total when you go to weigh your bag at the at the back bag check.
Steve Loveday 16:33
Oh yeah, absolutely you got it.
Guy Cipriano 16:36
So anyway, you’ve done a lot of things fitness wise, right? And we’re going to talk about some of those. And you know, one of those we’ll touch on briefly is you’ve completed a few triathlons, from what I understand, how did you find the time to run, bike and swim around the demands of working in the golf industry at that point in your career? And we just talked about that, but going a little more in depth, because that takes a different level of training than just your basic everyday workout.
Steve Loveday 16:56
It does and you especially because, you know, you can’t just swim anywhere, and you can’t just bike anywhere. You can’t go on a road trip and then bike unless you bring a bike with you. So there was a lot of maneuvering and pivoting and just trying to get things in. I wanted to do larger or longer triathlons. Back in those days, I ended up sticking to like, sprints and Olympic size. So that would be starting off with a half mile swim, about a 15 mile bike, and a 5k run afterwards, and then an Olympic has doubled that. That’s about as much as I could do because I didn’t have the training time to do much more than that.
Guy Cipriano 17:36
How has a balanced approach to fitness helped you, compared if you just maybe did want one of those activities.
Steve Loveday 17:41
So, you know, it’s just like going back to turf plants, right?
Guy Cipriano 17:46
I was going to, that was gonna be my follow up question. We already got a chemistry here on this podcast.
Steve Loveday 17:50
I love it, so it’s a great point, because just like a professional athlete, it’s not just about their time in the weight room, it’s not just about their diet, it’s not just about their sleep and their rest and their supplements, it’s all of those things put together and honestly, with with product development, that’s what I think separates us from a lot of manufacturers, is that we’re looking at the multi dimensional approach to turf management. It’s not only about activating the plant’s defense system, but it’s also about getting the right nutrients in there, you know, transitioning the soil into a real resource where we’re changing the physical properties in favor of the plant. We’re fostering the development of biology in the soil, and we’re also impacting the way the plant is going to use water.
Guy Cipriano 18:37
Is there one of those activities involved in a triathlon you enjoy more than the other.
Steve Loveday 18:42
Probably running would be the one I was best at swimming for me, other than, you know, just being in in water somewhere was I never really swam to swim, if that makes sense, right? Just, I just been in the water and not really swimming for speed or anything. And it’s interesting how I got into that. I don’t think I’ve told you this. So it was in 2009 is when I did my first one. So I one of my sisters was diagnosed with cancer, oh, and it was super aggressive, to the point where she was diagnosed in the spring and she passed away in December of the same year. Like ultra aggressive. So I’m down there with her. And at the time, I was in sales, and one of the superintendents I called on was an avid triathlete. And I always, you know, kind of kicked around the idea that, man, that’d be cool to do, and then she’s going through this whole thing, and I’m like, if she’s fighting and going through all this, you can do a triathlon. So I did that, and it kind of became this cool thing, like keeping her up to speed on how I was doing. You know, it was this neat thing that we talked about, and that launched my career into doing triathlons. And so I’m like, get in the water and swim, just learn how to do it right? That was my biggest fear, just overcoming that. And you know, I never was, never became a super proficient swimmer, but definitely got better. And that’s what it’s all about, just getting better one day at a time.
Guy Cipriano 20:00
Did you ever got hurt. I always found that doing a lot of different activities has kept me pretty fresh and fit. Like I’m going to jinx myself here, but I’ve never had a sick day in my professional career, and I’ve never had an injury. You know, you could say maybe I don’t go hard enough to get an injury, but I try to run, bike, hike, walk, lift, do yoga, play golf, kayak. You know, I don’t really do a ton of one thing. Have you ever gotten hurt? Or did you find that doing a lot of different things has kept you relatively injury free?
Steve Loveday 20:28
Well, so right now, I really focus on mobility, and that’s helping a ton, because I go pretty aggressively in the gym with strength training, and it’s definitely helping. But to answer your question, yes, I have, you know, scented a little too much in my past. I’ve had five knee surgeries, broken my wrist, broken my ribs, broken my leg, from soccer, snowboarding, you know, just a lot of stuff going pretty aggressively. But you know, that’s I learned from each one of those incidents.
Guy Cipriano 21:01
A few minutes ago. We talked about finding time to do it right. And I have a lot of friends that are golf course superintendents. I know you have a lot of friends who are golf course superintendents, and I’ve actually gone running with some of them over the years. But then you think about their job. Sometimes they got to be there at 4:35am you know, 5:30am even before 4:00 am depending on what the event is. And I do my workout, Steve, before I come here to our office in Northeast Ohio, I like to do them right away, because I feel like the day can get away from you. But how about somebody that works in the golf maintenance industry? What have you seen? How can they get that done? How can they get that workout in and their personal fitness within the demands of the job that have such an unusual schedule compared to many of us?
Steve Loveday 21:40
Yeah, it’s, it’s a really good question. So in February, at the GCSAA show in San Diego, I ran the 5k that they have, which, oh my gosh, that thing is blown up. Yes, the turnout was great. Yeah, it used to be like 15 of us, and now it’s 150 people with a DJ and all this stuff. So I ran into a superintendent from Palm Springs that I’m friends with, Jared, and you know, he’s a great runner, and I asked him same question. He lives in the desert, so in the middle of summer, it’s 115 degrees, like you’re not running in the afternoon, they say it’s a dry 115 though 115 is 115 right?
Steve Loveday 22:12
Yeah, one so that 115 feels like 105 but he runs before work, he just gets up and does it, and then he’s conditioned himself, and his fitness level is such that he can run after work, even in that heat, you know, he waits till it cools down a little bit and just gets it in and it’s, you know, he’s making the time for it.
Guy Cipriano 22:30
What is the best guidance you can give somebody who maybe wants to start a personal fitness journey?
Steve Loveday 22:37
So the best guidance would be the the number one thing to do would be to focus on form right make sure whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it with an intention, and that your form is as perfect as you can get. It’s like learning how to do the form with lower weights. And if you find that your form is suffering, just drop weights and use even lower weights you you’d be surprised the amount of muscle you can build with little weight. You know, it’s all about hypertrophy, and like getting that muscle to a certain point, and you can get there even with light weights, as long as your form is right, and then you’re not going to injure yourself.
Guy Cipriano 23:12
Working on a golf course can be a very stressful job, right? Totally, absolutely. How does working out and establishing a level of personal fitness help somebody handle the stress of a job like that. And then we’re going to relate this to pPant Fitness here.
Steve Loveday 23:27
Yeah, of course. So for me, you work out in the morning. I work out at the end of the day, and I take that gamble that in some days, it I lose and I’m not able to work out because the day gets away from me, but I’m willing to risk it, because at the end of the day I want to go in the gym and push it all out. And when I walk out of the gym, I’ve never, ever walked out of a gym and said, Man, I really wish I wouldn’t have gone and done that, you know, and it just you can take all that stress away. And I always feel better when I walk out of the gym. So for me, that’s the time and the way to do it. Golf course superintendent, you’re under all the stress. I think it’s an personally, it’s the best stress reliever I’ve ever found.
Guy Cipriano 24:04
Yeah, and you just saw it. We have a trail right across the street from our office, you know, the towpath trail. And I always tell our team try to get outside just for a walk for 15-20-25 minutes a day. Because how often, Steve, have you ever felt worse after a walk never.
Steve Loveday 24:20
Yeah, exact same thing. It’s just, it’s great for your mind, and it’s all about just getting your head in the right space.
Guy Cipriano 24:27
Now, how does this apply to Plant Fitness here? How does you know conditioning your plant apply to helping the plant handle what it is going to handle during the toughest time of the golf or growing season?
Steve Loveday 24:38
You know, an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. And if you can get out there and condition these plants like literally, we have the university data with one of our products, CrossTrainer, to where, over a season, it conditioned treated plants to need less water, so they had less of a dependency on water. Those plants look good. They had a higher percentage of cover than untreated controls. And I think that’s what it’s all about. You know, really, our main focus is on preserving key operations in the plant, like photosynthesis and respiration. If we can just protect the plant from stress, which is going to impede some of those critical operations, and let the plant do what it needs to do, that’s half the battle. Maybe even more than that.
Guy Cipriano 25:21
We were talking about building a new brand. I didn’t even think to put this question on some of our talking points here. But how about naming products? I mean, CrossTrainer, that’s a pretty cool name, and it definitely plays into your brand. How do you go about naming something in this industry?
Steve Loveday 25:35
Sure, yeah, thanks, Guy. So it’s not an easy task. Again, going back to that there’s probably a lot of legal stuff that we don’t need to get into here.
Steve Loveday 25:42
Oh, man. We came up with so many names, yeah. And then you do the legal search, and it’s like, oh, that’s taken, that’s taken, that’s taken, like, just random, obscure names and they would be taken. It’s just amazing CrossTrainer. So at University of Arkansas with Mike Richardson, we tested with Mike, great guy, by the way. Oh, yeah. And what we noticed was, the more they applied the product and the longer the season went, the higher the stress got, the plants just got stronger and stronger and stronger, and they look better. The quality ratings increased. And it was like, wow. It’s almost like working out with a personal fitness coach. You know, the more time you put into it, the more you do it, the stronger you get, the better you start to look. And it was like, holy smokes. This is like a CrossTrainer. You know, the reason we named CrossTrainer instead of just Trainer, is because the CrossTrainer part comes in because we’re impacting the plant, the root system, and believe it or not, the soil and its physical properties and how water interacts in that soil system.
Guy Cipriano 26:40
And I would say a human that’s cross-trained, right? They have a base, and then when they maybe want to go and specialize in something, if they want to run more or lift more or bike more, it’s not that tough, because you already have that base built up.
Steve Loveday 26:52
100% that’s exactly right.
Guy Cipriano 26:55
Boy, maybe I should think about plant physiology in my sleep like you do. We’re recording this in the spring. How important is spring and this time of year, especially in northern golf courses, where it’s getting warmer and things are starting to green up and go out of dormancy to establishing that season long, Plant Fitness.
Steve Loveday 27:16
I think it’s it’s important. Fall is critically important and spring is critically important for different reasons. In the spring it’s critically important because, obviously, you’re setting the stage for the season, you know, and that’s that’s being somewhere where you run cool season grass, not necessarily Florida, or somewhere with warm season turf, but cool season turf, you know, you’re setting the stage for the season. You have an opportunity right now where there isn’t as much stress, there’s really good growing conditions, lots of sunlight, moderate temperatures, so you can really maximize the opportunity for root growth, fostering biological explosions in the soil, and doing a lot of great things in that regard, you also have the ability to push it a little harder with cultural practices, top dressing, vertical cutting, aeration to really, you know, get the soil and that whole system working properly without causing damage, and put those two together, and you really set yourself up for a nice season.
Guy Cipriano 28:13
How about for personal fitness? How important is this time of year? You look at a lot of the road races, and they’re in April and May, and, you know, you maybe haven’t been training outside in the winter, if you live somewhere that’s cold and icy.
Steve Loveday 28:23
Yeah, and I think for a golf course superintendent, it’s a critical time for personal fitness, because this time of year typically is not as busy as the middle of summer, right? So they might be able to get out a little bit earlier. The days are a little bit shorter, so it’s a great opportunity to at least get as much in before the summer slam hits, because in July and August, you might not be able to to go to the gym, or you might be able to have that hour or two outside of work to exercise. So if you set to your point, set a baseline right now, you’re going to be able to pick it up in the fall, when the days slow down a little bit much easier.
Guy Cipriano 28:58
What’s the spring going to be like for you and the team?
Steve Loveday 29:01
The spring for us is already really busy, as I mentioned, like I’m going to Vietnam here in a couple of weeks. We’ve got a lot of distributors now that we’re starting to support and do field work with, which is awesome. That’s one of my favorite things about this job. But also, you know, when we met with a lot of distribution companies at the GCSAA one question that every single group asked us was, are you guys going to have more products? And it wasn’t really, I think it was more from curiosity’s sake than anything else, because right now, we’ve gone to market with only two products in the United States. So that’s a big piece for us, too. I’m currently setting up all the research protocols. We’re working with multiple schools, independent researchers doing our own field trials. So there’s a lot of work to be done before the season really gets going.
Guy Cipriano 29:48
We talked about CrossTrainer. What’s the other product available in the United States?
Steve Loveday 29:53
The other product is called Strength, and as the name may allude to, it’s purely built to strengthen the plant. To fortify plant cells, to fortify tissue, to be able to resist as much type of physical injury or biological injury as possible.
Guy Cipriano 30:09
A lot of people are listening to this right now, and they’re hearing about Plant Fitness for the first time. Where can they go to learn more about your brand and product line?
Steve Loveday 30:16
Yeah, so you go to http://www.plantfitness.com and we have a lot of information on there. We’re going to have a brand new website that we’re launching like within a week, we have an existing website which you can find information on, and then when the new one launches, there’s going to be lots of information on, more specifically, on of our on our proprietary technologies and some of the things that are making these products work the way they do.
Guy Cipriano 30:40
This has been a great conversation. Anything else we didn’t touch on for this introductory episode that you want to get into?
Steve Loveday 30:47
You know, it really has, and it’s, I think it’s a great start, considering that this is a series. We don’t want to give it all away in the first episode, but I’ve really enjoyed the time Guy. It’s a great introduction into plant Fitness and personal fitness. One of the things that I think is key that a lot of superintendents don’t think about, you know, just kind of getting off of the products and everything with their own personal fitness is mobility, right? If I were a superintendent right now, knowing what I know and not having a lot of time to go to a gym or do something, there are a ton of things you can do on the golf course just for your own personal mobility and flexibility that are not going to take you very much time, and they’re going to make your life experience a lot better. What are some of those? All right, so I think about a superintendent, yeah, and you know, I’m trying to mostly superintendents are driving around in a golf cart, hunched over the steering wheel, or sitting at the desk, you know, getting ready for a meeting, sending emails, planning the day, whatever it same thing, hunched over a desk, and, you know, your shoulders start to come towards each other in the center, towards the front of your body, your chest starts to if you can just put your hands kind of above your butt, behind your back, and pull your shoulder blades back, almost like you’re going to touch trying to touch them, and feel that chest open up. Hold that for 30 seconds. Let it go. Do it for another 30 seconds. It’s if you do that for a couple of weeks, you’re going to be surprised at how it increases your mobility. People that might have shoulder injuries or shoulder pain, the pectoral is attached to all these different ligaments and things that go across the shoulder, and when one group of muscles is pulling on another group of muscles, that’s where you start to feel some pain. So just kind of alleviating some of that, you’ll be surprised at how things start to work better.
Guy Cipriano 32:30
Yeah, I do 15 to 20 minutes of what I call power yoga every day, and I feel that that’s really helped. And maybe that’s something a reader or a listener can think about is just bring a yoga mat to work and stretch it out when you have time. I know it may look weird to your co workers, but I’m sure you can find a place, either on the golf course or in the maintenance facility, where you can go off in private for five and 10 minutes and and do some child’s poses and down dogs and that type of thing.
Steve Loveday 32:54
Totally, absolutely will. And if you wanted to be, even, you know, less conspicuous on a golf cart, like our YouTube utility vehicle, yeah, if you wanted to, let’s say, stretch your calves out right, step off the golf cart, stand up on the foot footboard and look over the other side of the golf cart, and just let your heels drop like with the balls of your feet up on the edge. That’s a great way to stretch your calves. Throw one leg up in the bed, stretch your hamstrings. You know you could back up to the utility vehicle with your shoelaces down flat on the bed, and as you back up closer to the cart, now you’re starting to stretch your quads. I mean, there’s all sorts of ways that you could stretch yourself while you’re driving around the golf course. Stop for a couple seconds. Look at a green stretch out.
Guy Cipriano 33:36
I’m not sure if they’re doing it now, but I know a superintendent in Southern California, his team for the first 10 minutes of its day, kind of did a team stretch, team mobility workout before everybody went out there on the golf course. And I thought that was really cool. And I know people listening to this are like, oh my goodness, I have to get out ahead of play. I don’t have time to do that type of thing. But your team’s team’s well being is definitely something to consider here on this fitness journey too.
Steve Loveday 34:01
Yeah, it is. It’s worth working into the day. And, you know, like you and I. So I wake up in the morning, and I know I shouldn’t, but the first thing I usually do is check emails like I look at it on my phone before I get out of bed, because we’re doing business in Asia, right? So emails, it’s their daytime at night when I’m sleeping. So emails come in and it’s like, oh my gosh. And then you might have a meeting you have to plan. So it starts off busy, but taking that 10-15 minutes like you do, to just stretch, even if it’s only five minutes, just work on that mobility. Like I’m 52 years old, I’m not getting any more limber. So it’s up to me to keep myself operating the way I want to operate.
Guy Cipriano 34:39
How rewarding has this job been over the years, getting to know the people that you have in the turf industry.
Steve Loveday 34:46
It’s awesome. Like, I think my story of why I’ve stayed in the industry is more interesting than why I got into the industry. And the real reason is the people you know and you just like, I’ve been very fortunate. It to meet guys, girls, growing grass all around the world. They’re awesome people. It’s just like salt of the earth, you know, really intelligent, innovative people. It’s cool.
Guy Cipriano 35:13
Yeah, I always say when I travel, yes, we see some beautiful landscapes in amazing places, but I always come back to this office in Northeast Ohio, where we’re sitting right now with more stories and fonder memories of the people I meet than I even do to the landscapes.
Steve Loveday 35:27
Yeah. Well, it’s all about being present. You know, everybody says that it’s kind of this phrase now being present, and that’s why, you know, you mentioned that this is the first in person podcast. That’s why I wanted to show up here. I’m three hours away. It’s not that big a deal to drive down and get to know you guys a little better and press the flesh and be here in person.
Guy Cipriano 35:46
I think we’re setting the expectation pretty high for the next few podcasts.
Steve Loveday 35:50
It sounds like it. Well, there’s a you know, something that you listeners may not know, that I just discovered on my way in here, is these guys are about three minutes away from a top golf so I’m guessing they’re all probably single digit handicaps, and you’re shaking your head, no.
Guy Cipriano 36:05
We do have one excellent golfer on our team. We have one who may be speaking on this podcast right now, who is anywhere between a 7 and a 12 handicap. And you know what type of golf that is? Steve? What’s that? That means you have six great holes, like, where you’re around par. You have six par bogey holes like about what your handicap is, and then six holes like where you have never played golf before, that gets you a seven to 12 handicap.
Steve Loveday 36:31
All right, I’ve never thought of it that way.
Guy Cipriano 36:35
I’m sure we’ll talk about golf fitness too. And you know, that type of thing is we go away this journey. So boy, this was a lot of fun. I had high expectations. This was the first episode of the Fittest Podcast in Turf. Steve Loveday is the Vice President of Technology for Plant Fitness. Thanks for joining us, and I can’t wait to record episode number two.
Steve Loveday 36:54
My pleasure. Guy, I love this time together. Thank you.
