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Many golfers will allow their legs to become passive during the swing. This leads to an upper body dominant release that can produce steep and inconsistent contact. Players who default to this pattern will often "stand-up" in the backswing; when I see students do this, it is usually a sign they are preparing for a strong pull of the arms.
On the opposite end, if we look at the best drivers of the golf ball, we will notice a small lowering in the backswing. This lowering creates a load in the trail glute, which thens allow the lower body to drive the swing, increasing power and improving sequencing/consistency.
Overall, if you have a tendency to stand-up in the backswing, you may want to work on this advanced drill. It should not only give your lower-body and core a good workout, but also provide a "feeling" that you can take to the practice tee. Ultimately, this should get your lower-body more active and help eliminate some of the contact and consistency issues that arise from an upper-body dominant swing.
Playlists: Stop Lunging Forward, Stop Moving Off The Ball (Sway), Stop Standing Up In Your Backswing, Trail Leg Understanding, Get More Distance
Tags: Not Enough Distance, Standing Up, Sway, Backswing, Transition, Drill, Advanced
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This drill is the airplane lunge for feeling the trail glute.
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So many golfers just use their legs more for balance and positions and you just kind
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of swing more with their arms and don't really use their lower body.
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Especially if you tend to see a little bit more of a stand up at the top of the swing
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that's a good sign that you're getting ready to pull down with your arms.
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One of the common traits that you'll see with especially really good drivers the golf ball
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is they'll tend to have a little bit of a lowering action.
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That lowering, lowering action is loading the glutes so that then the legs can push.
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If I were to ask someone to jump, everyone would bend down.
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I wouldn't see anyone get taller to then jump.
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But because golfers can pull down with their arms just as easily as they could push
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against the ground, a lot of golfers raise up so that they can push down harder because
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they're not using their legs early in transition.
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So to feel the glute rotation is a little bit more of an advanced exercise because it includes
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a fair amount of balance and core activation.
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What we're going to do is you're going to get into an exaggerated hip hinge like a golf
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stance or more of like a single like deadlift if you're used to doing some exercise.
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Make sure that your core is on and then in this position you're going to kind of push through
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the foot while keeping the knee pointed centered and what that's going to do is I'm going
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to rotate my pelvis from this trail glute.
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So kind of like this.
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Now if I take away the cane or the club that's giving me some balance support, I really
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start to feel it in the trail glute.
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So then what I'm going to do is I'm going to try and get that feeling of basically that
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movement right there and I may even do this with a little bit of a step but I'm going
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to get to feel this trail glute rotating open just like so.
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So I'll get that feeling again.
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I'm going to go rotate open, rotate open, just like this making sure that my core is on.
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If my core is not on then you'll tend to see my low back kind of flop around instead of
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my whole spine moving as a result of using that glute.
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I'm also trying to keep my weight kind of more towards the center of my foot or center
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of my stance.
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Now I'm going to do more of a three-quarter swing.
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I'm going to bring it back and I'm going to feel like everything to about here is coming
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from pushing that trail glute.
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So I'm going to get to right about here just by pushing that trail glute.
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I'm going to like overly soften my arms and take them out of the equation.
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So bring it back, overly rotate that trail glute.
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So that's got a similar feeling in my hip to when I was doing that airplane lunge
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at least during the early part of transition.
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If you struggle with more of a pull down and not getting your glute's active you can
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work on that to feel the proper activation.
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Be careful that it doesn't become more of a thrust or I'm pushing my upper body up
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that it's just becoming rotation and my chest is staying at about the same height as
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my body opens up from the activity in that trail glute.
