Insight - Does Straightening The Trail Leg Increase Hip Rotation
At Golf Smart Academy, we try to accurately describe sub-movements of the golf swing. One area that seems to have a lot of confusion wrapped around it is whether or not to try and keep the trail knee flexed. The tour average is only a slight straightening of the leg, and trying to keep it flexed while letting it straighten slightly could add more power to your transition than actively straightening it. I think it is important that we differentiate feels and reals of the movement. For many, it may feel like trying to keep it bent, for others (especially if they have actually succeeded in keeping it bent) they may feel it actively straighten.
Either way, a common description of WHY a golfer should straighten the leg is that it increases hip turn. There are a number of things that will change when you straighten the trail leg, but increasing the amount of internal hip rotation in the trail leg is unlikely to be one of them. What is more likely is that the lead knee flexes more, the lead hip EXTERNALLY rotates more, and the trail ankle supinates more. One reason why straightening the trail knee is unlikely to add hip rotation is that as the hip tilt is increased the amount of trail hip flexion increases. As the hip flexion is increased, there is a greater chance of putting the gemelles on stretch.
At Golf Smart Academy, we try to accurately describe sub-movements of the golf swing. One area that seems to have a lot of confusion wrapped around it is whether or not to try and keep the trail knee flexed. The tour average is only a slight straightening of the leg, and trying to keep it flexed while letting it straighten slightly could add more power to your transition than actively straightening it. I think it is important that we differentiate feels and reals of the movement. For many, it may feel like trying to keep it bent, for others (especially if they have actually succeeded in keeping it bent) they may feel it actively straighten.
Either way, a common description of WHY a golfer should straighten the leg is that it increases hip turn. There are a number of things that will change when you straighten the trail leg, but increasing the amount of internal hip rotation in the trail leg is unlikely to be one of them. What is more likely is that the lead knee flexes more, the lead hip EXTERNALLY rotates more, and the trail ankle supinates more. One reason why straightening the trail knee is unlikely to add hip rotation is that as the hip tilt is increased the amount of trail hip flexion increases. As the hip flexion is increased, there is a greater chance of putting the gemelles on stretch.
Video Transcript
1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.010
In this Golf Smart Insight, we're going to look at straightening the trail leg
2
00:00:04.010 --> 00:00:04.480
to increase
3
00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:05.680
hip turn.
4
00:00:05.680 --> 00:00:11.000
So we like to be as specific as we can here at Golf Smart Academy.
5
00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:16.030
And I see a lot of videos talking about increasing or I have students send me
6
00:00:16.030 --> 00:00:17.520
videos about whether
7
00:00:17.520 --> 00:00:20.300
to straighten the leg or keep that trail leg bent.
8
00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:22.960
So I'm just going to give you a little overview of how I would walk through
9
00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:24.640
this thought process.
10
00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:30.690
So one of the things that you'll see is on video, if a golfer tends to keep
11
00:00:30.690 --> 00:00:31.860
their trail
12
00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:35.280
leg bent from the down the line camera angle, you'll only be able to see a
13
00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:36.200
certain amount
14
00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:37.200
of pelvis.
15
00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:40.380
And then if you see them straighten their leg, you're going to be able to see
16
00:00:40.380 --> 00:00:41.200
more pelvis.
17
00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:44.840
So this is commonly thrown around as increasing your hip turn.
18
00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:49.690
Now I'm going to talk you through why it's not actually increasing your trail
19
00:00:49.690 --> 00:00:50.540
hip turn.
20
00:00:50.540 --> 00:00:52.780
It may actually be increasing the lead hip turn.
21
00:00:52.780 --> 00:00:57.300
So that's where breaking things down, looking at them logically, can help you
22
00:00:57.300 --> 00:00:58.080
understand
23
00:00:58.080 --> 00:01:01.810
why a movement may or may not be working for you or be doing the right thing
24
00:01:01.810 --> 00:01:02.520
that you're
25
00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:04.400
trying to train.
26
00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:08.120
So let's talk a little bit about what's going on with this hip and then we'll
27
00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:08.800
go through
28
00:01:08.800 --> 00:01:12.080
a little exercise to kind of feel what's happening.
29
00:01:12.080 --> 00:01:17.750
And how straightening this trail leg is probably not causing you to increase
30
00:01:17.750 --> 00:01:18.540
the amount of
31
00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:21.020
turn into that trail hip.
32
00:01:21.020 --> 00:01:26.300
So when I make this backswing where you see a different amount of my pelvis,
33
00:01:26.300 --> 00:01:26.960
there's a
34
00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:29.680
lot of things that could do it beside hip turn.
35
00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:34.610
A very good reference for looking at hip rotation is looking at where the belly
36
00:01:34.610 --> 00:01:35.600
button or where
37
00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:39.240
the belt buckle would be and comparing that to where the knee is.
38
00:01:39.240 --> 00:01:43.410
So if I'm facing the camera just like so and my knee is facing the camera, if I
39
00:01:43.410 --> 00:01:43.960
turn so
40
00:01:43.960 --> 00:01:47.460
that my pelvis is pointed to the right of my knee, that is internal hip
41
00:01:47.460 --> 00:01:48.320
rotation in this
42
00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:49.400
trail hip.
43
00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:53.050
If I rotate it so that my belt buckle is pointing way to the left of where the
44
00:01:53.050 --> 00:01:53.960
knee is, that's
45
00:01:53.960 --> 00:01:55.740
external hip rotation.
46
00:01:55.740 --> 00:02:02.150
So what you'll frequently see is here's where I've rotated 20 degrees or so
47
00:02:02.150 --> 00:02:02.780
into my
48
00:02:02.780 --> 00:02:03.620
hip.
49
00:02:03.620 --> 00:02:07.330
And now if I straighten the leg, you can see that the knee changes about the
50
00:02:07.330 --> 00:02:08.020
same amount
51
00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:12.540
as the pelvis because most of the movement there may be coming from the ankle.
52
00:02:12.540 --> 00:02:18.580
The other common movement would be if I increase the external rotation of this
53
00:02:18.580 --> 00:02:19.620
trail leg, that
54
00:02:19.620 --> 00:02:24.080
can give the appearance that I've turned into this lead, or sorry, if I
55
00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:25.380
increase the external
56
00:02:25.380 --> 00:02:30.230
rotation, so if I'm rotating that way more with the lead leg, that'll make it
57
00:02:30.230 --> 00:02:30.920
look like
58
00:02:30.920 --> 00:02:33.940
I rotated into that trail leg even more.
59
00:02:33.940 --> 00:02:39.610
So if I get here and I allow this leg to straighten, what that frequently does
60
00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:40.300
is that allows
61
00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:44.380
this leg to bend a lot more and allows that hip to open up.
62
00:02:44.380 --> 00:02:48.710
So when this lead hip is opening up, even though I haven't really turned more
63
00:02:48.710 --> 00:02:49.260
into this
64
00:02:49.260 --> 00:02:52.660
trail hip, I've gotten more rotation.
65
00:02:52.660 --> 00:02:57.940
So one way to kind of feel this is if I stand on this leg and I keep my
66
00:02:57.940 --> 00:02:59.340
pressure even throughout
67
00:02:59.340 --> 00:03:00.340
my foot.
68
00:03:00.340 --> 00:03:02.140
So I'm going to make sure that I keep the pressure on the inside of the foot
69
00:03:02.140 --> 00:03:02.340
kind of
70
00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:07.220
like this, and I'm going to rotate while keeping that leg fairly straight, just
71
00:03:07.220 --> 00:03:07.940
a little bit
72
00:03:07.940 --> 00:03:08.940
of bend.
73
00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:15.950
Now, if I was to bend that knee a whole lot more, it's not going to restrict
74
00:03:15.950 --> 00:03:16.860
how much
75
00:03:16.860 --> 00:03:18.740
hip rotation I'm going to have.
76
00:03:18.740 --> 00:03:24.400
Now what's interesting is if I flex forward and rotate, that will tend to
77
00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:24.860
restrict the
78
00:03:24.860 --> 00:03:27.990
hip rotation a little bit, and that's partly because there's some really deep
79
00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:28.540
muscles that
80
00:03:28.540 --> 00:03:33.050
as the hip comes up, get restricted when we start looking at internal hip
81
00:03:33.050 --> 00:03:33.940
rotation.
82
00:03:33.940 --> 00:03:38.950
So that's the other little piece to this puzzle is as I make a backswing, the
83
00:03:38.950 --> 00:03:39.980
more that I tend
84
00:03:39.980 --> 00:03:44.590
to straighten that trail leg, the more that I'll tend to have this hip go
85
00:03:44.590 --> 00:03:45.580
backward.
86
00:03:45.580 --> 00:03:50.120
And in order to keep my spine angle while having that hip go backward, I'm
87
00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:50.780
actually
88
00:03:50.780 --> 00:03:53.500
going to be flexing into this hip.
89
00:03:53.500 --> 00:03:59.170
So the more that, now it's probably only 5, 10, maybe up to 15 degrees, so it's
90
00:03:59.170 --> 00:03:59.420
not
91
00:03:59.420 --> 00:04:03.050
going to change it a ton, but the more that I flex this hip, the more that that
92
00:04:03.050 --> 00:04:03.580
's going
93
00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:06.860
to restrict the amount of actual hip rotation.
94
00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:12.160
So I just like to be clear as far as what's happening, and if we're looking at
95
00:04:12.160 --> 00:04:12.740
pelvis
96
00:04:12.740 --> 00:04:18.410
rotation, if we're looking at maybe it's the lead leg that's bending more, just
97
00:04:18.410 --> 00:04:18.780
because
98
00:04:18.780 --> 00:04:21.320
we see more pelvis, we're not going to assume that it's the hips that are
99
00:04:21.320 --> 00:04:21.980
actually doing
100
00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:25.390
it because we can think through it, we can measure it, and we can look at it
101
00:04:25.390 --> 00:04:25.980
and decide
102
00:04:25.980 --> 00:04:30.240
if it's actually increasing hip rotation by straightening the trail leg.
103
00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:33.510
My take is that no it's not, you're either getting it more from the foot or you
104
00:04:33.510 --> 00:04:34.020
're getting
105
00:04:34.020 --> 00:04:39.690
it from the lead leg, but I'm not an advocate of trying to keep that knee
106
00:04:39.690 --> 00:04:40.860
perfectly locked
107
00:04:40.860 --> 00:04:44.910
or perfectly flex the same amount, because frequently what happens is these
108
00:04:44.910 --> 00:04:45.700
golfers tend
109
00:04:45.700 --> 00:04:48.510
to sway off a ball a lot more, the pressure goes to the outside of the foot and
110
00:04:48.510 --> 00:04:48.980
they have
111
00:04:48.980 --> 00:04:52.420
trouble making solid contact on the way down.
112
00:04:52.420 --> 00:04:56.420
So if you like the way we break this down, check out our other videos here, or
113
00:04:56.420 --> 00:04:56.620
submit
114
00:04:56.620 --> 00:05:00.200
your swing through our membership site, and we can tell you what's going on in
115
00:05:00.200 --> 00:05:00.520
your
116
00:05:00.520 --> 00:05:03.830
swing and where you can improve the fastest and what drills you should do to
117
00:05:03.830 --> 00:05:04.380
get there.
Have questions?
Ask Mulligan for helpInsight - Does Straightening The Trail Leg Increase Hip Rotation
At Golf Smart Academy, we try to accurately describe sub-movements of the golf swing. One area that seems to have a lot of confusion wrapped around it is whether or not to try and keep the trail knee flexed. The tour average is only a slight straightening of the leg, and trying to keep it flexed while letting it straighten slightly could add more power to your transition than actively straightening it. I think it is important that we differentiate feels and reals of the movement. For many, it may feel like trying to keep it bent, for others (especially if they have actually succeeded in keeping it bent) they may feel it actively straighten.
Either way, a common description of WHY a golfer should straighten the leg is that it increases hip turn. There are a number of things that will change when you straighten the trail leg, but increasing the amount of internal hip rotation in the trail leg is unlikely to be one of them. What is more likely is that the lead knee flexes more, the lead hip EXTERNALLY rotates more, and the trail ankle supinates more. One reason why straightening the trail knee is unlikely to add hip rotation is that as the hip tilt is increased the amount of trail hip flexion increases. As the hip flexion is increased, there is a greater chance of putting the gemelles on stretch.
At Golf Smart Academy, we try to accurately describe sub-movements of the golf swing. One area that seems to have a lot of confusion wrapped around it is whether or not to try and keep the trail knee flexed. The tour average is only a slight straightening of the leg, and trying to keep it flexed while letting it straighten slightly could add more power to your transition than actively straightening it. I think it is important that we differentiate feels and reals of the movement. For many, it may feel like trying to keep it bent, for others (especially if they have actually succeeded in keeping it bent) they may feel it actively straighten.
Either way, a common description of WHY a golfer should straighten the leg is that it increases hip turn. There are a number of things that will change when you straighten the trail leg, but increasing the amount of internal hip rotation in the trail leg is unlikely to be one of them. What is more likely is that the lead knee flexes more, the lead hip EXTERNALLY rotates more, and the trail ankle supinates more. One reason why straightening the trail knee is unlikely to add hip rotation is that as the hip tilt is increased the amount of trail hip flexion increases. As the hip flexion is increased, there is a greater chance of putting the gemelles on stretch.
Video Transcript
1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.010
In this Golf Smart Insight, we're going to look at straightening the trail leg
2
00:00:04.010 --> 00:00:04.480
to increase
3
00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:05.680
hip turn.
4
00:00:05.680 --> 00:00:11.000
So we like to be as specific as we can here at Golf Smart Academy.
5
00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:16.030
And I see a lot of videos talking about increasing or I have students send me
6
00:00:16.030 --> 00:00:17.520
videos about whether
7
00:00:17.520 --> 00:00:20.300
to straighten the leg or keep that trail leg bent.
8
00:00:20.300 --> 00:00:22.960
So I'm just going to give you a little overview of how I would walk through
9
00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:24.640
this thought process.
10
00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:30.690
So one of the things that you'll see is on video, if a golfer tends to keep
11
00:00:30.690 --> 00:00:31.860
their trail
12
00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:35.280
leg bent from the down the line camera angle, you'll only be able to see a
13
00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:36.200
certain amount
14
00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:37.200
of pelvis.
15
00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:40.380
And then if you see them straighten their leg, you're going to be able to see
16
00:00:40.380 --> 00:00:41.200
more pelvis.
17
00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:44.840
So this is commonly thrown around as increasing your hip turn.
18
00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:49.690
Now I'm going to talk you through why it's not actually increasing your trail
19
00:00:49.690 --> 00:00:50.540
hip turn.
20
00:00:50.540 --> 00:00:52.780
It may actually be increasing the lead hip turn.
21
00:00:52.780 --> 00:00:57.300
So that's where breaking things down, looking at them logically, can help you
22
00:00:57.300 --> 00:00:58.080
understand
23
00:00:58.080 --> 00:01:01.810
why a movement may or may not be working for you or be doing the right thing
24
00:01:01.810 --> 00:01:02.520
that you're
25
00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:04.400
trying to train.
26
00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:08.120
So let's talk a little bit about what's going on with this hip and then we'll
27
00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:08.800
go through
28
00:01:08.800 --> 00:01:12.080
a little exercise to kind of feel what's happening.
29
00:01:12.080 --> 00:01:17.750
And how straightening this trail leg is probably not causing you to increase
30
00:01:17.750 --> 00:01:18.540
the amount of
31
00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:21.020
turn into that trail hip.
32
00:01:21.020 --> 00:01:26.300
So when I make this backswing where you see a different amount of my pelvis,
33
00:01:26.300 --> 00:01:26.960
there's a
34
00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:29.680
lot of things that could do it beside hip turn.
35
00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:34.610
A very good reference for looking at hip rotation is looking at where the belly
36
00:01:34.610 --> 00:01:35.600
button or where
37
00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:39.240
the belt buckle would be and comparing that to where the knee is.
38
00:01:39.240 --> 00:01:43.410
So if I'm facing the camera just like so and my knee is facing the camera, if I
39
00:01:43.410 --> 00:01:43.960
turn so
40
00:01:43.960 --> 00:01:47.460
that my pelvis is pointed to the right of my knee, that is internal hip
41
00:01:47.460 --> 00:01:48.320
rotation in this
42
00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:49.400
trail hip.
43
00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:53.050
If I rotate it so that my belt buckle is pointing way to the left of where the
44
00:01:53.050 --> 00:01:53.960
knee is, that's
45
00:01:53.960 --> 00:01:55.740
external hip rotation.
46
00:01:55.740 --> 00:02:02.150
So what you'll frequently see is here's where I've rotated 20 degrees or so
47
00:02:02.150 --> 00:02:02.780
into my
48
00:02:02.780 --> 00:02:03.620
hip.
49
00:02:03.620 --> 00:02:07.330
And now if I straighten the leg, you can see that the knee changes about the
50
00:02:07.330 --> 00:02:08.020
same amount
51
00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:12.540
as the pelvis because most of the movement there may be coming from the ankle.
52
00:02:12.540 --> 00:02:18.580
The other common movement would be if I increase the external rotation of this
53
00:02:18.580 --> 00:02:19.620
trail leg, that
54
00:02:19.620 --> 00:02:24.080
can give the appearance that I've turned into this lead, or sorry, if I
55
00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:25.380
increase the external
56
00:02:25.380 --> 00:02:30.230
rotation, so if I'm rotating that way more with the lead leg, that'll make it
57
00:02:30.230 --> 00:02:30.920
look like
58
00:02:30.920 --> 00:02:33.940
I rotated into that trail leg even more.
59
00:02:33.940 --> 00:02:39.610
So if I get here and I allow this leg to straighten, what that frequently does
60
00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:40.300
is that allows
61
00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:44.380
this leg to bend a lot more and allows that hip to open up.
62
00:02:44.380 --> 00:02:48.710
So when this lead hip is opening up, even though I haven't really turned more
63
00:02:48.710 --> 00:02:49.260
into this
64
00:02:49.260 --> 00:02:52.660
trail hip, I've gotten more rotation.
65
00:02:52.660 --> 00:02:57.940
So one way to kind of feel this is if I stand on this leg and I keep my
66
00:02:57.940 --> 00:02:59.340
pressure even throughout
67
00:02:59.340 --> 00:03:00.340
my foot.
68
00:03:00.340 --> 00:03:02.140
So I'm going to make sure that I keep the pressure on the inside of the foot
69
00:03:02.140 --> 00:03:02.340
kind of
70
00:03:02.340 --> 00:03:07.220
like this, and I'm going to rotate while keeping that leg fairly straight, just
71
00:03:07.220 --> 00:03:07.940
a little bit
72
00:03:07.940 --> 00:03:08.940
of bend.
73
00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:15.950
Now, if I was to bend that knee a whole lot more, it's not going to restrict
74
00:03:15.950 --> 00:03:16.860
how much
75
00:03:16.860 --> 00:03:18.740
hip rotation I'm going to have.
76
00:03:18.740 --> 00:03:24.400
Now what's interesting is if I flex forward and rotate, that will tend to
77
00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:24.860
restrict the
78
00:03:24.860 --> 00:03:27.990
hip rotation a little bit, and that's partly because there's some really deep
79
00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:28.540
muscles that
80
00:03:28.540 --> 00:03:33.050
as the hip comes up, get restricted when we start looking at internal hip
81
00:03:33.050 --> 00:03:33.940
rotation.
82
00:03:33.940 --> 00:03:38.950
So that's the other little piece to this puzzle is as I make a backswing, the
83
00:03:38.950 --> 00:03:39.980
more that I tend
84
00:03:39.980 --> 00:03:44.590
to straighten that trail leg, the more that I'll tend to have this hip go
85
00:03:44.590 --> 00:03:45.580
backward.
86
00:03:45.580 --> 00:03:50.120
And in order to keep my spine angle while having that hip go backward, I'm
87
00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:50.780
actually
88
00:03:50.780 --> 00:03:53.500
going to be flexing into this hip.
89
00:03:53.500 --> 00:03:59.170
So the more that, now it's probably only 5, 10, maybe up to 15 degrees, so it's
90
00:03:59.170 --> 00:03:59.420
not
91
00:03:59.420 --> 00:04:03.050
going to change it a ton, but the more that I flex this hip, the more that that
92
00:04:03.050 --> 00:04:03.580
's going
93
00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:06.860
to restrict the amount of actual hip rotation.
94
00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:12.160
So I just like to be clear as far as what's happening, and if we're looking at
95
00:04:12.160 --> 00:04:12.740
pelvis
96
00:04:12.740 --> 00:04:18.410
rotation, if we're looking at maybe it's the lead leg that's bending more, just
97
00:04:18.410 --> 00:04:18.780
because
98
00:04:18.780 --> 00:04:21.320
we see more pelvis, we're not going to assume that it's the hips that are
99
00:04:21.320 --> 00:04:21.980
actually doing
100
00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:25.390
it because we can think through it, we can measure it, and we can look at it
101
00:04:25.390 --> 00:04:25.980
and decide
102
00:04:25.980 --> 00:04:30.240
if it's actually increasing hip rotation by straightening the trail leg.
103
00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:33.510
My take is that no it's not, you're either getting it more from the foot or you
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're getting
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it from the lead leg, but I'm not an advocate of trying to keep that knee
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perfectly locked
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or perfectly flex the same amount, because frequently what happens is these
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golfers tend
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to sway off a ball a lot more, the pressure goes to the outside of the foot and
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they have
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trouble making solid contact on the way down.
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So if you like the way we break this down, check out our other videos here, or
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submit
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your swing through our membership site, and we can tell you what's going on in
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your
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swing and where you can improve the fastest and what drills you should do to
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get there.
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