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Shoulder Blade Shallowing

The shallowing arm movement is a whole arm activity. Some golfers try to do the correct movement with the forearms, but lose it because of what is happening at the shoulders. In this video, you'll see the proper shoulder blade movement to accompany a shallowing arm movement and body-powered downswing.

Playlists: Swing Plane Simplified - Working with steeps and shallows

Tags: Poor Contact, Transition, Drill, Advanced, Intermediate

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This drill is shoulder blade shallowing and this is looking at the trail arm and how it influences the club.

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So whether you think of the risk going into more extension or the shoulder going into more external rotation

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in this video we're going to take a look at the shoulder blade and what it does in order to complement that movement.

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One of the most frustrating patterns for many amateurs is getting steep in transition.

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Some can do it more from the arm or some can do it more from pulling with their left arm and shoulder.

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I'm going to show you what the right shoulder blade is doing during that pattern and the drill or an exercise that you can use to try to help strengthen it.

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So the common pattern is basically as the arm is going into external rotation.

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Typically what you'll see is from this down the line camera you'll start to see a little bit of shoulder blade elevation.

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So if you were looking at my back you would see the shoulder blade go up and around that way as the golfer is starting transition.

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Golfers who tend to have a more of a shallowing movement of the right arm in transition will tend to actually have the shoulder blade go down and back.

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Now you can see that as I do that it makes it much easier for this right arm to go into external rotation.

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So the drill that we're going to use we're going to do a little shoulder blade awareness so you're going to have your arms out in front and then you're going to squeeze your shoulder blades together from the back view.

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It'll squeeze the shoulder blades together just like that. Next you're going to raise your arms up to about 45 degree angle and do the same activation.

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If you have a buddy you can have them put one hand at the base of your right shoulder blade.

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The second or the next progression is with the arms out you're just going to do the right shoulder blade.

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And then what you're going to do is you're going to put your arm out at 90 degrees and you're just going to do the right shoulder blade and as that right shoulder blade goes you're going to feel that arm going into external rotation.

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And that's the combination that's happening more in transition in order to set up for a good white movement where the shoulder has some space between the ear and basically hasn't shrugged up and disconnected or going into more of an internal rotation pattern.

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So then with the club we're going to bring the club up to a top of the backswing arm position so we're not using our body yet.

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And now we're going to depress that shoulder blade as that shoulder shrugs.

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Again, if you have somebody that can help you what I like to do is apply a little bit of resistance to the butt end of the club out in the direction of the golf ball rather than in the direction of the ground.

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If you're doing it more in the direction of the ground then you would probably want to shrug that shoulder and have that shoulder going to internal rotation.

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But that's going to steep in the shaft and cause a whole host of pivot problems.

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Okay, now we're going to add the body pivot so you're going to make a backswing and now as you rotate you're going to feel that shoulder blade working in towards the spine and down.

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And at the same time you're going to feel kind of a little bit of that Zoromu.

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So that combination is what helps support the trail arm shallowing.

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The shoulder blade depressing works well with the external rotation and many of you who are steepening the first movement that's triggering it is coming from shoulder blade elevation and contraction kind of like that.

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So this is a great exercise to do as more of a pump style drill and you want that shoulder blade to start going into retraction.

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As the arm is bending to set the top of the swing rather than waiting to the top of the swing and then trying to do it all in one movement.

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So we'll pump it a couple times.

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Just like so we'll do it again. So we'll pump pump.

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And then go just right through there and whenever you're doing pump style drills you probably won't make great contact.

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It's just to get the sense of the rhythm and the timing and basically to kind of trick your brain into doing it correctly.

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So I had a little different sensation there now I'll do it more from a regular setup.

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And now because I did the pump drill from a regular setup it didn't feel quite as exaggerated.

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But again I'm doing this little shoulder blade retraction to help.

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And the backswing and transition into the start of the downswing.

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So that'll help get everything shallow and set you up for a good release move.

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Oftentimes it's hard to work on transition and release so you want to do them sort of in separate phases.

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But then work on trying to combine them together into one fluid unified downswing.

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But if you're finding yourself getting steep really early in transition take a look at the shoulder blade

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and work on getting a little bit more retraction and depression.