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Side Bend Visual

Use a pool noodle, or an alignment stick as a visual for a good side bend in the follow-through. To have a really clean side bend, you'll want to have an even blend throughout your spine. The spine can be broken up into thirds. The lower third comes from good use of the core/obliques (turtle shell/crunch). The middle third comes from good scapular movement (wipe/lead arm high trail arm low/Moe Norman). The upper third comes from neck motion (head on a pillow).

Working on these three zones can help your consistency of contact as well as direction.

Tags: Not Enough Distance, Early Extension, Drill, Intermediate, Beginner

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This drill is the side Bend visual. So side Bend

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is a really important shallowing component.

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It's kind of a master move because it

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helps it helps with the slice

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early in the downswing and then it helps with the hook later

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in the downswing. So it's really a

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kind of a regulator and helps a lot

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with consistency and it's a there are

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a couple different ways that I approach it. So in this video, I'll break down the three

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most common kind of control centers for

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getting good side bend down through

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impact and into the follow through so we're gonna use a little visual here.

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If I get into the Merry-Go-Round drill where the

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club is across my shoulders and I turn where this is basically pointing down

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towards the golf ball. You'll see that my shoulders kind of

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match roughly this pool noodle here. So I

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basically have a line going from my shoulders down

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to the golf ball oftentimes in lessons. I will

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draw this so I will go up to the top of the swing and then it

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will draw a line from the golf ball or sorry

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from the shoulder the trail shoulder the right shoulder in my case down

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to the golf ball. And what you'll see is with a

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lot of the consistent ball Strikers their shoulders will stay under

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it all the way or or going along

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it all the way until follow through position where what

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I see a lot of amateurs do is either they spin on

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top of it early so they go over that

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plane early or they're under

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it and then during the release in kind of

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a stand-up move and a shoulder coming up move it tends

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to go out there. So

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What I'll do is I'll put this pool noodle kind of at

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that shoulder plain angle just to help create a

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visual now. I've got it pointing at the golf ball. So I'm not gonna be

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able to hit because the tripod would get in the way. So first I'm going to do this as

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just a body awareness drill and basically what I'm

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going to do is get in my golf posture and then I'm gonna turn and

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I'm gonna try to match the pool noodle

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here with my shoulder angle.

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Just kind of like that and then I'm gonna back up and move a little

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bit forward and I'm gonna try to match it with both my arms

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and my my shoulders

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now I mentioned there are three common places

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where golfers tend to struggle with getting this

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side bend down at the bottom of the Swing one. We

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can kind of break your spirit your

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spine up in thirds. So first you've got from your rib

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cage down. So this would be more kind of ab Zone then

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you've got from kind of your mid thoracic. So

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from about armpit down to just above

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halfway between belly button in the bottom of

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your ribs.

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So we've got that zone that's more about kind of the shoulder blade

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and it's crunch and then you've got upper so

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kind of above the shoulder blades and that's more about the neck.

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So to really optimize this

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shoulder or sorry the side Bend move you're going to

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do a little bit of a crunch a little bit of a shoulder retraction and

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then a little bit of the head on the pillow or neck tilt.

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Kind of like this.

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as we come through

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I see common places where you'll break down would be

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either be you can see if the head starts to try to look level that would

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be the head on the pillow idea. If the shoulder is

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come way out as opposed to shoulder being down or lead

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shoulder blocking. So we have a bunch of videos talking about

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that and then feeling a little bit of a side

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crunch here versus kind of going up towards my

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toes in this feeling a little bit more straight kind of

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like that.

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Oftentimes golfers who lack this

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side crunch move, which is a big shallower create a

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lot of slide or axis tilt in an

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attempt to kind of shallow in a different

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way. So this can be helpful for low point

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for shaft lean for not hooking the ball as well

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as not slicing the ball.

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It's a so as I said, it's kind of

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one of these Master moves. It's a really big skill differentiator. And

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it's one of the things that contributes to having some of

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the most consistent bottom of the Swing characteristics. So

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now that we've got an idea of this feel

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We're gonna move the tripod just slightly and we're

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going to do a few kind of just nine to

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threes.

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Where we're gonna feel like we match that angle

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as best we can I think I can do a little bit.

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Better than that and when I do that currently, I feel

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like I'm way down. In fact oftentimes the way I'll have golfer start

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it is get to this position and then just do a

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little kind of brushing drill just to feel wow

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that feels like my shoulders are

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much more vertical or it feels like my arm is really tucked. It

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feels like my head is looking at it

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sideways. I don't know what the feel will be. But if you're just

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doing a few of these kind of exaggerated side then

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brushing movements, I guarantee you you

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will get a feel so then we can do one where

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we kind of like preset some of that side bent movement.

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And then just up came up out of it. So caught that just

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a touch thin.

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So, let's see if we can keep that.

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Shoulder going down a little bit longer that was pretty good there and you'll

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see that really helps kind of shallow out

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the bottom of the swing a lot of golfers who tend

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to hook the ball and get kind of Diggy that shoulder comes over the

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top at the bottom. This can be a big contributing factor

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there.

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So once we've got this feel of doing this

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little brush movement, then we'll do it more dynamically,

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and we'll move to a nine to

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three kind of.

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Something like that and we're gonna go to that finished position. We're just

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gonna do our best to try to match it. We're gonna

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explore, you know, as hard

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as we can do this as big as we can

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do it, but using this pool noodle to kind of help with

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the visual of the angle of where that side Bend

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will be that'll help you develop some feels for the

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side Bend through the ball.

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So now that we've got some some feels of these smaller swings.

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We're going to try it with a little bit.

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Kind of bigger movement and one of

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the things that you'll want to pay attention to is if you're looking at video from

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the face on view a lot of golfers know that

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you don't want to get into this side Bend movement too quickly.

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If it shows up on video that you're getting

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into the side Bend movement right away oftentimes what

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it means is you're not getting into enough of this left side

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Bend during the backswing.

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Oftentimes you'll start coming up out of it and really

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get into that side Bend movement quickly. So before

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the arm reaches

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parallel, you're already actually in that side bent movement as opposed

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to try. I should

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say you're already side bent. If your left

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side bent kind of like this at the top then when you start going into

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that right side bent we're at about even or

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shoulders level halfway down and

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then it overtakes and goes into actual right side then

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later, but you're starting that side Bend move pretty much

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from the top and it's continuing all the way down. So quick

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little demonstration.

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We're gonna go up to the top.

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side Bend move

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as long down through as we can open to get a really clean bottom

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of the Swing if you're struggling with side Bend,

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you can look at either the ABS the shoulders shoulder

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blades or the neck

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as good sources for increasing

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that side Bend. I'd recommend looking from the down the

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line view if you're losing the side Bend up

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here. It's more of the neck if you're losing it kind of more in this

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Zone. That's more of the shoulders some of

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the neck and then if you're losing it more kind of in the

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middle of the back that's gonna be more of the the crunch

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move. So one of those three will be your gateway

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to figuring out your side Bend.

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