Click here and enter your email address to watch the full video
Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

Subscribe now to watch the full video.

Trail Arm External Rotation At Impact

In this member question video, I discuss getting your hands in front of your trail hip. This member was worried that he couldn't get shaft lean or lag because of a limitation in trail arm external rotation. The arms in front of the body relates to other factors, not just trail arm external rotation. If you are looking to improve your look at impact, then I'd start with hip rotation and with wrist extension. Those have as big an impact on the look at impact as the shoulder external rotation.

Tags: Poor Contact, Impact, Member Question, Concept

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000
This is a concept video.

00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:11,000
I'm going to answer a member question about getting your trail arm in front of your body.

00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,000
So how do a couple of videos on the shoulders?

00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:19,000
And this particular question was relating to external rotation of the shoulder.

00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:23,000
And basically if you're limited in external rotation of the shoulder, how is that going to

00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:28,000
show up as far as the elbow getting in front of or behind your hip?

00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:31,000
So I'm going to talk through that look.

00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:36,000
So external rotation of the shoulder is typically looked at or tested in a couple different

00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:37,000
ways.

00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:42,000
So you can test it up here, which would be basically if you don't move your chest and

00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:48,000
you have your elbow at about 90 degrees, how far back behind your spine can you rotate

00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:49,000
that arm.

00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:53,000
Now the tour average is somewhere around here, 110 degrees.

00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,000
But I have lots of golfers who are more straight up and down.

00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:57,000
This is where you start to feel stiff.

00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,000
Now I would double check that down here.

00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:05,000
So this is a little bit more relevant for the golf space, which would be if I have my arm

00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:09,000
here at the side and I just keep my elbow up against the side and I look at how much I

00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:11,000
can rotate it there.

00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:17,000
If you can't move it very much, then we're going to use that as kind of like a zero or

00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:19,000
90 degrees depending on how you're looking at.

00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,000
But basically we're going to call that kind of neutral.

00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:26,000
If you can't even get it in line, then I'd say that you're pretty restricted in your external

00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:31,000
rotation and you're going to have to make some adaptations.

00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:37,000
Now when it comes to the wipe, you'll see I'm fairly flexible in this external rotation.

00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:41,000
So I'm going to have more of a look of that elbow getting almost all the way to my belly

00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:42,000
button.

00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:49,000
But the important thing is that it's working across this way, not so much how far it goes.

00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:50,000
So let's just investigate.

00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:56,000
If I was to block this at 90 degrees, kind of like this, and then I was to rotate my body

00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:00,000
now the club would be there when my arm is in this position.

00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,000
I'm not really stressing how much external rotation I have.

00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,000
It's kind of right here.

00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:11,000
Now you can look and you can see that compared to the video, my elbow is a little bit past my

00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:14,000
hip because I've kept it more in.

00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:16,000
Second, it starts to straight.

00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:17,000
It will straighten.

00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:21,000
It will usually rotate and we'll tend to have this look of getting behind.

00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:29,000
So if I keep that in and I get to here, I didn't take nearly my full range of external rotation.

00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:34,000
Now what I would have to do is I would have to maintain the extension of the wrist.

00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:44,000
So if I have, if I actually put my arm in a little bit of internal rotation, just like this.

00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:50,000
So if I put my arm in a little bit of internal rotation, but keep extension of the wrist,

00:02:50,000 --> 00:03:00,000
I can still get a look of at impact that arm in front of my body or in front of the hip.

00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:11,000
Now if I tweak that, if I exaggerate the external rotation position, that will look kind of

00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:12,000
more like this.

00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:18,000
So you'll see visually exaggerating the external and internal rotation position there.

00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:26,000
Doesn't have as much of an impact on the look of the elbow in front of the hip as the wrist extension

00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:29,000
nor the hip rotation.

00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:37,000
So again, if I have this in a slightly internal rotation position, but a lot of wrist extension

00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:46,000
like this, and then I get a lot of pelvis rotation, it would look kind of like that.

00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:54,000
And if we saw that down, if we take a look at it, you'll see that the elbow is close to in line with the hip.

00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:00,000
What most people, what most amateur is kind of struggle with is having more of this gapping

00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:02,000
where you'll see is a lot of space.

00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:07,000
If it's close to in line and we're talking about some of these little degrees here and there,

00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:10,000
yes, at a higher level it'll have an impact.

00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:16,000
But usually what we're discussing is more of this gross pattern where the elbow is getting

00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:19,000
behind kind of like that.

00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:24,000
The bigger issue there is more the wrist and the fact that I'm hitting it all with the arm.

00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:30,000
So when I hit it mostly with the arms, I don't get my pelvis open and my wrist is pretty close to

00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:35,000
neutral it impact instead of still having a little bit of that extension or getting into that

00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:39,000
trail arm working towards that trail arm stop sign movement.

00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:48,000
So if you're if we're kind of recapping this, unless you are stuck and you can't get past,

00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:51,000
say here, when you're trying to do external rotation.

00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:59,000
If you're this as far as you can get, then you're even more it's more important for you to

00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:04,000
focus on that trail wrist extension and getting your hips open on the way through.

00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:12,000
If you have normal range of motion or even if you're on the higher end, then you won't have to

00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:19,000
exaggerate the wrist quite as much in order to get that look of the arms being ahead.

00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:25,000
One other thing to factor is when I talk about the hip rotation, one of the common reasons that

00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:30,000
a lot of people suffer from getting the elbow in front is because the rib cage gets in the way

00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:35,000
because of early extension. So if you make sure that you're bent over enough it's set up,

00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:42,000
you know bent from the hips and that you stay in that posture, that helps create a lot of the space

00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:47,000
for your arms to work in front of your body. If you do that, you're going to notice that you

00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:52,000
won't have to stress your external rotation quite as much as you might be imagining.

Subscribe now for full access to our video library.