Most people simply move their arms and hands WAAAAAYY too much in the golf backswing. In the last 20 years of teaching, I've seen fewer than 10 golfers not move their arms and hands enough - that leaves thousands on the other side of the spectrum! So, chances are, you're also one of those golfers who's moving the club way too much with the wrong parts of the body. You're number one priority in the backswing is to get the club in a position that allows for a proper downswing. Your second priority would be loading up the big core muscles in the trunk - in that order.
If you put the club in an awful position at the top of your backswing, it's not going to make much difference how loaded up you are because you're just going to hit the golf ball a long ways offline! The secret to getting the club set at the top is to do what I talk about in the video and focus on the critical movements of the body and stop worrying about the golf club. You need to literally feel like your arms and hands do nothing.
Most people are truly shocked when I get them to realize just how much they're doing with their wrists because they already feel like they're not doing anything with them - that's part of the problem. Feel and real aren't ever the same. So what do you do?
VIDEO OR MIRROR
Your best friend in the world while working on your golf backswing is a mirror. Your second best friend is video. If you look in the mirror and the club has moved 4 feet and your body has barely turned, there's a BIG problem. Nothing is going to work out for you from there.
So, it's critical that you are diligent in paying attention to what you see happening in front of a mirror while working on your backswing. LOOK at what you're doing, don't just FEEL what you're doing because your brain is lying to you!
I'm always shocked at how many students I put in front of a mirror at our golf academy who don't look at themselves. They seem to think that I put them in front of the mirror just to reflect the sun and help even out their tan. I need you to actually WATCH yourself move - you're not being vain, you're being smart!
The mirror never lies and provides instant feedback and with the abundance of information on RotarySwing.com, you know exactly what a perfect golf backswing should look like by now, so there's no excuse not to have one! If you follow the drills WHILE watching yourself perform them in front of a mirror and SLOW DOWN at first to a pace that you can do the movement correctly, then your golf swing WILL IMPROVE. But, if you expect to improve just by watching a bunch of videos and then going out to the range and trying "feel" what I was talking about, you'll never get any better.
[00:00:06] My favorite discussion to have with golfers is whether or not they can make a full shoulder turn during the golf backswing. Almost every golfer on the planet thinks they can't make a full shoulder turn because they're not flexible enough and I can guarantee you that's not the case no matter what anybody tells you. The reality is all golfers can make a full shoulder turn. And I've been proving that for more than 20 years of getting golfers who have all kinds of back problems and spinal fusion and all kinds of limited flexibility issues and they're still making full shoulder turns. It's not hard. [31.3]
[00:00:37] It's all about understanding where you move from and at which point in the swing you do it - in other words, sequencing. And for some movement that's the whole secret to the golf swing and that's what we're focusing on today. So if you think that you can't make a full shoulder turn because you're not flexible enough pay close attention because I'm going to tell you exactly why you're not able to make a full shoulder turn doing what you're doing. And then I'll show you exactly how to fix it. [23.6]
[00:01:02] So the number one cause for golfers who don't make a full shoulder turn and it's synonymous across the board is because they take their left arm and they push it across their chest to start the golf backswing. Now I want you to do this while you're watching this video and all of a sudden light bulbs will go off in your head as to why RotarySwing makes sense and what you're doing doesn't. Take your left arm push it across your chest and tell me where you feel tension. [20.6]
[00:01:23] Immediately you're going to feel it back here in the back of your shoulder and the back of your arm. Well guess what your brain uses as a signal to start moving the other direction. Bing bing bing bing it's tension. If your body creates a lot of tension early in the backswing what's the number one thing your body wants to do with that tension. Get rid of it. Of course. [22.8]
[00:01:47] Tension is a good thing in the swing as long as you create it in the right place in your body at the right time. Almost nobody does that and that's why they struggle with the golf swing so much. It's really simple if you're following RotarySwing as we're going to teach you how to move and create tension in the right places at the right time. And that's the difference that will make you a great golfer. [15.5]
[00:02:03] If you're taking your left arm and pushing it across your chest. Now all of a sudden you've got all this tension. Why would you go any further back than this because your brain is telling you it's screaming at you. This is so tight. If we keep going any further we're going to get injured. Your brain won't let you do that. So it's going to just stop right there. And then you're going to fire down from the top before you ever make a full shoulder turn so you're going to stop turning around a half turn. How do you fix it? [25.2]
[00:02:28] Stop moving from that side of your body during the backswing. It's simple. Instead of pushing from the left side you're going to pull from the right and that's what RotarySwing been talks about. I've done many videos on push versus pull. If you go to the Web site go to rotaryswing.com and look at search for push versus pull. [15.6]
[00:02:44] You'll see that all of a sudden this stuff is going to make tons of sense so we know that if we go push our left arm across our chest we turn about halfway. Instead of pushing your left arm across your chest pull your right shoulder behind your head. Now watch what happens. Not only do I not have any intention here I can keep go and keep going keep go and keep going if I let my weight shift I can keep going keep going oh look at that I can make a huge huge shoulder turn when I move from the right side of my body. Pushing versus pulling is the essence of what rotary swing is all about. And when you start pulling you start turning. If you start pushing all of a sudden your body is going to build up so much tension at the wrong point in the swing and it's going to be too much tension too early and nobody will make a full shoulder turn. I don't care if you're Gumbi you're not flexible enough you're creating too much tension it's not the flexibility issue it's tension and timing. Tension and sequencing is the secret to what rotary swing sauce is all about. So if you want to make full shoulder turn I guarantee you you're flexible enough. Take your right shoulder pull it back behind your head let your weight shift to the right let your hip turn boom full shoulder turn. Very very simple. [1:05.5]
[00:03:50] So if this stuff resonates with you make sure you check out more of our videos and rotaryswing.com today and all of a sudden the golf swing will be made much simpler for you and much easier to understand. [9.3]
I've been teaching for a little over 20 years now and in that time, I've seen a little bit of everything, the good, the bad and the very, very ugly. When it comes to the back swing stuff, it's mind-blowingly simple to do the back swing correctly following the RST fundamentals but without fail when somebody goes through a clinic or a lesson or they've watched all the videos on the site, I still see a ton of extraneous extra movements in the swing that don't need to be there and it dramatically complicates the backswing. I'm going to talk about today just how simple the back swing is and I'm going to show you some of the secrets and things that I've used over the years to help me help my students make a simple consistent repeatable back swing. Because that's really what it's about. If the back swing is doing the same thing every time and not adding extra movements to the club, the opening the face too much or keeping it closed or moving it off plane or path or what have you, then the down swing has a much better chance to get off on the right foot, literally.
What I want to talk about now is kind of the secret things that I've used to help beat things into my students' heads to help them understand how to make a proper back swing. The first thing that I want to talk about is body rotation. If I had to put a number one priority on something in the back swing, it would be two things but the number one would be body rotation. The second would be weight shift. These two go hand in hand so I can't really separate them because as you're turning your body, you need to be shifting your weight. If you’re not focusing on doing those two things as your primary directive in the back swing, something is going to go wrong. I guarantee it. Typically, if you don't focus on moving your body, rotating it and shifting your weight to the right for a right-handed golfer, you're going to use your arms and hands to move the club. When you use your arms and hands to move the club, you instantly start creating a lot of extra angles and rotation to the club face that doesn't need to be there and it makes it impossible for you to be a consistent ball striker.
Instead, take all of that stuff out. Literally imagine that you can't move your arms and hands and the only reason that golf club is moving is because your body's turning and your weight is shifting. When you put those two things together, weight shift and rotation that gives you some momentum to move the golf club. If you don't do that, you're going to have to use your arms and hands to get that golf club moving.
Think about it this way. This is a great little mental trick. Imagine that your job is to leave that club there and the only way that you can move it is not from anything up here but just using your core. What would you have to do? Well, if I shift my weight that's going to get the handle moving and as long as I keep my hands a little bit in control of the club, that's moving the club a little bit but also I'm starting to turn instinctually as I do this. Now, if I just focus on turning and shifting, the club is starting to move but my hands and arms and wrists have moved this much and my body's moved this much. That's the big mantra that I try to really beat into the slides and the clinics that I do is big body turn, tiny little arm swing. I can't emphasize it enough because nobody ever follows it correctly. Huge body turn, tiny little arm swing. Your arms should effectively almost do absolutely nothing during the back swing.
Now, of course, that's an over statement but it's an over statement because everybody tends to do way too much with their arms and hands and not early enough with their body. If I had to give one thing, the thesis statement is big body turn, tiny little arm swing and put that right ankle into the ground while you're turning. If you can do that together, then all of a sudden the back swing because incredibly simple. Then all you have to do is focus on the stuff we talk about in the five minutes of perfect back swing video, which is arm elevation, right elbow flexion. Let this arm rotate as you do this. This is it. This is the whole movement of the arms in the back swing. It's the most important back swing secret that I can give you is that if you focus on turning your body and not moving your arms, trying to leave the club at address while you focus on pushing that right ankle to the ground and pulling that right shoulder behind your head, the back swing will be something you never struggle with again.
Gary C
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