Clinic - Connecting to Your Core

Science fact vs. science fiction - learn why some other golf swings cost you distance.

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Being in the box, as we call it, is important because it allows you to transfer energy from your trunk, from your legs, your core, your hips, etc.

So, there was a study done back in 2003, a couple doctors had an idea that they thought, hey, the position of your shoulder blade, your scapula, Was critical for determining what kind of results you could expect from any hitting or throwing sport.

Which golf is kind of somewhere in there, it's kind of a hitting, throwing sport.

It uses a lot of the same sequencing and fundamentals.

What they found, this is a journal of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, light reading material for me.

The scapula is pivotal in transferring forces and high energy from the legs, back, and trunk to the delivery point, the arm and the hand, or in our case, the golf club, Thereby allowing more force to be generated in activities such as throwing than can be done by the arm musculature alone.

Which is, if you're swinging with your shoulders elevated, is what you use.

You can only use your arms and shoulders.

The scapula, serving as a link, Also stabilizes the arm to more effectively absorb loads that may be generated through the long lever or the extended or elevated arm.

So what are they saying there?

Basically, what they're saying is if you've ever watched gymnastics, how many of you've ever watched gymnastics on TV?

When you watch guys on the parallel bars or the rings, what position are their shoulders in when they hold themselves up on those rings?

Are they elevated like this?

You see guys sit like this or is it like this?

Which one?

How come?

Why don't they sit like this?

You can try it and hold yourself up on your chair if you want and see what you feel.

So when your shoulder blades are down, you're able to engage your lats, which are the biggest muscle surface area -wise in your body.

They cover your entire backside here and you've got a lot of other muscles you're connected to, but that's the big one, the primary muscle.

So when you're up here, you're really just using your traps, which aren't really designed to do this kind of motion for that long.

And so that's why when I was harping on you guys yesterday and you'd make a little swing or you'd turn and you were like this.

What is that doing to your shoulder blade?

It's elevated, right?

You can feel this move.

If you just move your shoulder up and down, you're moving your scapula, your shoulder blade up and down on your back.

But when you do that, you are completely disconnecting yourself from your core.

So that's why I made such a big deal about it yesterday.

If you were turning, carrying all this tension like this and like breathe, shrug your shoulder up to your ear and then depress it down.

So you feel what it feels like to be back down and in the box, so that you have the ability to transfer energy from your trunk.

You watch somebody punch somebody.

If you watch boxing at all and they knock somebody out, they don't elevate their shoulder to their ear and punch like this.

How come?

There's no power there.

If you want to put your body into it and use your hips to punch somebody, your shoulders got to be down.

Same thing if you're throwing a ball.

When you throw a ball, what is the actual motion of your shoulder blade?

You probably never thought about it, but guess where it goes?

Back down and in.

It's going this way.

You can see my shoulder blade moving down here.

It's now compressed up against my spine.

So now, whatever I do with my hips, my arm has no choice but to come along with me.

So, whatever I do with my torso is going to move my arm, Which is going to allow me to use big muscles to generate speed instead of just my arm musculature alone.

Does that make sense?

Is that the same in the downswing as well?

Absolutely.

Remember, I was having some of you guys do this stuff from the downswing.

I'm like, wait, relax.

You got to keep it down because as soon as you do this, you're disconnecting yourself from your core again.

So, you can't transfer energy from your trunk.

I know a lot of you guys aren't golf swing nuts in here.

We usually have a bunch of golf junkies.

So, you guys are an exception to the rule.

Usually, we have a bunch of guys who have read every golf book, seen every golf clinic, every golf video on YouTube, etc.

So, this slide we'll go through quickly.

So, does anybody recognize this position on the left or on the screen's left?

That is a one-plane golf swing instructor.

You guys heard one-plane and two-plane stuff?

Yep.

Jim Hardy stuff.

So, this is one of their instructors.

His name is Jeff Ritter.

And this is a drill that he teaches you on his website.

And do you guys think that's a good drill or a bad drill?

Okay.

Why would that matter?

Where'd the ball go?

Well, this is just a drill.

He calls this the no-body drill.

So, they want you to literally not move your body and just pull your arm, Your right arm back across your chest, doing the exact opposite of everything that I'm telling you to do.

Now, what would that tend to cause?

Not going to rotate because his shoulder, you can see his arm is already smashed against his chest here.

What do you think his left shoulder is feeling right now?

A ton of tension.

I remember reading the book, and that's what it said.

It's to smash your left arm and then rotate your body with your arm smashed against your chest.

Exactly.

So, they want you to take your arms, pull them across your chest, and then spin your shoulders as fast as you can in the downswing.

Why would you do that?

Now, Jim Hardy became a well-known instructor because of this stuff.

To keep the club on that one plane.

Well, if you look at it, Tiger's club and his club are identical.

They're on the same plane.

So, if you're a planeologist like Hank Haney and all you care about is swing plane, how would you dissect those two golf swings?

Probably don't care.

You don't care.

That's exactly right.

He's like, oh yeah, you look great.

Knock yourself out.

I would say that the way they got there couldn't be any more different.

And the results of these two couldn't be any more different.

The reason being is that as soon as you elevate that shoulder, you're trying to throw like a girl.

Because you're only using your arm musculature.

So, that's why they tell you to then take your body and heave it into it.

We just talked about all the problems that's going to create when you start rotating your body through like that.

Apart from the force on your spine, you're going to create centripetal force, the result of which is going to be what?

Centrifugal force, which is going to do what to the club?

You can't beat Newton again.

He's going to win on this deal.

So, the last thing on earth that you'd ever want to do is this.

Look at the spacing between his right shoulder and his ear versus Tiger's.

Where's Tiger's shoulder?

Is it in the box or out?

Absolutely in.

That shoulder is straight back where it was if he was standing there talking to you.

For every two degrees that you move this elbow behind center lines.

So, remember I talked yesterday about the center of your ear, your shoulder, etc.

For every two degrees you move this elbow behind that, guess what happens to your shoulder blade?

Try it.

Feel it for yourself.

Every two degrees it moves your shoulder blade up one degree.

Biomechanically, that's how we're all made.

You don't have a choice on this deal.

So, every time you try to pull your arm back behind the center line, you're going to raise your scapula one degree into the rectangle.

You're going to disconnect yourself from your core for every two degrees you do that.

So, that's why Tiger's right arm, well, his shirt seems way over here.

His arms are way in front of his chest still, right?

He obviously hasn't smashed his arm against his chest.

You can see his logo on his shirt.

If you can see the logo on his left peck on his shirt, what does that mean he's done with his torso?

He's turned it, that's right.

What has he done with his arms?

Diddly squat.

What do we tend to do with our arms?

Everything, right?

We tend to swing more like this guy.

All you got to do is shift your weight and turn.

It's this simple.

If you can get that into your head and drill that, be disciplined, and don't just start flailing the club around all over the place, the takeaway, the back swing becomes really, really simple.

There's really not any point in discussing it.

It's that simple.

Chuck, what are your hips doing?

And when do they start to rotate versus your shoulders?

So, on the site, I talk a lot about just focusing on your upper body.

And the reason is, most everybody gets really lazy and sloppy and starts turning their hips right away.

It's the easy way to turn because this doesn't take any effort from my core muscles whatsoever.

To actually start rotating my core and start stretching these actually takes some effort.

And that's why I don't want your hips moving.

You need separation between your upper and lower half.

You need to stretch and load these muscles in your core.

But the reality is, technically, your hips are turning almost right away.

And you're shifting right away.

But if I tell people that, they do this.

So, I have to be very careful of how I phrase that.

So, if you feel like you're just turning your upper body, which I do now, you can see my hips are still turning a little bit.

That's perfectly okay.

But I'm trying to focus more on loading up these muscles more than anything else.

But the truth is, your hips are going a little bit right from the start.

But the end goal is to get a 90 degree shoulder turn and about half of that with your hips.

And we need to kind of get that at the right timing.

So, the simplest way to learn it at first is to just focus on turning this.

And keep turning it and turning it and turning it and turning it until you get 90 degrees.

The only way you're going to get 90 is to allow your hips to turn a little bit.