How to Decelerate Your Hips for Effortless Power

If you feel like you're swinging hard yet the ball isn't going as far as it should, you're probably right! The simple truth is pro's ARE putting less effort into their swings and this video will show you how!

And most people don't realize that a lot of the peak speeds that happened in the downswing, that's really, really critical with the longer clubs happen from here to here in terms of the downswing, by the time your hands are this far down, like everything should be starting to slow down. And a lot of people don't realize that. And so when you describe this right side push they're starting, that's pretty typical. If you kind of get open at impact or you feel like a lot of pain in the left hip, you're trying to rotate really hard. That's because you're not actually decelerating in time and you're accelerating too long. And so that I see that a lot with irons versus woods types of things so that the iron, you know, you know, it's a pitching wedge or a seven iron, you know, you're not trying to get everything out of it. So you, you make a little bit easier swing and your hands slow down soon enough to allow the club to accelerate. And then the driver, because there's no speed limit, there's no distance limit on it. Or like, all right, let's just keep going, keep turning and keep firing. And that leads to a lot of problems. So that's my first gas, but do you have a place you can swing there.

Let me see if I can line this up.

Okay. Do one more for me.

Yeah. Okay. And just do one down the line real quick. If you're not moved over here, bounce there. That's okay. That's that helps actually one more. There that's enough. I do go ahead and do one more just in case it didn't catch the frames. All right. So it is what I was saying. Just in a different way than how you may be thinking about it, but let me pull it up here and I'll show you what's going on. Amazing. You

Can take one swing or two swings instantly, I guess

Lots and lots of swings have gone through these eyeballs. Okay. So let me, let me, I'm just going to walk you through both face on a, down the line and we'll talk about the big picture stuff, and then we'll start talking about how we're going to fix it. But as you go back, there's a fair amount of head movement off the ball. Okay. So that's problem. Number one, that we're going to start needing to do a lot coming back down then as you come down, what I want you to really pay attention to you have great lag, great hand speed. But the left leg doesn't really ever get fully posted up through the hitting area. It's still kind of bending or staying bent, and it's not straight by the time we get there. So it's late and I'm going to explain all this stuff in just a second, but then what you'll typically see when somebody doesn't really get posted up very well on the left side, this right knee does this in the frame.

You know, basically after impact it kind of just kind of weakly kicks in like this, because everything is still rotating when everything should be slamming on brakes. So I'm going to walk you through all this stuff, but, but it is what I was talking about, where you just kind of keep rotating through. And then when we look down the line, you'll see the same thing just from a different way of looking at it, maintain the Tisch line pretty well, a little bit of an over hip turn going back there. And part of that is cause you're letting your head move so far off the ball. When you transfer a lot of weight over to the right side, it makes it easy to make a big turn. Right. But, well, now we've got to get the hips out of the way really quick, which you actually did a really great job there, but what doesn't happen is that this, this move here is you've heard me talk about on the site kind of the squat to square move.

Right? Right. That's your square move when you're in a great spot there, the hands are a little bit fast there they're down there a little bit soon, but certainly something that can work. But the big issue is what happens after that. So this is where right now I should see basically no hip movement. And you can see through this hitting area, everything just kinda keeps turning through together, right? And your arms are a little stuck and the left leg is still bent even at this point. And that's what you see in that right leg kind of come forward and it's pivoting around the left side. So now let me tell you or show you how we have to think about the swing to start fixing this stuff. So, so basically long story short, what you're doing is soft through the left leg. And then everything kind of continues to turn because if you don't use that vertical force of decelerating the hips and slamming on the brakes and pushing hard against the ground, the hips don't get that quick deceleration that they need to transfer energy up the chain.

So everything else has to kind of keep turning through and that's what you have happening. That's why through the hitting area, this knee was still bit, but then your right knee kind of does this and everything kind of turns through together. And that's a really slow inefficient way to release the club. Now, if you were swinging something super, super heavy, you might use your body like that a little bit to try and heat it, but you still would want to post up to get that force to be able to whip everything through the golf club, fortunately is very, very light. So what we really have to focus on is speed. And the way that we create speed is acceleration and deceleration phases. And right now you have a lot of really, really good stuff going on, but you're missing one huge component. And that is really slamming on the brakes with those hips.

You've seen, I'm sure you've seen golfers like Roy McIlroy, his hips actually go backwards at impact, right? You know, tiger woods hips come to basically a complete stop. Most tour players pips all come to essentially very close to a stop so that the club and arms can accelerate now. But the key is that has to start happening very early in the downswing. And what I mean by that is it's not like you go to this, start your downswing and then post up. But you've got to be starting to load up this leg to be able to create force, to be able to stop the hips from turning. And so that has to happen right away. Like even during the backswing, as I'm going back, I'm trying to get this leg awake so that it's got some muscle load. So that by the time I do start down and my hands are here, I am now focusing solely on decelerating, posting up straightening that left, left, left leg, and then releasing the club. Whereas what you're doing is you get to hear pretty well, but then everything keeps turning your hips, your shoulders, everything. And so you're dragging the club through the hitting area. Okay. Instead of getting that snap, when the body stops and that has to happen with this lead hit, if that leg doesn't get straight, that hip doesn't brace, doesn't get posted up. Then, then we'll never get that speed back. That's missing out of your swing.

So when you start

Thinking about the little things that are going off in your swing, like your head, moving off the ball, a little bit of extra hip turn, all of those things make that re way harder, right? Cause now you've got extra movements you've got to make up for, if you turn your hips too much in the backswing. Well now how do you get that thing loaded up to be able to post. You've got to do a lot of stuff really quickly. So if we tighten up the hip, turn a little bit, tighten up your head movement, then you can start concentrating on posting up and decelerating in your pelvis. So that then the hands and harms release, instead of you kind of dragging everything through, does that make sense?

Makes more than perfect sense? Totally cool.

The kinematic sequencing stuff is kind of hard for a lot of people to understand because it's, it's, you don't, it feels like it would be more powerful to just keep turning and using a bunch of force. Right. But it's just not. So as long as

You understand that, Chuck, I understand the kinematic force and what you're trying to do, and it makes more than a hundred percent. And I do that, getting to do that. I I'm not refuting the fact that that's exactly how it works because I see, like you said, with all of the tour pros with yourself and you know, I just can't seem to get myself to do it. So that's why I'm here.

Yeah. So part of that, again, extra head movement, extra hip turn. Now we've kind of deprioritized getting this hip to post up, right? I'm not going to tackle any other stuff really going on in your swing right now. I'm going to leave that alone so that we can focus 100% on just teaching you how to get this to post up and brace and slam on the brakes with your hips. Then the rest of the stuff is just really minor details. It's just kind of clean up work, but that's really the game changer for you. And that's, what's going to change so that you're, you know, as you're posting, especially with the woods, the longer clubs getting really stable at impact is a really, especially like hitting like a three wood off the deck or something like that. Super, super important. So what I'm going to have you do at first is we're going to go kind of halfway back, right? There's like kind of like a miniature backswing and then just kind of do like a little squat to square so that your shoulders are still closed and your hips are back to square. And then I'm going to have you focus on is taking your left foot and pushing the ground away from you that way. So you're trying to push the ground like that.

Bingo. Exactly. Don't do it. Do a half turn.

Yeah. Just something just to kind of get you into like a halfway downswing thing, basically what we're trying to get you into feeling so that you're, you know, you're back on the left side already. You've got a lot of load on that left leg. There you go right there. So we're trying to get, and then push the ground away from you. Bingo. So you see how your hip goes up and back? Yes. There you go. And I really want you to fill us on the glute medius that you feel your whole glute really contract as you're doing this. It's a lot of people do this by just contracting their quad and like trying to hyperextend their knee. It's mad there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I feel like now for the first time,

I always kept saying how come I'm not really feeling that glute. That's the first time right there.

Good, good. Get that weight over there. Good. There you go. Bingo. Perfect. Yep. All right. So we've got the glute starting to fire. That's great. Cause for a lot of people, it's really hard to get that thing to wake up. So once you get that left glute firing, that's what you're going to kind of key in on when you're making your practice swings. It just kind of overuse that thing for a little bit. So you really feel that contracting. Then what I'm going to have you do is start to combine that, that little move with the left arm. So you were kind of here, you're on the left side and now I don't want you to really try and do anything with your arm. Cause at this point, your hands should actually be decelerating in the swing. And a lot of people get that confused. They think, you know, from here down, they really want to speed their hands up and the opposite is true. If you do that, you're just going to drag the club through. So now that your hand is here, I want you to push the ground away and see how that brings your hand back into the hitting area for you.

Yeah. Perfect. Okay. That's it. There you go. Okay.

So then what you're doing, so now you see how is your hip goes up and back and your shoulders going up, but it's getting moved by your hip, right?

Yeah, because I that's the thing I sometimes pull it clear. You don't have to,

You use your legs to do that. Right? So now I want you to understand how we get that club to release properly from that technique that you just learned. So from there, if your hand is here and I just post up, I'm pushing the ground away from me. What happens is the opposite reaction. The club should go down and what I'm really going to be doing with my hand is pulling against the handle. Right? Cause my shoulders going up, right? So I'm not trying to actively pull against the handle on that direction. You know, with my arm, I'm doing it with my leg and I'm my leg being the primary mover here. As I pull up or post up on my leg, push up on the ground that causes me to have to pull against the handle. And that's what causes the club head to speed up. Does that make sense? It does. So take the club and your left hand only and just do that same thing. Get halfway down when you're getting ready to post up and then post up and feel the harder you post and contract that glute. The more you feel your left hand pull against the butt of the club. Yeah. There you go.

You feel the speed there, right? Yeah. I'm not trying to do anything.

Nope. I don't know. You

Have a lot of lag there so that, you know, at that point in the swing it's this is not so much about taking a perfect clean divot right now doing this drill. This drill is a teach you to engage your glute to release the golf club. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. So don't worry about like the exact position and bottom of the swing arc and all that right now. I just want you to feel your legs. You know, that that video I did on the site many years ago about you hit the ball with your legs and I'm talking about pushing up there. You're starting to feel that. And really you're starting to realize how important that really is to the swing. Because if you don't have this, you're going to keep turning through like you were with this soft left knee, the right leg, coming through everything, rotating a lot. Okay. This takes all that out of there and puts it all into your left

Hip. So from here, here. Yeah. Yep.

There you go. So you don't try to accelerate your hand, right? Okay. Do you remember your hand should be decelerating at this point, your peak hand speed in the downswing you'll see. In most tour pros, it happens before or around the time that their lead arm is parallel to the ground. And most amateurs peak much later, or even keep trying to accelerate through the hitting area, right. With the opposite of what we want to do. So your peak hand speeds back here. So as you're doing this drill, knowing now that you're no longer trying to accelerate your hands and shoulders, you just keep it relaxed and post up. And that's where you get that free speed coming from your legs and your arms starts to feel a lot more relaxed. Good, bad habit. Yeah. You're going to want to against it. Cause you're used to doing that.

This is where something where the impact bags come in really handy because you can do what you're doing. Just these little tiny swings, right. You just kind of go in here and just stopping. And then you'll see, like if you're still trying to pull your arm or turn your chest, you'll, you'll be in a different position at the impact bag. But if you realize that you're just trying to post up and stop and you don't feel any energy trying to continue to move you through. Cause the impact bag stopped the club from moving where a lot of people will get here and they'll do this stuff, right? Cause they're trying to keep moving through the ball. Instead, we want to release the club head at the ball. And that starts during the post-up. And that post up is starting about the same time that your left hand is about parallel the ground a little bit later, but that just gives you an idea.

So all of your speeds, your hip speed peaks here, shoulder peeds speed peaks here, hand speed peaks here. And now it's just purely posting up and they'll have a really stable platform at impact. But what you were doing was just kind of being soft through this and continuing to turn through. So this feeling, how you kind of, once you're here, the whole swing is nothing more than posting up. And that really is all coming from that left glute. And it really simplifies everything for you and lets you get a lot more power out of your legs.

So if you don't have an impact bag, I have an impact bag. I had the rotary connect. I got those lippy thing. I got you named. I have it.

Well, you can use all those things with this. That'll help you. You feel the sequencing of it for sure. But with, you know, while you're on vacation, just keep doing the feeling of once I'm here, this is done, you know, slamming on the brakes. My glutes are really contracted and then I'm just letting the club release and that's how you're going to get that speed back on the driver and the three wood and all the longer clubs I want to hit the wall there. This is a movie theater in here.

There you go. That was a lot better.

So you can see now instead of your hands wanting to keep traveling through, they're getting pulled through by the momentum of the club and your hand like is, is going relatively slow through the hitting area. But there's a lot of speed, right? Yeah.

I mean, it's also kind of what I remember for the clinic. That's where we tried to get to when we were over here and then reach it off for a change.

Exactly. So as we released the club, you know, starting back here, releasing the club as we're posting up and that left arm releases the right arm, right shoulder just stays back. We're just doing that. And so this is all basically really slowed down its rotation.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

So when you, when you come down to the move here, you just, I remember you said the knee turns goes over and that's mostly up so that then you can stand up, right? Yeah. You can post up

The left knee, the ankle and the hip need to be in alignment. Right. So think about it. If you were doing like squats, right? You wouldn't do squats like this. No, this wouldn't make any sense. And you don't want to do squats like this. You know that you're even if my feet are angled out, they're going to be in align. Right. So that's going to be the way that you're going to be able to most efficiently create vertical ground force is keeping those in line. So that need it's subtle. Right? It's just, as I'm shifting over that knee is moving over with my hip to get in line with the foot so that they're in a good alignment so I can push hard. Right. Especially

As I get older, I don't want to prop I have no problems yet. I don't want any more. Yeah,

Exactly. Well, yeah. I mean, when you take all the stress out of your arms and shoulders, when you're using your legs properly.

So, so I should be here. Yeah.

And then, then post up there.

Yeah. Push the ground away from you can track that glute. Good. Good. So let's try a couple with both hands on the club, but doing the same thing. Just like the little mini drill. Just so you can focus on the glute.

Nope. I turned my shoulder. You felt it though. Right? Where you go. Like

Exactly. That's why the woods are tough.

There you go. Big difference actually feels like I'm in a decent position.

We're getting there and do a couple more. I'm going to video this. Okay. Hold on. Relax the arms and focus on the legs. Okay. There you go. All right. Let's take a look. Ooh, hard work. That's it will be at first. And this happens super, super fast in the swing. Right? So w when you're doing these drills a little half drills, your, your glutes going to be sore, but it's just cause you're going to be overdoing it at first, you know, but that's normal. So you can see, even though, you know, if you're making just this tiny little half swing, how much speed and power you can get it out of this now. And you're making a tiny little swing. So just by using your legs, you can see now that as you release your right shoulder, staying back and we, we need we need your head a little bit more far forward. This is hanging back a little bit too much. And that's just going to increase a little bit of side bend here, but you can see now that your, your arms are fully extended, right? Yes. And that's all done through your phone. I don't think

That's me. Chuck. I think he's super imposed. Somebody is honest. Yeah. I didn't no chicken wing there.

Right? So now you've got this nice, big, full release, taking maximum benefit of the radius of the swing art that your arms can create, but you're not trying to create it with your arms. You're creating it with your legs. And that's the most important thing for you to take away from this so that when you go out to hit balls, you can do what you're doing there. Right. Just kind of go up to a little halfback, swing, do little squat to square, and then just post up and we'll work on just the release. And you'll see like crap, you can hit it just as far from here as you may be from your full swings, but you'll be able to do it a lot more consistently and with a lot less effort, because it's all coming from the biggest chunkiest muscles in your body, instead of trying to time it with your arms and hands.

So, so that'd be a good stepping stone to take this drill. It's kind of go here to stop breaking into a chunk. So you're really focused on, okay. The only thing in life I have to do right now is push the ground away from me. That's it? Right. So from here down, you're figuring out the stuff that really matters in the swing, which from here to here is all that really matters. You can do all kinds of crazy crap. The rest of it. If you get that right, you're going to make it okay. So that's a great drill. It's kind of like a, a nine to three drill, but really focusing on getting a pretty assertive post up move, but you can hit balls like that and, and help you start getting over the little white demon. Right? So that we're like, you, you know, from here down, there's nothing you have to do.

Like the ball is just going to get in the way, whether it wants to or not. Cause you're not doing anything else. You've really simplified the parts of the swing that matter. And just focused on this from here down, it's all in that post step move. And you have that right. Then the rest of it's really easy to get, right? Because you'll realize, well, heck if I know right here, I've got to really post up on this left. Well then why on earth would I do this in the back swing, move way off the ball. Why would I let my hips overturn? Cause now I can't feel this hip at all. And you'll start to do a lot of things. Start to correct. A lot of things without me telling you to correct them, right? Because you'd be like, oh, I lost all this ability to use my left legs. So even though we're only doing this little half swing stuff now, as you go from here and go all the way to the top, you know that you've got to get back to that squat to square and a loaded position for that left hip to fire. Right? So you'll start to do things that allow that to happen more naturally versus letting your head move off the ball and all of that stuff. So when

You mentioned, and before that the head was down or whatever, that, if I come back here, you know, and I know I have to get here to post up that's that keeps the head in a better position right here.

You start to think about creating pressure, creating force through this leg, right? You want to think about creating for an exaggeration sake. And I don't want to over, don't take this too literal, but creating as much force vertical force as you can on this left leg, right? Again, don't take that too literal. But the reason I say that is if you're over here and your transition, you're going to feel that you can't create much vertical force. Cause you can't recruit enough muscle fiber. There's no weight over there, right? But as you go over here and you really load up that leg and your head is more forward instead of hanging back, you're over this leg and this glute. Now all of a sudden, you know, you know how your brain works, it's super efficient. When it comes to recruiting muscle fiber, it will recruit the absolute least amount of muscle fiber humanly possible to do whatever task you're asking of it. So what you've got to do is you've got to make it recruit as much muscle fibers you can, which means as I'm coming over here, I'm getting everything on this leg. So now it's really loaded up for me to jump off of it. So that's why this won't make a lot of sense to you. Once you start feeling and focusing on what you're doing with your left leg and the downswing,

And again, what you just said, there's these little things, little aha moments of, you know, you're to talk y'all you want to get your head back. You don't want this to hit, goes over and back at the same time, his knee comes over a little bit. I remember you talking to the last lesson or two, you should be able to see the knee and it comes over. But the idea of getting everything loaded up, bringing that body here so that you can post up and release makes, makes more sense because you're right from here to here. But if you get here and you're in better position to post up and release. Exactly. Exactly.

It makes total. Yeah, you've got a a hundred percent you'll you'll instantly realize, well, why would I let my head move that far off the ball? It doesn't make any sense because I know that this left leg is super important. So I'm going to start prioritizing getting that loaded up. So your, your whole swing will start to make little adjustments without having to go through all the minutia of putting your head against the wall. Like you see like, no, no, no, you're an athlete. You're going to figure this out. Let me just give you the thing that you need to do to start loading that leg so that you can literally create a lot of force off it literally jump off. Yeah.

Because no one would throw a ball doing this, you know, instead of being you're here and then you're throwing on same way. Boom. You

Would rotate around the center of your pelvis, right. And the same, thing's true in the swing. You're really just trying to rotate around the center of your pelvis. And once you understand that, then you stay centered. It makes it easier to load the leg and all this stuff starts making a lot more sense. So, so that's what I want to leave you with is just that little drill. You can hit balls with that drill. And then as you start making your backswing, you know, start really emphasizing during that first part of the transition of getting this leg ready to go, because it's only got a quarter of a second to do everything needs to do so is your back swings going back? You'll realize, you know, there's no point in, you know, before you were trying to recover from a head position that was off the ball and all that stuff. Now you'll know, like I go to the top and I really just have to concentrate on what do I need to feel to get this left glute, to load. And then the rest of it, you won't have to worry about. Cause I'm certain you'll figure it out, especially if you're already hitting the irons really, really well. It's just one little tweak to help you get the driver back on track. Any questions?

No, I, I think that's it. I got a good visualization of what has to feel to do, to get out of my own way and to get ready to fire that gluten just post up. I think it's great

Money I spent. Well thank you. I appreciate that. Hey, do you mind if I share this lesson with some others who probably are going through the same stuff? Totally. If you didn't share,

They don't let you, I would have never even gone gotten the, a this lesson because it's those little pieces that have got me to where I was, where I was in disaster, losing a punchline, jumping up, pulling up chicken wing. And so it's absolutely be my pleasure. Let them learn from that.

Awesome, Richard. Well, thank you so much. It was great seeing you again. Let me know how this works out for you.

I absolutely will. Thank you so much. All right, buddy. Take care. Bye bye.