How to Increase Hand Speed - J Release

Hand speed is the secret to effortless power in the golf swing. In this video, I teach you how to produce it instantly to feel what a pro swing feels like.

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Today is graduation day for those of you who've been following the goat code.

I've spent most of my life studying the golf swing, and the one thing I've been obsessed with that you guys are well aware of is effortless power.

It's practically my middle name at this point, and today I'm going to share with you how to get it.

Because in studying the Goat code and all the greats, the Nicklases, the Watsons, the Palmers, the Players, Tiger, you name it, One thing that's synonymous amongst all these great golfers and the modern players today is how effortlessly they produce speed compared to the average Joe.

The average Joe, when I go out to my local golf course and I play, I see this all the time.

Falling off balance, a lot of body rotation, a lot of physical effort for not a lot of payoff.

Today, I'm going to show you how to reverse that completely with some really simple movements that are going to help you understand.

How, guys, my size hit the ball so far.

I finally can explain it in a way that I think anybody can translate this to the golf course right away and understand what it is that's been missing in your swing.

We're going to start with the lead arm only.

So if you're a right -handed golfer, you're going to get left -handed swings.

And what we're going to do first is what I was talking about in the introduction video about getting this wrist to snap.

Now, the key here is that you're not trying to pull hard with your lead arm.

Whether you're a lead side dominant or a trail side dominant, it doesn't matter.

There's no power in trying to pull that arm through.

You're going to delay the release of the club.

So what I want you to feel and what I want you to do today is listen for the swoosh.

So this is everything in the swing where all that speed is happening.

And it's going to help you start to understand what it is that you need to feel in your swing.

So if I make a little practice swing, lead arm only, you're going to hear a little swoosh right at the bottom.

Now I'm not trying to produce any power here.

I'm just trying to get my wrist to snap and when I say snap what does that mean?

That's the focus of today's video.

How do we get our wrists to move the fastest way possible?

Obviously, as I talked about in the release video, trying to get the club from this side of the ball to this side of the ball is the name of the game.

That is what you're trying to do in the golf swing, and you're trying to do it as quickly as humanly possible, while still having control over that club face.

What the lead arms job is to do, and the lead wrist more specifically, is to allow this wrist to go back into extension.

Now, for most of you and golfers, I see in in -person lessons all the time.

You're trying to get this bowed or flat lead wrist at impact, and I'm going to have you feel that the club versus letting the club the wrist move into extension.

So the first way what I want you to do I've got a six iron here this is a good one to practice with.

I'm going to take the club back and I'm just going to let the wrist hint swing back.

I'm going to feel the club head swinging this wrist back and through, and if I relax my hand, I'll get a little swoosh at the bottom.

With no body effort whatsoever.

This has got the club moving very quickly.

Just by letting my wrist move into deviation and extension, and I want the wrist to be cupped on the other side.

And there also, as we add speed, there'll be rotation.

So as you're doing this, feel what the club head does versus what you would feel if you're trying to bow your wrist.

So now instead of letting the club release bow it and hold that bowing there as long as you can.

What happens?

Well, first of all, you're going to have to hold the club tighter with your hands.

That's going to create tension in your forearms, it's going to create tension in your wrist, it's going to slow the club down.

So if you try and get a flat left wrist all you're doing is holding off the release.

The release is the most important part of the golf swing, and so when you're holding that release off, you're just slowing the club down.

You want that club to get past your body as fast as humanly possible, and the only way to do that is with your wrist.

Letting your wrist do this, which is what you're trying to feel, and what I was talking about if you were snapping a towel.

Now you can kind of create the same effect with the club, but it's difficult because that's not really how the golf swing works.

You can't actually get your hand to move backwards but the feeling is very much that.

Now you've got all this momentum and everything else that's going to carry the club forward.

You'll never be able to do that.

But your feeling is that you actually want the handle to move backwards, away from the target.

Because what does that do to the club head?

It advances it.

If the butt of the club is moving technically backwards, the club head is moving forward.

That's going to give you more speed versus holding it off and trying to get the butt of the club.

And the club face to move together through the hitting area.

That's the slowest way you could possibly move the club, which is why it's great in a chip shot to a degree.

You don't even want to do it that much in a chip shot but the swing is all about producing speed and all about producing speed right there and I can hear I've got a little mic set up here there's not going to be a loud swoosh when you're doing it lead arm only because there's just not that much speed because your your trail hand is the speed hand if I make a little longer swing it's a little louder swoosh and all I'm doing is letting that club head pass my hands the thing that many of you I see are trying not to do you're trying to really get those hands forward and all it does again you'll never get your hands forward like that using your arms and hands to get a flat lead wrist you need to not try and create a flat lead wrist that's the opposite of what you want to feel so get a feel for this of your hands dropping relaxed and snapping now what you'll find is if you turn that swoosh sound that you want to happen right down here at the ball is going to start happening further and further out here so now if I turn the swoosh is happening more out here and to a degree we want it to happen at the ball and slightly in front because the release isn't done until after we actually strike the ball that's partly why you have shaft lean impact when you swing correctly but what you're feeling is trying to get it to happen as down here as close to the ball as I possibly can and the more I rotate the later that release happens that's why when you're using a throwing pattern to create speed like the goats did you don't want to try and rotate your body through aggressively that will always delay the release of the club what you want is your body to be reacting to what your wrists are doing you can see now my body is very quiet but you can see and hear that as I let that wrist snap and the more supple I keep it the more swoosh sound I'm going to hear as I relax that wrist so I'm trying to get that club head to pass my hands like wait a second well how do I get a flat left wrist that's like flipping it isn't it you get a flat left wrist by shifting forward and this wrist as we talked about in the release video as the release is working this way and then moving into extension it's happening after the strike once you shift your pressure so I'm still actively trying to get the wrists to release through here but that's giving me shaft lean because I've moved my center of mass forward that's how you create a flat lead wrist and shaft lean is not by trying to create shaft lean it's by trying to release it and get your wrist to literally feel like a flip but moving your pressure forward that moves the bottom of the swing arc forward and delays the release just a little bit so that you have shaft lean at impact now one of the questions I get all the time on the website is how do you get the club to move left it's the last thing you'd ever want to try and do because what typically happens when golfers think about getting the club to go left is they turn that's a completely different way of swinging and releasing the golf club but the club will work left when you release your wrist properly and while the lead hand what we're focusing on right now we're going to focus on the trail hand in just a second as I let this lead wrist release the club is going back left and on plane if I tried to bow the wrist and hold that you know kind of the old flat left wrist position as long as I could the club's not going to go left it's only going to go left if I rotate in a fully released golf swing where you want true effortless power and you can see how I was just letting my wrist snap earlier and there's a boost to speed there with zero effort from my body the same thing happens on swing plane if I just let my body stay quiet and static and let the wrist snap where's the club it's way over here the wrist action is what allows that club to get back on plane but what I'm feeling I'm never trying to work the club left I'm trying to actually release it more out more kind of down the line which initially feels more from the inside as I feel like I'm releasing it back here because if I start turning that's what gets the club too far out over the plane as I do this way I feel like and when I look at it down with my eyes that the club is working straight down the line but then and then the club feels like it goes up so that gives me a very square path for a very long time as the wrist is releasing and the wrist rotation and of course the wrist is going to turn the arm the forearm bones and the upper arm as well that's how you get the club to work back to the left and stay on plane but the feeling is never this trying to force the club to exit left you want to let the club exit left by allowing the club the wrist specifically to re-hinge on the other side and feel that weight of the club head doing that for you and you'll see that as I do that the club comes out perfectly on plane now let's talk about how to really create effortless speed with the money maker the power hand which is your trail hand in a throwing pattern in an ideal world the simplest way to get the club from this side of the ball to that side of the ball would be what what would you do with your wrist well you would just hinge it straight back and hinge it straight forward this is not only this is a powerful motion that your forearm can create for you so and this doesn't take much effort right this is not moving all my big muscles in my body it's not a big muscle movement at all it's a wrist movement so this is probably faster than most guys with local clubbers swinging right now just with my right hand releasing hinging back and through that motion is exactly what you want to feel in the golf swing now the catch is if you just hinge it back like this what's it going to do to the club face well obviously it's going to shut it and even if i add some body rotation i'm going to have a really shut club face at the top so how is it that guys like mike austin who's the longest hitters on the planet who ever lived he talked about just feeling like you were slapping the club with your hand doing this that feeling is what you want to have through the hitting area but it's more dynamic than that and there's something you've got to do and i think this is kind of the the real secret if you will of understanding where real effortless speed comes from we know it comes from the wrist that's been covered for 70 years ago in the book for the search for the perfect golf swing where they learn that you know two-thirds of the club head speed is coming just from the release of the wrist so that's no secret the secret is how do you move the wrist exactly what does it feel like and what i've figured out the best way to describe this to my students and feel it in my own swing is by drawing the letter j what do i mean by that let me show you all right so if you want effortless power all you need to know is the letter j and what i mean by that is i'm going to hold this club up here just where my arm is parallel to the ground so if my wrist just hinges back and forth it's just going to draw a straight line all right now again if i had a club if i'm doing that with a club face the club face is going to be very shut now this is a powerful position for my wrist to be in but i've got a shut club face so that's going to be tough for me to swing back and not start fighting a hook because there's natural rotation in that club face as well that's why you need to feel not just a straight hinge but a j and what i mean by that is if i do it with my hand like this so i'm going to this is the bottom of the j and then you'll see as my wrist begins to rotate do you see how this creates kind of a letter j on its side that motion what i'm doing is hinging and rotating because remember like i talked about in the axiom video in the release video your hand doing this is a very quick and powerful motion to get that club head really sped up through the ball you can see that you can't even see if i just do that clockwise motion you can't even see the club it's moving so quick with just my wrist but in order to have that clockwise axiom motion i have to wind it up just like winding up a clock you got to wind it up this way load up that wrist and then unwind it like i showed you in the release video so to feel that it's this motion and so now if i do it with this little short club so it's easy to see i'm going to start going back i'm going to start hinging and i'm going to start rotating and as long as i keep my arm in the right position the club's going to be square at the top versus shut if i just went back with a pure hinge so that's a pure hinge and you can see the leading edge is kind of looking up at the sky we know we need to have that club more squared up the feeling for this is drawing that letter j that motion is what gets the club and it's not even necessarily a full j because what's that going to do at the top of your swing so if i do a full j i'm gonna get a little cross the line right freddy couples jake knapp many many great players have that motion it's a very powerful motion because you just have that much more wrist to unwind in the downswing so if i give it fully like this not a bad thing if you understand how to release it then you can swing as long and across the line as you want because all you're really doing is giving the wrist more load and more energy to release in the downswing so if you draw a full j hinge and rotate that's going to get me across the line a little bit but as long as i unwind it in the exact same way it doesn't matter it just gives me more time to accelerate the club so when you look at it if you want to be on plane you're just going to make the bottom half of the j so it goes here and then it's kind of stopped it doesn't loop back around if you want to hit it monster distances and you see how far you can hit it you're going to get a little long across the line little flying elbow the whole trick to this if you're here it's perfectly fine you just have to unwind with that axiom motion like i showed you in the release video if i do that and i get really long again this would be hard for me to do with my lead arm up here but if i got that far across and i begin throwing it like i showed in the release video i'm going to have all the speed in the world so now when we take a club a full length club and go back how is this really working so i we know we want to draw this j with the wrist that feeling is what we're looking for and then we're going to literally just unwind that in the downswing but we got to get it loaded up correctly in the backswing first so what you want you want to be careful not to just set your wrists immediately off the ball this is going to create a lot of tension in your form to pick the club up like that and so what's going to happen is you're going to want to release it too early or incorrectly because you got too much tension your wrist will be too tight and you won't have that suppleness to get that snap when i was doing this with my lead hand only my wrist has to be super relaxed and the more relaxed i get it the more relaxed i get my arm the whole thing the more the wrist can snap and the same thing is true in the trail hand where all the speed is coming from me we really want to make sure that that thing is relaxed so as i go back i don't want to start picking the club up and getting a lot of tension in my form i want this thing to be soft and supple at the top so that i can sling it and release it coming down so the trick is as you go back use your whole body pressure shift to get the club some momentum to start back then start the hinge and feel the club swinging up to the top and as i do this you can see it's a nice gradual motion my body's not loading up for power my body's creating momentum for the club head to swing with my wrist it's a totally different concept versus loading up and being really tight with your body all i want is for this club to swing so my wrist can stay supple so as i do this my wrist starts hinging kind of maybe you know halfway through the end of the takeaway or towards the end of the takeaway that's when my wrist starts to naturally hinge because the momentum of the club created by my body movement starts to give some momentum to the club and my wrist naturally wants to hinge as i do that it's also it's going to run out of hinge at some point and that's where we add that little bit of rotation like i talked about in the release video so as i go back in a little bit of rotation now i've got the club on plane my wrist is fully set and loaded and all i have to do is begin releasing that wrist so i'm going to unwind that j so once i've made this motion where i've made the j i'm tracing it back on the way down that is the downswing so when you think of it that way as you're getting to the top and you get a feel for what this j is in the full swing it's easy to feel this here at first where you're just kind of going back and tracing that j and you'll feel this the first time you do this with your wrist just hinge it straight back you'll run out of hinge and let your wrist rotate and let these bones rotate just a little bit that's all you're trying to do and then on the down swing you should feel this should be pretty loaded up you want to go quick and release that wrist on the way down the trick is that's all that really needs to happen your body needs to react to that in a throwing pattern in fact you're trying to really not use your body really at all if you add rotation to this it's going to throw everything off what you're because then you're just going to release it way out here or in a very disjointed way and you're not going to have any synchronization between your body and your wrist you really want your wrists and your hands guiding this motion in the club head feeling that club head set and then let it come down and so now what i'm trying to feel is i want to have that swoosh sound happen at the bottom very relaxed my body is just reacting to that i'm not trying to get hard onto the lead side i'm not trying to rotate in fact i'm trying to just stay back and feel the weight of the club head swinging in that j pattern back and up i feel the rotation hinging rotation that gets the club set and then i'm going to begin not by turning my shoulders not by you know of course my pressure is shifting but it's more shifting as a reaction to this club head going this way it's not me trying to shift my weight independent of my arm motion i think that's something i see a lot where golfers go to the top and they try to move their body first when they're trying to do a throwing pattern and really the body movement is truly a reaction so as i go to the top i'm trying to move that club head and my wrist first but as i do that i'm not going to do this that wouldn't make any sense as i do this and begin to throw and the momentum is going this way it actually drives my hips forward tilts my spine back which guess what drops me right into gdp but i'm not trying to move my arms into gdp i'm trying to move my wrist to move the club head that moves me into gdp so that i can snap my wrist just like on the left hand side once i've got that rotation taken out that uh that the curl part the hook part of the j i'm getting rid of that early and that's what creates that look you see all the time of a lot of tour pros who look like they have the club going back away from the target it's not body motion they're using their wrists so as i feel this and the wrist begins to come through once i get that initial curl of the j taken out it's re-hinging because that's the most powerful way to get the club from this side to this side that's what you want to feel now i'm going to show you a drill how to get this feeling of how to get that rotation into and out of your swing now to get a feel for this motion which is going to be very foreign for most golfers i want you to take the club and have your arm 90 degrees or less bend in the elbow and have your wrists set at the top where you're going to feel the pressure of the club sitting back on that first pressure point like i talked about in original goat code videos now all i want you to do is keep your arm and everything basically the same and begin rotating that club shaft parallel to the ground with your wrists you feel how this motion will keep the club face angle open the whole time so that the leading edge is basically looking for the sky or parallel to the ground this motion is the initial start of the throw from the top of the swing now it's not exactly the same because of the angles but we're going to change that in just a minute but what i want you to do with this i call this the helicopter drill because it's going to go all the way around in just a second like a helicopter blade will this feeling is what you need to feel to start the downswing if your wrist is shut because you just hinged and you didn't add that rotation then this is going to feel very weird and the club face is going to be kind of more vertical let it rotate over let your wrist rotate over with the proper right hand grip and the club face will sit perfectly parallel to the ground as you go back and forth you'll feel that as you continue to rotate and swing that arm really what you're not trying to move your arm you'll feel the momentum of the club head as you create this initial rotation it pulls your arm and shoulder back out in front of your body but now as you get to the end of that extension of your wrist you can't deviate anymore this is what your cue when you need to release it and this is what i want you to feel from this drill initially it's just getting that initial rotation of the wrist that axiom clockwise motion you can see if i was looking at a clock or if i was looking at a clock this way from your perspective my wrist is rotating clockwise and now it's just horizontal to the ground so now as i'm doing this what i want you to feel next is instead of trying to keep that club face open and leading with the hosel let it snap how would it naturally want to move so your wrist your arm elbows wide your wrist is uh in that j position at the top and now what happens to my wrist all i have to do is let that club head tell my wrist what i want it to do there's enough momentum in the club and i'll slow this down so it's easy to see watch how fast my wrist moves over now what's happening here is a huge advancement of the club going from this side of the ball to that side of the ball in just a flash of a second that is where effortless power is really created you need that club head to move as fast as possible which means your body some joints in your body need to move as fast as possible what joints in your body do you have that can move the club head faster than your wrists well you can turn your hips as fast as you want what's that going to do to the club well apparently nothing because i can move my hips as fast as i want the club doesn't have to move at all you're like oh if you had both hands on there it would no hip speed doesn't do anything hip speed if you have fast tips they better be responding to what your club head is doing not your hips trying to drag your club head through you see that a lot in the lpga the lpga players have much faster hips than the men but the men hit it 20 miles they swing 20 miles an hour faster than the women it's not hip speed what about shoulder speed well you can rotate your shoulders really fast but gosh that's a lot of work and it's so much stress on your spine and your body there's a lot of younger tour players who are very fit and athletic and get their shoulders really steep there's i can't even do it it's doing it trying to do it slow not good for us older golfers i guess but that is a way to swing the club but you've got to be very fit very dynamic very athletic and very flexible and have zero back issues because eventually that's going to catch up with you this is really simple all i'm trying to do is get my wrist to snap over as fast as i can and i'm not doing that through muscular force i'm letting the momentum of the club snap my wrist so as you watch from that helicopter drill if you just do it horizontal to the ground you'll get a feel how the wrist wants to snap that's the motion if i was going really slow it's doing exactly what i showed you in the release video rotation hinging you'll see it starts with that rotary motion the clockwise motion of the wrist then it rotates over squares for just a split second and that's what happens in the golf swing in a full released golf swing like mike austin like jack nicholas like tiger woods like nelly corda they really let those wrists really snap through the ball and that's why their swings are so beautiful to watch because they create so much power such a burst of speed with such little effort they're not trying to rotate their bodies through they're trying to throw the club head and so as you get used to this feeling of the wrist snapping over and as i start to move this motion from being horizontal to the ground to more like a swing plane what's going to happen is you're going to see the butt of the club actually go backwards like i was talking about how you would snap a towel with the left hand but the left hand you know it's relatively inert in the golf swing you're not trying to use it when you're throwing all the speeds coming from your trail hand and what you want is the butt of the club in an ideal world to go backwards now of course in the real swing with both hands on the club and there's body motion it won't actually happen if it could that would be the ideal world because that's going to give you the best leverage and the best speed in the swing but as you put it together that's going to move the club head forward or the momentum and everything's going to move the club head forward so you're not going to be able to get the handle backwards when you're doing it one hand only that's exactly what i want you to feel what's going to go faster than this nothing there's nothing you can do to move the club head any faster you can't turn your shoulders any faster than i can snap my wrist it's just never going to happen so if you want effortless power this is the secret this is what it's all about create that j with the hinge and rotation and release it you can do it horizontal to the ground let it snap as you move down to the ground let it snap and see my body if i try and turn i just delay the release i'm wanting it to be wrist and hands and my body is super quiet my body's put under zero stress and you guys know i've always erred on the side of safety because of all my back issues spine issues so now i can really feel i can still create a ton of speed but my body is really just there to support that motion and that's it as you're working on this new feeling of how to use your wrist properly for effortless speed in the swing go out and hit balls with just your trail hand only so get a feel for the club setting and swinging and releasing and letting your body react to that don't try and shift over don't try to tilt don't try to do anything get a feel for that club head swinging back and through and releasing and you'll be able to hit balls just with your trail hand only probably just as far as you would with both hands on there if you're especially if you're not used to letting the club head release this feeling of the wrist snapping and that's truly what you want it to feel like is a snap is what you're looking for and a little another simple little trick to this another secret is to grip the club truly more in your fingers i see all the time with golfers they're with their trail hand and they're really got there it's almost kind of sitting in the palm or high up in the fingers the more that you sit it in the cradle of the fingers this part of the fingers the more leverage it gives you against the shaft with your wrist think about it if my hand is like this like grip the club in your palm and try to use your wrist for leverage kind of have it going up your lifeline there in the middle of your palm you're going to feel there's not a lot of leverage now grip it way down on your fingertips and feel how much more leverage you get leverage is all about being as far away from the fulcrum as you can so if i can if my if the fulcrum is here where my wrist is hinging getting the club shaft far away from that point is what i want if the more i hold it in here there's no leverage there so then i'm going to have to use my arms and my body and my shoulders for power i want speed speed speed speed that's all i care about i want my fingers and my wrists and my hands to have as much speed as they can because the more speed i get from my wrists the less and less my body has to do and a great way to start feeling this is to grab your impact bag and start getting a feeling for snapping that wrist into the bag with just your trail hand only so you'll see now notice if i was in this position would i not have a flat lead wrist at impact but i'm not trying to pull that arms forward or push them forward and hands forward to get that shaft length instead what i'm doing is trying to unhinge my wrist but because i have also shifted my pressure during this time that's going to have that right wrist just not fully released yet and that's one of the tricks to golf if you look at the longest hitters in the world today they are trying to get their wrist fully released before they hit the ball now why would they do that because they're wanting maximum speed but i'm not a long drive you know contestant i'm trying to play really good golf and maintain a really good plus handicap and so i want more control over the ball so i'm going to take i'm going to sacrifice a little bit of speed because until i fully release my wrists and shaft there's speed left in the table on the table for me but what i want is some shaft lean to be able to compress the ball flight it down so i can my game will transfer over from wherever i'm playing to a windy course if you're hitting the ball super super high on every shot and you can't de-loft it because you're not moving correctly then you're going to have a really hard time playing at different golf courses but once you have the feeling of throwing that club head and then your spine falling back what does that do it gives me shaft lean and that also pivots my hips i'm not trying to pivot my hips that's another thing that we i see all the time golfers like i know i didn't get my hips open so they start trying to twist their hips the hip rotation the real hip rotation where you see somebody get their hips open at impact where you can see both butt cheeks like you see in most tour pros happens in this a flash of an eye most of it's square for most of the swing or as they start down they kind of get down here and the hips are square and then right as you get back as i'm moving back in order to release that wrist that is when my hips actually snap open that's not something you can possibly think about you will never time it correctly so don't do it don't try and turn your hips try and throw the club head with your wrist and you'll find that if your lower body's relaxed your lead leg's going to snap straight but not in a painful way or a detrimental way to your body it's relaxed and so it's just going to go straight as my body goes back we're listening to this club head which is pulling me back this way and that's going to give me shaffling if you're like this at impact with your headway in front of the ball it's impossible to have proper shaffling you can hit it off the toe a lot because you're going to rotate too much and so on so just get your body feeling like i talked about earlier in the goat code videos it's going to move a little bit horizontal or lateral is what you're going to feel but what you're really paying attention to is that motion of the club head and that and with the wrist is what's going to get all these proper impact positions but if you practice with an impact bag you'll be able to stop it and see and at first another little trick to this is start if you're not used to using this trail hand the way that i've described here grip it with all four fingers on the club and do a reverse overlap if you're somebody who you know tends to rotate your shoulders a lot through the ball and you find yourself falling off balance all the time reverse overlap at first so that you take the lead hand out of the equation a little bit more and you put your trail hand a little bit more in control and then you'll be able to feel that throwing and rotation and release just like when you don't have the lead hand on there because at first once you go to interlock or overlap or whichever group you want then it's going to feel a little bit different so we want to keep that feeling the same like we did when we're doing our helicopter drill drawing that j and then as we go back i'm going to feel that wrist fully set and then i'm going to throw it into the bag my body's just bracing up i'm trying unwind that hook of the j and re-hinge and unhinge on the way through if you get a feeling for this this is the simplest fastest way to move that golf club it doesn't require any phenomenal athleticism like a big body rotation golf swing does it just requires you learn how to draw a j with your trail hand