Core Activation - Punching Bag Power
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To truly get a feel for how to activate your core and coordinate the firing the of the trail side for power, a heavy bag is the best and most fun way to train!
Once you've gone through some of the other exercises to get you to start to activate your core, learning how to apply some real power to it is where the fun stuff begins.
And that's really what you want to be able to feel in your golf swing is that you can put everything you've got into a trail side pattern using the trail side of your body.
And you're not going to hit it wild, you're going to just hit it straighter the more effort you put into it, which is very different than a lead side pattern, which is more of a relaxed, you've got to let things unfold.
Here, you get to kind of make things happen.
And that's what's fun about this trail side pattern.
And using a punching bag, a heavy bag is a very helpful tool for this.
Now you don't have to have a heavy bag.
You can just mimic this movement in the air, But this gives you a real sense of being connected to your core and using your core for power in the golf swing.
And so what you want to feel is the same motion that we were doing in the chair and medicine ball drills as your foot is sliding back, As the glute is engaging to drive that foot back to give you some resistance for your core to drive in, to drive this trail arm and hand into the ball.
When you use a heavy bag, you start to get a real sense of, if you're just one of those people who just tries to use all arms and no core, you're going to punch like this.
Tiger Woods described his downswing feeling as feeling like he's getting ready to deliver an uppercut blow.
That's a great sensation of feeling like you're down in that GDP position, the goat delivery position, your arms locked in, connected to your core, and then you can drive with your core, drive that arm into the golf ball as hard as you want.
With a heavy bag, you get the feeling and the resistance of that.
So what I'm going to show you first, how most people typically punch is they use their arm, either their arm exclusively.
And so you see my lower body static.
The golf swing is a whole body activation movement.
Everything is working hundreds of muscles.
And that's why the fascia is so important, because if you're just trying to use arm musculature alone, you're never going to get any power.
It's your whole body.
So this, that's not going to hurt anything.
It's not going to deliver any power to the ball.
And if I tried to use just my shoulders, then you're going to more likely to swing over the top.
So what you really want to do is move from your core and start getting a feeling for rotating your core and your feet, those four specters.
So if I'm going to drive into the bag, my foot, my lead foot is going to be pushing away from the bag.
That's going to give me the resistance to drive hard with this trail side and using my core to drive my arm into the body.
So what I like to do when I work out is I do left and right to balance it out, but I rotate back.
I get myself kind of like a nice stable base, but I rotate back with my core and then drive through.
You see, my arm is still connected.
As I punch the bag, I'm not trying to hit it with my arm musculature alone.
I'm getting a feeling of driving through, using my core to hit the bag and keeping my arm nice and connected to my body.
If you're like this, where your arm is pronated or internally rotated, the opposite of the goat delivery position, you're not going to feel very connected.
You're going to feel very disconnected.
And it's just all arm and shoulder musculature alone.
I want you to get that arm down in like Tiger was describing it.
You can even do kind of more of an uppercut motion.
That would be a more accurate way of depicting what the golf swing really kind of is.
As I load back, so I'm going to go back and then drive my core into the bag.
My arm's still in that GDP position, still connected, but it's a very powerful explosive and whole body movement.
Again, just like in the golf swing, part of the whole point of the backswing is not just to get the club in a certain position, but it's to load the fascia of the body.
It's to load these connective tissues that are going to then want to rebound and spring everything back very quickly.
And it's free energy.
You don't have to muscle it when you load correctly.
And so when I'm doing this with the impact bag, I will actually make a whole quick full upper torso turn.
I'm using my core to drive my arm back and I'm going to do it quickly.
And then I'm going to let all that energy explode back into the bag.
So I'm going to go back and then drive through.
Let's take a quick look at this so you can see how this motion, while it seems like it wouldn't relate to the golf swing, you'll be very surprised.
It's very, very similar.
And you can see a lot of the traits of powerful golf swings revealed in a punch.
So one, as I'm loading up here, notice that my head is getting lower and lower and lower.
And then I kind of squat down.
I've got a lot of flexion in my right knee.
So I'm getting ready to drive up really hard.
And then you're going to see watch as I rotate.
You're going to see a lot of vertical force.
So now I'm starting to go back up.
My legs are posting up.
And then you're also going to see my right foot slide back behind me.
So as I unweight that foot, if we put a little line on there, you can see this is the exact same motion.
See how the foot slides back away? As I rotate, that right glute and hamstring are actually straightening and pulling back.
And you'll see now a level belt line, just like you'll see in the golf swing.
So these motions, all athletic motion, when it's done properly, the human body moves most efficiently in one simple way.
And it's all core driven.
So as you're working on these motions, you can see my left leg post up.
I'm rotating into that hip.
My core is driving through.
And as I mentioned, my foot is sliding back while the left foot is posting up there.
This is the same motion.
Very, very similar to what you're going to have in the golf swing.
The biggest difference, of course, is that we're going to use our wrist to add the bulk of the speed.
But the power delivery mechanism from the body is exactly the same, are very, very similar to what you would make in a boxing motion, throwing medicine balls, sitting in your chair during those rotation drills.
It's all the same motion.
That will give you the feeling of what a golf swing truly is.
Because as I'm coming down and I'm getting into that GDP position, my arm is nice and connected to my core.
And then as I drive to explode and release that club, my trail foot is sliding back while this one is pushing away.
And that helps me snap the wrist even more.
So for those of you who want to get that next level feeling, and really feel how much power you can drive into the golf ball, a heavy bag be one of your favorite drills you'll ever do.
Eric
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Alex
user46967
Nick
Chuck