GOAT Code Power Program - Step 5 - Kettlebell

Learning how to feel, engage and fire your posterior chain and core in the golf swing is KEY to becoming a high level player. The movements in this program will teach you how to engage these muscles and fire them explosively exactly how you swing the club using The GOAT Code

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The importance of the posterior chain for producing power and a correct kinematic sequence in the golf swing cannot be overstated.

It is extremely important.

And the movements that you do are not really conventional to everyday life.

The things you're going to learn how to do to extend this left hip and straighten this leg and do it very quickly are not things that we do very often.

So having exercises that teach you how to do this explosively is very, very helpful and strengthening these muscles, but also just teaching how to fire them and engage them again.

So I'm going to go through a full kettlebell series of workouts that I do because I've had a lot of injuries on my left hip.

And so for me to use these muscles is not very natural for me because I just tend to try and avoid it for years because of pain.

So I had to go through a full series of things and I found that.

Kettlebells were by far my favorite exercise in getting results.

Because they allow you to do things in a very specific, dynamic way that's more realistic to conventional lifting gym, just kind of doing things in one plane.

As you go through this series, you're going to see a lot of multi-planar exercises that we're going to go through.

You do not have to have kettlebells for this.

You can do it with no weight.

And if you're new to working out or, you know, what have you again, I'm not a fitness trainer, you know, talk to a, you know, a doctor or talk to a personal trainer, somebody who's certified in this stuff.

This is just what I do personally to help me strengthen these muscles that I feel using in my golf swing to swing the way that I do.

Using the GOAT code.

So the first one, we're going to start out really slow to kind of warm up.

And then we're going to get into ballistic movements.

The first one you can do without a weight, you can do with a barbell, you can do it just normal.

I'm going to do it with a kettlebell because I'm going to do all of these with a kettlebell.

Again, you can do it with, you'll understand you don't have to do it with a kettlebell, but the first thing I want you to do, stand up nice and tall, good posture.

And then I want you to learn how to hinge from the hip.

If you're used to kind of doing this in everyday life and just letting your spine roll forward, I want you to keep your spine nice and neutral and hinge from your hip socket so that your hips, as you do this, go back.

Same thing is going to happen in the downswing as you're extending that, driving that left hip back, that lead hip back.

Keep your back nice and neutral, your spine neutral and hinge forward a little flex in the knees.

And you should feel a lot of stretching in your hamstrings.

Again, if you're very tight or very, usually when you're very tight, especially in your hamstrings, it often means they're very weak.

And so if you can't bend down more than this without, you know, rounding your spine, this is a very good indication that you need to do this every single day.

And it's called a good morning exercise.

If you hold a barbell over your back and do the same thing, but this movement is so important for starting to get awareness of your hamstrings and your glutes and your back, all of this working to start to fire in the downswing.

And again, we're doing it very slow at first and you can do it with or without weight, like I said, but just doing three sets of 10.

And as you're doing this, it's very important.

Focus on pulling up with the muscles you feel stretch.

Don't just bend your knees and stand up.

That's going to use your quads.

Keep, you want to keep your glutes and hamstrings engaged.

So you should feel all of this stretch on the backside of your body and then extend up.

Do this again, like I said, slowly at first.

And as you get more comfortable, you can start doing it more quickly.

As long as you have good form and posture, you can keep working on feeling this happening much more quickly because that's how it happens in the golf swing.

And that's your first exercise.

Once your body is nice and warm from doing these exercises, doing the extension, the good morning, we're going to start turning this into a ballistic movement.

This is a classic kettlebell swing.

It is by far one of my favorite exercises.

There's a couple of simple basic things that you got to do with this, but what you're really trying to understand is you're not using your arms.

You're not using your shoulders.

You're not trying to pick the kettlebell up.

It's it.

This is where one of the benefits of having a weight is really, really helpful.

This is only a 20 pound kettlebell, but it's enough to keep you from trying to lift this up with your arms.

And so you want to feel that you're thrusting it up by extending, moving your hips into extension, moving your back into extension and firing from your glutes and hamstrings and low back, not from rounding your shoulders and then trying to pick it up with your arms.

So the movement is really, really basic.

You're just going to hold it.

And there's two, you know, this is kind of the conventional way of holding it with your hands out like this.

I actually do it like this because this is actually how I hold my arms in the golf swing, right?

We want our elbow pits out.

So you can do it either way, but what you're going to do is let the kettlebell swing with your hips, not trying to pick the club, the kettlebell up, not trying to use your shoulders or arms.

I'm going to hinge forward.

It's like I did in the good morning and then thrust my hips forward to swing the kettlebell.

So as it goes to the top, it's just floating.

I'm not holding it up here.

I'm just letting it fall.

I'm letting my hips thrust my arms up, thrust the kettlebell up, and then it's just falling back and forth.

And now the trick to this, to really get the maximum out of it, again, you need to be in some reasonable shape to do this with a kettlebell.

If you can't, if you're not, you know, you don't work out regularly, just get the feeling of your arms swinging freely and using your hips quickly because that's really what you want to get out of this.

The faster you can do this with your hips, the faster you can pull with your hamstrings and your glutes to fire them, to move you into extension, the more this translates over to the golf swing.

Because in the swing, as I showed in the video on the goat whip, that lead leg is snapping back very, very fast.

From the time the club's here to here, it's going to full extension.

And so we want to get that same feeling when we're doing it with load, with weight.

So here, and then I'm squeezing my glutes.

The more I squeeze my glutes, the more my hips go forward, and the higher the kettlebell will go.

So, and you also want to feel that you're not trying to lower this in a controlled fashion.

It needs to swing and drop.

Again, you're not trying to muscle it with your arms and shoulders.

You want it to move very quickly because then the muscles in the posterior chain have to engage in an eccentric fashion to resist that.

And this, again, is what's happening in the golf swing.

We have these acceleration and deceleration phases in the golf swing that happen really, really quick, rapid on and off.

And when you're doing it with the kettlebell, as it's dropping, my muscles then have to control this in my back, my glutes and hamstrings, to keep this weight from falling to the floor.

So I'm having to decelerate it, keep my good form, glutes, hamstrings, back engaged, and then thrusting forward again.

Again, three sets of 10 will get your body nice and primed to get the feeling of your glutes and hamstrings really firing in the golf swing.

This next exercise is going to take a little bit of coordination and thought to really do it properly to get the most benefit.

But once you get the feel of it, nothing will teach you how to move your core and your hips together the same way and powerfully that you do in the golf swing more than this exercise.

So it's very, very valuable if you take the time to really pay attention to what you're doing.

I'm going to start showing you from the side view here, because I want you to understand where your knee should be over your ankle.

So you're going to take a little bit of a staggered stance like this.

So obviously, as I set my right foot back, my hips are going to be rotated about 45 degrees open, give or take a little bit.

So I'm going to open up my left hip while this one goes into internal rotation.

And I want you to keep your knee from ever going out past your ankle.

So your knee is going to pretty much stay right over your ankle the whole time.

It's going to move back a little bit, but we don't want it going forward.

And the reason is we're trying to train this posterior chain to fire in the golf swing.

And because most people don't have a good sensation or awareness of this, they tend to overpower with all these front side pushing muscles.

So what you're going to do, knees going to stay here, squat down a little bit.

You're going to hold the kettlebell with just one hand.

And what I want you to do is swing the kettlebell without using your arms.

So that's going to seem strange at first.

But what you're going to see is that as I start to engage, my glutes and hamstrings on this lead side is pulling my leg into extension to straighten my leg, while this hip is pushing forward.

So I'm going from open to closed with my hips are open to square.

And you'll see this motion is very close to what's happening in the golf swing, but we're only working in one plane.

So your core, because your core is not turning right now that much, it's going to turn a little bit, but this motion you can see is going to swing my arm.

This is what you want to feel in the swing as you're going to create power.

This side's pushing while this side's pulling and that's what snaps your hips into position and moves them very quickly.

So as you add resistance to this, you can do it without weight at first.

So don't try to use your arm to like swing this thing around.

Use your core and you'll have some momentum and start getting the coordination of timing this with your kettlebell swing.

So I'm using my glutes and hamstrings.

Right now my glutes are fully engaged right there as I thrust into extension and that's what's moving the kettlebell.

Notice as I'm doing this from face on my shoulders and arms aren't turning all over the place.

I'm trying to stay nice and centered.

So everything is moving in what feels like a straight line.

The kettlebell's not going around in a circle.

I'm using my hips core to thrust the kettlebell forward.

And you do this again, three sets of 10.

You should feel this lead glute really, really tired at the end of that set.

This next kettlebell exercise is going to strengthen your entire core and posterior chain at the same time.

It's also going to teach you how to start realizing how much mobility you have in your spine or perhaps you don't.

And this will help you start to regain some of that moment mobility back.

So what it is you're going to sit in like a horse stance.

You're going to squat down and you're going to hold this position.

So your glutes and hamstrings are going to be firing this whole time.

Quads are going to be firing because you're holding yourself in the squatted position.

From here, you're going to your lead arm, whatever arms you're not working is going to, you obviously can do all these exercises on both sides of the body, but one arm is going to hang down.

You're going to take the kettlebell up into extension.

Now, obviously I can't turn my head, but you want to be able to turn your head to the sky.

As you do this, you're going to feel.

So the first thing you do is kind of help heave the kettlebell up again.

Your core has to be engaged with this.

You've got to have a strong core.

So your core is always firing as you're doing this to protect your back.

So you swing it up a little bit and then twist and extend looking up to the sky and hold that position.

Come back down, swing it back up, twist and extend.

Three sets of 10 and you're going to feel your glutes, hamstrings, shoulders, core, everything on fire.

By now, your body should be pretty warmed up and we're going to get into some more advanced exercises.

Again, consult your doctor, talk to a fitness trainer before you begin doing any of these exercises because these are moving into more advanced exercises.

You can start off really, really small and light with this next one, but this next one is very, very important to really keep your core engaged the whole time to protect your back.

But your back is designed to move in all sorts of ways.

It's designed to twist and turn and bend.

And we don't ever, a lot of times we kind of focus on just keeping our back rigid and straight, but your spine is not designed to do that all the time.

It's designed to move throughout this crazy range of motion.

It's really what makes humans really unique and how we're able to move our body is the design orientation of our spine.

So this next exercise is going to seem a little aggressive for some of you who are trying to like always hold our back really stiff and tight, but your spine is designed to do this.

So, and obviously this motion is extremely important in the golf swing.

So what you're going to do is hold a kettlebell with both hands like this, get into, you know, your good morning posture where your, your knees are slightly bent.

So you're stretching the hamstring a little bit more back, nice and flat core engaged, pat yourself in the belly to really engage that core, keep your shoulders nice and back.

I do this with a reverse grip, like I talked about earlier, and then swing it back and forth.

Now, as you start doing this, if you start off really small, and again, you can do this with no weight, just start waking up your body, getting a feel for your spine, moving into side bend and extension, side bend and extension.

As you start making this movement bigger, your hips are going to start to go like this.

So as you go back, this leg is going to straighten, this leg is going to bend.

And then as you come through, this leg is going to straighten and this one's going to bend exactly how it happens in the golf swing.

So as I swing this, you'll see the more I try to move from my core, my hips and my core here, instead of just trying to move from my, I can just move from my arms and shoulders.

My legs don't really move much at all.

That's not what we're trying to do.

We're trying to move from our core.

And you'll see that my hips have got to move back open and open this way.

And that's what's getting my feeling of relating this to the golf swing, because as I come through, I'm being aggressive with snapping that lead leg straight, going this way, snapping it straight.

The faster I can do this, the faster I can move in the swing.

So this is really the key of getting this kettlebell to swing is I'm really moving from here and here, not from up here at all.

My shoulders and arms are just being swung by the big muscles in my back, core, glutes, hamstrings.

Do this fast.

And as you get stronger with this, you can do it with more weight, but you want to start feeling how, as you're coming through in the downswing, that that lead leg snaps straight.

You do that.

I like to do this.

I do it with a little bit heavier weight, but I'll try to do it for 20 or 30 seconds straight.

Just go.

I don't really do it with reps.

I kind of count my time 20 or 30 seconds and you'll be feeling it.

This next exercise is extremely important that you are advanced enough in your training that you know how to engage your core and how to move yourself.

If you're not, hire a trainer to teach you how to do this.

It's super, super important for not only your back safety, but to understand how to protect your body in the golf swing and how to engage the right muscles because this movement is very advanced.

It's not something that you should do if you don't really know what you're doing.

If you do, try do it with no weight at first.

Start with like the lightest weight possible or no weight at all and get a feel for this.

I'm going to do it with weight.

I'm going to show you how this movement works.

I call it around the world and it is taking your spine through a full range of motion basically that is required in the golf swing.

Your golf swing is going, your spine is going through all sorts of near full range of motion, side bend, extension, back to flexion, side bend, extension throughout the swing and it's happening in thousands of a second.

It's all happening so fast.

To train for that is very unusual because there's not a lot of exercises in the gym when we do squats or bench press.

They're all moving in one plane, but the golf swing is happening in three dimensions and so this next exercise will help you feel that.

It's very ballistic and it's very advanced.

Again, hire a trainer if you're not experienced and working out to understand how to do this correctly.

Again, I'm going to take my light kettlebell here and I'm going to use my core to swing this around.

I'm not using my arms and shoulders.

Of course, they're involved to the minimum degree possible.

I'm trying to emanate all my movement from here, my belly, my core, deep spinal muscles, glutes, hamstrings, and I'm going to swing this kettlebell and let my spine move through a full range of motion.

I'll do this from both angles so you can see to get my spine to do the same things it's going to do in the golf swing, but I'm doing it under load to help strengthen these muscles and engage them and learn how to fire them.

So I'm going to go around the world like this, stop it that way, around the world like this.

I'm going full range of motion, extension.

So I'm going this way, side bend, side bend, extension, side bend, flexion, around and around.

And so I'm using my body, my spine, my core to move this kettlebell around.

I am not trying to muscle it with my arms or shoulders or hands at all.

My arms, shoulders and hands are pretty relaxed.

If I grip strength, I'm having to hold on to this kettlebell, of course, but the rest of my body is working, not my arms and shoulders.

I can pretty much go to the top and my arms would just drop if I didn't have the momentum that my core generated.

Moving through this full range of motion to move the kettlebell.

I can feel my glutes, my hamstrings, everything's firing as I'm going through this exercise.

If you go through this simple routine every day, your body will start to transform and you'll start to feel how to move your hips, how to move your core, how to do everything powerfully and quickly, just like you learned in the Goat Code.