Torque to Trigger the Golf Swing
Ever wondered how great ball strikers trigger their golf swing? It's not what you think!
If you're struggling with trail arm lift, your upper body leading too early, your lower body being out of sequence, or just overall not understanding how to start the swing, this simple micro drill will help you understand how to create not just power and efficiency in your swing, but how to trigger everything from the ground up.
You've heard from Jack Nicklaus and every other great ball striker that the swing starts from the ground up, but most golfers don't really know what that means, and that's because it's completely counterintuitive.
But what you're going to learn right now, it's a very simple feeling, but you have to understand what it feels like.
In order to get the proper load and to get everything to start to happen correctly, naturally after this.
So the trick is how you load your trail leg, so for right -handed golfers, your right leg is your trail leg.
And the whole key to this is starting with torque.
The golf swing is rotational in nature, and rotation requires torque in order to generate power, and so the the whole trick to this is taking your trail foot.
So for a right -handed golfer, you're going to feel like you're generating torque or a twisting motion into the ground counterclockwise.
So that will be toward the target that you're trying to twist your foot like this.
If I was on ice, my foot would slide like this, but because I have grip, my foot's not going to move.
But the feeling when you do this correctly starts to create a spiraling motion, Loading the fascia literally from your feet all the way up through your body.
And it will turn your rib cage and chest for you, which will move your arms and hands and club for you.
And that's how you keep your arms passive instead of feeling like you're muscling the swing.
So the first thing I want you to do without a club, just kind of put your arms across your chest and feel yourself twist your foot into the ground.
Now you can see, as I'm doing this, that my foot's just moving a little bit right now.
Now.
This, in the real swing, happens very, very fast.
But when you're going slow, I want you to concentrate on twisting your foot into the ground and letting your body respond to that motion.
You can see, watch what happens.
If I just stand here and I twist my foot into the ground, I get myself over my trail foot just a little, so I have more pressure on there so I can push down into the ground to grip.
And now you'll see that my leg and my pelvis are moving so that my pelvis is loading into my trail hip and watch what happens to my chest.
I'm literally not turning my chest at all.
I'm twisting my trail foot into the ground, and that is what's moving my chest.
So what you'll find is that most of the time when you start to trail arm lift and goatee's telling you that you're lifting, you're shrugging your shoulder, picking the club with your wrist, watch what happens to my pelvis from down the line as I start to lift the club up.
And this is where Goatee's seeing that you're starting to early extend and your hips actually moving forward into the ball.
But watch what happens when I twist my trail foot into the ground, where did my hip go?
It went back like all elite players do.
That is not because I'm just trying to stick my rear out, it's literally because I'm creating torque.
And as the body begins to spiral and wind up from the ground from my feet, that is what's allowing my hip to move deep.
So when Goatee's telling you you're not getting enough depth, you're not getting into this trail hip enough because you've got to get weight over here, pressure over here.
And then as you begin to twist from the ground, that drives the hip back and it makes tons of room for your chest.
But you'll see if I started to lift, my hips naturally start to move forward closer to the ball.
And that's a death move in the swing.
So what you want to feel is that you're twisting that foot into the ground.
You're going to feel your groin, inner thigh start to engage.
Your your leg, your pelvis is going to kind of crease, like you're going to crease your pant leg and into your trail thigh.
And then now what you'll see is that my chest is deep.
It's turned.
I've maintained my posture.
My hips gotten deep and I'm starting to feel coil and pressure and load around this trail leg.
Now, as you start doing this faster, this motion is not something that you're just going to keep continuing to twist that trail foot into the ground.
This is more of a burst because at speed, what happens is as I start doing this, I've got to start preparing to unload the other way, which we'll talk about in just a second.
But at first going slow will help you get the feeling of the hip going deep, my pressure going further back into my heel as I twist that foot into the ground, helping me maintain my posture.
And now I feel a lot of load in my hip now, as you get comfortable with this going slow and this hip feeling deep.
You're creasing your pant leg, your knees extending, going back, you're feeling a lot more load in your trail hip, probably than you ever have before.
Especially if you're used to picking up the club or starting with your arms and shoulders, all of these things cause the exact opposite motion in your foot.
So, for example, if I was just to start my swing with my just my chest and not start from the ground up.
You can actually see my foot wanting to kind of roll to the outside, and it's actually rotating clockwise for me.
And so now, instead of creating torque and torsional resistance between my upper and lower halves, what I have is everything's just kind of sloppy and loose.
And then I have to push to try to push any power into the swing, we never want to push in the swing.
So instead, as I'm loading up this way, that's turning me, and now, from here, as I start to go the other way.
That's where you see this start to snap, and your foot does switch from this counterclockwise motion to then clockwise, but this happens very, very fast in the real swing, but the key is first starting to learn to initiate that swing with that counterclockwise motion for right-handed golfers.
Get loaded up into it.
And then as you start feeling really comfortable, start feeling how.
That's going to snap up onto your toes and drive that knee forward, and this will get your swing started off on the right foot.
Michael
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Alex Francis Ver
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Tom
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Tom
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Alex
Chuck
Kip
Chuck