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Right Elbow Pit in Golf Backswing
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Do you struggle, like most golfers, with a flying right elbow at the top of the backswing? From this position, you have to make some aggressive moves with the arms to get the elbow back in front of the body at impact or make other compensations. Learning how to set up correctly with the trailing arm elbow in the right position at address and how it most rotate properly going back will teach you how to avoid a takeaway that is too flat, inside and around and deep top of the swing position.
- Incorrect elbow rotation can leave the club deep and flat
- Keep the right elbow pit pointed away from you
- Halfway back, it should point straight up
- Without proper rotation, your right arm bends too soon and gets stuck behind you
The most common swing fault that I see on the takeaway and during the entire backswing is something that most golfers have seen on the website, but they don't stick with it enough or pay close enough attention to it, but it's extremely important that you do.
So I'm going to put a specific video just talking about the right elbow during the backswing.
That seems kind of minute, but it's a hugely important detail, and so I'm going to walk you through what it does during the backswing or what it shouldn't do and what most golfers typically do.
So that being said, what most people do in a dress is this pit of the right elbow, this crease in your elbow, is typically internally rotated, so that's just rotated from your perspective if you're a right-handed golfer counterclockwise, and what happens is that puts the elbow itself pointing away from you, away from the target line, out away, rather than this would be my elbow pointing back at my body, this would be pointing 90 degrees to my body, and because your elbow, the way it's designed, only bends in one plane, when you go back, if your elbow is already pointed back here, so I'll do it from down the line, so this is pointed at me, this is externally rotated where it would be in neutral, and this is internally rotated.
As I start my swing, my elbow can only bend in this direction, so of course, immediately as soon as I start doing that, my arm starts getting stuck back behind me, and so now all of a sudden, I've got all these things that we're working to get out of our golf swing, the club's deep and flat, by the time I get to the top, my right elbow's way back behind me, and now I'm stuck coming down and all the big problems that we see all the time.
It all starts from a dress.
If your arm is internally rotated so that the elbow is bent so it can only move, or rotate and it can only bend in this plane, it has no choice but to go behind you.
So, one of the things that I discuss a lot in the clinic as a central theme is that your right arm is the governor of width, it is the dictator of width, and if it is allowed to bend like this, it's going to get really narrow, you're going to have a very narrow swing, then you're going to get the club deep and stuck.
So, what you've got to do is have this guy in neutral, so if you're standing in neutral with good posture, your elbow pit is going to point out away from you.
So, now as you bring yourself into a dress, it will rotate it in a little bit, but it's really important to try and keep it out away from you, so that when you go back, you want to always keep it pointing away from your body.
Halfway back, it's going to be pointing at the sky, so let's take a look at that.
So as I go back, my elbow pit is now away from me, and as I start rotating back, now notice that my elbow is now pointing more down the target line.
And most golfers, I see it's pointed like this, which is pointing perpendicular to the target line instead of down the target line.
The reason is that I want to do this is, again, I don't want it bending back here behind me, so as I rotate back, my arm is now still in front of my body, and as I keep turning, now because it's in a position where it can bend up, the club comes up on plane rather than going behind me, and then I've got to do something crazy to try and get it up.
So rotate back, it's pointed out away from me, halfway back.
As I keep turning, now it just bends right up.
This elbow controls all of that, so if you're starting out like this, the club's going to easily go back this way.
Your right arm's going to fold too early, and now we're really deep.
You want to keep that right arm straight and externally rotated as long as humanly possible, and then as I keep going from there, it just bends up.
So that is a critical piece that I think is extremely overlooked.
For a lot of people, they have really bad posture, their shoulder blades are protracted, and so their arms naturally want to internally rotate, and now we've got all of these issues where the arms are moving all over the place and we're disconnected from our core.
So pay very, very close attention to what that elbow's doing at setup.
Make sure it's pointing out away from you, and then as you keep going, it'll rotate a little bit more.
Remember, we know it's a little bit of external rotation in this upper arm, your humerus bone, so that that sets the club on plane.
But if you just focus on keeping the elbow out away from you, and then as you go halfway back, Make sure it's pointing more down the target line and straight up at the sky, rather than down at the ground or toward the perpendicular to your target line.
And that will allow your arm to be swinging up rather than behind you and make your swing dramatically simpler.
So just focus on address, keep it there going back, and your club will come up on plane a lot easier.
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