Why Your Lead Leg Doesn't Straighten at Impact
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all right how's how's it going well greetings from finland finland huh i yeah did you far away sorry yeah i did you watch f1 today did you watch valtteri race uh sorry what do you mean oh the f formula one race today valtteri oh oh oh i haven't watched that like many many many many years yeah i gotcha gotcha okay well tell me about your game what's going on how can i help yeah so i've been with uh craig for two years and i've been with you for three years and uh craig has done wonderful job with me but uh i'm still kind of stuck uh i don't know if you read my notes that uh uh my uh impact position isn't the desired one like uh if i if i just show you that i know i should be like this maybe but if i mimic my mistake it's like this yeah and craig can't stand this position okay so so if you can help me out then i i save craig's nerves all right well we can we can do that so okay cool looks like you have room to make a swing in there so i can i can record one okay cool let me uh let's go ahead and do that i want to record your swing okay can you see my face on video also um i can see you now when you stand back i may not be able to see so yeah there is uh this is kind of small room so i have to switch places if i if you want to see that down the line i swing right there and if you want to see the face on i have to be here okay yeah that's fine there's no problem okay okay which one do you want to see first uh let's just do down the line first and then we'll do face okay cool okay i have this phone calls and uh they kind of fly everywhere so if i lose this i just have to do practice weeks but yeah okay no problem okay okay all right okay actually i no that's good because i have um i can see both cameras that you have set up so i got both views there so that's perfect let's take a look okay let me share my screen okay posture looks great club goes a little inside but not bad your right leg's a little little rigid in the back swing which is going to make it so that you're going to want to start with the upper body a little bit which looks like that's what happens yeah actually this is not going to be that big of a deal so okay when you go back when you look at face on you don't quite make as big of a turn as you could and not because of a flexibility thing it's because of this right leg this right leg is just kind of like locked and as soon as we free that up it's going to help you make a little bit a little bit more rotation but it's also going to help you use it on the down swing because this is what you're what you're experiencing when you can't get that left leg to post up like yeah i can't do it i can't do that yeah yeah exactly well the right leg helps with that so okay what we're going to do is because right now this right leg just isn't working it's not helping you at all okay but the rest of the stuff is really good so let me let me explain to you what we got to do this is this is actually not going to be that that hard for you at all okay cool what happens a lot of times when people you know especially if they're working on their the mechanics of their swing and trying to refine stuff it's really kind of human nature to kind of like start restricting ourselves because we're trying to be perfectionistic right we're trying to make everything just right and in your case this leg just kind of is locked and it's frozen and so what you need to do is literally loosen this up a lot and let it move because right now as you go back and i'm going to have you stand up and feel this in just a moment when you go back and if your leg is kind of like a little tense and locked that's as far as i can turn that's a pretty decent turn okay it's not it's not a bad turn but i feel a ton of tension in here yeah and when i have this tension in my leg what i tend to do is use it as a brace to then fire my upper body to start turning oh and that's what happens right now if this is relaxed and i go back now my body is freed up to make a little more turn and this is a lot more loose and supple and now as i start down i can actually use this right leg to point this knee at the target and look what happens to my left leg when i do that yeah it's great it has to right because the right knee when you look at it from up the line so here's where my left knee is now what i'm going to do is i'm going to imagine i'm going to replace my left knee with my right knee i'm going to try to move my right knee to where my left knee is and you'll see so here's where my left knee is yeah that's right it pushes it out of the way right cool so all you really have to do is a relax this a little bit okay so it's not locked okay that allow your hip to go a little bit deeper in the backswing right now when you go back your right knee just doesn't really look like it moves much so you've got a lot of tension in your glute and your quad you may not feel it yet but you will now that i've pointed it out okay and you want to relax that so it's okay for this leg to straighten a little and your hip to go deeper because it's not really straightening because my hips are turning so if i actually put the camera my knee has still got the same flex it had it addressed you just have to look at it from the right angle but it looks like from down the line it's straightening yeah and craig has told me that i i lose the dutch line during the backswing and this is why this is exactly why because if this hip is tight all you're going to do is tip forward yeah i do that yeah exactly so but when when you relax this glute muscle a little bit it can you can move right you can move your hip deeper but if it's tight it can't go anywhere and you just lose your balance right oh this makes so much sense so it's all just tied to this one little thing whoa so all you're going to do is relax this let it turn let it move deep and then use it point it at the target and this left leg will post right up do you do you mean i should like push towards the target or don't you don't want to push off of this glute because that'll cause you to lose your posture right okay so what i want you to think about is the axiom movement of using your foot oh okay i'm really just moving from my right foot but if you look at it if i just tried to take my foot to move my knee my hips move too right yeah that makes sense i didn't try to move my hips i literally just moved my knee with my foot and it makes me look like i moved my hips but i'm not trying to move my hips oh yeah and one frustrating thing has been like uh i i've tried to do the body thrills and and i can pretty much do those but uh but this one thing has been missing it it's always something simple like this right like just this tension in this one spot makes it i mean imagine if you're trying to throw a ball and this leg was locked in place i got yeah it doesn't it doesn't work right it looks goofy exactly so now once you free this up it's all going to fall together so let's get up and feel that okay uh with or without the club uh let's do it with the club for a moment i think you'll probably be able to do it with well let's if not we can we can put the club down but let's okay okay okay so i can swing right here yeah just make a little practice you know a practice swing and just relax feel that right leg loosen up yeah there you go just okay cool and like now from there take that right foot and point that knee at the target more there yeah there you go even more okay you can let your right heel come up a little bit to exaggerate there you go it'll just make it more freed up right now okay that's perfect right there yeah yeah yeah and my left knee is straight exactly it doesn't have a choice it doesn't have a choice cool because what this is doing when you use miko when you when you take this right knee using your foot and you take this right knee and do it this is turning your hips right yeah it is even though i'm just trying to point my knee it's turning my hips if my hips turn it forces my left leg straight okay so yeah there you go exactly whoa simple right yeah golf is very simple i just want you to take a quick look at that because you'll be able to see it right away okay what even just the little movement that you were mimicking there so now if you look up in the look how straight your left knee is here yeah i'd be cool and you can see it's fully extended right yeah and it's it's not you trying to force yourself into this position or creating a lot of tension it's actually just reducing tension and allowing yourself to move and you can see now your hips are wide open and everything's perfect yeah i have i have had that problem that my hips don't open enough and uh yeah exactly like you said i i'm trying to force myself into these positions but during the swing that that's not happening exactly and that's the problem with that you can't make yourself try and do something when when your body's under a lot of load right when there's a lot of forces yeah so that's why the trick is figuring out what movement pattern allows these positions to happen naturally and that's the trick of teaching the swing so so yeah and i and i guess that when my uh right leg is frozen then i i tend to use my arms during the downswing as well you don't have a choice there's nothing else for you to use okay this makes so much sense yeah so so literally it's just this one thing and then you're off to the races again so let's let's try making some swings and just feeling freed up and loosened up with that right leg do you mean like i should like this yeah let it turn just let it move don't even all i want you to do is relax it so let it go wherever it feels like it wants to go right now okay so not restricting uh restricting that exactly exactly you don't need to worry about restricting your hips at all okay okay so let's try this okay pretty decent on the way back and then it'll be tough to think about the downswing but you do want to try to get up on that right big toe and point that knee at the target like yeah there you go yeah okay cool almost one more okay so you're going to see that you're not getting posted up still and this is normal because this is a brand new movement for you yeah yeah okay okay but i want you to be aware of like what it's going to feel like to to exaggerate it how much more you you need to exaggerate the feeling yeah so let's first look at the backswing so let's see so your knee moved there pretty close now when i look at you from face on up here it looks like you you're kind of leaning toward the target with your upper body you're kind of losing some axis tilt okay so we want to address that i'll talk i'll come back to that in just a moment but that makes it harder to kind of move but in general your your lower body is a little bit better but yeah your upper body is too far stacked on the left side so we'll fix that in a moment but a little bit better turn but we're going to make this better still okay you're still kind of hanging on the left side right here yeah that's right so this we need to get more pressure onto that right side in the backswing earlier yeah and then as you come down we just are not quite posted up we got to get that right knee literally trying to replace where the left knee is oh okay yeah and then the next one i told you to focus a little bit more on that let's see how we did you made a better turn that's better cool but not quite there yet so let's talk about these two things first of all at setup if you're a little bit this way i'm going to exaggerate this but if you're kind of leaned this way like you are a little bit at setup it's very hard to get pressure to shift to your trail leg because your upper body all this weight is kind of stacked over on the left side so a little bit of axis tilt and getting a little bit more pressure on this right foot at address will help you with that but also as you go back if you're if you're kind of even just a tiny bit too much on the left side this right leg is always going to move you know the the right hip line is going to move this way in the backswing which is what you did and then it's impossible to use your right leg because you're you don't have any pressure on it like if it's back here and there's no weight on i can't do anything with it right so a little bit of axis tilt to get more pressure on here to start and then as i go back moving into this right leg you can see you're kind of doing this a little bit in the backswing where your hips are moving a little bit away and you want to get into this right side more yeah so then you'll feel that you can really activate that right foot to get those hips open and that's when when you're gonna get your hips open but if you're if you're kind of hanging over here yeah you're never going to turn your hips enough yeah i think that one reason has been uh like like a year ago i i was like this too much and i try to fix it by by almost saying that uh my uh spine is vertical yeah exactly so now you're a little too far that way okay okay and i understand so really what you need to think about is instead of saying okay if i have my spine at exactly six degrees that's where i need to be that's not what you need to think what you need to do is is what what position does my body need to be in for me to be able to use my right leg to be able to open my hips right this is not going to feel very good right no no this isn't going to feel good but somewhere in the middle is going to feel like okay i can use that right foot now that's what i want you to feel all right so let's try that with a little different setup and i want you to be able to feel your right leg a bit more okay so a little bit more access still a little bit more access still yep i want you to feel like you increase the pressure on your right foot at setup by like 20 30 percent okay and now just shake your hips out make them feel nice and loose there yeah there you go relax good good good good you're a little rigid at setup okay there you go now as you go back i want you to put more pressure on your right foot about 80 percent of your pressure is going to go to your right foot in the backswing nice and relaxed now take that right knee use your foot to replace it there you go good good well there you go okay yeah yeah yeah i have never gone to do you feel how getting more into your right side in the backswing helps you in the downswing yeah it does it's better because i would think that using this wouldn't help me to get to the left side better because it's a weird game it you just always do the exact opposite of what you think you should yeah i agree i agree so it's it's really just kind of about creating momentum in the swing right if you think of the golf swing as as kind of like an exaggeration as a pendulum like on on a clock you know it's the in order for the pendulum to swing this way it needs to first swing back this way and then it naturally goes that way because it's got momentum right but if you're trying to start and stay here and then make it go this way well you don't have anything to help you yeah right so by just setting with a little bit more of the pendulum giving it a head start over here it's so much easier to make the pendulum go the other way without you having to force it and that's all that's going on and yeah yeah yeah it's it's uh uh it has been very frustrating to kind of try to force myself into this position and uh when i i don't get to the correct positions i need to use my arms and uh before i play go to play golf we have i have discussed about this with greg uh that i have to go like one hour prior to my round and find find out something that works and it's it's so frustrating it's cool that i i might be finally able to use my body better exactly i mean if this is what's so frustrating about the game there's so many intricacies of it and if you're trying to make yourself move through those intricacies instead of them happening naturally yeah it's it's insanely frustrating because you'll never you'll never ever be able to do it at least not consistently right yeah yeah there has been no consistency in my game ironic thing is if you get out of your own way and start letting yourself move fluidly and freely then it all happens automatically and that's what's frustrating for people like oh he makes it look so easy well yeah but it's because i'm literally getting out of my own way to be able to do that yeah yeah i admire craig's swing that it's so fluent and so it looks so easy when he's showing some drills to me and wow yeah of course you of course you you make it look so easy well craig craig's got a great swing he hits it a mile and he doesn't swing hard to do it you know it's a short compact swing yeah but this is the thing craig is very like you know i've obviously played a lot of golf with craig over the years and before he hits every shot he's literally doing like this he's like trying to get himself so loose he's just like he's barely holding onto the club his hands look like they're barely touching it he's super super loose i i have a lot more tension than he does but but but but the point is that you that's the secret to really i mean you have good mechanics in your swing as good as you can have without letting yourself move properly but it's obvious like you've worked on like you have great posture but now you know at setup you have wonderful posture it's perfect but having perfect posture isn't the secret it's it's having those angles but being able to utilize them by moving fluidly right having perfect angles won't do you any good if you can't move without any rhythm and tempo and smoothness right yeah yeah yeah so so that's what's cool because you guys have already done all this good hard work yeah i'm just the little tiny missing link to make it all fluid and happen naturally but you'll be able to do it now well thank you so so so this is what i would tell you to do one again monitor your setup from face on just to make sure not that you have a specific amount of axis tilt but that that you can feel like i can easily move into this right leg i mean statistically the tour pros are on average 75 to 85 percent of their pressure goes to the right leg by the time that their lead arm is parallel to the ground that's a lot of pressure and if i put you on this force plate that i'm standing on we would have seen the opposite we would have seen your pressure moving to more to your lead side too soon and that was causing all kinds of issues right uh about that axis tilt uh i i think i have i have seen you demonstrating this this kind of drill yeah exactly a good guideline yeah exactly that's like okay as much as you would ever need and you don't have to get like again don't don't worry about getting perfectionistic about it but but use that as like a guide and say well you know if i'm here maybe it's too much but here i feel like i can move into my right side then then you're good okay okay and then again if you think about relaxing this right leg so your hip your hips because this there's a lot of attachments that go into your pelvis a lot of muscles that insert here and and when you create tension there it literally locks this hip socket in place and that's that's why you felt like you couldn't move but as soon as you relax all of these attachment all these muscles here and you feel like you can move into it then all of a sudden it's going to be easy whoa to to go this way and get posted up but that's the the next trick is then just taking your right knee and replacing your left knee with it yeah this if it does that this has to get out of the way and you're going to be posted up whoa this makes so much sense and one other mistake i've been doing it like uh this right leg is uh when i do some slow motion drills it doesn't come up so i'm flat foot dead yeah you've got it i mean the heel can stay low to the ground or down to the ground or whatever i personally do that for a couple reasons um i keep my heel down to most iron shots especially shorter iron shots because it makes it easier for me to slow my hips down which makes it easier for me to hit a draw which is my preferred shot but if you let the heel come up your body's going to get open a little bit more and it's easier to hit a cut so but it you know it doesn't really matter like as long as you're not like this at impact you know yeah it's not going to be a deal a deal breaker it the bigger issue is more is your pelvis moving into the ball which is not moving off your right foot but moving from your right hip if you move if you move from this right glute because it's tense and you push this and then the heels up yeah that's different right but i can have my heel come up and still have my my hips deep if i did this it doesn't really matter right so that's why we talk about that foot is it's more representative of what you see people moving off their right hip which is more common yeah cool makes sense it does it does cool so so yeah when you practice i think obviously you know how to practice so i'm not going to tell you because i can tell you daily i can tell it looks it looks awesome now you've got kind of like the glue to hold all this stuff together and then you guys you know just kind of the mechanics and stuff are great now it's just a matter of you feeling fluid and athletic with it well thank you very much you bet any other questions for me uh uh well if you could check my grip if you have time because uh i i that's that's the one other uh problem that craig keeps yelling at me is that my grip tends to get too strong and i have what your uh creep videos but i think i don't i don't know if i'm stupid or something because i i don't know how to put these fingers and i kind of come across like this uh if you can take your grip and if i can see the whole thing in the camera that will help me yeah perfect it is cool okay so like this so the only thing i look at your right hand is just a little weak you look a lot like hogan there i would strengthen a tiny bit like this yep okay i mean so you could go there or maybe just a little bit more if you wanted to but here's the thing if you're that grip would be like perfect right there okay but the thing about the grip is that a lot of times people even if they have like a perfect grip and they kind of keep cycling into something where it keeps getting stronger or weaker or what have you yeah i have done that it's because of the swing flaws that you haven't corrected and so you're seeing a ball flight issue and you're like well i need to fix the ball flight and you instinctively start adjusting your grip to adjust the club face angle right yeah so you're probably you know when if you if you kind of keep creeping into a stronger and stronger grip and you just can't figure out why well keep in mind too that you weren't able to use your lower body and so you were swinging with your upper body and it's harder to square the face when you're swinging with your upper body so a stronger grip says well i can still square the face now yeah yeah and uh i've been losing lag because uh well subconsciously i'm i'm fearing that the face is going to be wide open so so i push with the right and and try to square it exactly and that's why when i looked at your hand believe it or not a weaker right hand the way you had it where this line was pretty vertical with your your thumb and forefinger okay like you were kind of like this and i told you to kind of clock it over a little bit like this the reason that you do that is it's easy to push with your whole hand to help square the face yeah and again when you yeah when you start swinging with your upper body at all you're going to want to start using this to help because it's just natural right but once you start swinging fluidly and freely again then you'll feel like you're just going to be able to sling the club through and release it instead of trying to control it okay and and that's gonna again you can't do that without fixing this right leg and you know this whole little movement issue that we we talked about yeah yeah and i i i want to thank you that uh i i've been trying to figure out what what what is wrong with my body that i can't figure out what why i'm i'm still even after two years i'm i'm like this with my leg and i just can't figure out what what i'm i am i doing from wrong this makes so much sense though so this was money well spent oh good i'm glad i i let me know how it works out i'm sure you and craig will got you guys will get this dialed in but yes yeah i mean you've got so many great things to work with already my job was pretty easy so yeah thank you thank you very much all right because nice meeting you we'll talk soon yeah yeah nice meet you too all right take care yeah bye
Douglas
Tom
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Tom
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mikko-Pekka
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mikko-Pekka
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)