Left Shoulder Push in Backswing
Sorry, you need to be a member to access this video.
You Are Just Seconds Away - Become a member here!
Already a member? Log in now
This "Left Shoulder Push in the Backswing" video is for you ONLY if you already pull perfectly well with your right side and tend to feel too restricted at the top. Add this piece in for more speed in your swing!
- Shoulder Rotation is Combination Of Torso Turn and Shoulder Movement
- Left Shoulder Will Protract As You Swing to the Top of Backswing to Make Full Turn
Most of the videos on the website emphasize pulling because most golfers way overdo the pushing side of things.
It's a dominant movement.
It's much easier to grasp how that would apply power in the swing.
And since that's what most golfers try and feel in their swing, it's very easy to overdo pushing.
And so, especially with regards to the backswing, I emphasize pulling this right shoulder back.
And that is a critical part of the swing to help you stay centered.
But at the same point, you must understand that if your shoulder blade, your right shoulder blade for right-handed golfers, is moving in, if this is my spine, this is my shoulder blade, it's moving in towards my spine a couple inches during the backswing, well, the left shoulder blade needs to move the opposite direction.
And that's an important thing to understand.
Just from a fundamental aspect as far as how humans move biomechanically when it comes to rotation, is that your muscles work in pairs, a right and left side.
So, when I'm rotating my head to the right, one side's pulling and one side's pushing.
And the same thing is true in the golf swing.
When we're rotating our bodies back, we're using our obliques on the right side and the left side.
And the same thing is true with the shoulder blades.
As the right shoulder blades moving back, these shoulder blades move your arms and shoulders forward and up and down all these directions.
And as I'm moving this right shoulder blade back, this is going to move this right hand further back.
So, you can see that my right hand is now effectively shorter than my left, even if I don't move my left arm.
So, to make up for that, of course, my hands are on the grip together.
If the right hand gets pulled back, the left hand has to go forward.
And so, a lot of golfers have taken this concept of being in the box and feeling, you know, their shoulder blades down and they try and maintain that throughout the whole swing.
But it's much more dynamic than that.
While you want to be in the box, and we emphasize that a lot, even at the top of the swing, because we don't, we see golfers all the time who take their left shoulder and then move it all the way across their body.
And then this is their top of their swing.
And then their shoulders up like this.
And so, it's buried into their chin.
And of course, they're very out of the box.
They're very disconnected from the muscles of the core.
But your muscles, Your left arm has to move out of the box to some degree at the top of the swing because these muscles of the left shoulder girdle need to get stretched.
Because remember what you're going to do to start the downswing, apart from, as far as the arms are concerned, is you're going to pull down with the left arm.
If you're going to do that with any speed whatsoever, these muscles have to be stretched before they can be contracted with any force.
So, if you try and keep your left shoulder back all the way to the top, you're not going to have anything to pull down with.
But now, if you go to the top and you stretch, and that left shoulder moves forward while the right one moves back, and now I've got something I can pull my left arm down with and get some speed in the downswing.
So, understand that there's always a push and pull relationship in the swing when it comes to rotation.
So, if you're pulling your right shoulder back two inches, your left shoulder needs to move forward at least two inches as well.
Again, remember that we're doing this pulling motion to help us stay centered and help stabilize the club through the hitting area and all these things.
And again, most golfers way overdo the pushing side of things.
And that's why we don't talk about it a lot.
But, I do see a lot of golfers who are typically better players, who really try and follow everything to the exact tee.
And they miss some force for the trees, for some things.
It should be, you know, it should make a lot of sense that, okay, if this arm's moving back, then this one has to move forward to match up or my arms wouldn't even fit on the club.
So, if you feel really restricted at the top of your swing, you feel like you don't have any power.
This could be one of the reasons that you're not letting this left arm go back.
Now, here's an important part that you don't want to overdo.
If you're a type of golfer who sways off the ball because you're pushing from the left and pushing from the right coming down, you ignore this next piece of advice.
This is for golfers who are really restricted at the top and are really good at pulling this right shoulder back and that's kind of all they do.
Once you get that movement down, you're not going to really feel it anymore.
It's going to be normal to you.
It's natural to you.
Like, you don't think about how you flex your legs when you walk.
It's normal and natural to you because you've done it a lot.
Once you've done this right shoulder blade glide a million times and you really feel like, okay, I can do it and you're doing it really well, but you've been kind of like keeping this left shoulder pinned down against your body and too far in the box at the top of your swing, you may feel that you do nothing push from the left side.
Now, of course, you're not going to just do that.
Again, as I said earlier, everything's working in pairs, right?
So, but if you're already doing this right side, that's a natural movement for you.
Now, you're not going to feel that anymore.
You don't want to keep feeling it because again, you need to let things happen naturally.
Once you do enough repetitions, you need to let things get transferred over to your subconscious.
right shoulder is pulling back, but you're going to feel that you're just pushing back with the left.
That's okay, assuming that you're moving correctly with everything else.
So, you know, again, we don't emphasize pushing a lot, but for some of you, if you're already moving the other parts correctly, you may need to feel just pushing from the left.
Now, here's what it's going to look like if you're not doing it correctly.
You're going to just push from the left and you're either going to move off the ball.
So now we know we're not pulling back to counterbalance this pushing motion, or you're going to get to the top like this.
I haven't made much of a turn here.
I've just taken my left arm and swung it across my body.
That's what 99% of amateur golfers do.
They don't pull back with the right side at all.
And that's why we don't really talk about pushing because you're already so good at it.
We don't need to keep doing something like that because we're already doing it and overdoing it.
And that's why we emphasize pulling so much.
That's not a natural motion for most people.
It doesn't feel as powerful and it's not.
It's again, more of a technique issue.
So again, if you're feeling like you've been really restricted at the top, restricted and your left arm's kind of cramped down, you don't feel like you have any power, anything to pull down with the left, you may feel that you're just pushing and almost some people describe as kind of reaching as they're going back to the top of the swing.
They're taking the left arm and kind of reaching out that way.
And again, as long as this right shoulder's back and you're making a full turn and not moving off the ball, perfectly okay to feel that.
So again, it's okay to push.
It's natural.
You're just not, again, most golfers are already pros at it.
So we need to counterbalance everything with pulling.
You need a balance of all things in the swing and pushing and
Ted
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ramu
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Jackie (Certified RST Instructor)
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gareth
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Loran
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
bryan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Marc
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
charles
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ray
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ray
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Anthony
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Anthony
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jeff
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
john
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Patrick
Steven (Certified RST Instructor)
David