Video Menu
My Favorite Videos
My Favorite Videos
Body Rotation in Golf Backswing - Chair Drill
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

If you want to power up your swing in golf, body rotation in the backswing is crucial. Unfortunately, you likely struggle to rotate your shoulders separately from your hips. It's this separation that creates all the torque you see with the Tour pros. In this video, you can find out just how simple it is to get this separation and pick up distance!
- Rotation Drill:
- Sit in Edge of Chair with Spine in Good Posture
- Rotate Your Chest Without Moving Your Hips
- Practice Separation Between the Hips and The Shoulders
One of the things that a lot of golfers struggle with is just understand the basic movements of how to rotate their torso during the backswing.
And the most valuable piece of training aid material you can have is a simple chair.
It will teach you exactly how to rotate properly during the golf swing.
And it's incredibly simple.
And you've got one with you all the time.
If you're playing golf, you've probably got a golf cart with you and you can do this in your golf cart.
So if you ever lose the basic feelings of how to rotate and how you're supposed to move your shoulders and all of that stuff, just get a chair, sit on the edge of it, put your feet firmly on the ground.
Start with your arms across your chest and without moving your hips.
And this is the key because most golfers struggle with, they think they can't separate their upper half and their lower half.
They think they can't turn their body without their hips going.
And so many golfers struggle with that.
It's just learning to engage the right muscles.
And a chair will teach you exactly how to do that.
In fact, it forces you to because once you're sitting here, you can't turn your hips.
And that's why I want you to sit in a chair.
So if you sit at the edge of the chair, feet firmly planted, arms across the shoulders, and then just start rotating back and forth.
Don't worry about how you're doing it right now.
Just try and turn your chest back and forth.
And what you're going to find right away is that you're going to start to feel these muscles, these are your oblique muscles.
These rotate your body, your upper torso from side to side.
And so if you can do this, you can, and obviously my hips aren't moving, you can do this in the golf swing.
It's just learning how to take this into your swing, but you need to feel the right muscles and activate the right muscles first.
And if you're not used to doing this, then this is going to be new to you, even though it seems incredibly simple.
But these are the exact same muscles that you use to get your swing going, going back.
So if you can feel your, how your torso is twisting here and the muscles that are working to do that as you go back and forth, these are the same muscles that you need to feel during the takeaway apart from the right shoulder blade going back to help us stay centered.
We're also using these muscles to rotate our torso.
And so again, and the key for most golfers is that they just let everything go back together because it's easier.
You don't have to feel these muscles twisting and compressing your rib cage.
When you just let your hips go and you just rotate your body like that, it's a very lazy way to swing.
You don't build any torque in the swing.
You don't stretch these muscles.
That's what we're really trying to do.
That's why we don't want the hips moving a lot during the backswing.
They are going to move.
But if you just let them go together, you don't have any torque or any difference in the amount of rotation between your upper half and lower half.
And so these muscles don't get properly stretched, which means they can't fire very forcefully in the downswing to produce any speed.
So as you're learning to do this, that's really what you're learning to do is learning how to stretch the muscles that are going to give you a lot of speed as you come down, but they have to be stretched first.
So again, anytime you're out playing and you're just like, I can't feel what I'm doing.
I can't feel how to turn.
Everything just feels all out of whack.
Sit on the edge of your golf cart, sit on a chair, even sit on the ground.
Either thing is to stabilize your hips.
Put your arms across your chest and just start rotating back and forth.
And again, if you do this and you're not just taking your shoulders, which is the wrong way to do it, you're trying to rotate your body.
That's why I want you to keep your arms here and twist your body from here, not just taking your shoulders and pushing them across your body.
And then you can start to feel the muscles that are going to rotate you during the golf swing.
jane
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
jane
Remington
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Chuck
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Dean
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gary C
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Matthew
Matthew
Rich
Patrick (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Patrick (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Patrick (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Patrick (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Patrick (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Dean
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Scott
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Robert
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jim
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Jim
R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Jim
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Cameron
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
James
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mohammad Shah
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Marc
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Erik
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Joseph
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Loran
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Loran
Damien
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Damien
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
John
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Connie
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Maximilian
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Christopher
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Remington
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Bill
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jukka
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jukka