Justin Thomas - Left Leg Stability and Power
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In this video, Justin Thomas shows you how to use your left leg for a better backswing and a more powerful downswing.
- Keep the left knee pointed out side the ball in the backswing.
- Shift into the left side to start the downswing and stabilize.
- Post up by driving the lead heel into the ground and clearing the hips.
Hey, what's up, guys?
This is RST instructor Chris Tyler, and we are back with this week's tour analysis with Justin Thomas, who just picked up a victory on the PGA Tour this past weekend, a one-shot victory over Adam Scott, so congratulations to Justin.
This week, We are going to be focusing in on how to use your left leg for stability in your backswing and how to use it for power in your downswing.
So if you've been looking for a more consistent, more stable golf swing, then you want to pay close attention to today's review.
Okay, guys, so as I said in the opener, We are going to be focusing in on how to use your left leg or your lead leg in your golf swing if you are a left-handed golfer.
We're going to focus on how to use that as a source of stability in your backswing, and how to use it as a source of power in your downswing.
So if you've been noticing that, your golf swing is getting a little bit longer and more out of control.
And you want to develop a lot more consistency, and you want to be able to develop some good power in your midsection, Then we're going to use the left leg in your golf swing as a way to stabilize it, going back and help you give that separation.
What I mean there is, let's go ahead and just look at the position of his left knee at the starting point here.
I'm going to go ahead and mark it straight down here so you can see.
Okay, so it would be just inside of neutral joint alignment here.
Go to a little bit wider of a base when we have a driver's swing.
Okay, And then you're going to see as he works up to the top of his golf swing, loading into his right side here, you're going to see that the knee has moved a little bit.
It hasn't moved a ton, maybe two, two and a half inches or so.
But the big issue that we see with a lot of amateur golfers, and this kind of stems back to a lot of the older style golf swings where things were very, very linky and very free-flowing, is that we would see this left knee really start to dive down and in here.
And what that does is it allows the hips to have more mobility.
It allows your hips, when your hips have more mobility, then your torso can continue to rotate.
When your torso can continue to rotate, now your hands and arms can go much longer.
And it's also not allowing you to create that separation between the hip line and shoulder line, and not allowing you to really feel a lot of engagement in your midsection, which is really critical for power and for speed.
So, if you've noticed that your left knee dives way down and in, work on trying to keep your left knee pointed outside the golf ball.
Yeah, it's okay to have some mobility in it, but in turn, what you're going to see is you're going to feel like your golf swing is really shortened up, really tightened up, and you're still hitting the golf ball just as far, which is great news.
And Justin is a freak of nature when he actually pounds a golf ball, has one of the highest launches on the PGA Tour, Has an absolutely incredible smash factor as far as the way he strikes his golf ball with his driver.
And that's the reason why, at 145 pounds, he just pounds it off the tee.
So without further ado, let's just keep looking at what he does now with the lead knee.
So this first line here was the starting point of where the knee was.
Second line right here is where the knee is at the top of the swing.
And you're going to see, as he starts the downward move here, You're going to see that external rotation of the lead leg and a good fair amount of trail side help here.
You can actually see that his right foot is up off the ground here quite a bit.
But now that he's gotten his lead knee over into neutral joint alignment here, where the center of the lead knee is right on top of the center of the ankle, I want you to pay very, very close attention to this because this is where he's going to start to use his legs.
His lead leg is a very big source for leverage from the ground.
I'm going to go ahead and mark his head position here.
So mark the top of his head.
And let's go ahead and work through these frames here.
So you can see that lead foot is very, very stable on the ground, nice and flat, not rolled to the outside part.
Now watch this.
You're going to see that his lead foot comes up off the ground.
Let me get through a couple more frames.
So now you see that that lead foot is way up off the ground.
So now what he's done is he's, now that he's gotten his weight transferred into his lead side, he has stabilized it.
And then he's used it as a source of power by properly pushing it into the ground.
And then clearing it with his lead side obliques.
Now the one other thing that I wanted to mention here is the head position.
You didn't see his head moving up as his left leg is moved to this straight position.
So if you've noticed on camera, when you're looking at your golf swing from a face on perspective, that your head is moving vertically, Then chances are you're using too much of your right side down in the hitting area, and you're bringing your hips forward.
And then causing some early extension from the spine.
Which can then in turn make it very hard to hit the golf ball solidly.
So what I would suggest is don't try to get so much leverage from the ground at that point.
Work on just working to maintain your posture.
Keep your hips back.
And then once you get more control of it, then slowly start to ramp your speed up.
Slowly start to add more ground leverage.
And you'll be out there pounding the golf ball further than you ever have.
It's really important for swing speed is being able to use your legs.
Okay guys, so that's this week's review.
So if you've been struggling with backswing stuff and getting a little bit longer and out of control, keep that lead leg a little bit more pointed outside the golf ball.
And if you've been looking for a way to move that left leg to a straight position, we've got a great video on the website called the Straight Left Legged Impact.
We also have the Left Knee Laser Beam Drill and we also have the Roll of the Right Foot.
That's another video, you're going to hear me really kind of drive home with you guys.
To make sure that we understand how we can use that as a break to our bodies in the golf swing.
So check those videos out and let's get out there and play some of your best golf and make it a great day.
William
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
William
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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