How to Fix Trail Leg Straightening in Backswing

Is your trail leg straightening in the backswing? Do you know what kind of issues this simple little flaw can cause? Learn how to fix this deadly swing flaw and simplify your swing!

Speaker 1:
Okay.

Speaker 2:
Hmm. And then you should get sent a link to download it. If you don't let me know. And I'll email you the link directly. Yeah, of course. So I took a quick lesson, look at the last lesson that you did. And so I kind of had an idea of kind of what you were going through, but why don't you tell me in your own words what's what's going on now? So I think it'd been a little while since you had that lesson.

Speaker 3:
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think so that they, I forget which coach I work with is Craig, or I forget who it was, but they they pointed out my weight shift, weight, shift those off as he saw. So I was working, I definitely worked a weight shift. We should start at first then rotating. So I think I got that pretty much solved, but you know, I think I've been putting a lot of reps in, you know, over the winter, a lot of reps. So I got the Mo I got the basics down. I think, I mean, you'll be the judge of that, but I think I got it down, but I think the problem I'm having I'm having is that I'm initiating the turn to my shoulders, as I told you. So as I'm going back, my shoulders are so tensed up that I'm either not making a proper turn or, you know, even when I've tried to not turn my shoulders first, I tend to just hold fire.

Speaker 3:
And I think it's just, I'm so tensed up and I start, I'm not sure what to unwind in my shoulders first. It kind of throws everything off. It doesn't always happen middle to kind of not do it once in a while, but I think that's part of the problem. And I, so yesterday we went out, I forgot your email. I played seven holes. I try to print with my hips and then kind of my obliques. And I hit the ball a lot. There had a lot of good holes yesterday to doing that. So, you know, keep my shoulders more loose. Definitely keep my arms loose. My shoulders, I think is a problem. That's, that's my perspective. Anyway. how do we think about that?

Speaker 2:
Super common. And honestly that I first published that idea of this initiating shoulder blade glide to keep you centered like 12 years ago. And it's kind of been the bane of my existence ever since a lot of people absolutely love it because the people who absolutely love it, they move their lower body pretty well already. And so for them, but they move off the ball, right? So they take that and they're like, oh yeah, that got me centered right away. And then others who don't have great lower body movement to begin with, they just start moving all of her body. And then they have so much tension in the arms and shoulders that they miss the forest for the trees. And they just, you can't, it's impossible if you start building tension up here right away to not have that fire to initiate the downswing. So I've been trying to explain it in a way it's hard for me because I have such a wide diverse group of people who have every swing problem under the sun. So I try to kind of make, explain things in a way that works for everybody. But in your case, it sounds like you're one of those people who needed to focus more on their trunk and the upper body stuff. Way less.

Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think so. But you know, I think overall, I think I'm getting, I mean, first of all, you're a genius at the say. I mean, you earned every penny that you're making because you're, I've taken a lot of lessons over there. It's a lot different coach. It's a newer by far explain how you are supposed to swing a lot of coaches. I've had, they tell you, they tell you what they know what I'm doing wrong. They know what it have to do, but they don't explain how I have to do it. Like what muscles, where to move, how do I initiate it? And it's just so confusing. So you just really simplified it. So I, I think I've got it down. I mean, I think I make a really good progress with my swing. So I'd like to maybe to take a look at my turn, you know, my post up, I still think I try to, you know, I think I had a problem with hyperextending, my left leg on post-op. So I was trying to back off that then now I'm kind of maybe starting to slide a little bit more lately, so I'm trying to get the post up. Perfect. Perfect. The two, but overall I think I'm in a pretty good spot. You just have to fine tune a couple of things. You might look at me and say with guys, that's what I think anyway.

Speaker 2:
No, it sounds like we're on the right track. So what I go ahead and I'm going to video, I'm going to record on my own desktop while you're swinging, so I can go back through really quickly frame by frame and then we'll we'll, we'll get an attack plan and we'll get rocking and rolling.

Speaker 3:
Sounds good. Yeah. I'll hope the angle is good on this. We'll see. Okay. If you need me to move closer, let me know. You know, this is my normal kind of golf mat and music is this too far. I'm gonna go closer. All right. Let me take my set up here and I can go down the line too. I guess I gotta just turn this or this or the other way, maybe down the line, but I'm not definitely trying to lose to my shoulders up now. I'm keeping my arms loose, but you know, I'm trying to access, tilt. I'm trying to get that net. Right. and so I take a couple swings here. Yep. Okay.

Speaker 2:
Okay, cool. I see a good stuff there that I want to work on. Go ahead and do a couple of swings down the line. Yep. Perfect. About the house. Okay. That was a chunk. You wanted me to do that chunky one. That's okay. I see what's causing that. Okay, perfect. Now let me stop this recording and open these up real quick. And I'm going to show you, I'm going to share my desktop so you can see this recorded there. Give me just a second. Here we go. Let's turn the audio off for that. Now let me share. All right. Can you see that? Okay. this all right, so let's start with base on. So overall setup looks really good. Lots of great stuff in here set up. So I'm not going to worry too much about that. What we're going to focus on is this guy here. Now, when you look at that, w what do you see?

Speaker 3:
My left legs collapse again? That's a big problem. So straining.

Speaker 2:
Yeah, the right leg straightening. Right? And if we look at that fine real quick, you'll see how significant this is, right? Like during your takeaway, that right leg is already completely straight. So what you're doing is you're, you're turning your hips by just straightening this leg. And then we lose just about everything. There's a couple of things we're going to do one we'll set up adjustment year, a tiny bit too far back on your heels. And the way to think about balance is if I came up and pushed you from the front here, would you easily fall over backwards? I want to be able to come up and push you from any directions. When you feel stable, you don't think we're going to fall over easier one way or the other. But the biggest thing is, is fixing this hip hip turn first, because as soon as we fix this, the natural motion that you have in your swing is going to be way, way better.

Speaker 2:
We're going to be able to take advantage of it. So that's what I want to do first. So let me show you, what's going on here. So first, just ditch the club for a second. When we're working on this, and what I want you to start to focus on is paying attention to how you turn. I want you to think about the swing a little bit differently, because what you're doing right now is that you're, you're staying in a really centered position, but you're turning your hips, but in a way that you can't possibly load your glutes properly, your lower body, your legs, or your quads, hamstrings, glutes, all of that. When you do this, it actually does the opposite of what we needed to do. And so we're going to start to flip that so that you start to feel load in this leg.

Speaker 2:
And there's two ways that you're going to do that. The first one is a really simple visual. I want you to imagine that if you were going to load up and just kind of take a step, a big step, right? Like a baseball pitcher, he's going from his strides to take this big step here, thinking about how you would load your leg. You wouldn't do this, right? This wouldn't make any sense to make this massive hit, turn and straighten up your leg. Naturally load into this leg and get your weight over there in a way that you could feel like you could lift your leg to then take a step. That's a little bit of an over-exaggeration for how it really works in the golf spine, but that's in the ballpark. The second thing is that I want you to, oh, I lose you there. You still hear me. Okay.

Speaker 3:
No, I lost you for a little, I think I'm going to move closer to the house, but internet might be glitching out, but that's okay. Keep going.

Speaker 2:
Okay, perfect. So, yeah, so it'd be the idea of just loading into this leg, loading into it as if you were going to move laterally. Right? Cause right now you're moving really rotationally and we have to have a balance of the two you're moving to rotationally in that sense. The second thing is I want you to go to the top and we're going to exaggerate another emotion where once you kind of feel like you're going to take this step, you're going to actually increase the knee flex because right now you're straightening, right? So this will be literally the exact opposite of what you're doing. So you're going to load into the right leg where you could lift this left foot up and you're going to swap down on it at the same point. This is, again, these are big exaggerations, but we have to go to the extreme other side for just a moment so that you start to feel how natural the knee flex would be maintained and how we load into the leg rather than just turning our hips.

Speaker 2:
Does that make sense? Yes. Okay, perfect. So that's what I want to see at first is we're going to start to load where I'm going to have you literally pick up your left foot. You're going to be a baseball pitcher for a second. Okay. Load into this right side, and then take a step. And that's going to give you the natural feeling of weight shift, pressure shift, transferring weight from one side to the other. And then the next thing we're going to do is go up to the top and bend that right. Knee squat into that right way. So go ahead. You can throw the club. You have to slow down for a sec. I want you to, just to kind of go back and lift your leg. You're going to be a baseball pitcher for a second. How would you naturally get ready to throw a ball? Show me what you would do. Perfect.

Speaker 3:
Like have a better balance, but yeah, like, like that, I guess. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. Lift your left foot up completely in the air. There you go. Now you can see that your hips are going to turn a little bit while you're doing this naturally, right? Yep. But it's not in a way that you're doing where you're straightening that right leg. This is a natural way for you to feel the load in this right leg. That's huge for you. So when you go back and you feel like, okay, I can kind of bounce on this leg for a second. I start to feel it in my right butt cheek. Now we're in the ballpark. There you go. Believe it or not. That's very similar to how you should feel at the top of your golf swing, which is going to be very different than what you're used to right now. Yep. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Yeah. Start to play with it a little bit, make some turns and kind of sit into it and then add that second piece into it. To where you bend and actually increase the Knee-Flex rather than letting your legs straighten. At first,

Speaker 3:
That's going to be a little worse from, okay. Let's try that. Let's see.

Speaker 2:
Okay. Dope. So right now you're trying to move your upper body. I don't even think about Europe just to focus on the belt down. Okay. There you go. Perfect. There you go. And we don't have to move so far laterally to the right. Just think like you're going to pick your foot up. How would you naturally shift your weight? If you just picked your left leg up? There you go. Big difference. So if you just pick your foot up, you naturally put all of this weight on there in the right way. There you go. So now take your golf set up arms across your chest, but don't think about turning your upper body at all for just a moment I want you to do is just pretend that you're loading into this right leg. It's going to be pretty small move, but you're going to feel a lot of pressure on this right leg. So make like a little tiny turn and just shift into the right side. You're still doing the baseball pitcher move. Okay. Now your head's moving a fair bit there. So, okay.

Speaker 2:
Getting there. Good. Now increase that knee flex really exaggerated on the next one. As you go back. So you can turn up. Watch me for just a second. Yes. So it's not this. You're letting your knee move out again. If pitcher, he wouldn't do this, right? You get stacked over that side. So your right knee is not going to move laterally. You're just going to stay right into it. Keep that right knee in place there as you go back. There you go. Better. Good. I'm trying to keep your right knee pointing at the ball a little bit more. It's going to turn a little bit, but just feel that it's kind of pointing at the ball more as you go to the top. There you go. That's the way, but even more so a little bit more. Keep it pointing at the ball a little bit more way better.

Speaker 2:
There you go. Now. So that's night and day difference in what you feel, right? Yes. So now we just now watch me for one second. So you're doing great with the lower body stuff, but now you're adding your upper body movement into it, right? So now you're actually moving your upper body quite a bit this way. So now what we're going to do, the lower body movement looks great. And now, instead of moving our upper body to feel weighed over there, you're going to just feel your hip move while your upper body turn. So you're still going to feel the same load in your lower body that now is when you start to feel that right shoulder move behind your head a little bit. Okay?

Speaker 2:
Okay. Now your head moved about eight inches. That's normal first better getting better. Head's still moving about five inches. We can cut it down even more, better. Now, one thing that you'll notice while you're doing this is that your left knee is really coming in. So we've got the right. I'm working a lot better. Now the left side just doesn't really need to move. It's going to move in. It's going to naturally move in a little bit, but what's, you're gonna what you're actually kind of actively moving it and you just don't quite realize it. So you're going to start to feel that this left leg is a lot more chilled out. It's not really moving. It's not active. You're not trying to drive off of the right now because you're a little overactive with it. So you're just going to feel again. All right. Glue. All right, leg and right shoulder back behind your head. That's it calm? And I'll ask the left leg down better. There you go.

Speaker 2:
Get in there and relax that left shoulder. Yeah, there you go. We're getting there. All right. Let me show you a quick, I'm going to do a quick recording of this. So go ahead. Keep doing it better. That's a lot better. Now. Turn down the line and show me the same thing. Perfect. Let me show you that all. So first of all, use that window in the background. You see how much you're moving there? Oh yeah, absolutely. Okay. Now your hips are doing pretty good. If you use kind of this little green flat piece of grass back here in the background, as a reference, your hips, move laterally a little bit too much, but not bad. Your head's moving quite a bit, but your lower body looks a million times more stable, a lot more powerful, right? Left knee pulling in the right legs. Not all twisting. If we compare that to where you were a moment ago, can you see this as the original swing? Do you see this? Yep.

Speaker 3:
Yeah. I mean, I feel like, you know, that's not my best rotary swing there, obviously, but you know, w w we just had me doing shuck. I'd probably feel very four times as much load than I had been. I don't think I'm swinging pretty good. So I guess that's what, yeah.

Speaker 2:
You're going to have a huge improvement in your power and your consistency. Once you stop adding all of this extra hip rotation, this is a big difference from here to where you were to where, what you are doing now, right. You're loading into the right leg instead of just twisting the hips. Does that make sense? So we're getting there. We just got, obviously minimize the head move, but that's simple to do, like when you go after this lesson, put your head up against the wall, doing that wall drill, and you'll feel your head dragging across the wall. So you'll be able to fix this quickly on your own. I want to get you the big tools that you need, so you can recognize what's going on. So lower body movement. I mean, this is PGA tour quality compared to where you were when you started, this is a million times better, but here's one thing that we're going to do.

Speaker 2:
This is what I'm going to talk about with your setup. And just a second, it's gonna make us a lot easier and a lot more natural is that if I came up and pushed you from on the chest and knocked your right on your butt without pushing very hard, and you're just too far back on your heels, I'm going to help you in the moment. So you can see your butt is way back here, like a foot behind your ankles, way too far back. And this is, what's making this a little bit more challenging, but even there, you see how you've maintained your knee flex. And before, if, if you compare that to where you are, this is a way better.

Speaker 3:
Yeah. Straight out. It's crazy. I want to set it straight there.

Speaker 2:
Okay. It's locked out, right? Yeah. So that is a huge improvement. So now, can I guys a quick question? Sure. Of course.

Speaker 3:
So do you think, I mean, does it, is it fair to say that I'm not going to consciously move my hips when I do it, right. I'm just, I'm just focusing on bloating and that'll kind of move his naturally. Yeah. Should I move it a little bit more than that? Or show this that's all it should be just load into that. Right? Glute and that's it exactly.

Speaker 2:
So what I want you to feel, I want this to be natural, right? It should be natural. And as soon as I made you, you know, be a baseball player and you got it right away, you naturally wouldn't, wouldn't do this with your hips and straighten this leg. So, so will you have to think about it at first, you'll have to kind of make yourself do this because you're used to doing something pretty extreme and this will feel normal to you. Right? If I was trying to do this, it would feel unnatural. I have to make myself think about it, but what I want you to do, obviously I want you to watch it in the mirror and in video. But I do want you to start to get the feeling of like, you know, this is just a natural athletic move. I was going to throw a rock or throw a ball.

Speaker 2:
It's pretty simple. You were thinking, just turn. And now you're going to think load into this right side as if I was going to take a big step, right? Cause there is not a movement in the swing. If you look at the, how much the pelvis moves at the top of the backswing, where your left hip socket is at the top of your back swing, this is the same for pretty much every tool on the planet, the right hip socket ends up there and impact it that much. So you think about that, you're moving the entire width of your pelvis. I've got a picture of me up here at impact. This is where my, where my right hip socket is at impact, which is almost over the fall. That's where my left hip socket is at the top of my swing. That's how far I move laterally.

Speaker 2:
But obviously it doesn't look like I'm doing a big lateral slot, right? So you're just giving a feel. You're going to feel this is more lateral move. And obviously you don't want your hips sliding. You know, you've got to maintain that right hip line, but it's going to be loading kind of laterally into it so that you can move laterally across because you already rotate way too well. Right? That's going to be the perception. Now, the second thing that I was talking about right now, you kind of reach the club's a little bit far. The balls have a far from you and addressed because you're way back on your heels. And so again, if I just tapped on the chest, you'd fall over really easy that you feel like you're in balance right now. But if somebody came up and tapped ya, I want to be able to literally come up to you and address, push you from the chest, the back side to side, and you wouldn't fall over easier one way or the other.

Speaker 2:
And if you can, it's really helpful. If you can just, you know, get in a little spat with your wife and have her come shove, you she'll be happy to oblige. Just find somebody that can give you a quick attack, because it's just an instant, like, oh my gosh, I had no idea. You'd be shocked. How many people, I literally knock off balance with just touching them with my pinky. And that's where you would be right now. So as you set up, your weight needs to be from the ankle to the middle of your foot in this range right now, you're kind of back behind the ankle towards your heel. And so you're going to move your weight forward, your hips and everything has to come forward. It gets your weight more centered over your feet, because if you're too far back on your heels, it makes it really easy for this leg to straight because that's all the places you can go, right?

Speaker 2:
You know, your weight moves. Think of your weight in the golf swing is like a figure eight pattern. So right now, if my weight is on the middle of my feet and address, as I do back during the back swing, it goes backwards to the ankle. And my weight moves forward on the left foot, toward the ball of my foot and the downswing that's reversed. My weight on my left side, goes to my ankle. And on the right side, it goes towards the ball of the foot. So it's moving in this figure eight pattern. Whereas if you're back on your heels, you can't really move anywhere, but on your heels. And it's really unnatural and it's super powerful and it forces you into go. Whether you can move is to straighten this leg. So as soon as you bring your hips forward and hinge forward from the hips, you're going to feel way more forward than you're used to.

Speaker 2:
Then you're going to feel how you load into this right side. Your weight feels way more natural. So that's going to make this little move. Think about it again. If you're a baseball player, you're not going to have your weight all the way back on your heels, throw a ball, wouldn't make any sense, right? So the same thing when you're loading into this, that's what you're going to feel once we get you set up properly. So that's what I want to do next. Now that you kind of have a basic idea of the field is we're going to do it from the right setup. And it's going to glue all these things together. Okay. Let's do it.

Speaker 2:
Want me to do a club or no club? Okay. Okay. So take your normal setup. So we just have a starting point. Now bring your hips forward. So start coming closer to the ball, but everything your head and everything's going to move further. Keep going, keep going. Can you go? Believe it or not the straighten your legs up just a little bit to take some knee flex out. There you go. Now, come forward more. Let your whole body come toward the ball. Now, everything hips and everything. Hips had everything. Get in there and take a little bit of knee flex out. There you go. Let your arms, hang down a little bit more relaxed. There you go. We're pretty close there. You still need to actually come forward more. So watch me for just a second. What I'm saying come forward. I mean, everything has to rock forward everything, your whole body. So if you're what you're tending to do is sit back on your heels and reach for the ball. And as soon as I said it naturally, they came into a really nice position and it allows you to move forward into the Baltimore. But you're so used to being back like this, that this feels natural. As soon as you come here and let everything I'm curious and head and everything to come forward and your hands come in. That's how you're going to get into a proper setup.

Speaker 2:
All right, sorry. There you go. A little bit taller through the knees there. You even now come forward more toward, there you go. Let your arms come in a little bit more relaxed, big knee flex out. So stand taller. There you go. Yeah, but you have a tendency to want to squat and then when it moves your hips back, so you still need to keep that knee flex out, but move your whole body. Several inches closer to the ball. Keep going. There you go. Now stay right there for just a second. Where does that feel like your weight is in the center of my foot. Okay, perfect. Let me show you what it looks like. It feels really weird. Well, it's gonna feel weird at first. So this,

Speaker 3:
I think it feels I'm going to fall fall forward as. Wow. It's amazing. Okay. That's your setup. Got it. So it doesn't, it looks normal.

Speaker 2:
It didn't feel like that. It's funny. Right? But this is why I always tell people. I don't care how you feel at first. You'd have to see it. And now that you see it, if you compare it to, this looks normal,

Speaker 3:
Normal about this. Now, when you

Speaker 2:
Contrast that to what you did before, it'll now your old setup will look bizarre. Wow. Yeah. See, you're really rounded. Your arms are outstretched. The club is really flat. The toe is way up in the air, in your hips, your way back. Right? So this is why it's so important to get these little things, right? Cause now you just look like every guy on the tour. And there's a reason for that. Our weight has to be allowed to move in this figure, eight pattern dynamically throughout the swing. And if we're way back on our heels, we're going to have that point where are where our hips are straight. Our leg is straightening up and all of that stuff. So yeah.

Speaker 3:
So it's like, I've had a problem. I've had a problem with rounding my shoulders. That's that's part of the problem, I guess. Right? It's why my shoulders always see brown did every time I look at my swing and the screen.

Speaker 2:
Exactly. So you're back like this. If you had a normal setup, you wouldn't even be able to get to the ball. So you're reaching out like this and that as you reach forward, your shoulders have to round to get out of here to this black club position. And that's why, when you look at your club from your eye looks normal, you look down the line, oh, is up in the air quite a bit. And you're really reaching, I'm exaggerating this a little bit, but how your setup is, right? So you're of course, you're correct. Now as I pull my shoulders back and I get forward into a normal set up, all of a sudden I have a nice neutral spine, so, okay. So what you're going to do is we're just doing, just getting your weight to feel natural, moving like a baseball player, just getting loaded up loaded.

Speaker 2:
I like to use the term loading into that right side is really critical for you as if you were going to jump to the left. Then as a, as a, as a reminder, when you go to the top of your swing, just as you're practicing you go to the top and just squat into that right leg just a little bit. That'll give you the feeling of feeling that right. Glute engage again and help remind you when you start to straighten that leg. If you do those two things from this new setup, you've got the whole thing cooked because the rest of your stuff is going to work way, way better when you're not way out stretched and all that. When you were talking a, you know, I chunked down a little bit, your swim lane is so flat that it's hard not to, and you can't move your weight laterally very well. When you're way back on your heels. It's not very natural athletic. You don't, you can't use the right muscles. All of these things together are going to make a huge difference. You just need a little bit of time to work on. Okay. Makes sense. Makes sense.

Speaker 3:
Exactly how to practice. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think I, you know, I, I watched all the videos of Praxis for awhile and I may have been trying to load it's all about the weight shift, the loading, I would say, but I wasn't doing nearly enough, obviously, not even close, but I'll keep working on it. Absolutely. Yeah. Chuck, how much, how much load do you feel when you're in your, your top of the swing? You feel a tremendous amount of load or just, you know, what do you feel? No.

Speaker 2:
I mean, because it becomes pretty quick, right? So it's just kind of quick just going in that speed. I don't feel when I'm doing the drills, I may feel a lot on going really slow, but as you're adding pace to this, it's just going to be natural, dynamic and quick. So at first you're probably going to feel a tremendous amount more than what you're used to as you're kind of going slow and drilling through a bit, but don't overdo it because you can overdo too much of a good thing. So, but yeah, I think this is going to be a huge transformation for you. I mean, you're already hitting it better. Just feel focusing on your lower bodies, that your arms. Now you're going to be able to feel your lower body loading correctly, which is a whole nother game changer.

Speaker 3:
Took over very quick question. Occasionally I've tended to come across the ball at impact. You look at my divot. It's like putting global left. Is that anything to do with the set up and all that?

Speaker 2:
Yeah, I over you, you, you know, your body can't load correctly and your arms are tight and you're going to fire them first. That's what's going to cause you to come over to the top, for sure. You can't load and clear that lower body out of the way. You're always going to resort to the arms. So a hundred percent awesome.

Speaker 3:
All right. I'll I'll work on a Chuck. I hope

Speaker 2:
You don't get this recording and we'll email you a copy of it. So just let me know, like if you don't have it within the next hour or so, email it to you, Wilson.

Speaker 3:
Great. All right. Hey, it was nice meeting you, man.

Speaker 2:
You too. And thanks so much and let me know how it goes. I will, Chuck. Thanks. All right. Talk to you later. Okay. Bye.