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Weight on the Balls of the Feet
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There are numerous problems with this old swing myth that you should setup on the balls of the feet. We address some of the potential dangers and pitfalls in this video.
- Stand up straight and put your weight over your ankles
- Keep your weight there as you bend over into posture
- Only a slight knee bend is required at setup
- Feel the glutes engaged at setup, not the quads
Have you seen that guy on the range before? Or maybe you've been that guy, the guy that swings and falls forward every time.
Most times the golfer that does this is really just a victim of bad information.
And that information starts at setup.
If you want to have a powerful golf swing, you have to be set up correctly, or you're always going to be fighting yourself and never be able to play to your true potential.
And one of the biggest fallacies out there in golf instruction today is that you should set up on the balls of your feet.
Raise your hand if you've heard that before.
Almost everybody has, and it's still commonly taught.
And it's one of the most detrimental things that you can do to your setup, because it's not only going to cost you power, but it's going to put you at risk for injury.
Let's talk about why that is.
If you look at my body from straight down the line, your body's engineered, if you drop this line down from the center of your ear hole, it would go through the center of your shoulder socket, center of your hip, back of your knee, and center of your ankle.
That is the way your body's engineered to bear load the force of gravity.
When you set up to a golf ball, you want to align yourself in much the same way as you can with the way your body's designed to bear load, because it's the most stable place for your body to be.
But of course, we have all these angles when we hinge from our hips and our knees and all of this stuff, and so that changes.
We can't just set up in a straight line.
So how do we need to set up for balance and for stability and for power? And that is what I'm going to talk about.
As I was talking about from straight on, I said the line goes through the back of your knee and the center of your ankle.
It doesn't go through the ball of your foot.
If you're set up with the weight on the ball of your foot, and if you're watching this video, I want you to stand up and do this now.
Just rock forward gently till your heels starts to come up and go back.
And as you're doing this back and forth, I want you to settle to where you feel perfectly balanced, where you could stay there all day.
You don't feel any stress in your feet.
You're just here totally relaxed.
You should, if everything is in alignment, feel that your weight goes right through the center of your ankle and right up to the middle of your foot.
That's where your body's designed to bear load.
When you set up to a golf ball, you want your weight in the exact same spot.
If you set up on the ball of your foot, as you saw, as I did there, and I swung and I fell forward, I've got all of this force of the club trying to pull me that direction.
Why on earth would I want to set up in a way that's going to make it easier for me to fall forward? Well, that doesn't make any sense at all.
I've got all of this force going this way.
My body is moving this way to keep me balanced, to counterbalance the force of the club going that way.
My weight's going to go back onto my ankles.
When I set up, I want to start there.
Now, you're going to say, well, what about a lot of tour players? They seem to set up on the balls of their feet.
Why do they do that? It's a good question.
They set up on the balls of their feet for the exact same reason you probably do.
They were taught that by misinformed instructors who don't understand how to protect the joints and how to set up powerfully.
It's just an old adage in golf that needs to die quickly because setting up on the balls of your feet.
Adam Scott is a great example of a tour pro that does that.
He's way out on the balls of his feet.
He's been taught that his whole life.
Look where he is at impact.
I guarantee you he's not back on the balls of his feet.
At impact, he gets it back over his ankle, just like every other tour pro who sets up on the balls of their feet.
One of the reasons people are taught this is that it's an athletic position.
It's a dynamic position.
You want to be like a shortstop.
Well, shortstop is a great analogy for a lot of things in life.
Golf is not one of them.
If you're a shortstop, what is your job description? Well, if you're going to be a shortstop, your job description is you need to be able to move in any direction at a moment's notice as quickly as humanly possible.
What direction are you going to move? You don't know.
That's part of the anticipation why you need to be on the balls of your feet because you've got to be able to quickly react and move in any direction.
In golf, where are you trying to go? You're not trying to go anywhere.
In fact, you're trying to do the exact opposite.
You're trying to stay centered and be anchored to the ground.
Your job description and the shortstop for the New York Yankees are the exact opposites.
So setting up like a shortstop or a basketball player has nothing to do with golf.
So if somebody tells you to set up like a basketball player, ask them, Why would you want me to do that? When I'm trying to hit a ball that's not moving and I'm trying to not move so I can be as accurate as humanly possible.
So for that matter alone, it doesn't make any sense to set up on the balls of your feet.
But also, the most important reason is injury prevention.
Because when you set up on the balls of your feet and you move forward onto the ball of your foot at impact, when you're posting up, all of that stress and load is going right onto your knee joint.
Your knee is not designed to pivot and rotate back and forth in the way that you need to in a golf swing.
I can do this on my hip socket.
It's designed to bear load and rotate just like this.
In order to put my primary balancing joint as my hip, my weight needs to come back onto my ankle.
If it's on the ball of my foot and you can feel this again for yourself, my primary balancing joint is now my knee and my quad is activated and I can try to pivot on my knee which doesn't feel very good.
As soon as I straighten my leg, go back to my ankle, look at this.
I can pivot free all day long, pain free, no problem.
That's why one of the reasons I harp on my students all the time when they get into impact and their their left knee is still kind of bent like this, straighten it up, get your weight back over your hip and then your glutes can engage, which are far more powerful for stabilizing your pelvis, protecting your knee and getting into a proper impact position.
So how do you get set up correctly and get your weight back over the center of your ankle is really quite simple.
As you hinge forward from your hip socket, like I talk in the setup video, your knees are going to be straight as you do this to get your, your upper torso hinged forward.
And once you're hinged forward and you have axis tilt, just slightly relax your knees.
A lot of times what I see is guys set up like this.
Now I've gone back and activated my quads and I'm back in the same boat.
Now technically my weight is over my ankle, but as soon as I come down to impact, I'm going to stand up and the tendency is going to be for me to stand up onto the balls of my feet.
So you just need to slightly relax your knees so that the back of your knee is right over the center of your ankle to the middle of your foot.
You don't want to be way back on your heel.
That's off balance in the other direction, but you definitely don't want to be forward.
You want to think about if I was going to come up and push you from any direction that it wouldn't change.
If I came up and pushed you from your chest, you wouldn't easily fall backwards.
I pushed you from behind.
You wouldn't easily fall forward.
That's balance.
And that's how you need to be set up to a golf ball for a powerful setup position and to get into a powerful impact.
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