How Your Setup is Causing Your Left Arm to Bend
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I bet you've never heard this explanation for why your left arm is bending at the top of your swing before!
All right. We're going to do this video indoors today because if you're sick or struggling with the coronavirus right now, as you know, with rotary swing, you don't need to be outside. You need to be inside, standing in front of a mirror like I am and working on your swing and paying attention to what you see, not what you feel. And what I'm going to talk about today has to do with both of those things. It's what people feel they're doing in their setup, and don't realize it. And don't see what's really going on. And it's causing their left arm to fold at the top. Now I've already done a video on what causes the left arm to fold. We're talking about the right arm and that's a great video. I highly highly recommend you take a look at that video, but this one's a little bit different.
I'm going to talk about how you're set up. Believe it or not is actually going to cause your left arm to have to fold at the top. And I'm gonna get a little bit more involved cause not just the set it and when, talk about how your weight's moving during the backswing. So, but first let's talk about setup because this is something that probably nobody thinks about when they're dealing with their left arm collapsing at the top. So if you've got this Mitt left arm at the top, listen up because you probably don't realize given how I see people set up all the time, how you're making it impossible for your left arm to stay straight at the top. So let me do this first. I want you to pay close attention. Tell me if this looks like a good golf setup to you. Would you be okay if you set up like this me now, some of you are probably going to catch on and don't have very much access tilt. So what about now? Is this a perfect golf setup? Is this how I should be set up to the ball?
Or does this look different or better? Do you notice one or two? Which one do
You think is a proper setup and why? Here's the thing that you don't realize? It didn't take much movement for me to completely change all of the things that were going to happen. After my setup, in my backswing, what I did is most people feel, especially with irons, they want to get really on top of the ball. They know they need to hit the ball first. And so they're terrified of hitting the ball fat. So they get on top of it. And this is how a lot of times people get very right-side dominant with a high right shoulder, open shoulders, no axis, tilt, et cetera. But what you're also doing is you're taking your left arm and effectively moving it across your chest before we ever start the swing. Now the left arm, and this is really important. So pay close attention to this. The left arm relatively barely moves during the entire backswing.
It's hardly doing anything. And so first off understand that if your left arm is collapsing at the top and you're working through the dead drill and you know, you're added the club now and all of a sudden your left arm is bent at the top. You're swinging your left arm too much. It's that simple. I'm going to show it to you just a second. But if you're set up already with your left arm, deep across your body, then you're already setting up in a way that's going to make it impossible for, to stay straight. So I'm doing this and I start swinging my left arm at all. Well, it's already hit my chest now, where am I going to go? My left arm has to fold in order for the club to keep moving. And I'm also presetting in the first setup, the incorrect setup, more weight on my left side.
The more weight you put on your left side, the harder it is for you to make a full shoulder turn. The only way you're going to do it is to make a huge hip turn, because the way that you restrict the muscles, how they can naturally move in LinkedIn in order to turn your torso to get to the top. So what I did in the second setup, which was the correct setup in case you were wondering, which was right, is that now instead of setting into my left arm and smashing it against my chest and putting all this weight on my left side, I'm letting my left arm hang freely. So it's nice and relaxed. It's not squished against my chest. And then as I bring my right arm under to create access tilt, my left arm is still to the side of my chest.
It's not pulled across. So now as I go to the top and I'm also from what if you're used to putting more weight on the left side, I have more weight on the right side. Now it's hard to see this stuff, unless you have force plates to measure it. You really can't just rely on what you feel. So you have to pay attention to what you see. And then what you notice happened during the backswing. If you're struggling to make a full turn, this is also going to be really important because as I've talked about numerous videos, if you don't get weight to the right side, it's virtually impossible to make a proper full turn to the top. You'll either overturn your hips, which creates a ton of problems, or you just simply won't be able to make a full turn. And this is what I see happen all the time. People kind of get hung on the left side. The left arm is kind of buried across the chest and then they can only turn this far at the top. So this doesn't feel like a very full golf swing solely bend their left arm in order to get the arms to the top, then your swing is going to be a hundred percent arms, no matter how good your intentions are, you're going to be doomed to swing. All
Left arm are all arms right arm, probably.
So instead, what I'm going to show you is if I'm set up correctly and as I go to the top notice here, I've got more weight on the right side, but I've already almost made a full shoulder return. If not a perfectly full 90 degree turn. And my left arm is parallel to the ground. What I see all the time, when the people set up stacks on the left side, arms starting to bend and this their arms are up here and they've only turned 70 degrees. This is not a full golf swing is not a turn. You haven't loaded up any of these muscles in your body. You're going to be forced to fire with just your arms. So instead do this for me as an experiment. I want you to put all your weight on your left side and
Now try and make a turn. You're going to find
That you can only turn about halfway and now put all your way on your rights and actually even lift your left foot up in the air. And now you'll see that you can make pretty huge turn pretty easily. You have to get weight on the right side. And if one of the people who kind of presets there, wait, wait, left side, and then doesn't make a good shift over the right. You're going to be doomed to always having your left arm, have to fold at the top. So how little does your left arm really move is what I want to show you next. So now that I know I have to have my arm out here in front of my chest, not pulled across my chest, that set up and I probably need more weight on my right foot at address than you're probably used to.
If you're used to stacking on the left side. Now I know that focus on just turning, turning, turning, making this big body turn. And my arm swing is very little. Let me show you. So I'm going to turn, turn, turn, turn. That's pretty full swing right there right now. How much did my arms move? Well, I'm going to keep my arms exactly where they are here and I'm going to move back up to front. This is how much my arm move to get to that point in the swing from address to here is it look at how little movement that is. If your arms are moving more than this, they're simply moving too much. And that's why they're bending. The arm has to bend. At some point you can't. If the arms move any more than what I just showed you, they're moving too much.
Remember my mantra for the backswing big body turn tiny little arm swing. If your arms are swinging to the top and they're taking over and you're already preset on the left side with the left arm, stuck into the chest, kind of back behind the middle of your body. Of course your left arm is going to bit. If you're not getting weighed over the right side, you're not going to be able to make a full turn. So of course your left arm is going to bend. Cause it's going to be the only thing you can keep bringing the club up to a position that you feel you have some power. That's look it down the line. I'll show you the same thing. So getting a proper setup now just gonna focus on turning, turning, turning, turning, turning, turning full turn.
That's it
Go back to address it's. As far as my arms move, they're going from here to here. Why would my arm ever been it won't does it need to, unless you're moving your arms too much, your arms will again, move too much. If you're setting all your way on the left side, so you can't turn properly and you're already presetting your arm deep back behind you, instead of having it out in front of you. And if you're swinging them too much to begin with your arms, relatively, barely move in the swing. And that is one of the key secrets of rotary saline and understanding how to build consistency is that the arms and wrists create the greatest variability in the swing because they traveled the greatest distance and you can manipulate the club dramatically just with tiny little movements in your wrists and arms. So we want to minimize those movements.
You want as little movement in your arms and hands and wrists and shoulders and all that stuff as humanly possible. And the majority of the movement comes from here. I always tell people the same thing. If that club is moving during the backswing, it's because your body's turning not because you're trying to do something with your arms. So again, if your arms folding, take a look at the other video I did about talking about how the right arm staying straight, being the governor of width, maintains that radius in the swing and also pay attention to your setup. You probably need to get your setup dialed in because most people don't set up correctly. They pull their arms across their chest. They're too much weight on the left side, et cetera. And that will also make it impossible for you to keep your left arm straight at the top.
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