Using your wrists for speed in golf swing - 5 of 7
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Your body uses tension as its primary mechanism to sequence the golf swing. In general, the muscles that have the most tension will always fire first. If you watched last week's video on the Drag Racer and the Dump Truck then you know that we MUST start the downswing with the lower body, just like you've heard from every great golfer from Nicklaus to Tiger. But, there's a "certain" instructor out there who is yet AGAIN completely changed his teaching philosophy and come up with another goofy looking golf swing that defies common logic, biomechanics and physics. In this video I'll explain why you would never want to follow this backswing advice and how one simple feeling will help you pick up 10-15 mph of clubhead speed while putting less strain on your body.
- Do not fully set the wrists early on in the swing.
- Allow for just enough wrist set to support the club
- Keep the wrists supple
- Allow for the weight shift to create additional angle for lag to start the downswing
One of golf instructions most important concepts for efficient swing speed is lag. In the first three videos of the "Keys to RST" series, I discussed some simple physics and how to work into a tour quality impact position, along with having a picture perfect release.
The 4th video of the series, "The Drag Racer and the Dump Truck" showed you why you MUST start the downswing with the lower body, just like you've heard from every great golfer from Nicklaus to Tiger.
In this most recent video called "Using your wrists for speed" I am going to show you how your body uses tension as its primary mechanism to sequence the golf swing. In general, the muscles that have the most tension will always fire first.
Even with a clear understanding of physics and biomechanics, it seems as though logic is lacking for certain well known instructors. There is one in particular, that is creating quite a buzz with a goofy looking swing shape and no real rhyme or reason as to why you would actually want to swing a golf club this way.
At RST we believe in providing you students very clear information with 2 critical questions always answered...how and why.
With that said, if you are wanting to pick up more speed in your golf swing, then you MUST be able to use your wrists properly. We need the wrists for lag in the swing and we need to be able to preserve lag with proper downswing sequence.
When you complete your takeaway, you are really only looking for enough wrist set (better known as "cocking of the wrists") to support the club, leaving it parallel to the ground. If you work to fully cock the wrists early on in the swing, what is that going to do for you? Well, the real answer to that question is...nothing good. We have a great video that talks about all the terminology and functions of the wrists called "Using the wrists effectively and efficiently", so make sure you check that out.
Going back to what I said earlier in regards to muscle groups loading up in order to fire in order, think about what you have just done to the wrists and forearms in the swing. You have fully loaded them up and they are going to want to fire first which is going to cause you to throw the club from the top, lose lag and lose speed. Doesn't sound all that promising, does it?
What you need to do is save yourself from fully loading up the wrists in the takeaway and even into the top of the backswing. You need to allow the wrists to have some room to create some downcock when you shift your weight.
What is downcock?
If you keep your wrists from being at full range of motion and they remain supple, your weight shift to the lead side can actually cause the angle to increase all on its own. Yep, simple as that! Now you have you hands and arms working down in front of you body with more lag than you ever knew what to do with.
Check out a great premium video and called the “downcock and pump drill” and you will see just how easy it is to get all that precious lag and pick up an easy 10-15 mph of clubhead speed.
Hi. I'm Chuck Quinton, found of Rotary Swing Golf. One of the important concepts that we've talked a lot about in these videos, is the importance of the wrists and the angle or the lag angle that we have in a proper swing, as we bring the club down into impact. In the last video we just talk about how you use your weight shift in the dump truck to bring the drag racer down into impact. If you haven't watched those videos, go back and watch that. It'll make a lot more sense.
One of the critical concepts that most people don't understand and don't do enough, is how soft your wrists need to be in a proper golf swing. Most people, when I grab their hands when I'm giving a golf lesson, their forearms are rock solid and I can't move their wrists around, so I grab their hands and move them around and then I touch their hand and show them how soft I hold the club and they're amazed that, that's how softly you should hold a golf club.
If you hold onto the club tight, your wrist will be locked in place and as they're locked in place, they can't release with any real speed and you're going to be relying on your physical force to create speed, instead of using physics and the centrifugal force that your rotating body will do for you.
What you want to understand is that as you go back, you don't want to set your wrists right off the ball. That's one of the worst things you can do in the swing, believe it or not. Even though it seems like a logical thing to do, because what's gonna happen, is you're gonna set your wrist pretty fully. By the time you get to the top, there's nowhere else for them to go, but guess what? Out. As you create a lot of tension and force on this wrist joint, what's the first thing your body wants to do when it has a lot of muscular tension? Wants to release it, of course. You set your wrists early. You go to the top with this wrist fully set, and you start down ... Of course as you start rotating, the only thing the club can do is go out away from you. You're gonna cast the club and lose it.
What you want to do as you go back, is stay nice and wide, and keep your wrists relatively, still extended. As you go to the top, as you use the dump truck to bring the club down, your wrists are soft, they will react, and let the club fall and get into a proper lagged position.
Now, I have a great video on this called, The Down Cock Drill, that's gonna show you how to do a couple little float loading moves and how to keep the wrists soft and what you should look for at the top as you start down, how the club should do what we call down cock. This will give you a lot more lag and a lot more power, with way less effort than holding onto the club tight and trying to push it through impact. So, take a look at this video, The Down Cock Drill video. It'll give you a lot more speed with a lot less effort.
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