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In this analysis video, we're going to look at bracing strategies.

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So bracing is a component of the release, which is going to begin somewhere around this

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part of the swing and transfer or travel all the way until this part of the swing.

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We're basically the club passes the body.

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So bracing is essentially a pulling away or a counter movement to help shallow out the angle

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of the attack, curve the hand path inward, but also from a mechanical perspective to

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transfer the speed from the handle to the clubhead and prepare the body or get the body

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in position and get the right muscles active to be able to handle all that speed.

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So in the case of someone like Jamie said, Lowski, you can see that his lower body is

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starting to push as upper body is starting to kind of crunch and pull away and then as

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those arms extend, now he's in a great position where if I had a cable pulling away just

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like the club over here, he's in a good position to be able to pull on that with a lot

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of force.

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So that means that his body will safely be able to handle a lot of speed.

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There's one argument that essentially your body can only speed something up as fast as you

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can slow it down.

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So if you can't handle a lot of speed from a deceleration perspective, it'll be very hard

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to create a lot of speed from acceleration perspective.

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In this video we're going to take a look at different strategies of how golfers use either

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their lower body, their core, their upper body or their whole body to initiate and complete

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this bracing strategy that is so critical for a good release.

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Now technically you can observe a bracing strategy with any club, but it's going to be

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more exaggerated.

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It's going to be easier for us to see bracing strategies when we look at driver.

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So over on the left we have Tom Watson and the beginning of the release is kind of in

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this zone here and then we're going to look at a couple examples of total body bracing

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before we then get into comparing that to people who use more of a lower body or an upper

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body strategy.

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So you're not going to see a major movement through any one particular area in his body.

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He's using a little bit of his hips.

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He's using a little bit of his core.

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He's using a little bit of his neck.

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He's using a little bit of his shoulders.

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It's kind of distributing the load very, very throughout his entire body.

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And so what you'll tend to see in this pattern is golfers are going to look like they

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have a lot of rhythm and they're going to look very, very smooth through the ball because

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there's going to be no look of kind of aggression and there's going to be no look of a stall.

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Now over here on the right we have Adam Scott.

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He's also a total body bracer.

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If we look at his lower body in his core, you can see a lot of activity going on in his

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glutes.

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But if we start looking right around here, you'll also see that he has a fairly pronounced

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neck movement.

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In fact, he's using his SCM pretty aggressively in order to create stability in the ribcage

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to help create that platform for the right side of Domino's to really grab onto and

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desolary it from.

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So these are two different examples of what it looks like to use your entire body.

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We'll explore a few more.

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So over on the left we have Greg McDowell.

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He's another kind of total body bracer.

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You'll see a fair amount of this side crunch movement.

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But he's not doing it just from the neck.

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He's not doing it just from the core or just from the hips.

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He's kind of distributing it through his entire body and through the entire load.

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So you'll see it kind of initiate there with the legs, but he's using a lot of his total

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body.

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This helps create that look of really fluid tempo.

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It gets him in a good position so that if there was a cable machine pulling where the

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club is pulling, his body would be able to handle a lot of force that way.

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Over here we have Bubba Watson.

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You'll see he's a little bit more of a legs and upper.

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It doesn't use as much of his core so you can see he's doing a fair amount with the knees

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in there and at about the same time you'll see his head start to or his neck doing a little

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bit of a crunch as he tries to stabilize his shoulder girl.

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There are some schools that thought they basically look at the shoulder and the neck as kind

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of a whole complex.

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So the shoulder, the scapula and the neck kind of all work in integration, a lot of their

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muscles kind of have multiple roles.

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One muscle that can move the neck that same muscle can also move the shoulders depending

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on which is the fixed point.

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So they tend to work in conjunction.

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So you'll see a lot of people using their shoulder and neck mechanics.

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Here's an example of someone using knee, some core and shoulder and neck so we put him in

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the total body category.

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So now the last one we're going to look at for a total body is going to be Jordan

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Speath.

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You can see that there's a fair amount of leg activity going on kind of through there.

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And you'll see his upper body kind of working himself away.

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And so even though he incorporates more of that left shoulder shrug, you can see the

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amount of glute squeeze, you can see the amount of side bend and kind of core activity.

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He's using his total body to be able to handle the speed of the club right about there.

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And then all the real goofy stuff is more during the kind of the real deceleration phase.

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So after the club is reached, it's for this point away and he's just finding a way to kind

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of handle the force.

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But it's a very solid, bracing and deceleration pattern.

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I think that's part of the reason why he has such consistency.

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I'll notice that a lot of the golfers who we've shown in the total body bracing strategy tend

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to have some really good levels of consistency.

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So now over here on the left we have John Senden.

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Now I wanted to use him because you'll see that it looks very fluid through the ball.

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Now part of that is because he's more of an upper body dominant swinger.

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In fact, he's one of the most accurate and consistent upper body dominant swingers on

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tour at least in my opinion.

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But he's also not someone who swings very hard.

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So what you'll tend to see is there's not a lot of bracing going on from the lower body.

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It's mostly from the rib cage up.

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So from about this level up is where all of his bracing is actually occurring.

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But because he's not swinging very hard, it doesn't look very exaggerated.

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So this is one example where you can't just look at tempo, it might throw you off a little

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bit if you're looking at bracing strategies.

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But if you kind of look at the frame by frame and what's moving and what's stabilizing,

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you can get a pretty clear picture.

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So John Senden is going to be the first of what we're going to call more of an upper body

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bracing strategy.

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But we'll look at a few more who are little bit more obvious.

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Okay so over on the left we have Cory Paveon and on the right we have Lee Westwood.

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These are both more of the upper body bracing strategy golfers.

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So there are a couple of big shoulder neck muscles.

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You'll see Cory Paveon doing a pretty good little crunch movement where this part of his body

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is kind of working away from the golf ball.

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That's going to help him shallow out the angle attack as well as initiate this transfer

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from the handle to the clubhead.

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But you won't see a ton of kind of, you won't see a ton of dynamic bracing happening

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from his legs, his hips, his core, all that area is more passive and kind of supporting

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what his arms are doing as opposed to really driving them through that phase.

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Now over on the right we can see an even more pronounced kind of neck crunch movement.

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The neck crunch movement really helps stabilize the shoulder girdle and gives the arms a

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stronger platform to really push off of.

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So you'll see that he's doing much more of this neck and upper rib crunch as opposed

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to what we'll see later when we look at the lower body guys who are using more of their

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legs to drive the pattern.

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He's still using some legs because he's a torque row but he's one of the most obvious

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kind of neck shoulder upper body bracing strategy golfers that we can look at.

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So now finally we have a couple examples of amateurs we're going to be able to see more of this

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upper body bracing strategy.

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Unfortunately I don't have any amateurs who use the total body bracing strategy because

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it's the most optimal and usually the guys who have really good upper body or total body

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bracing strategies end up playing really well and possibly getting on tour.

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So here's an example you'll see not a ton of movement happening from the lower body a little

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bit from the legs kind of down here in the bottom to get you know create a little bit more

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momentum to brace away from the club which you'll see the big thing is his upper body working

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away right through here which actually helps kind of round the rib gauge and puts his chest

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any good position to be able to handle the speed of the club right through there and you'll see

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that he adds a little bit of that left shoulder shrug through that phase there.

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The shrug can be a large muscle used for upper body bracing in addition to some of the

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other back muscles but you can also use your chest or your abs as if you were doing kind of a

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crunch away from the the pull of the club. So he does it a little bit more with his upper body

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moving away and that left shoulder shrug. Over here on the right we're going to see a very good

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example of someone who uses more of that neck crunch strategy so that's more of a crunching and

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bringing your chin in towards your chest helps if helps you do sit-ups and things like that

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more functionally right because it it kind of it activates some of the muscles that run all the way

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from your chin down towards your pelvis so you have your neck flexors your trunk flexors

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in your hip flexors and they kind of all work in chains. So by flexing his neck like so he's going to

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allow his abs to be able to handle a little bit more force or a little bit more speed. So this is a very

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common pattern that you'll see with guys who look really really rounded it impact.

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If their chin goes down at the start of the release that's usually a good indication that they're

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using this type of upper body neck bracing strategy. So now we're going to get into a few of the

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lower body bracing strategies. Now Lexi could you can make an argument that she's more of the total

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because she does use a fair amount of the neck but you can also see a very pronounced movement from

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more her knees less than less of her hips. She tends to get some hip-hippic action but very pronounced

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quad very pronounced knee action to help kind of get her in good position for that her bracing

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strategy. But she does use some of that neck side crunch that you'll see that's prominent with a

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a few other offers that we'll look at. So over here on the left we have Jim Furik. He's

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one of the more lower body dominant bracing strategy golfers that buckle move that you'll tend to

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see in the follow-through. We'll usually happen right when the club passes the body so you can see that

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little knee buckle happening there. That's usually instead of using the glutes and the abs that's

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usually more the hip flexors in the quad and that will tend to cause that little look of the knee

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buckle or the look of the drop when you're using the hip flexors and knee flexors or sorry knee

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extensions of the hip flexors and the quads instead of the glutes and the abs. Which you'll see that

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there's not a lot going on with his shoulders, his arms are more kind of extending out to to control the

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path and really work on that flat spot but he's not using his arms a ton or his upper back or neck

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as his bracing pattern. So very similar to Lexi's move, Rory over here uses kind of a combination of both

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a lot of lower body activity and a fair amount of neck. Again, I could have made an argument that he's

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more of a total body but he does such an exaggerated job of using the lower body to really

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get himself in position or to handle that speed and transfer all that speed from the handle

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into the rotational speed of the club that I feel like he belongs in the lower body category and then

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we're going to use Phil Nicholson to bridge us more into kind of a back category. So he does a lot of his

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movement. It's not a ton from the shoulders and neck. He's getting most of his crunch and most of his

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movement kind of between his rib cage and his hips. So you'll see definitely some lower body action

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but a lot of it is going to be that mid back crunch you can actually see the shape if I

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create that there not just for a rotation but you can see that he's actually going into more of a

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a double crunch and the flexion to basically pull away from the handle and start that bracing process.

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So now we've got a couple more examples of amateurs working more with their lower body and

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or a trunk. Again the guy on the right you're going to see a bit of the neck movement as well

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but he tends to be more of that trunk right side and you'll see as a result he gets a little bit of the

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almost jim-fiery kneed buckle on the way through and then over here on the left we'll have another

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example of kind of more of a pure back movement. So you'll see that as opposed to getting

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the crunch pattern that a lot of the good Tor pros get where they're using more of their abs with

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their hips because his back stays very very straight you can see that he's using much more of this

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mid back extension strategy with a little bit of a shrug here towards the end as the club

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goes from really accelerating the really decelerating. Now lastly we'll look at a couple others who

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use more of that back extension strategy so here's another one of our amateurs golfers and you'll see

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anytime that you've got that core buckle on the way through that's going to be more of an avoidance

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of the glutes and abs and relying more on the back end hip flexors but you'll see he does a decent

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job of using a little bit of his abs in order to get the crunch but it's definitely more of a back

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extension strategy in order to stabilize the speed through there and then over here on the left

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again as he gets down you can start to see the the kind of extension as he works away from it

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and then really through the ball you'll see that the major movement is going to happen in this area

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here as opposed to a really pronounced shrug or really pronounced knee buckle you can see that his

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absorption method is going to be more through the back right in through there. That's going to be one

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of the more common patterns that we're going to see among amateurs. Prozyve demonstrated that you

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can use either an upper body, a lower body or a total body pattern but the I feel the the

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best strategy to create maximum speed maximum safety maximum consistency is to develop a

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bracing strategy using your whole body. If you find that you're either lower body dominant or

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upper body dominant that will help you understand a little bit more how you're releasing the club

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and potentially why you're releasing the club that way and what you could do about it. If you have

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any questions about your bracing strategy feel free to submit your swing here at Galsmart Academy.