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Bracing Strategy Discussion

Bracing is the term we use for describing the body movements during the release. These movements help transfer speed to the club head, direct the path of the club head, and position the body for safe deceleration. The common strategies involve bracing with the hips, the trunk, the shoulders, or any combination.

Tags: Not Enough Distance, Release, Member Question, Concept, Advanced, Intermediate

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This discussion video is looking at bracing strategies.

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So bracing strategies is basically looking at the body movements to start the release and

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the release.

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So the body movements during the release.

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During transition, I'm going to use my body to really get this speed going into the handle

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of the club.

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But then during the release, my goal is to use my body along with my arms to help transfer

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the speed from the handle down to the club head.

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So what'll end up happening is I'm going to have to work away from the direction that

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I originally started.

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So similar to if I was throwing a ball, I'd kind of step and then stabilize if I was hitting

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something, let's say tennis, I'm going to step and then stabilize if I was snapping

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a towel, I'm going to accelerate and then decelerate, kind of works along that pattern.

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Now I'm not trying to get you to actively feel like you're stopping your body.

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So what's going to happen is it's going to move in a counter direction and that's

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what I call bracing.

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And that bracing is going to basically cause all that speed to get out to the club head.

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Now there's a variety of different ways that you can do it.

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You can brace with your lower body, you can brace with your core, you can brace with your upper

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body.

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The most consistent golfer is the guy who exemplify this stock tour swing pattern, tend to

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use their entire body.

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So they tend to use their hips by doing a little bit of this pelvis tuck and bridge.

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They tend to use their core by doing a little bit of a crunch and they tend to let those

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arms kind of stabilize, retract and rotate kind of like this to use their upper body.

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Some of the other patterns that you'll tend to see would be an overly done lower body,

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which will tend to look a little bit more like a buckle type movement.

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You can tend to see a core crunch pattern.

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So something like a lee westwood where this club is going way away from me like that.

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And I'm going to brace kind of like so to get all that speed to transfer out to the club

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that.

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Or I could use my shoulder neck area.

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So a lot of golfers will get to about this point and then you'll start to see their

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neck kind of crunch into stabilize the upper part of their shoulder girdle so that their

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ribcage can kind of act as the bracing mechanism.

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First through the ball you'll tend to see more of this shrug pattern where I'm basically

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pulling my shoulders up towards my ears like so.

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So it does a couple things that it helps transfer the speed from the handle to the club.

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But the other big important thing is now I've got the club at moving at a really good

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clip.

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Let's say 120 miles an hour or so with the driver.

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I need to be in a position that I can handle that speed.

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So different than say a tennis or a baseball like in a baseball I'm going to throw

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the ball and I don't really have to worry too much about how I'm going to handle decelerating

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all the speed I created because the ball is gone so now it's just stabilizing my body.

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Tennis racket doesn't weigh a whole lot and I'm not in too many compromising positions

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so it's not to challenging either.

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When this club is moving a hundred, 120 miles an hour it has a lot of force to it and so

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I have to be in a position where my body can safely absorb that force.

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I liken it to if you were going to jump off a two-story building.

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If you belly flopped you didn't absorb the force very well but if you landed and rolled

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you'd have a lot more time you'd use your whole body and you'd absorb the force much easier.

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Similarly a good bracing pattern is going to allow me to absorb the force through my

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whole body in a safer fashion.

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So if I'm doing it all in my legs, if I'm doing it all in my upper body those can

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can lead towards injuries at the very least they can lead towards path and face issues.

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So if you're struggling with understanding your release look at in your swing right

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around here that will give you an idea as far as how you're starting this bracing process

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and then look through the ball between there and there and that will see kind of how

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you're ending that bracing process and that will give you an idea of how you're

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your body is transferring and absorbing the speed that you've created during transition.

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It's a very critical part to understanding your release.

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It's a little bit tricky at first but once you get used to looking at it you'll start

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to understand how your arms and hands and your body are all working together to control

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your swing.

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And the shoulder shrug is not terrible because it can be really useful for these finesse wedge

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shots where I don't want to have this huge access to I don't want my body to be ultra

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shallow because my arms are going to be shallow.