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While it may sound strange, there is actually a right and wrong way to breathe during the golf swing. If you have watched a few videos on the site and are familar with my teaching format, you will notice that I sometimes have a noticeable exhale before swinging the club. This subtlety of exhaling, or breathing out, before and during my swing is a conscious effort and believe it or not, can actually influence the way my body will tend to move. Players with any sort of lower back, shoulder, or neck pain will benefit especially from this drill, as it allows the body to use the right "sources" for mobility without putting any undue stress on the aforementioned trouble areas.
Tags: Fundamentals, Drill, Beginner
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This video is breathing during the golf swing.
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So this is a little risky to implement in your game because it makes you aware of something
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that you were not once aware of.
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So if you're not curious about kind of the ideal breathing pattern, then turn this video
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off now and go work on some release technique.
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But if you are curious, it can be powerful especially if you have any next shoulder issues
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or if you have any low back issues that you may be protecting.
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If that's the case and you want to explore how you should breathe in the golf swing,
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the simple answer is you should be exhaling during the entire golf swing.
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So you may hear when I'm demonstrating some of these videos or when I'm doing a demo
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swing at the end, you'll typically hear one of the last things that I do.
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Is exhale and basically keep that exhale going all the way down through impact.
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What that does is if you hold your breath it tends to contract or tighten your diaphragm
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and your diaphragm connects to the inside edge of all your ribs.
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So when you tighten your diaphragm and contract your tight in your ribs, it basically
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turns this whole segment here into a block where it moves as one.
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If you're exhaling in this area is relaxed, it allows you to build up tension better
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because the ribs are able to fully move.
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So it supports using some of your other core muscles not just your diaphragm.
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One of the biggest areas that takes a beating for most golfers is the lower back.
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And part of the reason is if the ribs don't really rotate and the hips don't really
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rotate, then when you try and turn you'll basically over rotate in the lower back.
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Well if you hold your breath that limits your ribs ability to rotate and put more stress
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or more potential problems in your lower back.
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So by exhaling it will allow you to distribute the rotation load more evenly.
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It might not feel quite as powerful but ultimately it will help with tension in your shoulders
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neck jaw and tension in your lower back.
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So when I was growing up one of the jokes you would say during match play is if there
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was this one kid who was always trying to get in your head and he would ask everybody,
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do you breathe in or do you breathe out when you swing?
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Do you swing with your left hand?
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Do you swing more your right hand?
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Just trying to make you aware of things that you didn't know you were doing to try to mess you up.
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Well if you do struggle with either neck or lower back issues possibly even shoulder issues
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then focusing on breathing at the start of your swing or even before as a trigger.
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So getting a nice exhale and then keep exhaling as long as you are exhaling during transition
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you should be fine but I find that it's really hard for golfers to start that exhale during
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transition so I found it more useful or easier to just start the exhale before you take the club back
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and keep it going all the way through to finish.
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If you try it it should help with becoming a more of a relaxed trigger but you do want to monitor
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on video to make sure that it doesn't turn into any type of sloppy sway slide because I have
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seen that happen in the path. So if you were wondering about the ideal breathing pattern
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take a look at the diaphragm and the core in order to properly engage the core and to
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relax the diaphragm you want to exhale during the entire swing that helps prove boost
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more range of motion in the ribcage and definitely creates more of an even distribution so it's
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going to be less stressful on your lower back or neck. So now I'll exaggerate my breathing.
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I'm gonna take a breath in get set up and by exhaling the whole downswing it
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creates less tension in my shoulders and frees me up to make a good athletic move through the ball.
