Swing Plane Simplified - Working with steeps and shallows
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Once you isolate what you need to work on, the fun part of training begins. You have to experiment with different ways of training it until you find one that works so that you can put in reps and train your brain. In this video, I show you how using follow through training can have a profound effect on club path during the release. This is useful when a golfer can't really feel what's going on in a specific area.
Tags: Mental Game, Transition, Concept, Intermediate
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In this case study, we're going to take a look at a golfer working through shallow arms.
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So I like the recipe or the process of clarifying exactly what you want to do,
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and then selecting a drill that gets you to do what you want to do,
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and then putting in reps.
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And when you put in reps, the next step is to remove the barriers that prevent you from hitting the ball the way you want,
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when you do what you're trying to do.
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So in this particular example, working on shallow arms,
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working on it directly didn't really resonate.
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So we clarified that we needed to shallow out the swing,
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but going at it directly didn't work, so we went at it from a different perspective,
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which you'll see in this video.
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Once we had a way that he could train the shallow arms,
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then he was able to put in reps, and we started to remove barriers.
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So this will hopefully help you see the recipe of how you can improve your own game.
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Alright, this is the student he had joined the website,
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and then found me live close enough nearby where he wanted to come in and take a few lessons.
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He knew that he needed to shallow out the swing,
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and we had a limited time frame.
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So we only had about six or eight weeks.
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We were able to fit in about four lessons.
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So over here on the left, we have the first swings that he took for me.
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And he had been working on trying to get some of that right arm external rotation.
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He was working on some of the active ways to shallow out the club.
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Now you can see that there's a lot of body rotation,
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and you can see that those arms aren't really...
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They're shallowing a bit, but you can see that that overall path is probably going to get outside in,
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unless that club drops a ton.
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And now if you see where he's looking,
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I haven't aimed at the middle of the driving range,
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which is there's a...
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there's a pole kind of in line with one of those trees.
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So that's roughly where he's trying to hit.
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So even though he was doing some of the shallow pumps,
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the problem was it wasn't providing correct feedback for him.
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And so here we can see his actual swing is very steep, almost vertical,
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with a very leftward path.
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He was hitting really deep divots.
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He was hitting big poles, some slices,
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and he couldn't hit anything longer than, you know, say, a five-iron with any level of consistency.
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So I wanted to show that one because it had the little pump in it.
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But here you can see the movement outside,
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so we can see it get steep,
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and you'll see a lot of toe shots and a lot of poles.
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This is actually the...
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near the beginning of the second lesson.
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So by working on it directly,
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we were not able to make a big impact
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as far as the shallowing goes.
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Now I wanted to use this as a case study for a couple reasons.
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One, I sometimes get accused of teaching a swing
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that only young guys are able to do.
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And so I wanted to show a guy who's a little bit larger,
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maybe doesn't work out on, he's got a pretty busy job working in the oil and gas.
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But he's a passionate golfer in any practice as a bunch.
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The other key that I wanted to highlight
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was that you don't necessarily have to actively do what you're trying to do.
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So the three steps are basically clarify what you're trying to do.
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Select a drill that allows you to do it correctly
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and then put in reps.
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And once you've put in reps, you then want to remove barriers
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as to why when you put whatever you're learning in that drill
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when you put that back in your full swing,
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it doesn't give you exactly the results you want,
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what else is left.
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So clarify, select a drill and then remove barriers.
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So here we still know we've got to get shallow
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and working on it directly wasn't getting there.
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Every time I asked him what did it feel like,
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what did it feel like, he wasn't very aware of feel.
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So we did some variation of the force square
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and a variation of the follow through poles.
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So getting awareness of where we wanted to club this swing
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and we used some sticks and alignment aids
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and kind of created some visuals so that he could see
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where he wanted to get the club to go.
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Now what's fast forward to the end of this lesson
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and show you what the changes were.
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Alright, over on the left he's trying to swing along
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this path that we created.
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He's trying to create a blur that goes
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kind of through this gate or along this path.
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And you can see he's basically trying to get his arms
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this swing where what he felt was
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directly out to the right.
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We had visuals trying to help him out.
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But you can see a massive change in where he was able
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to get the club to shallow.
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So this is one example of how we wanted to work on shallow arms
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and we found a way to work on shallow arms
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by working on the follow through position.
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Here he is after doing kind of a full session of practice.
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If you remember he wasn't able to hit anything
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and about a five iron and here he was able to hit
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a number of drives that would have gone pretty straight
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and found the fairway.
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So at this point we were both pretty excited
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but I know from looking from teaching golf
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and kind of working in motor learnings
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that you don't know what's learned until there's been time.
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You don't know if he's actually learned how to shallow
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the arms or he just was in a good groove.
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So I was really excited to see where I had it.
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I was anxious to see what would happen when he came back
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for the next lesson.
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Alright, as we were walking out he told me he hit a lot of
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good shots. He saw that some bad ones but he hit a lot of
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good shots and the overall turf contact was better.
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That was the main feedback we were focusing on.
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Because once we got the blur we had to do,
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you know, brush the ground and then put the ball in the way.
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But he worked through that. He got some awareness
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of the proper path. This was his first swing
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after that next lesson.
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So in my head I'm like, oh man, it didn't quite stick.
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It's a little shallow, it's not quite as vertical
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but nowhere near where it was.
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As soon as he hit that ball he said, nope, nope, I got this.
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Here was the next swing.
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And I asked him what the difference was
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and he said he could see the blur of the club
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going through the path.
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And the neat thing was he said after training the blur of the club
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and using visual feedback after doing that for a few weeks,
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he was now starting to feel where his arms were
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in the library position.
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So he was starting to feel where his body was and how it
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related to this visual.
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So he's using multiple feedback mechanisms to help
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create the shallow path.
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But the key is you have to,
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once you figure out what you need to do,
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whether it's move the low point,
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power it more with the body, get more leg,
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shallow out the club, square the club face earlier.
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Whatever you decide you need to do,
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you have to find a drill or two that help you do it.
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I find that most people just,
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they figure out what they want to do
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and then they go put in reps trying to do it.
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But they haven't actually
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changed the situation so that they're actually doing it.
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So they're really just confusing their motor pattern
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by thinking they're doing one thing
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and not actually doing it.
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So you've got to find a drill and select a drill
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that gets you to actually do what you're trying to train.
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Then you can put in the reps
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and if it's not everything's not going exactly the way you want,
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you can then remove barriers.
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Like we found such as over here
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that when he tries to swing harder,
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he gets a little steeper.
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So that's a barrier.
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We have to work on how can he get the blur
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while still swinging hard.
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We also found that he,
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one of the barriers on some of his workshops
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he would tend to have the club face
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a little bit more open compared to the path.
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So we had to work a little bit more on getting the club face to rotate.
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Hopefully this inspires you
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to experiment with different forms of feedback
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that can ultimately help you
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do the movements that you're trying to do
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so that you can build your field database
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so that it'll hold up under pressure
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when you're out on the course.