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Many golfers tighten their arms and pull the club with their shoulders to start the downswing. This movement tends to steepen the path and open the face, and set up a golfer for needed early extension and or a stall to hit a shot online. But this limits the ability to create a good path of the club after impact.
To feel the timing of when to apply force to a swinging object, try this drill. Play around with the timing of when you add the force to the club and you will quickly see that there is a zone where you will get the most bang for your buck. Try to recreate that sensation when swinging the club after you do the arm shallowing piece.
Tags: Transition, Intermediate
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This concept video is experiencing the arm timing.
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So I've talked about the arms being passive and shallow in transition and the body leading
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the initial part.
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And I've referenced the image of kind of using a swing set a lot in the past.
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So basically you get the kid moving in the swing and then you push at the right time and
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you being the arms, you push in the right time and it propels the kid.
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Well, we're going to use a club to kind of experience that together.
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So I want you to take a club and you're going to grip it up at the top like so.
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So thumb up with the club, the weight of the club or the club head down at the bottom.
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So now what you're going to do is you're going to get the club swinging just like so.
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And first I want you to experience what a lot of amateurs do, which is pulling right
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from the top.
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So when it gets to the top of the swing, what I want you to do is I want you to manually or
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forceably change direction kind of like so.
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So you're going to even before it gets to the top, you're going to forcefully change direction.
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Okay, so that's option one.
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That's essentially pulling with the arms during transition.
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Now second, I'm going to let it get going and then when I feel it's right, I'm going
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to add about the same amount of speed but now the clubs already moving when I add it.
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And you'll see that it forces me or I can do it so much that it actually propels it all
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away vertically and and pulled me out of position.
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That would be what it's like when we talk about this effortless power.
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That would be what it would be like if you were to start with your lower body and then
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apply the force from the arms at the right time.
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So this was inspired by a student of mine who talked to me about how he's working on this
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arm shallowing piece and he feels like he's manipulating the club and he's been told
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or always thought that he shouldn't manipulate the club.
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And so I took him through this little illustration and then showed him just some simple little
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physics where basically if I go to the top of the swing the club is slightly behind where
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my hands are, right?
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Even if it's close to straight up and down when I go to change direction because this
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club has weight and because this shaft is shallowing and the weight is no longer directly
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over my hands as I start down that weight.
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If I just relax my arms would fall down like this.
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So if my arms are truly relaxed then that shallowing is going to be very passive where
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just the weight of the club is going to cause it to shallow as long as I let it.
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So what he was interpreting as manipulating the club and what you may feel as manipulating
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the club to drop it down is actually not manipulating the club and his baseline and perhaps
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your baseline is built around arm tension and manipulating the club.
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So what you feel is manipulating the club is actually not and what you think is not manipulating
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the club actually is.
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So if you're struggling with this arm shallowing see if you can relax your arms and really
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focus on no tension and let the weight of the club aid with this shallowing piece.
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And so then all you have to do is work on that timing and you can use the timing of kind
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of this swinging because it's going to be very very similar or basically I'm going to get
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it going down and then somewhere around in there I'm going to add the arms just like I was
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doing in this.
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So if you're struggling with the feeling like you're manipulating the club in order
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to get the arm shallowing piece, that gravity help you, that relaxation help you and it may
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help you overcome that hurdle.