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Hip Rotation Backswing Timing

Some golfers rotate their hips too early in the backswing and then finish the backswing with only arm movements. This makes it more likely for a golfer to start the downswing with the arms. It can be helpful to train the arms and the hips finishing the swing at the same time. Training the hip timing helps with rhythm and sequencing

Tags: Poor Contact, Drill

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This drill is hip rotation timing in the back swing.

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So some golfers who have more of an upper body pull tend to struggle with the timing

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of the rotation of the lower body, not necessarily the amount.

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So ideally if you are loading your hip muscles and you're using your lower body as a big

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power source, then what will happen is as you approach the top of the swing, you will

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be approaching the stretch in your glutes or you will be approaching your full range

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of motion with your lower body close to the top of the back swing.

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We will happen typically in more of this kind of wave or sequence where you might happen

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a little bit shorter.

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But oftentimes I'll find that golfers who have more of an upper body dominant power

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source, an upper body pull in transition, they will finish out the lower body movement.

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And the club is somewhere around belly button height.

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So they will tend to rotate the lower body quickly and then the rest of the back swing

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is mostly arm movement.

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So what they've done is they've created an anchor and then they're loading the arms to get

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ready to pull down.

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They may even look like that lower body is moving but it's just kind of repositioning

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it's not really driving the system.

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Oftentimes what we'll do is I will work on kind of getting more of this rhythm and feeling

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like, okay I'm going to make a turn and once I get into that hip or once I get that

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hip or that glute loaded then I'm going to change direction.

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So whether it's with a stepping drill or just kind of a rhythm move like I did there,

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then I'm going to combo that with a little bit of just kind of keeping the arms out in front

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of the body.

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Oftentimes this can be a little tricky one because what will happen is the transition

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or the back swing is going to feel much quicker than you're used to.

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We've basically taken away this kind of runoff and so it's going to feel like a shorter

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and quicker back swing movement but what's really happening is we're just blending the

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timing of that lower body with the upper body movement.

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So it's not so dramatic.

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As one student described, no coffee breaks.

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Basically the lower body finishes takes a little coffee break while the arms load and then

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catches up mid-down swing.

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So here we're going to do a couple where we work on that lower body timing.

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I'm going to apply this way kind of helps me feel like my lower body and my arm are

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working together and I want them to change direction relatively close to the same time.

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So now we're going to try and preset mentally.

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We're going to apply that feeling of lower body and it may feel either like I said

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quicker or it may feel shorter if you are used to having more of a kind of pause of the

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lower body at the top of the swing.

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If you don't have a pause and you're just kind of working on the overall timing then

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this can be a good drill of feeling like a dynamic load into the hip and as soon as you

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load that hip you're going to fire.

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If that's the case then oftentimes what I'll have golfers do is do a little bit of a squat

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jump and I'll say okay I want you to feel how much load you had or how long you were

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at the bottom of the swing.

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Now I want you to imagine that your hip is going to spend the same amount of time

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under load at the top of the swing and so for some golfers that imagery or that feeling

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kind of connects the timing a little bit better.

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So there's kind of that feeling.

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Now we're going to get that transition or that top of swing timing work in the same way.

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Top.

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Go.

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And like I said it can feel a little shorter you can feel a little quicker but if you're

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looking at it on video you should see that basically the leg is kind of moving and filling the space

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of the whole backswing and then starting the downswing so there's no real pause or standstill

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as your upper body appears to look like it would pull.

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So try that if you feel like or you analyze your video and you see that there's a little bit more

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of an aggressive arm pull and you see that the leg is not really moving for the second half of the downswing.

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You can have a big impact on where you're creating power and you're overall sequencing.

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