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How Can Both Arms Supinate? - Member Question

I recently received a member question regarding my presentation at the 2018 World Golf Fitness Summit. In this presentation, I cover a number of 3D graphs detailing key movements/patterns of the release. One of these movements, which is often seen in elite golfers, is supination from both the right and left arm during the downswing. While this pattern can be a bit tricky to understand, it is easier to grasp if we start by isolating the movemements of each arm first. 

Playlists: Train Your Release

Tags: Release, Member Question, Concept, Advanced

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This video is answering the member question, how do both arms supinate in the downswing?

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So I just posted a video from the World Golf Fitness Summit 2018 and I put up a bunch

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of 3D graphs and I basically talked about how both arms are going to supinate during

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the downswing.

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Now it makes sense with the left arm even if you think that it's going to do very little

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of it.

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If you look at this position, typically the elbow is pointing kind of there in the back

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of the hand is pointing out that way at impact.

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So there's the elbow pointing at impact.

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The elbow is still kind of pointing at the target so it hasn't rotated as much as the hand.

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But the hand is now pointing closer to the target.

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That's supination that got it there.

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Even if it's in a slightly pronated position still at this point, it is in the process

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of supinating.

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And then through impact, that elbow is pointing behind you and now the palm is pointing

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behind you or the back of the hand is pointing behind you.

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So it's gone through supination.

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That one's pretty easy to see.

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But what most people would assume is that if this one supinates, this one's going to

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pronate and arms are going to work more like this.

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But you could see that if I do that, that's not necessarily the position that I would

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want to get in here just after impact.

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So the way that pros typically do it is they're actually going to supinate this right

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form.

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Now there's two ways to supinate.

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One would be, I'm not going to move the elbow and I'm going to move the hand down in

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this direction and that would be considered supination.

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The other one is I'm going to keep my hand still and I'm going to turn my elbow so it's

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pointing more at the down-the-line camera there.

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So if I go from there to there and the hand doesn't move, that is also supination.

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So as much as the golfer is trying to prevent a big internal rotation of the shoulder

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pronation of the forearm kind of like this, if the forearm, or sorry, if the shoulder

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starts to rotate before the palm does, that's going to show up as supination because

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my forearm is actually rotating in this direction.

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The supination of that trail arm right around here helps to shallow the club and match

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the unhinging of the lead wrist.

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So one way to kind of think of it is the lead wrist is rotating like this and the trail

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wrist is rotating more like that even though it's going more across the body at the

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same time that it's doing it, you can see that the shoulder is coming out of its rotation

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before the hand.

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If the hand comes out of the rotation before the shoulder, it'll be a high pronation

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value.

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If the shoulder comes out before the hand, it'll show up as supination.

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So if I go in slow motion and you were to look at this right forearm as that's extending,

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the right arm is actually staying facing more this way and it's my body that's bringing

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it around that forearm staying more this way is supination.

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So to me it almost feels similar to like a chest pass where the arms would be rotating

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both this both like that which is supination but whether or not you're able to feel

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that supination through here or you feel the pronation from impact until follow through

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that doesn't change the fact of what the graph show and they show it pretty consistently

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that typically the elite level golfers are supinating that trail arm from right about

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here until the club is just about here before you actually start to see the pronation.

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So hopefully this clears up a little bit what's going on in the down swing and you're

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able to kind of visualize how this arm, how the data would match up with what you might

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feel and while it's tricky to initially get a sense yes in the elite level swing both arms

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are supinating during the downswing.

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