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This drill video is how to extend to finish your backswing.

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So a common complaint when golfers join the site is that my backswing is too short.

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I don't reach parallel, etc.

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I'm not here to say that every backswing should reach parallel.

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But we're going to talk a little bit about how you would set the club by using more of your spine

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and less of your arms in order to create that full turn.

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So one of the simple drills that I like to use to kind of organize this whole body movement for the backswing

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is when you put the club across your shoulders with a good pivot,

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the shoulder will roughly point somewhere out around where the golf ball would be.

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If you tend to stay flex forward and you are unable to make a full turn,

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it would end up looking more like this and it would be pointing kind of out over there.

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And what will happen is if I stay flexed forward and I make my turn,

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you can see that my upper body tends to move a little bit more or less I kind of counterbalance that with what I do with my pelvis.

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But the other thing is now because my chest is pointing way down there,

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I'm not able to really raise my arms past about this height.

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So if I have a look of kind of like that at the top of the swing,

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there's not much I could do with my arms or my hips or in order to create a more full turn.

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So if that's the case, if I've got a little bit of upper body sway,

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if I tend to have my arms bend in order to try to finish the backswing and get it up to parallel,

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oftentimes having a fuller body movement sets me up for a better position for the downswing.

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So what that's going to look like is as I make my backswing,

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I'm actually going to stand up as I side bend.

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So I'm going to turn it into kind of this one little movement that I like to teach without the club,

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which is almost as if my hand is going to stay pointed at the golf ball,

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and I'm going to reach that up to say hand away.

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It wouldn't make sense if I was trying to stay flex forward because now I wouldn't really be able to get it all the way back away from that hand.

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So I'm going to open my chest up just like this.

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Now the important thing is to make sure that the extension is happening from kind of the mid back,

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or the thoracic spine, as opposed to the lower spine.

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So I don't want to be doing this where I'm basically arching my lower back.

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I want to make sure my abs are a little bit engaged,

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and I'm going to make that movement just like so.

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Then I'm going to bring my hands together.

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And what I'll see is that if I'm used to being in this flex forward position,

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it will feel like my hands are much higher,

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but they're higher even though they're kind of in front of me.

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And that's because when my upper body extends,

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now keeping those arms straight, I'm actually able to get to a position where if I just changed my wrist,

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the club would be relatively set.

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So then once I have done that 10, 15 times or so,

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I'm going to have this feeling of this upper body extension coupled with rotation while keeping the abs engaged.

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Next I can add the club and try to recreate that same movement.

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Now if I were to recreate that movement,

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bring the club across the shoulders.

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Now that's pointing somewhere in the general area of the golf ball.

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So this is just kind of a breakdown movement of that club across your shoulders or the shoulder blade tilt for the backswing.

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So if you're struggling with your upper body swaying off the ball,

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staying a little bit more flex, this is a good overall idea and concept of how to finish your backswing,

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without having your arms bend without swaying off the ball.

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Now I always like to tie the backswing movements to the downswing because,

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unfortunately, the backswing by itself, you can't really use a contact or ball flight as a indicator of if you did a backswing movement correctly.

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So what ends up happening is if I tend to shift more like this,

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I'm going to tend to be more of this upper body dominant pole.

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But if I get more of this side bend extension,

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I'm going to feel more weight in my right leg,

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I'm going to feel some pressure in that hip, and that's going to encourage some of the Jackson 5,

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the bump, the initiation of the downswing with the lower body.

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So if you're struggling, if it looks like your backswing kind of falls into this category,

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and you have sequencing problems on the downswing,

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this is a good concept for you to kind of wrap your head around and experiment with on the range.

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The normal tendency would be to get a little bit steep when I start doing this move until I work on flattening the clubs from the shoulder,

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because the more that my upper body shifts back here,

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I can actually get steep with my arms, but still come from the inside.

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So when I get a better body pivot, when ends up happening,

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is it takes away the ability to compensate with my arm movement.

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So review some of these backswing drills,

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hopefully that helps you understand how to make a full turn if you see your arms bending,

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or you see your upper body not quite getting a full turn.

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It's usually this extension, makes sure the extension is happening from your rib cage,

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not from your lower back.