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Insight - Does Straightening The Trail Leg Increase Hip Rotation

At Golf Smart Academy, we try to accurately describe sub-movements of the golf swing. One area that seems to have a lot of confusion wrapped around it is whether or not to try and keep the trail knee flexed. The tour average is only a slight straightening of the leg, and trying to keep it flexed while letting it straighten slightly could add more power to your transition than actively straightening it. I think it is important that we differentiate feels and reals of the movement. For many, it may feel like trying to keep it bent, for others (especially if they have actually succeeded in keeping it bent) they may feel it actively straighten.

Either way, a common description of WHY a golfer should straighten the leg is that it increases hip turn. There are a number of things that will change when you straighten the trail leg, but increasing the amount of internal hip rotation in the trail leg is unlikely to be one of them. What is more likely is that the lead knee flexes more, the lead hip EXTERNALLY rotates more, and the trail ankle supinates more. One reason why straightening the trail knee is unlikely to add hip rotation is that as the hip tilt is increased the amount of trail hip flexion increases. As the hip flexion is increased, there is a greater chance of putting the gemelles on stretch.

Tags: Member Question, Intermediate

WEBVTT

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in this golf smart insight we're gonna

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look at straightening the trail leg to

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increase hip turn so we like to be as

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specific as we can here at golf Smart

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Academy and I see a lot of videos

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talking about increasing or I have

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students send me videos about whether to

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straighten the leg or keep that trail

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leg bent so I'm just going to give you a

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little overview of how I would walk

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through this thought process so one of

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the things that you'll see is on video

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if a golfer tends to keep their trail

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leg bent from the down-the-line camera

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angle you'll only be able to see a

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certain amount of pelvis and then if you

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see them straighten their leg you're

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gonna be able to see more pelvis so this

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is commonly thrown around as increasing

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your hip turn now I'm gonna talk you

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through why it's not actually increasing

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your trail hip turn it may actually be

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increasing the lead hip turn so that's

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where breaking things down looking at

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them logically can help you understand

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why a movement may or may not be working

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for you or be doing the right thing that

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you're trying to Train so let's talk a

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little bit about what's going on with

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this hip and then we'll go through a

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little exercise to kind of feel what's

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happening and it how straightening this

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trail leg it's probably not causing you

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to increase the amount of turn into that

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trail hip so when I make this backswing

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where you see a different amount of my

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pelvis there's a lot of things that

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could do it besides hip turn a very good

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reference for looking at hip hip

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rotation is looking at where the belly

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button or where the belt buckle would be

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and comparing that to where the knee is

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so if I'm facing the camera just like so

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and my knee is facing the camera if I

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turn so that my pelvis is pointed to the

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right of my knee that is internal hip

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rotation in this trail hip if I rotate

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it so that my belt buckle is pointing

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way to the left of where the knee is

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that's external hip rotation so what

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you'll frequently see is here's where

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I've rotated 20 degrees or so into my

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hip and now if I straighten the leg you

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can see that the knee changes about the

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same amount as the pelvis because it's

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most of the movement there may be coming

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from the ankle the other common

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would be if I increase the external

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rotation of this trail leg that can give

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the appearance that I've turned into

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this leaf or sorry if I increase the

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external rotation so if I'm rotating

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that way more with the lead leg that'll

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make it look like I rotated into that

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trail leg even more so if I get here and

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I allow this leg to Street and what that

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frequently does is that allows this leg

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to bend a lot more and allows that hip

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to open up so when this lead hip is

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opening up even though I haven't really

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turned more into this trail hip I've

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gotten more rotation so one way to kind

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of feel this is if I stand on this leg

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and I keep my pressure even throughout

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my foot so I'm gonna make sure that I

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keep the pressure on the inside of the

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foot kind of like this and I'm going to

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rotate while keeping that leg fairly

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straight just a little bit event so 10

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and 15 degrees event now if I was to

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bend that knee a whole lot more it's not

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going to restrict how much hip rotation

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I'm going to have now what's interesting

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is if I flex forward and rotate that

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will tend to restrict the hip rotation a

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little bit and that's partly because

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there's some really deep muscles that as

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the hip comes up get restricted when we

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start looking at internal hip rotation

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so that's the other little piece to this

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puzzle is as I make a backswing the more

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that I tend to straighten that trail leg

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the more that I'll tend to have this hip

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go backward and in order to keep my

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spine angle while having that hip go

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backward I'm actually going to be

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flexing into this hip so the more that

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now it's probably only 5 10 maybe up to

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15 degrees so it's not gonna change at a

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time but the more that I flex this hip

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the more that that's going to restrict

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the amount of actual hip rotation so I

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just like to be clear as far as what's

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happening and if we're looking at pelvis

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rotation if we're looking at maybe it's

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the lead leg that's bending more just

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because we see more pelvis we're not

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going to assume that it's the hips that

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are actually doing it because we can we

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can think through it we can measure it

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we can look at it and decide if it's

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actually

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increasing hip rotation by straightening

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the trail leg my take is that no it's

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not you're either getting it more from

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the foot or you're getting it from the

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lead leg but I'm not an advocate of

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trying to keep that knee perfectly

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locked or perfectly flex the same amount

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frequently what happens is these golfers

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tend to sway off the ball a lot more the

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pressure goes to the outside foot and

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they have trouble making solid contact

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on the way down so if you like the way

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we break this down check out our other

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videos here or submit your swing through

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our membership site and we can tell you

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what's going on in your swing and where

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you can improve the fastest and what

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drills you should do to get there

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