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Loading The Glute From a Centered Pivot

I find that many golfers shift their upper body excessively in order to "load the glutes". Unweighting and hip rotation are all that's really needed to get sufficient glute load at the top of the swing. Use this feel drill to help get the proper loading sensation. 

Tags: Not Enough Distance, Standing Up, Backswing, Drill, Beginner

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This video is loading the glute with a centered pivot.

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So many golfers try and get this really good glute load and try to feel a lot of pressure

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into the hip.

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Mostly because they've been told that that's a good sign that you've loaded up in the

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backswing.

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Now the problem is many golfers do that by their whole upper body off the golf ball

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like this.

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I'm going to show you while you may feel a little bit of hip activity, that's not really

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what we're going for when we're trying to get this glute activation.

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The way you're going to get it is by shifting your pressure with a centered pivot and

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feeling a little bit of unweighting to prepare you for what you want to do in transition.

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So I've got a couple drills, whether it's that open hand or the shoulder plane pivot, to

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kind of feel where you want to get to at the top of the swing where your upper body stays a

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little bit more centered.

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Part of this is because the tour average of upper body movement is only about an inch

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half inch off the golf ball and it's less when we get into the irons.

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So if I make a good backswing pivot, some golfers will feel like, okay, I'm still kind

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of centered.

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I don't feel this whole backswing load.

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So then this is the next key step that I have them do.

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We've gotten into this pivot and then what I want you to do is you're at the top of the

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swing.

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I want you to pick up your left foot for a split second and notice how I can do that

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without shifting my weight.

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So watch yourself in a mirror when you get to the top of the swing.

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If in order to pick up the foot, you end up looking more like this, then you're shifting

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your weight more with your upper body.

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And what I want you to do is I want you to shift just to the point where you can pick

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it up for a split second.

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And what you'll feel is when you pick it up, you'll feel a slight increase in glute

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activity, because that glute is preventing you from actually falling down this way.

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So it's preventing you from falling into that foot, which helps load it.

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But what we've seen with the force plate stuff is that having a little bit of a unweighting

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allows you to push into that lead side, stronger in transition, or the right amount in

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transition.

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But I find is that when you have too much of a shift like this, you'll get into that

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lead side slower and you won't put quite as much force.

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So you'll kind of drift into that lead side slowly with your upper with your lower body,

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which leads you to being more of an arm dominant swinger.

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So if you have a hard time getting your lower body to initiate in transition, you might

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not have loaded it correctly.

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And you might not have loaded it correctly because you tried to load the glute by shifting

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too much off the ball instead of saying standard unweighting in order to get that glute

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loaded and then using that reloading or reweighting of the foot as the trigger to start

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with the lower body.

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So I'll walk through the little progression that I'll do.

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You can usually do this either as a pause drill or as a pump drill.

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So I'll just do, we did the shoulder planes, I'll do kind of the other one where I kind

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of reach that arm away, get that feeling of where my body is going to get to in space,

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get back to setup, get right back there and then I'm going to try to pick up that foot

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so I can feel a little bit of that glute load without having my upper body shift.

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Then I'm going to take a practice wing and I'm going to feel that slight unweighting without

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actually picking my foot up off the ground.

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So I'm going to try to pick it up just so I can almost slide a piece of paper, not like

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I'm picking the whole foot up.

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So just slightly, then once I have that feeling, I'm going to feel like I get into that

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left side using the feeling of putting more of my pressure into that front foot before

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my arms come down.

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So now I've got a good feeling of the centered pivot and how it's going to use the glutes.

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I can apply that while hitting some golf balls.

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So I'm going to do a little stop drill where I'm going to get to the top of the swing

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and kind of unload a couple times.

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And then from there I'm going to replant the feet and just kind of let those arms come

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down, hopefully make contact with a golf ball.

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Now I've got that feeling of loading the glute and firing with the lower body and it may

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not feel as much of a fire to you as just kind of a falling.

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But I've got that feeling, you've got that feeling and now we can apply it to the golf

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ball and kind of a continuous swing, feeling that slight unweighting as I get to the top of

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the swing.

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A little bit thin on that one.

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So we'll try one more, see if we can sync up the arms in the torso a little bit better

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there in transition.

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So I'm going to get that sync and now I'm just going to correct my path just a bit.

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So that was pretty straight, pretty good there.

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Stealing that little unweighting will help you with the glute load.

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If you're struggling with your sequencing it could be because of the way you're loading

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your glute at the top of the swing.

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So hopefully this bit, be able to help you feel the correct way from staying centered

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to load the glute instead of having a massive body shift in order to load the glute.

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So one more for you.

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Right there, right there.

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You can feel that glute load.

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It's actually right there.

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I can feel the deep, blue load when I go to pick up that foot.

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That's what we talk about when we mean glute loading.

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It's pretty solid there.

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