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Arnold Palmer moved the golf needle more than anyone in the history of the game. His ball striking ability is highlighted by his beautiful sequencing. In this video, see what you can learn about powering your swing with your body and what happens to your swing when you lose some spine flexibility.
Tags: Analysis, Intermediate
WEBVTT
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in this analysis video we're gonna take
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a look at the swing of Arnold Palmer now
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Arnold Palmer was the first golfer to
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really make golf cool so every golf
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instructor owes a debt of gratitude to
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Arnold Palmer he's allowed us to make a
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living at something that we all enjoy
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and has really helped shape most of our
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lives in this video I'm gonna help you
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see how his sequencing and the way that
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you used his body to power the swing is
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something that you can try to emulate
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I'll also talk to you about how as you
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get older potentially your path and
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you're bracing may change and Arnold
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Palmer changed with grace you'll be able
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to see him hit some quality shots even
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though his body changed because he kept
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that sequencing and body powered swing
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so we're gonna look at Arnold Palmer's
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transition from a couple different
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swings so here are a couple swings and
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what I want you to focus on is looking
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at the timing of his lower body changing
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direction so what's happening is during
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the backswing he's shifting his pressure
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into that back leg and he's gonna push
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with that back leg to stop his body from
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rotating away from the target and then
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he's gonna keep pushing in order to
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trigger rotation towards the target
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so we'll look from a couple different
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views so that you can kind of see the
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timing of when he's really pushing
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against the ground but you'll see is
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particularly with this driver swing over
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on the right how his lower body is
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changing direction while his arms are
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still finishing the swinging then as his
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body changes direction he's basically
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using his whole body to pull through his
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arms on the club so the early stages of
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the downswing you're not gonna see a lot
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of straightening of the arms you're not
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gonna see a lot of arm activity it's
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more body movements getting the club
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into delivery position and then the arms
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transferring that energy during the
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release over here on the Left we'll be
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able to see this in a little bit greater
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detail because of the frame rate so
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right around here he's starting to push
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in the opposite direction you can see
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how his lower body changed direction
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before his arms and club change
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direction even on a iron so it doesn't
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only work when you're trying to
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my max power link with the driver and
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you'll see that his body has brought his
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arms down into about this delivery
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position before there's any real
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straightening of that trail elbow
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I think if his sequencing was beautiful
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and that's part of the reason why he was
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able to have such a consistent career
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over such a great period of time so we
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have lots of drills on our site to help
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you work on powering the swing with your
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body as well as working on your your
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timing tempo in sequencing and I think
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that's one of the things that Arnold had
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trained early in his swing that allowed
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him to have such good success now one of
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the trademarks of our no swing is that
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unorthodox finished and I always preach
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that if you look at Arnold at about
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waist height or what I refer to as
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follow-through position you can see that
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it looks classically just like any of
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the great swingers in the golf ball it's
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really how he absorbs speed from this
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follow-through position into the end of
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his finish and from watching him do a
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couple of these drills you can see that
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he was working on potentially keeping
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his head down and pointed at the golf
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ball longer and so that would stop body
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rotation so he wouldn't be able to
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absorb as much of the speed with body
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rotation if he did a lot of these slow
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motion or shorter drills with the
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extended emphasis on keeping his head
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down so one of the ways that you could
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then absorb speed would be going more
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into the shoulders and that's
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potentially how part of his unique flair
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for the game really developed but if you
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look at what he does during his release
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through follow-through if he then just
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continued his body and let that left arm
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fold naturally while letting his head
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rotate around he would have looked he
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would have had a more classic finished
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position than what he currently or what
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he did throughout his career so
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hopefully by learning the different
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pieces of the swing that we talked about
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on our site you'll be able to understand
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which parts of the swing are just your
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style and which part of swings are
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critical pieces what Arnold did as part
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of his finish is more of a style
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movement
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than a critical piece he had all the
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great critical pieces of powering the
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swing and a great solid release to get
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into that very classic looking
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follow-through position
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Arnel frequently shared a story about
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how he was told to keep his grip exactly
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the same and that's a great fundamental
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but what this camera view is gonna show
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us is the fundament fundamental of using
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that lower body sequencing to help him
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initiate his transition
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so with this close-up view you can
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really see through here that just as the
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arm leaves camera view his lower body is
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already starting to push in the
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direction of the target remember you're
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going to push before it shows up on
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movement so he's pushing through that
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right leg probably starting right about
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now and then he's just going to keep
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pushing to help him shift his weight
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before that left leg is going to push
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right around this period here to help
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him initiate his release now one of the
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goals of this series of videos is to
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show you how how swings evolve as you
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age and so here we have two different
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swings of him around 80 years old so
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well after his prime but what you'll see
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is that by his ability to maintain his
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sequencing you'll see that his lower
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body still starts well before his upper
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body and you'll see that he keeps the
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the arms a little bit more passive and
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during the early stages of the downswing
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and uses them more actively during the
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later stages or during the release so by
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keeping that same sequencing he was
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still able to hit some really quality
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golf shots even well into the ages of
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the early 80s so now on the Left we have
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him hitting one of his more famous shots
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in his later years this was a driver off
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the deck at his own tournament and
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you'll what you can really see again is
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the timing of when those arms get
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involved now if you've tried delaying
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the timing of your arms and you tend to
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either hit it off to the right or you
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tend to
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it's stand up a little bit more in hid
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behind the golf ball then it usually
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means that you have a clubface closing
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problem and the the sequencing or the
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reason you fire your arms too early is
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because that's how your brain
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coordinates where the clubface is
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pointing there are better ways and ways
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that match up with the body sequencing
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that Arnold is all on Palmer is
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demonstrating in these clips ok so over
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on the Left we have him with a mid iron
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and then over on the right with a mid
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iron in during the par-3 contest again
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more in his Twilight playing days but
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what what you'll tend to see is with his
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younger swing he's gonna finish his
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backswing more with his body pivot and
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with a fair amount of left side Bend you
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can really see the steepness of the
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shoulder plane so the shoulders pointing
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well or very close to the golf ball and
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you'll see them maintain that position
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into transition it's kind of more
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typical of a body powered swing now over
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here on the right you can see that he
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doesn't have nearly as much flexibility
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so his arms separate a lot more as he
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gets towards the top of swing and his
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arms are gonna work in more of a steep
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position so what'll tend to happen when
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those arms get into a little bit more of
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a steep position is it's harder to close
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the club face and so you will tend to
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have those arms Bend a little bit more
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on the way through so we can see that
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he's using a little bit more of an arm
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powered swing as he got older but the
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driver swings that we saw before he was
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still able to produce some of the body
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powered sequencing when he was able to
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stand a little bit taller so when you're
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working on your flexibility maintaining
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side Bend and thoracic spine movement
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it's gonna be really helpful for being
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able to play great golf as you get older
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because that's naturally one of the
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movement patterns that people tend to
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lose first so if you want to understand
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how to sequence your body like Arnold or
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you want to understand how to square the
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club face so that you can sequence your
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body
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feel free to subscribe to our YouTube
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you understand all the nuances that make
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the stock tour swing work