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Trail Hip Push

The trail hip push is a drill for helping golfers learn to use the trail hip through the release. It focuses on activating the trail glute rather than the trail leg quad. This move requires a good wipe movement and no early extension. Try this drill if you struggle with a big leg buckle or slide during the release!

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This is the trail hip push drill.

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So some golfers struggle with getting too much lateral force for too long.

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So the timing elements of the golf swing is typically that Jackson 5 or that lateral

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movement is going to be done when the club is still way above parallel.

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So if I keep pushing, as the club goes down, then if I tend to lose out on being able

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to create an vertical force and it costs me some club heads speed, tends to cause fat thin

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contacts, so it's a little bit of a frustrating pattern.

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So for this drill, we're going to focus on getting some vertical push from the trail hip.

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Now the key here is mostly golfers who have too much or excessive kind of lateral movement

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that way.

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Do it more from the ankles and knees.

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It's more of like a quad dominant change of direction versus doing it more from the hip.

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So we're going to do a real quick hip isolation drill where I'm going to get into a single

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leg stance with the club as a kickstand.

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I'm going to keep my knee facing at the camera and then I'm going to extend the hip, straighten

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the hip, not the knee, so I'm not locking out the knee, but I'm extending the hip as I'm twisting.

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So it ends up looking like this.

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Extend the hip as I'm twisting.

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If I really want to make this golfie, then I don't let this golf, this right shoulder come

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up as I'm doing this move.

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So this gets a really good push from that trail hip.

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So now I'm going to try to apply that to my 9 to 3.

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So I'm going to bring the club back and now I'm going to do that trail hip movement.

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And you'll see this leg is going to tend to get straighter as opposed to kind of rolling

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so much from the ankle or foot coming off the ground.

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The knee kicking way past kind of like this.

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So down through the ball we're going to try to get that trail hip going a little bit more

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vertically again, hopefully without letting causing my upper body to come up.

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It's only getting an extension through that trail leg.

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So I'm going to start with just kind of a nice and easy 9 to 3.

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And don't be alarmed if you hit the first couple thin.

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It's quite common to have the upper body lift up at the same time.

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So trail leg push, that was pretty good one there.

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Now the good thing about this is I'm starting to feel kind of the speed of the lower

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body pushing vertically down through the bottom.

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So now I'm going to try and add not length of backswing but I'm going to try to combine

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this into a little bit more aggressive 9 to 3.

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So I'm going to bring it back and I'm going to get a little bit more aggressive kind

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of trail leg push.

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Again I'm making sure that it's happening from the hip not from the knee.

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If I did it from the knee it would tend to look more like this.

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If I do it from the hip it will continue to rotate my pelvis.

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So now we'll try a little bigger swing maybe 3.

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3.

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Can get that a little bit thin.

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But when I'm doing this trail I would prefer to hit him thin because I'm maybe over

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doing this leg push or under doing some trail arm kind of white movement.

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But if I'm working on this leg I would rather hit these thin rather than getting really

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steep.

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So there again I'm trying to get more of the speed from the extension or the combined

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movements of that trail hip.

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That one felt pretty explosive.

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Now I'm going to try to work on the timing of it in my full swing.

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So I'm still going to have a little bit more of the shorter finish.

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But now I'm going to have a normal length back swing so I can feel just a little kind

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of weight and then go.

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For some of you if you really go for a long time you might have to feel that you're

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going straight from the top of the swing.

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So use video to kind of calibrate how much lateral slide or buckle you're seeing and coordinate

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how much you're going to push or the timing of when you're going to push based on how

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much your lower body is sliding ahead of the golf ball.

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So floor swing.

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That's close.

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Again I like hitting these thin when I'm working on this movement.

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I'll see if we can keep really good posture on this next one.

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That was really close.

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Again still just a little bit thin.

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I'm going to try to really break on the next one with a good full backswing.

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I knew we were closing in on it.

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Sometimes you'll struggle through a drill that you'll feel that you're getting close.

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If you kind of work through it you can get over that hurdle.

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Sometimes it's 10 reps.

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Sometimes it's 50 reps.

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I've had them be a couple hundred.

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So don't give up on the drill.

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If you identify on video that you need this, then work through it.

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Use video for feedback.

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But this drill is all about isolating the vertical movement of the trail hip to help clean

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up a little bit of slide or buckle from having too much lateral force during the later

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part of the downswing.

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