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Keys To Transition
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Transferring energy from the legs to the shoulders is an important skill. Many golfers default to using their back. This usually causes an extra shallowing movement that can be balanced by steeper arm movements. If you struggle to shallow out your arms, it could be a sign that you struggle using your obliques as the main transfer muscle.
Tags: Poor Contact, Early Extension, Fairway Wood, Transition, Member Question, Concept, Advanced, Intermediate
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This concept video is troubleshooting the core in transition.
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So many good golfers struggle with not using their obliques during the transition or during the down swing.
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And I'll show you as much as I can in this video how to incorporate that.
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It's definitely a feeling that if you have a hard time using them, you're going to have a hard time experiencing.
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So I'll give you kind of a bridge exercise that you can practice at home.
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But a lot of golfers struggle with that and it shows up in having trouble going from more of a spin for a red lunge to then getting more into kind of a cover and rotate.
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What'll end up happening is you'll go from a spin forward lunge to then a hang back side bend.
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So I'll break that down a little bit, but this video is going to be more geared towards the elite level golfer because we're going to get a little bit into detail as far as how to do it.
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How the core works and how these two patterns fit together.
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Okay, so the basic pattern that I'm describing here is some golfers will have a little bit more of an upper body dominant movement where they tend to spin and lunge a little bit towards the target this way.
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For me to do that, what I end up doing is I end up trying to contract the left side of my back here, almost like I'm doing a back extension or cable chop.
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Now to make that work better, you'll see I'm going to tend to shift a little bit more off the ball.
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If I got into this position, I'd be in an awkward place to do that movement.
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What I'd want to do is flatten my shoulder plane, shift way off the ball, so then I can almost get a running start and really load into that pattern.
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Basically, doing this stretches that muscle or that chain of muscles a little bit more exaggeratedly so that I can then load it during transition.
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So golfers will tend to have a little bit more of that pattern, which causes them to get a little bit steep.
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And they'll tend to struggle a little bit more with the longer clubs or the shorter clubs, but they'll be pretty good mid-iron players.
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Golfers with this pattern, I see, can get to low single digit, even maybe plus one, but we'll tend to have a one or two blow-pulls, especially with the longer clubs.
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So then they know that they need to shallow out in order to get the driver in the longer clubs to work better, but they still are more back dominant.
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Not really using their core, so what'll happen is being more back dominant when they go to try to side bend, they'll go back dominant side bend kind of like this.
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And now the bottom of swing gets way in front of or way behind the golf ball, so then they still have a little bit of low lunge in order to move that into a playable position.
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So they'll find as they get kind of diggy contact and the path gets really into out so they'll hit either blocks or big overdraws.
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Or if they're lunging too much, then that lunge will override the side bend from the back and they'll tend to get more poles and pull hooks.
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Okay, so how do we correct that pattern?
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The goal or the key is the kind of, forget golf for a second and just talk about how the body rotates and moves.
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The goal is in transition, I'm going to try to use my body to accelerate the grip or accelerate my hands.
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So what I'm going to try to do is I'm going to use my legs to transfer energy from the ground in my pelvis and then I'm going to use my obliques to transfer energy from my pelvis to my ribcage.
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And then my arms have been lagging behind, now I'm going to use my shoulders to transfer speed to my hands.
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And my hands are really just going to serve as fine tuning the face, the path.
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They're not going to provide a whole lot of power.
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They're more kind of sensing and directing that force rather than really creating it.
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But the big break there is more, how do I get that oblique involved?
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So the oblique pattern by itself, your obliques run oblique.
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So they go from your ribs to your pelvis.
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They actually are one of the few muscle groups that cross the pelvis.
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So or cross the midline of the body.
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So they actually connect over here.
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So that means when they activate, they're going to bring these ribs towards that hip.
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So it's going to be a pattern kind of like that.
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Now if I incorporate body, my lower body or my right leg pushing,
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the sequence will be I'm going to push into the ground with that right leg to help me shift.
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Then once I get to here and I start pushing with the left leg,
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instead of really pushing and going into extension, I'm going to kind of push and I'm going to direct some of that energy with more of that oblique chop.
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Now you can see from down the line, if I do that pattern, I get into that left side.
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So that's more the right leg push or the lead leg fall.
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And then I'm going to push with this leg as that oblique is crunching across kind of like that.
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Now you can see that if I were to get steep with my arms and keep turning with the left side of my back,
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well that would pull me more on top and I get really steep.
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So I have to make sure that I've had this bump first.
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And then when that oblique gets involved, you can see that my arms being shallow,
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we're going to come from the inside, but that oblique pattern is going to keep those arms working off to the left.
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Now I promise I give you a way that you can work on this at home.
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What you're going to do is you're going to sit on your tailbone.
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We'll see if we can do this slightly uphill, so we got a little challenge.
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So you're going to sit on your tailbone kind of like this.
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You're going to roll, I'll talk you through first, you're going to lay flat on your back.
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And then what you're going to do is you're going to curl your spine up and at the same time you're going to rotate.
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So basically you're going to finish so that you're at about a 30 degree angle like this,
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and your upper body is turned.
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Now you're going to smoothly blend that turn with the flexion pattern.
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So I'm basically I'm coming up and across instantly.
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I'm not coming up and then turning to really get that oblique into field at pattern.
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I'm going up and across in one movement.
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And you'd want to do both sides just for symmetry.
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This isn't, I'm not giving this to you as an exercise, so we're going to limit it to 10 to 15 reps,
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just more as a coordination pattern.
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But then what you'll feel is okay, these ribs are going towards that hip.
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Now when I stand up, I can get that same pattern like this.
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You can see if I didn't have any tilt, that would bring me a little bit over the top.
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So if I add some tilt and some sequencing to it, now that oblique pattern is going to bring me down nice and on plane.
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It shows up more with the longer club than the shorter club.
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It will look, there's my little bump, and now you can see that oblique pattern.
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Bringing me slightly into flexion as my body is rotating.
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If you struggle with getting more of a lunge towards the target or then when you try to add side men it goes more that way.
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It means you're very much, oh, back side dominant with your rotation pattern.
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You want to get your oblique involved to work with those back muscles.
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And that's how it's going to show up.
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There's a little drill for you to train it.
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If you have any questions, leave them at the bottom of this video.
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I'm guessing that this one might spark a little bit of a discussion.
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So putting that oblique into play.
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Looks a little bit like that.
