Swing change Part 2

Old Flatter Shoulder Turn

So after my change to the posture that I discussed on my earlier blog the next step in my swing adjustment was to adjust my shoulder movement in my backswing.

Partly due to the excessive lumber curve in my posture and partly just bad habits my left shoulder tended to move back on the backswing with a immediate movement to the left and also coming up as I swing back. This caused two major issues. Firstly it meant my head and upper body moving to the right, it also meant that my shoulder plane became too shallow. This gave my swing a weight shift that was caused by my upper body, as opposed to through the movement of the hips and pelvis.

The first thing that I need to do with the change was to sort out the first movement away from the ball. Before I would initiate my backswing with an immediate turning of the body and pushing away of the left shoulder.  The feeling I needed to get was that of my shoulder remaining in position for the first couple of feet of the backswing, and then getting it to work down, and under my chin.

Secondly in order to stop my shoulder over turning I have to keep head centred with my face on the ball. Before I would rotate my head about 25’ to the right on my backswing. Now I need to have no head rotation, this limits my shoulder turn dramatically.

New Shoulder Position

At first it feels as if my swing is really steep with a lot less body turn.  I am struggling with how my weight shift is going to happen. But there is more than enough to work on for the time being. I love the look of my compact backswing, but can’t really feel how I’m going to generate power. It is close to the feelings I had when I was experimenting with the Stack and Tilt motion. This does change soon. I’ll be discussing how in a blog in the near future, and the movement is a revelation in my game.

For more details why not visit my website at www.jrgolfacademy.co.uk

Getting flexible for my new swing.

One of the areas I needed to work on to help implement my swing changes was my flexibility. Restrictions in hip flexibility can affect the amount of controlled rotation you can make on your back-swing  Tight hamstrings can affect how well you can maintain spine angle and posture on your back-swing. 

The first exercise I decided to use in my workout was the reverse toe touch exercise. This is basically where you squat down holding onto your toes and then straightening your legs whilst keeping hold of your feet.

This exercise has a couple of benefits; firstly it’s a great way to help lengthen your hamstrings. The other main benefit that convinced me to use this exercise is that it helps me to achieve a better squat position.

Reverse Toe Touch

I have always struggled to get the full range of motion when trying to perform a squat. With the squat being such an important exercise for golf and for life it seemed that if I wanted to get the most out of my training then I needed to be to get into a full squat position.

When I first started this exercise I wasn’t able to get my legs to full extension on the way up. It took about 4 weeks of repeating this exercise (30 reps a day) to be able to get to full extension. The second goal I had in this exercise was to be able to let go of my toes at the bottom of the squat and maintain my balance. This was much harder for me, doing the exercise helped me discover that my calf muscles were preventing me from balancing at the bottom of the exercise.

Standing Calf Stretch

Calf flexibility is important for correct knee movement and good balance in your swing. This meant adding another exercise to accelerate the process; I added the simple step calf stretch. Standing with your toes on a step let your heels drop down until you feel a gentle stretch, hold for 30 seconds allowing the muscle to relax throughout the exercise. This feels really good especially after a day walking the links. 

Hopefully you can add these exercise to your daily routine and start getting fitter for golf. I'll be starting a golf fitness class at my local gym soon and these will definitely be included in there.

Check out my website www.jrgolfacademy.co.uk for more info.