Josh’s Tips & Tricks: Push Don’t Pivot

Intro

Hello golfers, welcome to this week’s tips & tricks. I want to show you how you can use the ground to create a more powerful and efficient golf swing. A lot of the energy in the golf swing comes from using the legs to push off the ground and very few people know how to do it correctly. Take a look at the following video and then I’ll explain how you can work on using your lower body better in your swing.

Video – Push Don’t Pivot

Ground Forces

Ground Reaction Force is the force exerted by the ground on a body in contact with it. So when you are trying to move in the golf swing, you have to push on the ground and the ground then pushes back on you at the opposite direction which causes your body to move.

Let’s imagine your golf ball has landed on thick ice. You step out on to it with your seven iron, carefully get your feet in place & swing to the top of your backswing. Would you be confident you could make contact with the golf ball whilst staying on your feet in to a perfect follow through? No, me neither. Every golfer that steps onto the golf course or using the range is using ground reaction force whether you like it or not.

Now there are 3 forces that can be measured in your golf swing via Swing Catalyst. They are the Horizontal, torque value and Vertical. How efficient you are with these movements will have a positive/negative effect on your swing. It will effect quality of Strike, Clubhead speed, Power, Efficiency and ultimately enjoyment in the game.

So let’s take a look at each value independently.

Vertical – (Up & Down)

Now this is the one we’re interested in today. This is the pressure you are creating into the ground. It can be a negative or positive percentage in relation to your body weight. If you were to stand on a bathroom scale, bend your legs you would see your weight decrease momentarily until you lose that acceleration and then scale would revert back to your actual body weight. If you were to jump on the scale it would show your body weight as heavier than you actually are. This is because of the acceleration of your body weight going in to the scale/ground. This is where you see some of the top players feet come off the ground, the sheer amount of vertical force propels them up.

Horizontal – (right to left & Toes to Heels)

The horizontal force allows the golfer to push in one direction to move in the opposite direction. For example, pushing to the right to move the body mass to the left at the beginning of the downswing for a right-handed golfer, pushing from your toes would move your mass to your heels.

Torque – (Rotational)

With the above forces working allows the ability to measure torque. How well you are gripping and using the ground to be able to rotate. Your pressure you create from toe to heel allows for greater speed whilst mass moving right to left allows for stability.

How To Improve Your Swing

Try to feel in your backswing that pressure is loading up in the trail hip with pressure also pushing down into the centre of the trail leg. Using that pressure you can push and unwind the lower body to face the target. Try to get the lead hip rising up and behind you. Pushing off the trail foot and getting the lead up up and back will help create more power through the floor increasing power and efficiency. This isn’t easy so be patient.

Try to make lots of practice movements without hitting the ball so your body gets used to it. Then try some practice swings hitting a tee in the ground. Then give it a rip!

If you are interested in more clubhead speed and more consistency CLICK HERE TO BOOK A LESSON NOW.

Catch you soon.

Cheers,

Josh