lower body movement in swing

seanieclarke

whats the theory behind this? the less the better?

is it best to concentrate on trying to keep it stable and only let it move by itself as you make your shoulder turn or what?

thanks

copacetic

in theory, yep the less the better, you get yoru power from turning your hips and shoulders against a solid lower leg platform, your left knee shouldn't turn in for a right hander.

If your knee kicks in you are likely losing power even though you may be swinging longer. It is also much easier to stay consistent if you don't have much leg movement.

My knee kicks in a fair bit, I overswing quite a bit though. After a couple of lessons I stop doing it and end up hitting the ball just as far with less effort and more consistency.

Having said that, this is a modern theory, a lot of the greats down the years had a lot of leg movement and plenty of top players still do (eg VJ and Monty)

Scott is a good example of the modern swing imo:
http://www.golfonline.com/golfonline/instruction/hotswings/article/0,17742,634718,00.html

Bobby jones, not so much, but this worked for him!

http://www.golfonline.com/golfonline/instruction/hotswings/article/0,17742,469013,00.html

Derek Zoolander

copacetic wrote:

Having said that, this is a modern theory, a lot of the greats down the years had a lot of leg movement and plenty of top players still do (eg VJ and Monty)

great point here...

its only recently that coaches have started to discourage much lower body movement. Tiger is a great example of this. In the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPJtK-DxnV4 from the swingvision analysis you can see that the there is not a huge amount of leg movement just a smooth transfer of weight

look at pod also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4z01QOUdFo
some hip movement but not a lot of leg movement...

my favourite swing is luke's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Svj9_wVplY

see how little leg movement there is on the backswing...

also if you focus on what the analysts are saying the power is created by a large shoulder turn and creating an angle on the downswing from which the pros can power through the ball

1916

Lukes looks a great swing but look at the finishing position of his left foot, I was always told this should pretty much stay in the same location as the address position, with only the right leg moving. Left foot finishes at the '10 To Hour' position, is that right (it obviously works for him in that he's a pro)?

1916

Derek Zoolander

yeah you can see in this one that he lifts the left foot a small bit after impact when finishing the backswing...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrpTb_looYM

that said you can clearly see that it doesn't move till after impact...so I think once its stable on the downswing and through impact..the finishing position probably isn't as important

1916

It moves a hell of a lot on this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Svj9_wVplY

Having said that he's a pro and I'm not

1916

TheDoc

my lower body is rather relaxed now through the backswing. Something ive worked on during the last few weeks. Keeping my knees flexed and when ive wound up pretty much releasing everything towards the ball.

coaches always come up with new theories to attract in new customers and im never much bought by it. Power always has and always will come from hips, shoulders and forearms. If you want more distance from working out work on shoulders and forearms i will guarantee extra distance for you.