Why You Need This:

The way the wrists move in the golf swing is very important for how much speed, forward shaft lean, and compression you will create. One of the main issues I have found in golf instruction, is that it is very hard to find detailed instruction on exactly what should happen in the wrists.

In this section I will go over all of the wrist movements in the golf swing, focusing specifically on help you get more lag.

What's Covered: The 3 pairs of wrist movements in the golf swing.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 5:00

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, and welcome back. In today’s video we’re going to talk about the wrist movements, there’s three pairs of wrist movements that happen throughout the swing.

In this video we’re going to talk about the terms and what these wrist movements are, and then in the videos coming up we’re going to break down the right hand and the left hand individually and talk about how they move throughout the swing.

I think this is very, very important because it’s important to know how to move the wrist throughout the swing, but this is a level of detail that you don’t find a lot of places, and I think a lot of people are confused in exactly how the wrist should be moving.

So first let’s go ahead and do the terms, I’ll show you what they mean, I’ll give you a couple examples, and then we’ll get even more detailed in the next couple videos.

All right, so the first wrist movement we’re going to talk about is what’s called wrist extension, and for each one of these I’m going to give them more of a common name, and I might refer to these in later videos as knuckles back, or palm forward, or different things like that.

We’ll give these the proper name here, and I’ll give you the common name as I might refer to them in the future.

So if I just have my hand out with my wrist nice and flat, that’s what I would call wrist neutral. So my wrist isn’t bending, it’s just sitting there relaxed, just in this manner.

So if I take my knuckles or I take the palm of my hand and bend it back toward my elbow, that’s what I’m going to call palm back.

So a lot of times if I refer to another video as palm back, that’s what I mean. This is actually called wrist extension, and that’s what that looks like.

This happens in the golf swing, especially in the downswing as we’re coming into impact. The palm will be back this way and we’re going into the release it’ll go into wrist neutral.

Now if the palm goes forward, this would be what’s called flexion of the wrist, and that’s what’s often referred to in the golf swing is a flip.

So if my hand starts to flip this way, and my palm goes forward, I don’t want that to happen because it’s going to be adding loft to the club.

We’ll get into more detail on that when we start talking about the right.

That’s how the right hand works, palm back is wrist extension, palm forward is wrist flexion.

Same thing for the left hand, as you’re coming into impact you may get a little bit of palm forward, or flexion, as you’re coming down as the hand bows back, but again I’m going to get more into detail in the left hand video for that one.

The next motion we’re going to talk about is what’s called radial and ulnar deviation.

So if I have my hand out again here in neutral, and I take my thumb and I pull it back up toward my elbow, toward the middle of my elbow here, that’s what’s called radial deviation.

I’m simply going to call that thumb up, I think that makes a lot more intuitive sense to most people, and then the opposite of that would be ulnar deviation which would be thumb down.

A good example of this in the golf swing is as you’re coming into the downswing, if I get some lag I have my thumb up and as I release lag, I’m going to be thumb down into my release position.

The last motion we’re going to talk about here is what is called pronation and supination, and this is very similar to what you do when you grab a doorknob and twist the handle of a doorknob.

So if I’m taking my right hand and I turn it away from my body, this would be twisting a doorknob to the right, that’s called supination, or twist the doorknob to the right.

If I turn the doorknob to the left, that’s what’s called pronation. Same thing for the other hand, pronation would be turning the doorknob toward the right, the pro- means towards the center of your body.

Then supination means turning the doorknob to the left. So when I’m referring to this in the swing I’m just going to be talking about turning the knob to the right or turning the knob to the left, and that’s going to do pronation and supination.

What’s really happening there is you have two bones that go through your forearm, and those two bones are rolling over each other.

So your wrist really isn’t moving when we have pronation and supination, it’s the forearm that’s moving and you can grab those two bones and feel those rolling over in your wrist.

This is very important in the golf swing, quick example here as I’m going into the backswing, I’m going to be turning the knob to the right to help set the club on plane.

So if I don’t get any turn to the right, my club is going to be way out here, way off plane. If I get some turn the knob to the right with both hands, now I’m going to be setting the club on plane.

As I’m coming through, I’m going to be turning the knob to the left to get that club to release as I’m coming all the way on through. So those are your three sets of terms, we have wrist extension which is palm back, wrist flexion which is palm forward.

Radial deviation, thumb up, ulnar deviation, thumb down, and then we have turn the knob to the right which depending on which hand we’re talking about will either be pronation or supination, turn the knob to the left for the right hand will be pronation, turn knob to the right will be supination, and the opposite for this other hand.

So we’re going to simply those, we’re either going to talk palm back, palm forward, thumb up, thumb down, turn the knob to the right or turn the knob to the left whether we’re talking about either hand, I think that will make things a lot simpler.

Now let’s go ahead and talk about when these things are going to happen in the swing and what the proper way to do these, that way you can really compress the golf ball.

We understand how to get forward shaft lean, how to release forward shaft lean, how to get lag, how to let the club come through contact with a ton of speed on it, and it will make a lot of sense.

So let’s go ahead and get started in those other couple videos and I’m excited to share with you.