Are your students going long in the backswing? Find out how the bicep could be public enemy #1.
What's Covered: How to use the biceps in the golf swing.
Golf Pros Featured:
Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard
Video Duration: 2:08
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Hi guys, in this video we’re going to talk about the biceps. So if we’re looking at the biceps, that’s the muscle that runs up the front of your arm up to the upper arm, that’s going to bend your elbow, so it’s going to move your lower arm up towards your shoulder.
It doesn’t really do any rotation, it just bends the arm there. So this is pretty important in the golf swing for people that are going long, or maybe their left arm is breaking down.
For example, if I’m going long in the backswing you’ve probably seen some people do something like this. Well now all of a sudden, look at this very sharp angle in my right arm. Look how I’m over-bending my right arm, and that’s causing my left arm to break down. Now the club is very, very long.
So when they make a backswing, they’re actually contracting the bicep, over-contracting the bicep, it’s pulling upward, and that’s allowing them to go really, really long.
A lot of time it feels powerful to players, because they feel like if I really crank up my right arm I can throw my right arm even harder in the downswing. But it doesn’t really relate to a lot of power because we’re tightening our arc.
So our circle that our arms are swinging arm is now very short and tight, versus being long and loose. So if you want to speed up the time to get them to actually understand this move and to get a wider backswing, one of the things that we can focus them on is relaxing this right arm.
You want them to feel their bicep, they can squeeze on it a couple times so they can feel when it’s tightening and contracting, and they can feel when it’s nice and relaxed and loose, and they’re going to feel like their right bicep is very relaxed all the way in the backswing, and then coming through that way that they don’t over-flex that and go long.
That’s really going to help them out, once they can feel that, it makes a lot of sense, and it’s going to help shorten the backswing right away.
One thing to be careful of, if we shorten the backswing we have to make sure that we don’t shorten the shoulder turn. So even if we relax that bicep, we’ve got to get these shoulders turning so we get fully wound up. We just don’t want to over-bend the right arm as we’re doing that.
Nice and relaxed bicep, that’s going to help you to get that shorter swing, good powerful turn, and a much more compact motion with less wasted energy.
Good luck to you guys, I’ll see you all soon.
