Why You Need This: In this video, "Powerful Golf Swing Lesson | The Left Leg in Crazy Detail," you’ll get a very detailed analysis of your left leg in the swing.

I’ve had many students ask me “What should my left leg be doing in the swing?”

And that’s a great question because a lot of golfers struggle with this issue.

A lot of golfers bump out their left leg and hips in the follow through.

Other golfers struggle with not getting enough rotation.

Well those issues may not sound like a big deal, but they are.

You can do some real harm to your hips if you’re not using your left leg correctly.

Not to mention, improper movements can also hurt your distance.

This video really focuses on the details, so if you’re an instructor, a future instructor, or a really curious golfer that likes to get a little nerdy, this video is for you.

Watch now to analyze the left leg in the swing in crazy detail!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 6:06

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, and welcome back. Now, I get a lot of questions on exactly what different parts of the body are doing, and I notice that a lot of people really struggle with what should my left leg being doing throughout the swing?

We’ve been told to really bump our hips forward. I’ll see a lot of people really overdoing that and the right side of the body starts to kind of crash down into the ground, you’ll start to get a lot of chunks behind the all.

Our left hip starts to hurt a little bit. I get also other people that are asking about rotation. I keep on sliding forward, but instead of my hips rotating open through contact, I tend to do this motion where I get an early extension.

I’m going to go over the left leg in crazy detail. I’m going to go from address to the top of the swing, starting down, follow through, I’m going to go over the entire thing and talk about exactly how the left leg should work, and basically cover all these different areas.

Now this would be a great video for golf instructors that maybe want to get a little bit better understanding of exactly how it should be moving, or if you have trouble with a student that’s not opening up.

If you have a trouble with student that’s bumping too far forward and getting some hip pain, this would be perfect for that. This isn’t necessarily a video that’s going to say hey, this is just an overview, a quick easy video on the left leg.

This is going to be really detailed to talk about what’s happening. So not necessarily for everybody, but it’s going to get a lot of detail.

So let’s go ahead and start it out. At address what’s going to be happening here, is if my spine was straight up and down, basically my legs would be even, everything would be nice and even like if I’m standing straight up and down.

Well as I set up to this golf ball, my right arm is on the club lower than my left, and my hips are going to kind of bump forward. So my left leg is going to be bumped a little bit forward at address, and my upper body is going to be tilted slightly away at address. T

his is what we call the stable, fluid spine we’re talking about in the Top Speed Golf System. Now as we go to the top of the swing, what’s going to happen I now my right foot is going to push into the ground and push this hip back to rotate, and my left hip is going to start to rotate this way.

Now what’s happening there, is as my right foot pushes out that pushes my right hip back. As my left foot pushes kind of pulls almost like I’m scraping my foot this way on the ground, that’s what it’s going to feel like, that’s going to go ahead and allow me to rotate to the top.

So you’ll see my left hip is starting to rotate kind of forward around in a circle. My left foot is kind of pushing back this way to allow me to rotate that way. So whatever way you press into the ground, there’s going to be an equal and opposite that happens with the hip, or with your body.

So I’m pressing kind of down and out, which is allowing me to rotate in the backswing. You may not feel this a lot, you may feel mostly the right leg rotating your body, and that’s fine. At this point I’m actually taking some weight off my left leg.

You’ll notice how I’ll also get a little bit of external rotation. This is external rotation, this is internal rotation of my femur, my upper leg.

As I’m going to the top, I’m letting my left leg kind of externally rotate so it’s kind of staying in line with the left side of my body. So you may feel like your leg’s almost rotating out, feel a little bit of pressure here in your hip.

Now as I start down, the very first thing I’m going to do is begin to shift weight back over to my left side. The same time this is happening, my upper leg, my femur, is going to start to rotate out. So we can see as I start to rotate open now my femur, the bone that’s in my upper leg, is pointing out this way.

The reason I need to do his is so that as I push into the ground with my left leg later in the wing, that clears my hip out of the way.

A lot of times what I see people do that are taught to bump hard to the left, they’re taught to really shift hard, they’ll get to the top of the swing and then the first move down instead of being this is going to be more of this motion.

So now they’re bumping the hips, my upper leg, my femur is pointing in that direction, and if I try to push, I really can’t rotate.

That’s when you’re going to see something that looks like this at contact rather than letting that rotate out and seeing more of that at contact where the hips rotate open as you’re coming on through there.

So if you’re standing up out of your posture, usually what’s happening there is as you start down, your eft leg is doing more of this and then you just stand up out of posture.

So it’s kind of like that, early extension as a lot of people call it, rather than my upper leg rotating out, now when I push into the ground I can clear out of the way. So if you’re looking at it from this angle, let me go over the same thing.

I’m going to go ahead and go to the top of the swing. As I start down, now my hip is coming back, this is rotated out a little bit, and from there as I push into the ground, that’s going to clear this out of the way so I’m staying in m posture as I come through into the swing.

That’s going to fully extend as I come in to what we call the straight line release out in front. So as I go through the golf ball, bam, there’s contact.

Still a little bit of bend, I’m pushing down into the ground with my left leg, opening my hips, and then I’m going to be straight with my left leg as I get to the straight line release.

That’s going to be the point to fully rotate my hips open, and then from there, I’m going to go ahead and come all the way on around, just letting my hips pivot, and you’re going to see now my foot is really rotated in, my hips are facing basically toward the target, out in the that direction, I’m standing straight up and down.

So again, let’s go from this way, there’s my first move down. I’m pushing this out of the way, my leg fully straightens when I’m in the straight line release, or mostly straightens, I don’t want to have it locked or anything like that.

I come on around, letting everything rotate all the way on through. So that’s the entire leg motion with the left leg, specifically with the upper left leg where I see people have a little bit of trouble.

If we can do that properly, it’s going to help us to rotate really well, hit those good, crisp, clean golf shots, and we’re going to get that nice finish position where we keep the hips and everything moving and rotating on through the shot. Let’s go ahead and try that out.

There we go, got all the way on through the shot. Good, full finish. Work on that left leg guys. Good luck to you, I’ll see you all soon.