Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "Simple Golf Swing That's Easy On The Back"

Does your back ever feel like it's been through a marathon after your round is over?

There are a few adjustments to how you position and rotate your feet during your swing that can take a massive amount of stress off your hips and back.

Today, I’ll show you what they are and how to test whether they’ll work for you.

Here’s to less pain after your rounds!

 

 

 

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 12:45

Video Transcription:

Hey, it's great to have here today and I'm gonna go over a very easy swing that takes all the stress off your hips and your back so that you can play pain free. And you don't have one of those rounds of golf where you, you play, your back gets really tight and you feel like you gotta take a couple days off to, to heal up and play again.

It'd be a lot more fun if you felt good while you're playing. And there's a couple easy tweaks, a few simple ones here that I really don't hear too many people talking about, but once you understand 'em, It just leaves a lot of stress from your hips and your back like I was talking about. So first, let's start about, start talking about what the feet need to do and let's talk about in the back swing.

If I have my feet straightforward like this, as I rotate into the back swing, what's happening is my hips are turning. So if I put my club on my, let's put the, the head of the club on my right hip, well, that hip is gonna turn this way, it's gonna go in this direction. The hips are usually gonna turn. With most tour players, about 45 degrees in the backswing.

Now, if I turn my hips back to normal facing you and I keep my feet in the same relationship to my hip, it's gonna look something like this, right? So in the backswing, my right foot is going from forward to internally rotated, and that's because the hip is rotating back. If I'm gonna keep my knee in front like this, then I have to basically be turning this foot inward, the entire back swing.

A great little test. Just put a club to your side. Stick your foot up, knee straight. You can don't really have to worry about bending it or having it dead straight, but basically a straight leg rotated inward. A decent amount would be about 45 degrees like you're seeing here. So it goes from vertical to 45 degrees inward.

That's without me moving my hips at all. That's a pretty decent amount of rotation. If you're doing that, I would recommend having this foot flared out just. Five or 10 degrees in the back swing direction. So now you can really rotate easily. Now you're probably thinking, well, that doesn't seem like it's gonna bother my back that much.

Well, let's put it to the test. A great way to fill this is start with your feet, rotate it in as much as you can. So I'm pigeon toed here. Obviously, I'd never make a golf swing like this, but now try to make your back swing and you can see how much pressure that puts even in the knee, the hip, and then my back has to kind of compensate from that.

And it just sends a little extra stress all the way up the chain. So once you pigeon toe and try to make your back swing, it's really obvious how that inflexibility is hurting you. Um, and I'd want to flare that foot out a little bit. Now, if I can take my foot and rotate it in, I can't. But let's say I could rotate it in all the way, like, like this with my hips forward, I'm having to actually turn my hips to cheat it like that.

But let's say I could turn that foot in. If I step it on the ground, I can almost do that. Let's say I could rotate my foot like this. You may not have to do any compensation at all. You're probably so flexible. You could start with the feet straight ahead. You probably don't have a lot of hip and back pain if you're that flexible either.

Um, another one is gonna be on the lead foot, the same thing as we turn into the follow through. I'm rotating into that hip. So if you're gonna play great golf, you have to finish your swing if you don't wanna decelerate. So if I decelerate, then my hips are stopping. I never really finish my swing. If I'm gonna come through and accelerate all the way through the shot, I need to get my belt buckle toward the target.

And you'll notice how my foot has to come almost roll out as that's happening. Well, the same thing's going on. If I put my foot straight forward, it's almost impossible unless you're hyper flexible to put your belt buckle toward the target without having this foot wanna roll to the outside of the foot like that, or having to lift the foot up and actually rotate it.

And that's what tour players actually do. They'll actually swing, they'll get up on their toe a little bit in the downswing. And that foot will rotate open. You'll see that most tour players' foot starts out here, and as they finish the swing, it ends up like that. So they're almost rotating it open 30 or 45 degrees.

Once that gets opened up, then the belt buckle can face the target very easily and finish my swing. So you gotta a choice to make. Even tour players can't keep their foot square or facing forward in the swing. You can either swing and let it rotate and your feet move. That's a viable option. It's a little bit trickier, or you can rotate that foot out about 45 degrees to allow you to go through there.

Again, you'll notice it right away pigeon toe for me as you're making a swing and try to finish your swing with your belt buckle facing the target. I can't get past here and my swing would be a big decelerating kind of arm swing if I didn't let that foot flare open. So that's the biggest thing. Right foot.

I recommend for most players about 10 degrees, anywhere from five to 15 degrees, flared in this direction. Frees up the hip to the back. Swing takes stress off the lower back of the knee, front foot, we're gonna go almost 45 degrees. If you don't like the look of 45 degrees, you can start with it a little more, bit more square, but you're gonna have to let that thing rotate open in the follow through.

If you don't, you'll end up with something like a Jordan Spieth to where the foot rolls like this, and he is almost on the outside of his foot. That could be a little stress on the ankle, so I probably wouldn't recommend that as being the first thing I would do. So, 45 at the front, five to 15 with the back, find what works well for you.

Play around with the flare until it feels like it takes stress off the knee. So start pigeon toed and just go wider and wider and wider until you find the perfect amount. My address position's gonna look something like this. This is with an iron. It's gonna be similar with a driver. I'm probably about 30 degrees, you know, 20, 30 degrees open with the foot at a dress.

Five or 10 with a back foot, and then from there, I feel like that's a great setup for me to be able to rotate freely in both directions. You'll notice here when I finish belt buckle toward the target, and I can only do that if this right foot comes up off the ground and this front foot is opened up a little bit.

Second one is gonna be level out the shoulders and see if I'm really struggling to have my lower back play a four round of golf and not hurt at all. A lot of that's from side bend. So in the back swing, if I have a lot of bend forward from my hips and my spine is this way, I'm gonna have to get in this side bend.

And what I'm doing there is I'm really tilted with my shoulders and my spine. And as I come through, I'm gonna be very tilted with my shoulders and my spine. That's great to stay in your posture and not, you know, pop up outta your posture. But it's also tougher on the back, the more side bend I get. And as I add rotation into that, that's gonna be a little tougher on the back.

So if you have trouble with your back, I would recommend leveling out those shoulders. Feel like in the back swing, we're gonna be more here instead of there. Or if you take your arms and stick them out from your side, instead of being down at the golf ball like this, let's go ahead and level 'em out that way a little bit more.

And that makes it much more easy to rotate. So you can imagine if you had a helicopter blades here, his arms, instead of going golf ball to golf ball, you know this big angle. As I'm doing this, I would just go ahead and have those blades pointing almost like 10 feet outside the golf ball in this direction, and I'm rotating more this way, and you'll immediately see how that takes stress off the back.

If you want to test that out, tilt it down towards your feet, rotate back, you'll really feel a stretch in here. You'll feel a little bit more of the low back kind of strain as you're doing that. So level that out, that'll help. Now when you do that, the issue is my arms have to travel. You know, kind of on a plane this way.

I can't just have my arms go way out here and, and hit a golf ball. That wouldn't work. So when I do that, realize that as I rotate back more level, I wanna feel like I get my arms, still get them fairly deep in here. Um, I wanna feel like they're not, you know, if my shoulders are level, let's say if my shoulders are tilted this way, my arms are gonna be more across my chest like that.

This is the best way to explain it. So the more tilt you get, because your arms are on this plane, they're gonna be swinging more across your body, or left arm is gonna be almost this way, rotating around your body. So a lot of tilt that way. So essentially like a, a flatter or more of a one plane swing with the arms.

Arms are gonna cross the body. You're gonna have more tilt this way as I go. Flatter. My arms won't have to go as much across my body. Cause if you imagine if I went flat and then arms across my body, all of a sudden they'd be way back in here. That would be too much of a flat plane. So your arms are gonna go a little bit more vertical on the back swing as you level out the shoulders on the downswing as you come on through.

If I'm a little taller posture, because I'm not so hinged forward to say, it'll make it easier on the back, my arms are gonna have to go more down close to my legs. And that's a big problem that people have a lot of times. As they level out their shoulders or stand up outta their posture, their arms go out this way away from their body.

And now I have to have this club almost vertical like that, and the toe of the club is gonna dig into the ground. You're not gonna hit it very solid if you're doing that. So long story short, have imagine the arms or more like a Ferris wheel. So more vertical on the back swing because the shoulders are rotating level.

That's still gonna get 'em pretty deep, you know, back in this direction. In the downswing, they're gonna be also be more vertical, like a Ferris wheel coming down. Almost imagine they're gonna graze the front of the thighs. If I'm gonna rotate more level, it'd be like this really close to my legs, and that keeps the club on this good lie angle.

The only reason for that is if you imagine the flat part of the club, you want those nice square dollar bill size divots. If the shaft of the club goes vertical like this, the toe is digging down, it actually pulls the sweet spot off the turf. And you're gonna hit 'em all thin. So if I'm gonna go more level with the shoulders, I wanna make sure that I go more up with the arms and then down with the arms close to my body, and that'll allow you to rotate nice and level back and through.

I kind of prefer going more level, so I'd almost stand a little bit taller. I I'm gonna be a little bit closer to the golf ball cuz you imagine as I get back here, I'm tilted more forward this way. I'm gonna stand a little more vertical like that, get to where the, it feels comfortable with your hands and your arms.

Then as I go back, And through, I'm gonna go level shoulders and then arms more like a Ferris wheel up and down. So let's go ahead and give that a try.

There we go. That felt very easy on the back. Hit that pretty nice and solid. Um, you know, nine iron here today went 1 58. I'll definitely be happy with that, uh, distance. So feet flared. Level shoulders. Arms are gonna be more vertical on the back, swing closer to the legs on the downswing. You're gonna take a lot of stress off your knees, your hips, your back, and you're gonna feel pretty free when you're rotating through.

Now, one thing that's very important with this, you know, we've done a lot of vertical moves here, talked about standing a little bit taller. Leveling out the shoulders, getting the hands more up and down like a Ferris wheel. That's not to be mistaken. I wanna be really clear here cause I don't, I don't want you to get the wrong idea with this.

You'll go down the wrong path. That's not to be mistaken with the club shaft getting more vertical in the downswing. So the last thing I wanna do is level shoulders. Club shaft gets steep or pointing down more toward my toes. The club has to be shallowed out. So even if you look at these players that have very vertical arms, In very level shoulders, they're still gonna shower that club out from the inside.

So the club's gonna be from the inside, come to here. That's the only way that you can have consistent contact, because if I'm too steep, what's gonna end up happening is not only will we be taller in our posture like I talked about there, but I actually have to kind of slow down and get the club going this way in the shaft vertical, which we know isn't gonna be good if I go ahead and let my arms go vertical.

But I shallow out this club nicely from the inside. Then I can still hit an nice little power draw. I can let the momentum of the club release itself and I don't have to feel like I'm fighting the club ahead the entire time. That sounds complicated, but it's really actually incredibly simple. If you go over the 20 minute shallowing fix, so if you're a member of Tops speed golf, click on an instruction tab, tops speed golf system, 20 minute shallowing, fix, and then from there, just follow those drills.

You won't even have to think about it. I guarantee you'll shallow it out every single time. You can add these adjustments like we talked about here today after you've done the 20 minute shallowing fix, and you'll be shallowing out the club and taking that stress off your back. It just makes it like a lot more fun.

So those are probably two of the things that I would say if you're not doing those. Golf is just not very much fun. If you're having pain all the time, it's not much fun. And if you're not shallowing out, it's not much fun. You're gonna feel like you're constantly wrangling this club head trying to guide it back to get a square face if you're not shallowing out.

So make sure. That you follow the 20 minute shallowing fix, and in the very first session, you're gonna be showering out every single time. So best of luck. Head on over the 20 minute shallowing fix right now. I'll see you there.