The Proper Weight Transfer Can Make Your Golf Swing!
It is true that performing the proper weight transfer during the golf swing is extremely crucial to maximizing your power and consistency. It is more important than most people believe. Before I began working with golfers and one of the top golf fitness gurus in the industry (Alison Thietje), I had no idea how important this seemingly insignificant factor impacts our swing. I knew that we wanted the body to create the motion and facilitate the proper sequence of events that ultimately resulted in our club striking the ball at maximum velocity and with pin point accuracy, but I didn’t understand certain subtleties of the action.
Our weight shift helps to create the power and stability that is needed for us to hit the ball more soundly and with more power. Without it, we can’t generate the proper amount of tension and force of movement. Let me explain.
At the setup for the golf swing, we generally position ourselves with equal weight distribution between the right and left foot (I will speak in terms of the Right handed golfer for the sake of this article to make it easier). Some may opt to preload the right or “trail” leg a little; some may even choose to slightly load the. As we begin to take the club away, our weight should shift a bit to the right side and slowly increase as we continue our turn into our full takeaway. At this point, about 75-90% of our weight should be on the right side. This allows us to stabilize the right leg more and you should feel some tension in the right glutes (hip/buttock muscles). You should also feel a lot of pressure through your right heel as if it is anchored into the ground.
This does several things to help our golf swing. First, it forces us to use our hip muscles, which will stabilize the hips and pelvis, allowing us to create more tension in the torso as we rotate our shoulders back. This creates that separation between the upper and lower half of the body that we are looking for to maximize the power of our downswing. If done properly, the body is not able to rotate all in one piece, as is the case with many amateur golfers. Therefore, this prevents the dreaded “reverse pivot.”
By getting onto the right side, this also puts you into the position to generate power as you transition back to the left side as you start turning your hips. If you are already on the left side in the backswing, you are taking away the power of the hips and legs. If you are not quite sure about this, let me have you try something. Stand up and get a ball, or even wad up a piece of paper. I want you to try to throw that ball as hard as you can, but don’t shift your weight back onto the right foot as you wind up. Feel a little awkward? Now throw the ball how you would normally throw it and feel the natural weight shift of your body from right to left as you execute the movement. In the same respect, try throwing the ball while not shifting your weight onto the front foot. This is what it is like in your swing when you don’t get off the right side.
The ability to get the weight onto the left side during the downswing and follow through also allows you to get your hips all the way around and square your belt buckle to the target. If you are still hanging back on the right side, odds are you leave yourself wide open at impact and either let the ball drift off to the right or you overcompensate with the arms and pull left.
Look at any sport that involves some form of rotation of the body, such as baseball (hitting or throwing), tennis, hockey, boxing, etc. Try throwing a punch without shifting your weight from right to left; there is no power! We just can’t generate the same force without a proper weight shift. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you sliding to the right and left during your swing. That would create less stability and may increase the likelihood of hip problems. The weight transfer I am talking about is as simple as just shifting your center of gravity to the right or left 1-2 inches while you rotate, not the infamous “bump” to the left which leaves you sliding down the target line.
Watch some of the best in the world in any sport, Pujols, Roddick, or Woods, and check out the subtle little shift that they naturally implement. Why is it that golf seems to be different from every other athletic movement that we’ve ever created? I personally believe it is because golf is a more static sport in which we can over analyze every move we make. So unlike most other sports in which we react the way our body instinctively moves, in golf we are constantly being taught the “latest and greatest” new trick. Rather than continuously jumping from one theory to the next, I prefer to stick to the basics!
Written By:
Jeff Pelizzaro, MPT
Director of Training/Physical Therapist
Motion Memory Golf
www.motionmemory4golf.com
