Golf Swing Fault: Poor shoulder turn
Poor shoulder turn
In this article, we show how your physio can work in conjunction with your golf coach. Exercises and drills, can be designed to allow your body the best chance of breaking unhelpful patterning in your golf swing.
Many golfers will have difficulty rotating their upper body as they turn into their back swing. This will often lead to:
• Poor loading into their right side and often their arms become disconnected from the body
• Often accompanied by them swaying to get behind the ball
• The golfer will tend to use a lot of upper body and arms to try to create power in their swing
• The biggest problem for most golfers is a lack of flexibility in their trunk, being unable to turn
• Allow your shoulders to rotate into the back swing, ideally allowing your back to face the target
The more your shoulders rotate in relationship to hip turn , the more stored energy in your big trunk muscles. This allows a more powerful release in your swing, this is referred to as the X-factor.
Three simple exercises to help reduce this fault include:
1) Flexibility: Open Books
• Lying on your side knees bent up at a right angle
• Arms out in front of chest and ensuring hips/shoulders lie square
• Slide the top arm back to roll the chest open, feel ribs roll back towards floor
• This will encourage rotation through the upper and flexibility in the chest to allow the shoulders to rotate more effectively
2) Strength: Pull Rotation
• Standing in split stance with the opposite leg forward to the arm that will pull
• Pull the arm back keeping elbow into side encouraging rotation through the upper back
• Opposite arm pushes forward to encourage spin through the ribs
3) Functional: Trunk Rotation Stretch with split stance with band
• Drop into a split stance lunge
• Keep outer knee stable against band
• Arms out in front of chest holding club
• Rotate club finishing high to open chest
• Aim to get your shoulder under your chin creating a good turn
Coaching Drills
• Holding club with arms apart
• Set up in golf swing stance
• Turn into back swing
• Feel stretch and upper back turn to target
Ready to improve your swing?
See former PGA tour physio Kam Bhabra