Pressure shift to start swing

[jamesau]

I think of my takeaway initiation as a rebound, a rebound-from-impact-feel of the intended shot.  This allows some easy personalization and experimentation; my current full-shot feels are: pressure in the left heel, (Monte's) Cast B, and (Padraig's) tightening of thigh adductors.  This rebound gets me into the right side early, helps promote an early wrist-set, and should be consistent with how I want to move through impact on a particular shot.

I think this is based on a Bradley Hughes video, but I can't seem to locate it. 

 

Also disclaimer: my game is not one that most would aspire to.

[Zitlow]

I'm not saying there's one way, I'm saying syncing the body, arms and club together is a more optimal way with the 6 pairs of major joints working in synchronization. 

 

If you asked 10 "experts" how to start the club back you're probably get 10 different answers. Don't trust what I say, don't trust what the "experts" say or what anyone else says about the golf swing. Test things out for yourself, you're your best teacher. 

 

Start the club back with your hands and feet to see what that's like. Then start it back by vertically cocking your hands and rolling your left forearm. Which one creates momentum? Which one feels more balanced? Which one syncs up your pivot with the club better?

 

 

Edited January 25 by Zitlow

[grantc79]

The backswing should start with pressure being added to the trail foot before anything else moves

 

golf is an athletic motion

 

throw any type of ball swing a bat or anything else athletic

 

you will see without thinking you shift your weight before you move anything else

 

minute 6:11 is the crucial part 

 

 

Edited January 27 by grantc79

[vman]

I go slightly left ( right handed) before I go right with pressure to start the swing, similar to long drivers or the great Sam Snead. Continuous movement.

Edited January 27 by vman

[MPStrat]

Timely 😂 

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2m7P38uaO2/?igsh=NzZqeDk3NmZsY2tp

[Zitlow]

5 hours ago, vman said:

I go slightly left ( right handed) before I go right with pressure to start the swing, similar to long drivers or the great Sam Snead. Continuous movement.

 

Good, the old school guys used empirical knowledge to develop their motion.

 

When people walk their hands and feet are synced together. His hands and feet drive his backswing as he loads into his right side at the top. 

 

Walking sideways. 

 

 

 

[iacas]

16 hours ago, grantc79 said:

The backswing should start with pressure being added to the trail foot before anything else moves

 

Sometimes the way to get the pressure to go right is to push with the left foot/leg (which spikes the pressure left briefly).

 

Pressure (forces) precede motion.

[grantc79]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Sometimes the way to get the pressure to go right is to push with the left foot/leg (which spikes the pressure left briefly).

 

Pressure (forces) precede motion.

pushing one foot releases pressure from the other

 

its like jumping

 

lifting a foot adds pressure to the other

 

but as a chain reaction trigger type move I get it 👍

Edited January 28 by grantc79

[Simpsonia]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Sometimes the way to get the pressure to go right is to push with the left foot/leg (which spikes the pressure left briefly).

 

Pressure (forces) precede motion.

 

Rory just mentioned that this is one of his active driving thoughts. He loads into his lead briefly to load into his trail side with a medicine ball, then plant lead again and just throw it as hard as possible. He even mentioned it's like Kyle Berkshire's backswing dance.

 

@9:17 if the timestamp didn't carry over in the embedding. 

 

 

[MonteScheinblum]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 

Sometimes the way to get the pressure to go right is to push with the left foot/leg (which spikes the pressure left briefly).

 

Pressure (forces) precede motion.

The gif I posted of DJ earlier in the thread shows just that.

[iacas]

48 minutes ago, grantc79 said:

pushing one foot releases pressure from the other

 

I know that. But you said "The backswing should start with pressure being added to the trail foot before anything else moves" and that's the opposite of what you see from many: they push with the LEFT foot to move their weight to the right, then the pressure builds under their right foot as they extend that knee, raise the right hip, raise the arms and rib cage on that right side, etc. (Also they're flexing the left knee more, which reduces force under that foot, so even if forces under the right foot stayed the same reducing under the left foot would spike the ratio under the right foot).

[Jeselnik]

 

[Hawkeye77]

11 hours ago, Jeselnik said:

 

 

 

Yes, already quoted above like someone discovered another galaxy, lol.

 

Two different ideas, but this one being used to obfuscate a bit.  

[MPStrat]

16 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

Two different ideas, but this one being used to obfuscate a bit.  

What do you mean by this, Hawk? 

[Hawkeye77]

2 minutes ago, MPStrat said:

What do you mean by this, Hawk? 

The distinction already drawn above, IMO, seems to be going in circles at this point.

Edited January 28 by Hawkeye77

[Jeselnik]

1 hour ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

 

Yes, already quoted above like someone discovered another galaxy, lol.

 

Two different ideas, but this one being used to obfuscate a bit.  

I don’t follow threads closely because, well……….What is made clear is that Google is watching/listening from every device and providing/influencing.  What is being obfuscated, intent to maybe stay in grid(awesome move) vs intent for an opportunity on the next shot or that the intent is always with the hands regardless of what moves first, putting stroke or bombing it?

 

 

JNIK

[Hawkeye77]

1 hour ago, Jeselnik said:

I don’t follow threads closely because, well……….What is made clear is that Google is watching/listening from every device and providing/influencing.  What is being obfuscated, intent to maybe stay in grid(awesome move) vs intent for an opportunity on the next shot or that the intent is always with the hands regardless of what moves first, putting stroke or bombing it?

 

 

JNIK

I think I understood that, lol.  😀

[Valtiel]

On 1/23/2024 at 3:20 AM, Varry_Hardon said:

The analogy of the soccer steps is a perfect example and one that shows that the subject at hand is important; all good kickers adjust their steps right off the bat in order to be able to get to the ball with maximum speed/power combo and if you adjust those steps too late, you lose your kicking sequence 

 

On 1/23/2024 at 7:52 AM, Sp4zRX said:

Wow I love this analogy. 
 

This is me. Getting stuck on trail side is a tendency I constantly battle. What felt to me as an earlier pressure shift seemed to get the body motion going earlier so I could arrive on lead side earlier. After experimenting with it more it seems like it is something that can easily be overdone.

 

On 1/23/2024 at 10:45 AM, DaveGoodrich said:

 

 

This is a fascinating and amazing bit of human perception/coordination.  Many years ago, when running cross-country in high school, I learned that I could see a curb that was still quite far away, and be able to "sense" which foot would be the one that needed to step up that curb.  No counting or measuring at all, just a "feeling," well in advance.  

 

On 1/23/2024 at 2:37 PM, betarhoalphadelta said:

 

Excellent post!

 

I'll add my take. One of the big issues in my swing is a sway away from the target, getting stuck on the trail side, and not getting back to the lead side soon enough. (Oh, and late wrist hinge is there too but not egregious or unplayable per Monte.) That used to result in a slide to the lead side with a major stall/flip and bad EE, but over time (and with instruction) I've improved it so I'm getting at least a more functional pivot. But it still exists. 

 

In my last lesson with Monte we addressed something else in full swing that was more important and then were about to get into the sway, but it was shortcut when I revealed my dreadful short game issues so we had bigger fish to fry. But we quickly touched on the sway. 

 

For me, the ingrained habit of taking the club away from the ball includes a push off the left foot. I had never thought about it, but the moment Monte pointed it out in one single comment, it made me understand why I sway. I'm trying to push the club away from the ball/target starting with my left foot, which doesn't actually do that, but it pushes my entire COM away from the target (excessive sway). And of course gets me into bad places that I struggle to recover from. 

 

Once I work through and ingrain the other stuff, that's the next step. And the "feel" I might start with (based on what Monte offered) is the idea of the right hip working back and around instead of the left side "pushing" away from the target. From just practicing a takeaway in my living room it might also include a feel of quiet lower body as the hands/club start the takeaway, which if nothing else, it's just a mental replacement to distract me and stop the left foot push starting the takeaway. 

 

That said, all of this has to do with my own swing fault, a major sway off the ball/target to start the backswing. What feels I need to correct that is something I'm still going to have to work through. But all of this comes from bad reals and whatever subjective feels are necessary to make the reals improve. If you don't have my bad reals, your necessary feels are almost assured to be different. If you DO have my bad reals, your necessary feels might ALSO be different. 

Cheers for the feedback guys, sorry I meant to follow up on this sooner. 

@Varry_Hardon I'm glad the analogy landed because while the golf swing has both far more moving parts and with far less margin for error, the overall idea in my head is the same. It's this Rube Goldberg-esque series of events that should all culminate in roughly the same "landing" spot, and there are hundred little superficial elements that distract us from the larger goal combined with a hundred more elements of often conflicting advice/instruction. At best of times the larger patterns and goals seem clear and understandable, and at the worst of times it feels like trying to exchange Rubles for Yen when you don't speak either Russian or Japanese. 😆

@Sp4zRX Most people struggle with it in one way or another, and those that think they don't often don't even realize that they do. It's because so many roads lead to getting trail-side stuck. Overshift in the backswing and you often don't have the time or speed to get all the way back. Undershift and the momentum of the backswing often forces a shift later in your sequence resulting in the same "stuckness" via your momentum going the wrong way at the wrong time (bad sequencing). Try to eliminate any kind of shifting via staying stacked on the front side and you introduce a different set of potential problems. This is compounded by the fact that as @iacas pointed out previously, pressure shift and weight shift are two very different ideas that are often mixed together. Pressure shift is far more subtle whereas weight shift often leads to shifting our entire center of mass which leads to all sorts of excess. If force plates/pressure mats were cheaper and more easily accessible I think we'd all be better off, because I don't think i've ever seen someone that struggles with their swing also have anything close to a "correct" sequence from a pressure shifting standpoint. 

@DaveGoodrich I like it it because it's so much more relatable while still being in the same fuzzy world of subconscious perception that the golf swing deals with. I've been playing for 32 years and have a box full of trophies from my junior golf years and I can confidently say I have made *two* golf swings where I felt like I had the same "sense" you described above. One was in 2011 and the other was in 2016; a driver off the tee and an 8-iron layup respectively. In both those cases it was a sense that I could already feel where the ball was going by the time my backswing was finishing, as if those dizzying number of Goldberg-esque variables all accidentally lined up and there was nothing in the way anymore. I've had entire rounds where I never missed the center of the face, and none of those shots were even close to what those two felt like mentally. It's only the last few years that i've felt like I was patient and curious enough to start digging into "why" there. I'll let you know if I figure it out in another 32 years. 😆

@betarhoalphadelta You're describing a similar version of the type of journey i've been on; figuring out what our individual variables are and how they fit into the whole equation. Keep working at gaining little footholds to get you to the next stage as it will be a process, but you're in good hands so far. 💪 

[Albatross Dreamer]

On 1/27/2024 at 6:20 PM, grantc79 said:

pushing one foot releases pressure from the other

 

its like jumping

 

lifting a foot adds pressure to the other

 

but as a chain reaction trigger type move I get it 👍

I don't know that's necessarily true. It depends on the angle of the pressure being applied. To illustrate, stand with your feet pretty much together then apply pressure vertically in your left foot. The right foot likely lifts off the ground. Now do the same thing in your driver stance, it'll likely shift your pressure over to your right leg. The wider the stance the more it'll do so. If it didn't do so you'd fall over.

 

 

On 1/27/2024 at 7:10 PM, iacas said:

 

I know that. But you said "The backswing should start with pressure being added to the trail foot before anything else moves" and that's the opposite of what you see from many: they push with the LEFT foot to move their weight to the right, then the pressure builds under their right foot as they extend that knee, raise the right hip, raise the arms and rib cage on that right side, etc. (Also they're flexing the left knee more, which reduces force under that foot, so even if forces under the right foot stayed the same reducing under the left foot would spike the ratio under the right foot).

Right, it's probably milliseconds of difference if I had to guess. I'd be curious about the pressure vs weight on the back leg though, as I'd think pressure has to build essentially simultaneously to avoid swaying and to "accept" the weight in a way that can then be redirected.

 

One thing I'd really love to see is absolute weight/pressure for each leg being shown in addition to the percentages, as I feel that's something that's missing from most of these discussions. As you mentioned in your last sentence ratios can change even if the force stayed the same. The opposite is also true where the ratio could stay the same when forces change. For example, on the downswing we know the ratio changes to greatly favor the front leg. I'd love to see how the absolute forces change too, since even though the ratio is going from 80-20% to 20-80% back leg to front, that doesn't necessarily mean the back leg is purely unloading the entire downswing through impact in terms of forces (it COULD, I just haven't seen the numbers either way since I don't have a force plate). @iacas do you have any data on this? 

[Carlito]

On 1/23/2024 at 8:10 AM, Valtiel said:

#2 is just a little move to get things moving, sometimes triggered initially by a little bump "in" with the right hip before it works back (lots of pros do this)

@Valtiel could you please elobarate a little more on this motion? Maybe similar to the Porzak "hip bump"? Thanks. 

 

 

Edited January 31 by Carlito

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Albatross Dreamer said:

Right, it's probably milliseconds of difference if I had to guess. I'd be curious about the pressure vs weight on the back leg though, as I'd think pressure has to build essentially simultaneously to avoid swaying and to "accept" the weight in a way that can then be redirected.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying.

• Swaying would be the easiest way to add weight.
• Pushing up (with the trail knee, etc.) is the easiest way to add pressure.

Pressure is dynamic (and I still hate that we've come to call it pressure, when force is the better term and pressure is force/area), weight is static.

 

When someone jumps, they don't change weight:

• When they lower (flex their knees, etc.) in preparation to jump, scales would register that they weigh less.
• When they jump, scales would measure them weighing more than their body weight.

Pressure often out-paces weight, too: the pressure is often higher on the trail foot during the backswing than the weight, and often higher on the front foot than the weight in the downswing.

 

1 hour ago, Albatross Dreamer said:

One thing I'd really love to see is absolute weight/pressure for each leg being shown

 

You can't really do that in a moving system unless you've specifically measured the density/weight of each body segment. You can estimate it, but… you're not getting a "weight" measurement from a force plate. That's why they will show the "center of pressure" and not the "center of mass." When you're not moving, they're one and the same. You're not "not moving" often in the golf swing.

 

1 hour ago, Albatross Dreamer said:

As you mentioned in your last sentence ratios can change even if the force stayed the same.

 

I didn't say that - I said that reducing the forces under one foot changes the ratio even if the other foot stays the same. We're often looking at things as a percentage relative to the other. We don't often see total forces. If both feet are at 100 pounds, that's 50/50. If the left foot pushes at 130, the ratio becomes 56/43. It appears that the force under the right foot went down when it didn't. It remained the same, but the left foot increased.

 

1 hour ago, Albatross Dreamer said:

For example, on the downswing we know the ratio changes to greatly favor the front leg. I'd love to see how the absolute forces change too

 

The absolute forces change quite a bit. There's a reason it's often called "jumping." Any time you are moving something up, you're overcoming gravity and thus the force exerted is > your weight (it's mildly more complicated with two feet if you want to consider what each foot is doing - but not that much).

[Valtiel]

1 hour ago, Carlito said:

@Valtiel could you please elobarate a little more on this motion? Maybe similar to the Porzak "hip bump"? Thanks. 

 

 

What he is describing there in the beginning is actually the opposite of what i'm referring to, although i'm not sure the context here as some people do what he's describing as a trigger move. Regardless he seems to be speaking about a very "front post" type of approach which definitely works for some but IMO is less common. I'm not familiar with Porzak's approaches or philosophies though so take that for what it's worth. 

What i'm describing is this only:



A move that most pros have a version of in the immediate takeaway, a setting of the lateral "post" if you will that you'll be rotating against:



However it looks, the goal simply being to establish the foundation on your trail leg quickly to maintain stability. The danger of not doing this correctly is in what it does to your ability to rotate correctly and in your overall sequence as I described in my reply above to Sp4zRX. 

Edited January 31 by Valtiel

[vernon]

Y'all got my head spinning but I'm enjoying this.

[KD1]

@Valtiel, @Carlito, et al DJ on the left, Rory on the right. Courtesy of iacas from a thread the other day.

 

 

[grantc79]

If you look at force plates and a good swing you will see in the transition pressure drops on the trail leg and begins building on the front leg. 

 

Respectfully, science says you don't drop pressure by adding pressure. Every reputable person says you need the sensation of FALLING into your lead leg. 

 

That is what actually happens. Now if how you express falling is pushing with the other foot then thats your brain, but what you have to do is fall into that lead foot in transition. 

[vernon]

21 hours ago, grantc79 said:

If you look at force plates and a good swing you will see in the transition pressure drops on the trail leg and begins building on the front leg. 

 

Respectfully, science says you don't drop pressure by adding pressure. Every reputable person says you need the sensation of FALLING into your lead leg. 

 

That is what actually happens. Now if how you express falling is pushing with the other foot then thats your brain, but what you have to do is fall into that lead foot in transition. 

David Lee  called it the "counter fall".  I had an impromptu lesson with him at his facility in Hot Springs Arkansas back about twenty five years ago and he seemed to me to be a very good instructor.

 

He had a different way of phrasing things which I found interesting and very helpful.

 

Not sure how well his book sold but he did get an endorsement from Jack Nicklaus on his swing theory.

 

He made at least one appearance on Golf Channel with Kessler.

[KD1]

Heres Dana's thoughts on this