Extensor Action.

Extensor action simply means to straighten the right arm and this is done through a conscious muscular effort via the tricep muscle of the right arm.

The right arm needs a feeling of always pushing out to seek the maximum radius of ones elliptical arc, this gives substance/structure to the left arm allowing downward pressure/mass to be applied to the golf ball, think of the left arm as a cable on a suspension bridge, should the right arm always be extending the left arm will naturally be straight with a hidden stored potential energy just like that of the cable, if one was to cut this the cable would pull violently apart.

So how does one apply this within their own swing?

It's all in the right arm and concentric (shortening muscle) application of the right tricep, in ones own body it would feel as if the right tricep is always active in an isometric (static) hold but in reality in the backswing the right arm is folding and in the downswing it is straightening. The right arm is always seeking a straight condition though not succeeding until a good foot or so past impact, impact interval and separation, this area is called the followthrough whereby both arms are straight, (the only time this happens in the golf swing).

The many benefits of extensor action include:

full extension of the left arm;

full extension of the right arm at follow through (p7.5);

the correct rate of clubface closure.

Motor Patterns - Learn Through Feel.

Motor Patterns are first used as an infant, otherwise known as infant development patterns, such as rolling, sitting, crawling and eventually walking. It is pretty safe to say that infants learn to walk long before verbal communication and visual skills to mimic complex tasks. Learning to walk is learned through feel, not verbal communication or observation, (though these certainly do have there place in a coaches arsenal), but most coaching techniques used today are words and demonstration biased, body awareness is key. Having lessons? Then have the coach put you in the positions needed to improve, create feelings, go back to basics just like when you learning to walk, learn golf movement through moving.

The importance of electrical flow in the golf swing and Goat Humping Part 3.

Goat humpers, listen in, the reason for this is all connected partly to tonic muscles, goat humping is another term for early extenstion or the pelvis pushing towards the golf ball in either the backswing/downswing or both. The buzz word for correcting this is 'STRETCH THE HAMSTRINGS' and this information is partly correct, the reason for tight hamstrings can be linked to a core deficiency (this will require a whole other blog), which would need to be addressed for a long term correction with stretching. So the hamstrings are on the posterior or rear part of the leg and as any anatomy book would show, these muscle are rather large, attaching to the sitz bone which is located on the back end of the pelvis, it is easy to see that a tightness here would tip the pelvis backward (imagine the pelvis as a bowl of water and you are tipping the water out the back), this is the same move that is seen as Goat Humping in the golf swing. The brain hyper recruites the hamstrings pushing the pelvis towards the ball. So the common area of stretching is located at the hip section of the muscle, hmmmmmm.
Testing of the hamstrings should be preformed at the segmental level of the spine, how the spine moves determines the true length of the hamstrings. The biggest mistake out there is a belief that one should stretch the muscles at the hip end only, but the hamstrings are controlled on two separate nerve routes, the peronial nerve and the sciatic nerve, thus either the hip end or the knee end may be tight individually or both. Please note that the hamstring and the gastrocs/calf muscles have an intimate relationship with each other as both ligaments cross the knee joint, if the hamstrings are tight so are the gastrocs, if the gastrocs are tight so are the hamstrings, and don't forget if the gastrocs are tight they all add to the Goat Humping sydrome, any questions please email me and I will be happy to go into more detail.

Happy Golfing ;)