Biokinetic Golf Swing Theory

Omne Trium Perfectum

2012-02-10T17:04:00.000+01:00

"Omne trium perfectum" means that all things that come in threes are perfect - now also in the sense of golf biokinetics. Although big picture studies rarely deal with small movements of distal limbs joints such as wrists and they rather treat them as loose chains between two sticks of a nunchaku there are nonetheless important correlations that influence the chain of events and help in automating also in this area.

It is worth noting that the most usual movement of the wrist is one of dorsi flexion (extension) combined with radial deviation, and of palmar flexion combined with ulnar deviation. Pure palmar-dorsal flexion (flexion-extension) and radial-ulnar deviation are movements that rarely occur in a straight plane. It is like that because when we want to maximize ulnar deviation range we unintentionally bow the wrist which means we flex it palmarily; conversely, when we want to maximize radial deviation range our wrist becomes dorsally flexed. It should give us the picture that the axis of wrist deviation RoM is not parallel to pure deviation motions but is slanted from slight palmar flexion to slight dorsal flexion.

This phenomenon brings the third type of motion in force, namely, supination and pronation of the forearm. When we assume that full ulnar deviation must be accompanied by palmar flexion we have to observe that it must also be accompanied by slight supination of the forearm. There is no other choice. We can add that of course full radial deviation would not only require slight dorsal flexion but also slight pronation of the forearm. This is why motions in threes are so efficient in the wrist area.

Now the best part - the first three, i.e. ulnar deviation palmar flexion and supination are gravity-friendly movements that happen unintentionally in the downswing phase. They are useful even more for a golfer that stands circa 90 degrees closed to the target because of supination movement that is quite normal because elbow joint has a limited RoM and it is not possible to avoid lead forearm pronation going back and, consequently, its supination going down.

Therefore, we not only should have no fear about controlling our wrists via any conscious actions or unnecessary training - nature cared sufficiently enough to join movements in pairs and sometimes, as in this example, also in threes to ease the kinetic goal.

Furyk's Case

2012-02-06T16:04:00.001+01:00

There is one of the best ever pivot-driven action between the reaching of the EEP and late follow-through. The only one today that is in post-secret Hogan's league when talking about maintaining the clubface square to the swing arc the longest possible time in the motion.
Pay attention not only how his clubface remains square to the arc but how his rear humerus work parallely with his hard pivoting body. No strange Jim Furyk is being regarded as the most consistent ballstriker of our era even by Trackman specialists.

Click on a photo to enlarge it if necessary.

It is a great action. It is worth adding again that Mother Nature made the elbow joint the way it cannot move in all possible directions because it would be too weak to support a lot of physical activities correctly; therefore, hard structure needs additional motions of forearm to adjust the lack of RoM in the elbow joint to allow some physical actions to be achievable. One of this motion is pronation/supination of the forearm (turning the forearm axially without necessity of moving the elbow joint in space). Physics of golf swing must include pronation/supination (and bending the rear elbow as well, BTW) because otherwise one couldn't make a full swing.
Now, when rear forearm pronates (during downswing) it affect simultaneously the shaft and the clubface. It is much easier to control the clubface when shaft is aligned parallelly - or better said - is a parallel extension of pronating body part. Any angle between it (i.e. when shaft is not parallel) forces an additional action of wrist to adjust to impact.
Probably this is one of main reasons why the most consistent ballstrikers were elbow planers with their rear forearm supporting the shaft and rear humerus tight to the body. Other reason was that their pivot was great enough to let the above occur. It requires the rear elbow joint be on the rear hip at impact. The more the elbow goes in front of the body the worse for the whole motion. People often say "stuck" incorrectly.The rule of thumb is -- the stronger the pivot is the more open is main body at impact (hips more, shoulder girldle less of course due to sequentiality) and the more is the lead arm pinned accross the chest while the rear elbow close to the rear hip.

Forgotten Great Swings. Part 2.

2011-11-18T20:39:00.001+01:00

Here is the continuation of the series of the Forgotten Great Swings that shows my personal choice of biokinetically sound forgotten, almost forgotten or unknown today motions that are worth learning from. The most important values are mentioned in the content of each vid. It is really unbelievable how biokinetically efficient these swings were - mainly because they contain a lot of subconscious friendly parts in their kinetic chain of events...

Forgotten Great Swings. Part 1.

2011-11-18T20:31:00.003+01:00

The series of the Forgotten Great Swings shows my personal choice of biokinetically sound forgotten, almost forgotten or unknown today motions that are worth learning from. The most important values are mentioned in the content of each vid. It is really unbelievable how biokinetically efficient these swings were - mainly because they contain a lot of subconscious friendly parts in their kinetic chain of events...

OTT from Inside

2011-03-10T21:46:00.009+01:00

A connotation of the over the top (OTT) move when starting the downswing phase is very bad. Golf instructors try over dead bodies to eliminate it from the swing motion. Some of them claim that OTT is the main reason why people slice the ball badly. Of course, in the times of Trackman, when we all know what is responsible for what, the above sentence makes no sense, however, the bad connotation remains. Too bad that golf instruction does not a step further in biophysics...

The truth is that ball lies on the ground in front of us. It requires hitting not only out but also down at the ball with a clubhead positioned up and inside at the backswing end. If we assume that the best biokinetically sound downswing plane is low (elbow plane) and that golfers achieve this plane as early as possible (EEP) there is no possibility of not having an OTT element in the motion. Swings of best players and ballstrikers starting from Bobby Jones through Ben Hogan, Jimmy Demaret and Sam Snead to George Knudson and Moe Norman had it for sure. Their downswing planes were above their backswing planes, however, their shafts, clubheads and sweetspots shallowed forming a great elbow plane downswing. Hands were OTT while sweetspots were approaching still from inside ensuring both power as well as great path-clubface angle relationship.
Of course, such a scenario is possible only if the downswing plane is low enough (elbow plane). That is one of a few reasons why the EP is biokinetically soundest plane when talking about repeatability and accuracy - much better than the shoulder plane (TSP) which requires rather reverting natural OTT tendency and shallowing hands plane through the downswing, therefore, just bringing a whole bunch of timing issues into the motion as well as not feeding our subconscious minds with essence of using maximum power.

We cannot underestimate the power element. Not coincidentally, when trying to hit hard an object lying on the ground we use OTT move. Our subconscious minds know very well that cooperating with gravity is an important piece of puzzle - hence so many beginners are over-the-toppers. Unfortunately, OTT can be a deadly thing when not adapted correctly into the motion since it may lead to an outside-to-in cut across the ball. Thus, it is crucial to take necessary measures, best of course at setup, that ensure hitting the ball with a powerful OTT move while still being able to deliver the sweetspot from the inside.

That is why the role of such elements as diagonal stance, biokinetical grip or sequentiality of the motion from the ground up cannot be overestimated. They mechanically promote shallowing the shaft despite the hands downswing plane goes over their backswing plane and, therefore, help to create proper conditions. Golfers should never be prescribed endless repetitions and drills that are against their subconscious minds but, instead, informed how to adapt correctly these elements. It is really hard to believe that golf instruction has not found this way so far and often offers advices that completely neglect elements that are somehow naturally imposed by subconscious minds of golfers.

It is worth mentioning here that over the top move is not the only one "subconscious-mind-friendly" natural move improperly cursed by today's golf instruction. Another big example is the slap-hinge release type that probably have even worse connotation today. Today's golf instruction curses everything that equals to losing the rear wrist angles before the follow through phase calling it erroneously as flip. The truth is that flipping is an error which makes a golfer release his angles completely too soon before contact while the slap-hinge release delivers the angles to the impact zone and lets the wrists release naturally after contact.

Too bad that we very seldom remember such great players as Wild Bill Mehlhorn (whom the very Ben Hogan called as the best he ever saw from tee to green - see above & below) or such great golf swing theorists (and, simultaneously, superb players) as Sir Henry Cotton, who differentiated the three release types having the slap-hinge release as one of the three. Many could learn a lot from them today, believe me.

The Antithetic Waggle

2011-01-25T20:23:00.003+01:00

Hogan was very serious when it comes to waggling the club before giving it a go. He even called waggling a bridge between the address and the beginning of the whole motion. He was perfectly aware of quite a few important reasons to include it into the pre-shot routine. Working out the feeling for the clubhead, warming muscles, mental preview of a shot, adjusting the correct tempo, sensation of a movement are just them listed in a random order.

Hogan sacrificed a lot of verses to the waggle phenomenon in his book that every golfer should read carefully. I was struck especially by these brief sentences:
"When a good golfer is going through his waggle, to the uninitiated eye it sometimes looks as if he were simply getting the fidgets out of his system or finding a surer foothold with his spikes. He is, as I have described, doing something far more purposeful than that. He’s adjusting to the shot, establishing his coordination in the process. He is, in effect, conducting an instinctive roll call of the parts of the body he will be using, alerting them and refreshing their memory of the movements they’ll be making during the swing."

Unfortunately, he did not say everything...

I called the waggle Hogan used "the antithetic waggle". The word 'antithetic' means 'in diametrical opposition' which describe perfectly what is going on with the body. When one waggles the club back one should move the legs and hips into the opposite direction, like one wants to maintain symmetry in the sagittal plane. Hogan said that the rear hip should even touch the rear elbow. And it can be done the easiest way if both arms and hips are moving in opposite directions on an arc. Such a combination makes it almost natural to achieve properly the diagonality of the stance that is so useful and important. It naturally accompanies the rear foot being set perpendicularily to the target as well as prevents also naturally the shoulders from opening simultaneously when hips open in relation to feet (as we know shoulders should remain closed in relation to hips and more or less parallel to the target).

The very Hogan underlined that shoulders cannot move during waggling and, of course, he was right as usually since one should not move what one uses for a correct dynamic alignment towards the target. One uses neither hips nor feet for this goal though, thus, there is no reason they should not be moving if waggling are to be treated as Hogan wanted, as preparation for the shot. Lastly, it should be stressed that this antithetic way of waggling prepares the body excellently for starting the motion with the initial trigger compression phase that we regard as optimal biomotoric scenario for starting the swing. Sort of pre-trigger adaptation for an optimal body motion starting with optimal diagonality of various body parts in relation to one another.

Observe how Hogan's hips move targetwise while his clubhead goes in the opposite direction:

One of these little things that matter...

Balance in the Coronal Plane

2010-12-23T15:55:00.002+01:00

As already explained in the articles belonging to the SPC concept section, there are three main body planes: sagittal, transverse and coronal. The latter is very important for movements that happens from the right to left and viceversa because it sets the equilibrium between the ventral (rear) and the frontal sides of the whole body in a given moment.

Balance in our 3-D spacial reality refers to both sagittal and coronal planes. It means we can fall down to each of the four directions N, S, W, E or their multiple combinations. Since we are bipeds with an often used possibility to enlarge our base through spreading our legs wider apart (the bigger is the surface of base the easier is to maintain in balance) it is relatively easy to achieve the goal in the W-E axis (assuming we are facing North at address).
The true balance in golf, however, is surely being set in the coronal plane though. It seems to be quite an easy task when we stand erect motionless. When playing golf we need to be at inclined plane. It means that we need to learn how to counterbalance using our body parts (e.g. the head with the tush) so that the coronal plane always bisects the center of mass area. By the way, this famous losing of tush line issue is in fact nothing more nothing less but subconscious compensations for losing the overall balance, i.e. a subconscious reaction for displacing the line astray.

Note that the coronal plane line is set from the lead ankle joint up because this is where the vertical axis of downswing rotation (that corresponds to the impact phase) goes. Please also note that the pressure areas of both feet correspond with the coronal plane line allocation - as stressed in the diagonal stance articles - ankle joint area of the lead foot and balls area of the rear foot. Lastly, it says how important is replanting of the lead heel onto the ground for overall feel where the axis is.
Let's see how it looks further in the action:

There are a lot of problems if we are off balance during the motion. Our sense of balance is disturbed and calls for compensatory moves aimed at regaining balance that usually spoil the final effect of the action. That is why our understanding of how we can benefit from merging center of body mass with the coronal plane line may be crucial. Feel and anticipate where it is during setup while placing your lead feet - watch how carefully Mr.Hogan does it in the 'Setting the Swing Motion' vid.

Setting the Swing Motion

2010-12-01T20:21:00.001+01:00

One of my friends from golf fora used the notion "setup dependent swing motion". I believe this excellent definition says everything. All conscious thoughts should be used during setup routine in order to leave as less biophysical options as possible. We have already described in detail such concepts as the diagonality of the stance, building the firm rear side from the ground up, biokinetical grip, low plane angle, etc. but we have not described how a biokinetically correct setup routine should look like.

I would like to begin with goals that must be fulfilled thanks to the setup dependent action:
1. optimum conditions for most effective kinetic energy flow;
2. optimum conditions for undisturbed balance;
3. optimum conditions for automating the motion.

Let us discuss the most basic stuff for the beginning:

ad.1. First, we must be able to create sufficient amount of energy in order to think about efficient release; hence the necessity of optimalizing the backswing phase that have to ensure a long enough arc of the clubhead but with distal parts subdued to the main body (BTW, if our goal is to start in ReMAX LD champs - the means would be a bit different). How we can do it ?
First, by closing the feet line; putting the rear foot back to the rear vividly contributes to make the arc longer without necessity of swinging the arms above shoulder plane and losing connection with main body. Secondly, by setting the rear foot perpendicularily to the target; it will make the transition more powerful and enhance the linear part in the pelvis area via horizontally oriented forces (creating torques); thirdly, by flaring the lead foot out; it will be the best help in enhancing the rotary part of the downswing when the linear shift has been finished.
Next, the hip and knee joints must be set properly so that one could use also vertically oriented forces efficiently.
The grip should be set the way the leverages in wrists joints (the most important ones by far) could be used most effectively; hence the concept of merging lead wrist deviation with rear wrist flexion.
Lastly, waggling the club not only relaxes joints, ligaments and muscles but also helps in establishing the best grip in a very dynamical process. One should not grip the club tight before last waggle is being finished.

ad.2. The surface of feet is very small in relation to the whole body mass, especially in a dynamic motion, thus, feet must seek for wide enough stance in both planes (South-North and East-West). The bigger surface the base has the easier is to be in balance through the motion and, what is even more important, the easier is to use the ground shear forces comparing to when all body parts are in line with each other.
Secondly, knee and ankle joints movements must be utilized both ways; during the backswing, lead heel shouldn't be kept flat on the ground; lead knee shouldn't be kept stiff from bending inside in a due moment; same with rear foot that shouldn't neither be spun out nor kept on the ground approaching impact; therefore, we need to relax these jopints properly when taking our stance - even if it require replacing feet several times.
Next, the head, what is a relatively heavy organ - the weight of it amounts to ca. 7.5 % of the whole human body weight; moreover, it is the most distant part from the human body CoG (which is in navel area - for an adult man; for an adult woman - a bit lower, BTW) that makes head's motion impact on ANY CoG shift even bigger. Hence a very useful notion of the stationary end of cervical spine (not stationary head, which is a biomechanical error in thinking). Also it is worth mentioning that head should be st depending on the eyedness - but this is just a microscale issue.
Last but not least, all thre main horizontal planes, i.e. feet, hips and shoulders should never be parallel to one another. Hence the idea of increasing the diagonality of the stance in three planes - hips open in relation to feet, shoulders closed in relation to hips. Of course shoulders are used for visual aiming while feet seeks for ultimate balance and ultimate benefitting from ground forces.

ad.3. First, the firm rear side from the ground up must be build at setup thanks to the rear ankle and knee joints preset. The action contains a clockwise turn of the rear ankle and knee joints without changing the rear foot square to the target line position till the limit. Turning the rear heel outwards first (this makes the foot perpendicular to the target) and then turning out both joints. Like one wants to bring your rear heel inwards again, which won't happen because of shear forces between the foot and the ground. Since e.g. the rotational RoM of ankle joint is much smaller of that of knee joint and the latter is much smaller that this of hip joint, etc. - the sequentiality of reaction for torques is established perfectly from the ground up without leaving any other option left. The rear elbow joint may or should be preset as well so that there are limited chances for an independent from the main body movement of arms.

For the visualization purposes, we shall use again a great vid of Mr.Hogan from his Shell match against Snead here:

If we are to depict the setup in chronological points, I believe it would be like this:

1. setting the clubface perpendicularily to the intended target while visualizing it;

2. waggling the club so that the muscles, liganments and joints are relaxed as well as setting the correct position of the rear hand in relation to the lead one on the grip;

3. aiming at the target with shoulder blades while setting hips and independently lead and rear foot in their desired positions (hips a bit open in relation to shoulders, lead foot more flared out, rear foot less flared out, rear foot backed in relation to the lead one); the first motion is always done by the lead foot as the rear one takes its position in relation to it; feet are being lifted off the ground alternately; it is worth noting that lead foot is being put sequentially, from toes to heel while the rear one practically is being put on balls, leaving the heel barely touching the ground; it perfectly corresponds with feet pressure points areas;

4. waggling the club with mental image of the shot so that its trajectory and shape could be visualized;

5. fine tuning everything together; again, lead feet first (as the one that corresponds to the fixed ball position for all clubs and setting the area of the downswing vertical axis of body rotation) and the rear following it setting the correct width and depth of the stance; "getting into the shot"; presetting the rear ankle and knee joints via setting the rear foot perpendicular to the ground; presetting the elbow joint of the rear arm via putting the socket up;

6. putting the clubface behind the ball and starting the motion via targetwise trigger compression.

With a solid and wise setup routine no doubt it is much easier to make the motion consistent and repeatable. The serious key for automating the motion.

Ground Forces, Feet and Pressure Points

2010-11-21T21:54:00.002+01:00

Ground forces create two kinds of motions - horizontally oriented and vertically oriented - as the orientation of forces can be horizontal or vertical as well. The latter are simple forces appearing thanks to altering our weight. It is very useful here to remember that the notion "weight" is always equal to a force:

- "statically" = your true mass x gravitational acceleration;

- "dynamically" = your true mass x gravitational acceleration +/- additional acceleration.

Vertically oriented motions happen because the weight changes, e.g. when you prepare to jump you create additional acceleration acting in the same direction as gravity, therefore, your weight changes which can be observed on the scales. What always remains unchanged is mass.

Horizontally oriented motions are being induced thanks to shear forces that exists because of created torques in the hard structure of human's organism. The linear part is not being induced by the spine but by human's body response to simple physics ocurring from the ground up. Shear forces are strong enough to create torques that move the pelvis area targetwise. What happens with the spine as e.g. the secondary axis tilt is a consequence of this scenario. We already know very well (vide: the SPC concept) that automated targetwise CoG shift is totally dependent on what happens below pelvis and, consequently, on horizontally oriented forces.
Feet should be aware of and prepared to feel both types of forces. The optimal combination of horizontally and vertically oriented motions forces that there exists the optimal distribution of pressure points of feet. We remember from the Diagonal Stance concept that the surface of the feet is relarively very small comparing to the mass of the whole body, especially in a dynamic movement and, therefore, both feet should never be placed in line with each other in 2 basic dimensions (lead foot flared while rear one square to the target, rear foot taken back in relation to the lead one - both rules better visible the longer the club is).

The Diagonal Stance diagramme shows the pressure points of both feet at address. What is not without importance, practically the same allocation of the pressure points occurs at impact. Let us present what happens during the entire motion in this sphere:

The red rectangles shows where the pressure is being allocated, white arrows shows the horizontal orientation of the torques (red arrows shows the same but without interaction between feet and the ground) and the white dots shows the vertical oriented forces.

At setup, we need to ensure the firm rear side from the ground up via presetting the rear knee and ankle joints. The lead side uses only normal (vertically oriented) forces. The relation between the line joining most important pressure points of both feet (point under lead foot ankle joint and rear foot's balls area) and the target line is dependent on how closed is the stance, i.e. how long is the club one actually is using (according to the D-plane principles).

During the backswing phase, the pressure point of the rear foot gradually moves to the heel as the rear leg straightens and rear hip joint goes up and back. The preset done at address still exerts impact of torques that affects the rear side. The lead side being passive starts to correspond to it parallelly.

At the top, overtorques of the rear side joints set the direction of the automatic linear shift to the S-W (assuming we are facing North at setup). The lead heel rolls up and loses contact with the ground preparing to establish the new downswing vertical axis of body rotation. Lead heel will always come off the ground unintentionally if the pelvis works in a slanted way (at 45 degrees up & back with the whole body and arms working together) and there is a proper sequencing (the lead side is totally passive during the backswing letting the lead knee joint bent inside). The lead heel should replace at least the same spot, or better a tad closer to the target because of the vertical axis of rotation linear shift to the front side of the body in a perfect world so that the dynamics of the motion is utilized most efficiently.

After the linear shift has been done and the vertical axis of downswing rotation has been established the main pressure point of the lead foot goes under the lead ankle, i.e. where the lead heels hits the ground. The rear side becomes to be passive and inertial, thus, the pressure point of the rear foot goes entirely near the inner edge. There is a slight impression of targetwise pushing from the rear foot since the overtorques have already been released and the pressure point stretches from the heel towards toes. The lead side uses the vertically oriented forces during the phase of pure rotation since the natural limitation in the lead ankle and knee joints has not been reached yet.

At impact, the horizontally oriented forces start to act, or better said, to accompany the vertically oriented ones, due to the process of releasing the stored energy which can naturally happen thanks to appearing strong torques in the joints. The rear heel rolls up and loses contact with the ground and the entire rear foot starts to spin out.

After the energy has been passed to the ball, the ground forces start to be of lesser importance. The lead foot spins out together with further post-impact body rotation while the rear foot loses contact with the ground almost entirely and often is being dragged - almost, i.e. there is some pressure left near the toe because of balance reasons.

The above visualization is totally in line with the SPC concept. For a more global view please go to the section where and compare coresponding phases of the swing motion.

Ben Hogan's Masters

2010-11-20T16:08:00.000+01:00

Ben Hogan's post-secret swing motion is rightfully the most respected one in the history of golf. He became the best ballstriker of all times despite countless serious adversities he had to face with in his life. Hogan was supposed to have developed himself a secret or secrets thanks to his genius and hard work - however, even he had his masters whom he learnt concepts from.

Wild Bill Mehlhorn - one of very few Ben Hogan admired and learned from in his early days. Hogan even said that Wild Bill was the best from tee to green he ever saw. It can be easily seen that such things as the trigger compression, sequential swinging from the ground up or the diagonal stance was being present in Mehlhorn's motion. Observe carefully and pay special attention to the way he set up before starting his swing. It is very obvious that Mehlhorn must have been very aware how to benefit from the ground forces.

Henry Picard's name is very often associated with young Ben Hogan. Picard was known for his generosity to other players, and Sam Snead credited Picard with convincing him to turn pro. Picard also offered to bankroll Ben Hogan when Hogan was struggling, then got Hogan into the field at the first tournament Hogan would win. He also helped Hogan eliminate his hook, and Hogan dedicated his book "Ben Hogan's Power Golf," to Picard. From this short material presented below we can easily see how similar was the kinetics of Picard's pelvis area motion to that of the best ballstriker of all times. Pay special attention to his rear hip joint linear motion at transition - it is a great example of the SPC concept in the pelvis area. Also it shows how important from the mechanical point of view is passive lead side during the backswing phase; Picard's lead heel does not stay on the ground as well as his lead knee bends inwards helping to set the correct CoG pelvis area shift and making the transition almost automatic.

Macdonald Smith - Ben Hogan was being said to get his famous pronation technique from Smith's marvellous pivot guided swing motion. Smith's action was the most observed motion in the hickory era. Pros studied his swing pretty much similarily to later colleagues standing for hours on range observing Hogan's sessions decades later.
Please take a look at 1:03-04 of the video (01:18:43-01:18:44) that looked exactly like Smith was just creating the firm rear side via rear ankle and knee joints preset described in the SPC concept. Look at the waggle, too. And the diagonal stance. Not mentioning more obvious things like trigger compression or low plane angle. Indeed, if someone had a good eye and had analytical mind a lot could have been learned from Smith. Mr.Hogan surely did.

Ben Hogan took a lot of inspiration from baseball swing motion. Low plane, perpendicularity of distal limbs to the core, active stance that makes both legs and feet live their own lives and great kinetic sequentiality from the ground up - just to name a few similarities between great baseball swing and this of the greatest ballstriker that ever lived. It is widely known that Hogan met both Byrd and Williams for numerous times and asked them about motorics of baseball swing motion.

The above examples would not solve all mysteries that accompany Ben Hogan's secrets. But surely they will give an excellent picture of the background as well as underline many common points that were present in the biokinetically almost ideal post-secret Hogan's swing motion.

Low Plane Magic

2010-08-16T00:25:00.005+02:00

The biokinetically soundest relation of the arms and the main body is when arms can work perpendicularily to the core. Of course, it can happen only in certain phases of the motion because of human's body nature. One of these phases is the backswing top where the entire lead arm should exactly be perpendicular to the spine (and the rear humerus is parallel to the spine). The shoulder line should be perpendicular to the spine as well which means that the lead humerus is pinned to the chest and can work together the main body automatically. A sort of one plane backswing position where there are no excessive flatness or uprightness of the plane - because of the square relation to the core.

According to some golf myths such a position on the top is often being called erroneously "flat". Upright two-planish backswings never give such a possibility since the lead shoulder joint alone is too weak (in the sense - too unsecure) a connection with the upper body to guarantee a simultaneous work. Here we can use the word "upright" because the square relation between lead arm and the spine has been destroyed.

Another popular myth is that the plane height should be dependent on a golfer's height. It is just absurd since what eventually matter are body proportions - but we can even forget about it if we assume that the proportions between well-fitted clubs and a golfer's body are stable in the macroscale. There are really no arguments to think otherwise.

Today's golf instruction does not often understand biokinetics and sometimes find ridiculous arguments against low plane golfers while the truth is that the vast majority of the best ballstrikers in history of golf were never upright players. And even if some of them might have been, they were capable to shift back beautifully to the low plane during the downswing (vide: the EEP concept). However, this procedure is just a waste of kinetic force and one does not need to be a genius to state that the best scenario is when necessary plane shifts are as small as possible - from elbow plane to the shoulder plane at the top and to the elbow plane as soon as possible in the downswing (where the rear forearm becomes perpendicular to the core).

Mr.Hogan was right again with imagining the swing plane being not higher than the pane of glass resting at his shoulders. Too bad many people do not understand his intentions...:

And here is the video that visualizes the concept:

Lead Heel Biokinetic Dance

2010-06-03T11:05:00.007+02:00

It is one of definitely the most forgotten things from the past that has a lot of merits that today's instruction wrongly neglects.
Lead heel will always come off the ground unintentionally if the pelvis works in a slanted way (at 45 degrees up & back with the whole body and arms working together) and there is a proper sequencing (the lead side is totally passive during the backswing letting the lead knee joint bent inside). All great ballstrikers of the former years did it, from Vardon through Jones, Snead, Hogan, Middlecoff, Lema, Nicklaus, Trevino, Moe, etc. - the longer the swing arc the more visible it is - it vividly helps in achieving a full coil of the body as well as emphasize setting the vertical axis of downswing rotation in a correct time and place.

Somebody could ask - what about the theory of natural body limitations then ? Shouldn't the lead side limit the movement ? The answer is - the theory of limitations works best if it is not against physics. The firm rear side built sequentially from the ground up creates the natural human body limitations - while the lead side must be passive during the backswing so that it takes the lead later on when the orientation changes. Simple as that.

The lead heel should replace at least the same spot, or better said, a tad closer to the target because of the vertical axis of rotation linear shift to the front side of the body in a perfect world. If the heel replaces closer to the golfer's rear side most probably there is a spin-out in the pelvis area suggesting there is not enough big CoG shift. It also would depend on how much the lead foot was flared out in relation to the target line.

Lastly, one shouldn't forget that the pelvis motion is dependent on what happens below hip joints - and how the soundest biokinetically pelvis area motion looks like - please look at it through the prism of the lead heel motion. As we already know from the SPC concept descriptions and visualizations, the human pelvis motion during the golf swing always includes linear and rotational elements. We also know that the biokinetically soundest is to let the linear motion preceed the rotational one. Now, since noone on Earth could start the downswing properly with the lead heel off the ground - the heel must be replaced - and in order to do so, the linear part must be performed. After the heel is replanted all the golfer needs is the sequential rotation of the whole body system from the ground up. The biophysics is really simple as that. Too bad the modern instruction is so much blind at such wisdoms. Hopefully, it will change someday.

Look at the SPC pelvis area diagrams and confront them with what you have just seen:

As you can see on these diagrams, the rotational part always follows the linear part which is a biomechanical necessity for a bipedal. The key is to automate the cascade of events - both thanks to the theory of limitations - the linear part thanks to physical reaction and the rotational one thanks to anatomic reaction. The power of biokinetics.

Old Mr.Hogan - still biokinetically the soundest

2010-05-19T21:59:00.001+02:00

All of us saw the famous "beach" clip where old Mr.Hogan shows how to swing to his friends. However, not many of us try to go deeper into his outstanding presentation and to find certain biokinetic lego pieces that were present in all post-secret swing motion of Ben Hogan.

I have already sacrificed some videos (published on YouTube) to these lego pieces describing them in detail on base of Mr.Hogan's (and also other greatest ballstrikers') action. Now, we can see the great man performing all of them even when showing his swing purposedly in a slo-mo ! Trigger compression, diagonal stance, biokinetical grip, firm rear side creation, swinging from the ground up, early elbow plane, etc. - all were there on the beach together with Mr.Hogan and are here with us all forever now.

Please watch this vid carefully:

If anyone has still some doubts, now it is very easy to confront everything together. There is no bright future for the golf instruction without biokinetics and biomechanics. Mr.Hogan knew it as the first long time ago and became the best ballstriker in the history of golf. We are in the 21st century now and it is highest time to cut the horrible break and to start to continue Mr.Hogan's work in modern times.

The Early Elbow Plane

2010-04-15T22:44:00.001+02:00

The EEP (early elbow plane) is a logical result of benefitting from one of the golden rules of (bio)physics concerning the perpendicularily of the distal parts motion to the spine (core).

The EEP is a description of a biophysical phenomenon when a classic double shifter achieves the EP relatively very early in the downswing with the shaft bissecting the forearm; a decent amount of lag is necessary to perform the EEP. An EEP golfer receives full support from both rear humerus (in relation to the body alongside with which is moving) as well as from rear forearm that supports the shaft and clubhead until impact being in-line with it and at a perpendicular angle to the core.

The best example is post-accident Hogan who achieves the EEP very early in the downswing (his rear elbow moving forward early and fast after transition) until shaft becomes in-line with rear forearm and rear forearm perpendicular to his core. From this moment there is his turning main body only, the rest is in status quo in relation to it which may be certainly considered as the best possible biomotoric scenario for consistency in the downswing phase:

As we already know, the backswing must be lead by the rear side, for the reasons mentioned earlier. It won't let a too inside takeaway which is the main enemy of flattening the shaft plane after transition = one of the biggest enemies of the downswing EEP. The best results are achieved if it is being performed sequentially from the ground up at ca. 45* angle up & back. The downswing phase occurs sequentially from the ground up as well thanks to an automated transition that is possible thanks to finding limitations in the joints sequentially from the ground up. The overtorques in the joints cause the trampoline effect when changing the orientation of the motion (from backswing to downswing). The lower the body part the sooner it finishes backswing and the sooner it starts downswing. It creates optimal condition for the plane to drop (congruently) from TSP to EP as soon as possible.

The Diagonal Stance

2010-04-15T22:24:00.004+02:00

I am of the opinion that the feet should be in the diagonal stance position always when the pelvis area motion happens, no matter what is the length of the club. Practically, only putter stance would require an even stance, since we do not need any hip joint motion. In order to achieve it the rear foot ball should be in line with the lead foot heel, therefore, sort of diagonally to the target line. Of course, this position is offsetted via different feet position - the lead one is flared while the rear one is square to the target line.
This diagonal stance has one more very important merit, in my opinion. When the downswing progresses, the rotational aspect relocates gradually the CoG to the lead foot heel. At impact, the CoG line should optimally run from the knee joint to the ankle perpendicularily to the ground (letting the knee joint maintain some flex necessary to allow the joint to rotate and guarantees the best possible stability). It is not already at the heel but definitely is closer to the heel than to the toes. The opposite scenario happens with the rear foot where the heel loses its contact with the ground first, maintaining the contact in the area near ball/toe. Now, when we create an imaginary line between those contact points of both feet it can be parallel to the target line only when feet are placed in a diagonal stance position. This creates a necessary torque, since the hips are already open at impact, does not allowing to transfer the CoG too early to the lead heel (causing the lead knee to straighten too early). The same torque does not allow the weight to be left on the rear side too long as well.
Of course, the smaller hip area motion is required, the less diagonal stance is necessary.

Last but not least, the diagonal stance gives a much better base for a human body weight. The bigger surface the base has the easier is to be in balance through the motion and, what is even more important, the easier is to use the ground shear forces comparing to when all body parts are in line with each other. Human feet are very small in relation to the entire body mass that they must keep in balance, especially during such a dynamic motion as the golf swing is.

Here is the diagramme of the Diagonal Stance. The blue line is the target line, the red squares are the address pressure points of both feet and the red lines are linking the pressure points setting the feet (see also the blog part dedicated to feet pressure points where everything is explained in detail):

The above diagramme is, in fact, a corrected version of the original Hogan's stance diagramme published in "5 Lessons":

Watching thousands of Hogan's clips (as well as some other great ballstrikers - George Knudson comes to my mind first) I consider the DS concept as much closer to reality than the latter diagramme. As Mr.Hogan's friend and playing partner, Gardner Dickinson said "[...] he experimented with putting some wrinkles in his left wrist. Ben gradually changed his grip so that his left hand showed about one and a half knuckles at address. At the same time, he let the right hand move more on top of the shaft so that the "V" formed by his thumb and forefinger pointed between his chin and left ear. He then moved the ball forward in his stance, and repositioned his hands at address so that they were about even with the ball, or even slightly behind it with a driver. Finally he assumed a distinctly closed stance at address, even on pitch shots, by withdrawing his right foot from the intended line of flight. Ben aimed with his shoulders, not his feet, so the closed stance had minimal effect on his targeting."

Jackie Burke likes to call the concept "runner's stance" underlining the dynamism of a static position. If you imagine how would a runner stand ready to start the race next words are not necessary at all.

Mr.Hogan's (and other great ballstrikers') stance allowed to locate the downswing vertical axis of rotation in the same place towards the lead ankle joint; the rear foot moves back the longer the club is, makes it finding the bottom of the arc earlier.
A flared lead foot allows to find the limit of rotation of the lead knee faster than the rear one. The knee that cannot rotate further bends inwards what almost automatically makes the weight shift on a lead hip joint when the linear CoG shift happens. If the lead foot is put inward, instead flared, all tension in the knee and hip is lost. Moreover, the sum of small X-factors is being achieved properly when the lead hip "stays" early in the backswing allowing the rear shoulder find its limit without making the backswing too long and loose. Lastly, during the downswing it guarantees a proper correlation of the pelvis position and the impact position. Hips are open at impact, thus, the lead foot should not be square to the target in any case if the aim is to ease the rotation.

Watch Mr.Hogan sets his feet in search for a ground forces and totally balanced motion with the lead foot always flared out and the rear one perpendicular to the target:

Observe how Mr.Hogan seeks for a stable stance that would guarantee the most effective usage of the ground forces. A closed toe line, open hips and square shoulders (in relation to each other), a flared lead while a squared rear foot plus different pressure points for both feet - these are the real keys.

Closed feet, open hips, squarish shoulders = the essence of the diagonal stance. Other words - shoulders are closed in relation to hips but open in relation to feet. Hips are (strongly) open in relation to feet and (less) open in relation to shoulders. Feet are (strongly) closed in relation to hips and (less) closed in relation to shoulders.
Imagine one wants to start a sidewise dynamic physical activity directed at West (assuming one faces North at stance) - can be hammering a nail at the West wall or starting to run to the West, or whatever - the diagonal stance will be chosen best by ones subconscious mind as the most effective one. Hogan knew it and, by an occasion, it appeared to be the best possible stance type to apply D-plane consequences with the fixed ball position (which is a very huge convenience for a golfer if one does not need to think about 14 different ball positions).
Simply ingenious statically and dynamically.

The intention is setting joints the way it is useful both for backswing as well as for downswing. That's why Hogan's diagonal stance is pure genial thing, who knows, maybe the most important thing ever. The rear foot is being settled the way it helps to automate the transition while the lead one to support the vertical axis of downswing rotation the best possible way, i.e. having the mass vector going down through the ankle joint or ensure continuous rotation during the impact zone.
Besides, both feet position match the relationship between hip joints and feet separately in both planes, sagittal and coronal during the setup - on the level of subconscious mind. Rear foot matching backswing while lead matching downswing. It is heavily linked to the process of independent setting of both feet at angles:

The Sagittal Plane Compression Concept. Part 6.

2010-04-15T21:45:00.002+02:00

It is very important to underline that the crucial thing when seeing the motion through compression and expansion elements is to understand that the expansion elements are framed within compression ones. I mean there is no expansion that does not begin and end with a compression. That's why the working name of the concept is the Sagittal Plane Compression and not the Sagittal Plane Expansion.
This concept reflects a perfect example of creating and using the kinetic energy in the swing motion. The compression allows to store energy and pass it to the passive side of the body sequentially from the ground up which can happen only when the orientation of the motion corresponds with the active side of the moving body.
Compression is being controlled by the natural limitations of the human body based on stable skeleton/joints structure. Muscles that are generators of the energy cannot be used to control - they must be controlled by something stable. The joints won't let the muscles waste the energy while they find their natural limitations during the torquing process. Moreover, they will allow to react into the opposite direction using the same energy since the limitation is one-sided only - as e.g. during the transition.
Expansion, as a process always enframed between two compression phases, is in fact being controlled by those compression phases of the lower located parts of the body (vide: transverse planes). I know how silly it sounds but actually this is what happens. It won't sound silly if we take into account that the compression/expansion phases occur sequentially in time from the ground up. For instance - the transition - when the legs have finished their transition compression and are already in the expansion phase, the pelvis actually is in the middle of its transition compression and the upper body is still in the backswing expansion phase. The chain of events works by itself almost automatically then. Say, the expansion phase of the body part that is located higher meets the compression phase of the lower located one which won't let another scenario to happen unintentionally.

Observe how Mr.Hogan builds the frim rear side sequentially from the ground up thanks to the rear ankle and knee joints preset. Observe how his rear hip reacts unintentionally to the sequentially built torques and moves linearily. Observe how Mr.Hogan can ensure automatically that the downswing is a pure undisturbed rotation as a natural consequence of what has just happened before in the motion or even during the setup.

Mr.Hogan's whole swing is a beautiful compilation of compression and expansion phases that occur in a proper sequence from the ground up thanks to properly built torques in the joints.
As we know it is called a Sagittal Plane Compression (SPC) concept:

How the firm rear side can be achieved automatically in practice ? Observe closely Mr.Hogan's rear feet action at setup in this video:

The action contains a clockwise turn of the rear ankle and knee joints without changing the rear foot square to the target line position till the limit. Turning the rear heel outwards first (this makes the foot perpendicular to the target) and then turning out both joints. Like one wants to bring your rear heel inwards again, which won't happen because of shear forces between the foot and the ground.
One should imagine that when standing on ice your rear foot would spin outwards because shear forces are practically not present. Since there are a lot of shear forces between one's foot (armed with spikes) and relatively soft ground, a substantial amount of torque is being built. One will feel the torque. One will also see that your rear knee joint bends slightly inwards as a consequence of this action.
It is one of the most importants little secrets of Mr.Hogan aimed at building the firm rear side from the ground up that, consequently, leads to automation of the whole motion.

Here is the photo of the BGST author presenting rear ankle/knee joints (BTW, as well as the rear elbow joint) presets:

The arrows show the torque vectors while the blue slanted line shows the natural reaction of the knee joint to the process of its presetting. The bending inward is an additional help when building the firm rear side from the ground up.

The Sagittal Plane Compression Concept. Part 5.

2010-04-15T21:28:00.008+02:00

The main goal of the SPC concept is not only to automate the golf swing motion but also to ensure that the kinetic chain of events is being built and released properly. While understanding how the energy is being created is relatively easy a task, the most confusing aspect is the releasing of the stored energy up to the clubhead - mainly because there is no change in orientatiuon of the motion.
Actually, it is a very simple phenomenon that allows to release the whole kinetic chain in a proper way and is a very important part of the SPC concept called the second (impact) compression.
In order to understand it well we must differ the two scenarios - a. compression phase that is aimed at the change of orientation (direction of movement) and b. compression phase that happens without the change of orientation (direction of movement). The first one of course happens between backswing and downswing, while the second one happens at impact when the whole kinetic chain is being released at the ball. The chain is the whole human body starting from the ground/feet ending on the arms/hands/clubhead. The release is just passing the stored energy to the more distal parts of the system and it is done via consequent stalling of former links in this chain - i.e. in order to pass the energy to the arms, the main body and the shoulder joint must stall.
But during downswing nothing can stall because the body is in constant rapid movement till the finish. So how to pass the energy to the arms ? Look at this photo sequence:

The ball position indicates vertically when the chain is being released correctly. It means that the lead shoulder should (hypothetically) stall at this line in order to let the distal limb and, consequently, the clubshaft and clubhead to release the energy and achieve the peak velocity. If the lead shoulder continues to move linearily to the target in a 2-D, the chain wouldn't be released at all.
However, if the lead shoulder, which must be still in rapid motion, stops to move horizontally and starts to move vertically up (say, on the red line up) in 3-D, so the chain must be released because its position in relation to the ball does not change in the horizontal 2-D sense - say, the ball "sees" the lead shoulder stalls completely.

So, as we can see, it is really a very simple physical phenomenon that allows the compression phase to occur without stopping the motion and without changing the orientation of the whole movement. Moreover, it guarantees automatically that the angular velocity of the clubhead (as the most distal part of the system) increases as per parametric acceleration phenomenon. The second (impact) compression phase:

Another crucial element of the SPC concept worth special mentioning is the Trigger Compression.

The backswing is biokinetically sound when its being lead by the rear side of the body in the sagittal plane - it is biomechanically most efficient if the side that leads should have the same orientation of motion. After addressing the club, the best ballstrikers triggered the swing with the rear side push targetwise that simply provide initial inertia and guide to pull the entire rear side back and up at 45* angle while maintaining spine angle till natural limits sequentially from the ground up.

Moreover, every motion benefits physically from a move aimed at rocking on the motion. This is what the trigger compression does for a golf swing. And it is not just forward press done by arms - it is the whole rear side compresses at the firm lead side from the ground up - just as those great ballstrikers performed:

After the trigger compression, the rear side uses the created momentum (say, as bouncing from a rubber wall) and the whole rear side takes the momentum and starts naturally to pull up, around and back creating torques in the joints from the ground up. Using the TC phase practically will leave no option for a golfer but utilizing the initially built momentum via the active rear side in the backswing. The rest is just a chain of unintentional events that everyone should dream of.

The Sagittal Plane Compression Concept. Part 4.

2010-04-15T21:05:00.001+02:00

Even the best mechanics + conscious action is not comparable to good mechanics + untentional action, especially happening as a sequence of events where one element follows another because there is no other way. Let me take as an example pelvis area motion. There are three basic possible scenarios for pelvis movement in a rotary golf swing performed by a bipedal (not mentioning scenarios of hip sliding back and forth):
a) the rear hip goes consciously as far back as possible in the takeaway to ensure enough deep position of the rear hip to exclude the necessity of lateral shift later on in the swing (see: Clement's "Hogan" drill);
b) the lateral shift happens at the end of the backswing as one of consecutive unconscious events ensuring that the downswing is a pure rotation (see: Hogan);
c) the lateral shift happens in the downswing phase as a conscious action starting it (see: Stack&Tilt pattern).
In view what was written before, the serious advantage of the scenario b) is undoubtful.

According to my researches (not only mine, BTW - such authorities as e.g. VJ Trolio even wrote a book especially about it), Hogan's pelvis area action is one of his "secrets". His pelvis moves linearily targetwise before he completed backswing of his upper body. IMO, the trick is to be able to do it early enough so that the downswing can be a pure rotation.
Pre-secret Hogan did not perform his linear shift early enough which resulted in a necessity of mixing linear and rotational components in the motion which is easily visible on some vids. Many other differences between and after "the secret" might have been caused or at least influenced by it.

Hogan wanted to have his linear shift to happen as early as possible so that the downswing is a pure rotation while the weight is located correctly under the lead ankle. The linear shift symbolizes for a bipedal that there is no possibility of coming from the outside - while he had it 100% guaranteed what he wanted ? A rotation. An OTT move. So that he cannot hook the damned ball. He wanted a pure rotation that puts his clubhead more OTT onto the ball without any slightest possibility of slicing and power leaking - because he was so in-to-out just a second before rotationelement and after linear element.
He was an unique genius.

Please watch the visualization of the SPC concept in the pelvis area:

And now a pure pleasure to see Mr.Hogan in action. Observe carefully Mr.Hogan's rear hip action. It moves linearily targetwise before he completed backswing of his upper body. It is not a conscious move - there is no time for it. It is either not a result of the deep rear hip takeaway - the hip move starts long after takeaway. It is a reaction of his pelvis to the torques that have been built thanks to creating the firm rear side sequentially from the ground up. The torques in the ankle and knee joints that cause the rear femur guide the rear hip joint the only one way - the way Mr.Hogan wanted. Observe how the ankle and knee joints release the tension (torques) just the moment the hips go linearily.

As said before, the linear part in the pelvis area must happen since humans are bipedals. The trick is to be able to do it early enough so that the downswing is a pure rotation which was one of Mr.Hogan most crucial secrets how to automate the motion and make it powerful enough independently of one's body build and individual strength.

The Sagittal Plane Compression Concept. Part 3.

2010-04-15T20:49:00.002+02:00

Here is the general visualization of the SPC concept:

And here is the SPC concept video which is, in fact, an introduction vid to the Sagittal Plane Compression concept (SPC) that explains the optimal biomotorics of a human swinging a golf club in a macroscale. The motion that is totally free of conscious thoughts and uses the hard structure of the human body to build the sequence of events. The automatic golf swing is a dream, true, but the SPC concept can put the golfer much closer to this dream...:

The Sagittal Plane Compression Concept. Part 2.

2010-04-15T20:26:00.001+02:00

Let's now introduce the SPC concept with reference to the pelvis. I personally believe it is the most crucial area of a human body when comes both to creating power as well as maintaining balance of the motion.

The pelvis is a multibone solid structure that links the upper body with the lower body. It is so important because our lower body consists of two limbs, therefore, the pelvis contains two very large joints called hip joints. The problems created by the pelvis motion, especially in rotary types of motion, are countless. The same is with the golf swing motion. Improper motion of the pelvis area can be the most often appearing culprit for inconsistency and lack of repeatability.

First, very shortly, it is worth to remind how both hip joints should work in a rotary swing (described in detail in the Main Body section). Hips are not just rotating. Both joints work as an eccentric wheel which means that their motion is a combination of rotational and linear movements. It has to be like that if we want to obey the golden rules of biomechanics concerning the motion of the main body equipped with two arms. Simply, the hips must be substantially open at impact in relation to the target line; substantially enough to let the main body be also open at impact.

Generally, the lead hip downswing motion contains mainly the rotational element while the motion of the rear hip contains mainly the linear one. This simplified idea matches ideally the SPC concept since the pelvis cannot be "compressed" any other way. Imagine now that the rear hip tries to take the impact position of the lead hip that, at transition, is North-West of it. Since the vertical axis of rotation goes through the lead hip - we are bipedals and that is why the most efficient rotation happens if the vertical axis of rotation is being transferred to one of the two hip joints. Having said that, I would like anyhow to stress that the CoG transfer is a more complex thing than just transferring 100% of the weight/pressure to the lead hip. It should be done neither too early not too late. This is one of the most important timing issues in the motion that can be, I do hope, excellently eliminated via the SPC concept.

OK, as it has been already discussed when talking about the spine, the rear side adduction that happens as a natural consequence of a correctly performed backswing is also the crucial force in the pelvis area. Before the lead side leads the parade via its abduction the sagittal plane of the pelvis should be compressed. It won't be if we start the transition by lead hip pulling as it was drawn in '5 Lessons' (famous elastic tape image), we need to let the rear hip adduct. If I were Mr.Ravielli, I'd draw a second, much thinner elastic tape that comes throughout the body to the rear hip to make all golfers be conscious about the rear side of the body working.

It all can happen only when the rear hip motion is being restricted only via finding natural limitation (thanks e.g. to rear knee joint preset). As we already know the lumbar part of the spine (as well as cervical one) will tend to set the direction of the movement to South-West and the rear hip moves linearily to the West trying to "compress" the pelvis in search of creating theoretical one common joint of the two, through which the vertical axis of rotation will run. It feels like we still let the lead side be pulled right when the rear side has already finished its abduction and starts to reverse the motion, i.e. starts to adduct. Moreover, it is a trampolline effect that accelerates the lead hip rotation. Lastly, the SPC will take care of a fluent and proper CoG transfer to the lead hip joint - without it timing issues can kill the swing. With it - we will have a decent degree of automatism in the motion of this area and we can let a powerful transition and downswing happen by itself. Of course, it all cannot happen without a correct legs/feets work and correct presetted stance.

Coming to the SPC of the uder-pelvis section we have to be very aware how the concept works in the hips area described earlier, especially what is the motion and function of the rear hip joint. Its linear movement should determine our stance as well as the motion of the rear knee joint.
The crucial thing is to understand that the rear hip joint is turning at the backswing phase with the smallest possible displacement in the coronal plane, i.e. on the North-South axis. The coronal plane is this one that dissect the body for rear and front halves. It is the lead hip joint that is moving on the circle in this phase as well as later during the downswing. There should be no change between those two phases since it would only create an unnecessary disorder in the fluency of the motion that must run in 180* opposite directions.
It matches perfectly the scenario of the SPC of both upper as well as pelvis area of the human body. The rear knee joint should be more South than the lead one at the top, so that it could move sort of behind the lead knee joint at transition. Of course, it is an almost invisible motion that compresses the plane between legs that, similarily to other areas of the body, is caused because of finding a natural limitation in its motion. It looks like, during a very short period of time, the distance between both joints decreases in a saggital plane while it remains the same in the coronal plane. Just imagine scissors.

Feet now - personally, I can see no particular reason why the stance should not help to perform the above described action. Moreover, I can finally understand the diagonal stance Mr.Hogan performed while hitting longer clubs and I am surprised he did not use it with his short clubs as well. Or better said, he did not described it in the book but the concept of the diagonal stance was often visible when he even hit wedges. Some Hogan theorists even claimed that his feet stance was always closed to the target line - only his lead foot was in a flared position that gave the illusion of a slightly open stance. In fact, Hogan's hips were in an open position in relation to his feet at his stance.

Please look for details in the posts dedicated to the Diagonal Stance.

The Sagittal Plane Compression Concept. Part 1.

2010-04-15T20:17:00.000+02:00

This concept, that I call now Sagittal Plane Compression (in fact, the first working title was Sagittal Axis Twist but I disliked this because it was misleading a bit), refers to a lot of dynamic aspects that were not automated well in the whole Big Picture...such as CoG transfer at transition, proper pelvis area work, maintaining the CoG properly during downswing until impact and even influencing a proper knee bend angle. In short, it can be a true missing link in the theory.

First, what is the sagittal plane:

Shortly, it is a virtual imaginary plane that divides the whole body into left and right portions. The wide neurologic aspect that we are omitting now concerns human brain halves and their interactions. What we want to concentrate is only the physical actions of lead and rear body parts in the swing. There are two main notions that are associated with the sagittal plane - abduction and adduction.
Abduction is a movement which drives a part of the body away from the sagittal plane of the body and, therefore, it is opposed to adduction that is a movement which brings a given part of the body closer to the sagittal plane.

Long story short, I have concluded that the backswing phase can be mainly described as the abduction of the rear side (of course, it is simultaneously the adducton of the lead side) while the downswing is mainly the abduction of the lead side (of course, it is simultaneously the adducton of the rear side). I have categorized it this way since this is a real importance of motion in a golf swing while having the target on the lead side. It also matches pretty well the theory of Small X-Factors as well as the pulling force of the rear side during backswing as the most natural and efficient one (presented in details in The Main Body section). So - abduction of the rear side leads backswing - it contains not only main body pulling action but also rear arm and elbow joint pulling/folding action. Let's forget for the moment about lead side work, such as lead forearm rotation that happens in a completely different plane.

The downswing, OTOH, is mainly the abduction of the lead side - the main body pulling action and the lead hip action. Let's forget here about the magic of the rear forearm as a support to the above.

The crucial part in the whole SPC concept is dynamic interaction between those two abductions. As we know, the most consistent ballstrikers always started the downswing before the backswing ended, if I may simplify the phenomenon. It means in reality that the sagital plane must be "compressed" or "twisted" during the transition, creating a sort of a trampolline for the lead side of the body abduction.

Going further, it implicates that the rear side of the body must start its adduction before the lead side starts to act. It is not difficult a task at all because we can create necessary limitations in certain areas, such as in rear leg, rear eye or grip, etc. (all of them are described in those five sections of the thread). The SPC start to happen when the lead side inertia is being stopped by the rear side due to those limitations, but what is more crucial is that this effect is somehow doubled while the rear side starts to adduct.

The whole problem is to find a chain in the whole action looking at both sides of the body INDEPENDENTLY, and to find areas where the SPC might work (we need to remember that the base of the body, i.e. bones are hardly compressible). It would be necessary to "cheat" the skeleton.

I'd like to throw a trial explanation of the spine rotation influences and helps in automating the transition. The evolution shaped human spine in curves. The major part of the spine (thoracic part) is flexed while the two distal smaller parts (cervical and lumbar-sacral) are extended. Ironically, the thoracic part, that is braced with ribs for the most part is the part that rotates much more than the other ones. Why ? During the backswing, the cervical part rotation is being limited by the head movement that is limited by the eye sight range; the lumbar-sacral part rotation is limited by the very pelvis as well as by rear leg preset action at the setup.

The bigger amount of rotation of the middle part causes both distal parts to react accordingly when the small X-factors are being achieved. They both extend more than in a stationary mode in relation to the mid part; in fact, we can also state that the thoracic part flexes a bit more as well while turning back in relation to the other two sections.

This causes both the cervical as well as lumbar part of the spine go up and back (precisely in this order since the rotation of the shoulder area, i.e. upper part of the thoracic section is the biggest); when the backswing is complated correctly, a slight but noticeable shift towards South-West of the top of the spine can be observed; same happens a fraction later with the lumbar part that golf instructors often call informally as tailbone. South-West direction is exactly the direction of the perfect transition move that leads to a correct hip movement at the downswing in the rotary swing.

As a side note - the lower is the plane the easier is to find the limitation of the main body during backswing - high two plane golfers seldom find the maximum amount of the small X-factor of the shoulder girdle just because of the arms working on a higher plane.

The Biokinetical Grip. Part 2.

2010-04-15T19:29:00.002+02:00

As promised, the series of photos showing all important aspects necessary to understand how to build correctly the Bio-K Grip. Please watch carefully the photos as well as read the comments.

When a man stands freely, the natural orientation of the direction of palms and elbows are as follows:

The direction of both elbow sockets is in line with the direction of palms. The clavicle bones are in a perfect neutral position. It remains the same when we bend as in the address over the ball:

When we move both hands in order to blend them together they are still at a 90* angle towards each other, therefore, one of two hands is on top of the other being simultaneously perpendicular to it; on the pic, the RH is on top because it is like this in reality on a grip:

The 90* angle between both hands ensures the maximal possible effectiveness of the wrist movement in the swing - the lead wrist cocks/uncocks (radial/ulnar deviation) while the rear wrist hinges/unhinges (dorsi/palmar flexion), and the orientations of those motions are exactly perpendicular to each other:

In order to achieve it, the lead hand grip should be as strong as possible (with the so-called short thumb for control)...:

...while the rear one should be as weak as possible...:

...without and lack of comfort. Some people can achieve a bigger angle between both Vs, some a smaller one. What is worth remembering is the bigger (or better said the closer to 90*) the angle between both Vs is the closer we are to the maximally efficient grip. However, there are some anatomical limits (different for different people) that are great checking points. First, there should not be any gap between the ring finger and the grip. Such a gap can be created when the RH grip is too weak. Secondly, the RH pinky finger should be able to hook around the LH index finger and the strength of this hook must be big enough to ensure a proper tieing of both hands.

The Vardon overlapping grip is the best for two reasons: 1) it lets all the fingers (except RH pinky only) lie and exert pressure on the grip; 2) RH pinky finger can easily wrap around the mid joint of the LH index finger, because, as all fingers, it has three parts and two joints. It should look either Mr.Hogan presented in '5 Lessons' or, in an exaggerated to the maximum version, like this:

Please note that such a method of hooking the pinky finger is much more stable than a conventional method of putting the RH pinky finger in the slot between mid and index fingers of the lead hand. The more, with a strongish position of the LH the LH index finger becomes in sort of a trigger finger position and the mid joint is being raised, creating a great base for the pinky's wrapping around action.

Finally, the weak RH position on the grip forces automatically the RH index finger to be in a trigger position, that is really important in sensing the lag as the most important pressure point on the grip.Moreover, the weak RH position creates the optimal condition for presetting the rear forearm turn at address (that has a lot of importance in both the upswing as well as the downswing). The preset should be visualized more or less like the combination of the weak RH and keeping the elbow socket up from the beginning till entering the impact zone (what Mr.Hogan recommended to Mr.Venturi):

Please take into account that the above mentioned photos are an exaggeration presented so that the whole concept is clearer.

Lastly, the desirable takeaway effect of the Bio-K Grip, namely, the rear elbow socket up during the takeaway - first, the BGST author statically...:

...and then the Golf Master dynamically:

The Biokinetical Grip. Part 1.

2010-04-15T18:37:00.002+02:00

I have paid attention to the relation of natural position of the wrists and the position and function of clavicles. Long story short - it is important for stability and ergonomy of the motion of the upper part of the main body (torso) to keep the clavicle bones in neutral position as long as possible, or, at least, to start the motion with it. What is important, clavicles not only transmit physical impacts caused by the arms motion but also ensures a maximum possible range of motions for arms - provided they are in a neutal position. It is a very important thing, IMHO, for bringing automatism in putting strokes - I'll get to it later on.

Going back for a natural position of the wrists, we shall find that neither "anatomical position" (palms are directed forward) nor "gorilla position" (palms are directed backwards) is natural for the wrists. When we stand freely and let our arms hang freely too, we can observe that the plane of the palms (both of them) are angled inward at ca. 45 degrees. And this is how the hands should be placed on the grip in order to maintain the neutral position of clavicle bones. As I said in my posts dedicated to the grip in this thread - both palms are angled to each other 90 degrees letting to align naturally the lead wrist cocking (radial deviation) with the rear wrist hinging (dorsi flexion).

For the moment, I find the "biokinetical grip" as extremely superior to the classic grip for the following very important reasons:

- creating optimal conditions for the automatic takeaway directly;

- creating optimal conditions for creating "lag" directly;

- creating optimal conditions for the trigger finger pressure point to act directly;

- creating optimal conditions for the short lead thumb to appear automatically directly;

- creating optimal conditions for minimizing any hands motion in a pivot-guided swing indirectly;

- creating optimal conditions for letting the early elbow plane in the downswing phase indirectly.

Last, but not least, I personally find it very interesting that the "biokinetical grip" may be used without NO SINGLE CHANGE for holding a putter, allowing the rotation of the neutral clavicle bones plane to lead the putting stroke. It is amazing how easier is to putt on a true arc taking the impact of the hands out and, simultaneously, how easy is to apply a correct force for the stroke. Besides, I cannot imagine anyting better than to have one and the same grip for all clubs, putter included.

Why the Biokinetic Grip is so helpful while:

a. the hands are not working paralelly to each other;

b. the lead hand is not parallel to the clubface.

My answer is very simple. Because the so-called "classic" golf swing theories never truly concentrated on biomechanics and because golfers blindly believe in "imperatives". I say there are no imperatives until they are verified through all possible methods and sciences. The answers are:

a. the so-called "parallel V's" theory is biomechanically not optimal for the reasons I've just described. To remind them:
- wrists cannot achieve its maximal potential in creating lag;
- wrists work paralelly to each other accentuating the primary motion (hinging-unhinging) that is hard, or even impossible, to control.

The importance of lag does not need to be underlined. But should not we ask yourselves why is that so many golfers flip when trying to hit the ball ? The answer is - because they want to hit the ball the farthest (it's the role of the subconscious mind) and because the CP/CF forces in a rotary movement + gravity help in releasing the clubface...and - because the wrist are set the way that unhinging is almost a must in such a scenario.

OTOH, the BG creates a scenario when one (lead) wrist cocks/uncocks while the other (rear) hinges unhinges; no matter if all other factors (CP/CF, gravity, rotary motion) exist, the possibility of losing the rear wrist hinge lag is much more limited, because the lead wrist motion is of secondary biomechanical importance and one won't be able to flip the RH wrist so much. Simply, the lead hand will be tending to deviate ulnarly (downcocking) and will create a natural limitation for a more powerful palmar flexion (unhinging) action of the rear wrist.

b. why the lead wrist should be parallel to the clubface ? to control its movement in so fast an action ? sorry, I don't buy it. Moreover, think what position should have the lead wrist in a correct rotary swing when both hips and upper body are open at impact in relation to the target line. Should the lead wrist be square to the target line or is it the clubface that needs to be square ? If the lead shoulder is open at impact - the LH palm should not be square to the body motion, what means it must be also open in relation to it (say, "delayed"). It is the clubface that should be square (OK, very slightly open at contact with the ball, ideally), therefore, the LH grip must not be parallel to it but in a stronger position on the grip.

Lastly, the question of offsetting the wrist/hands motion. We must remember that wrists are very mobile joints. They consists of many small bones that are practically impossible to control in a very rapid action. Therefore, it would be silly, IMO, to let them be influenced by so powerful forces as CP/CF or gravity - we should concentrate on finding obstacles that help in reducing such an influence. The Biokinetical Grip is one important obstacle to consider.

Here is the video about the Bio-K Grip with Mr.Hogan as the protagonist:

We shall present how to build correctly the Bio-K Grip in the part 2.

The Arms

2010-04-14T22:44:00.002+02:00

This is the most complicated area of the golf swing to describe and to find automatism from biokinetical point of view. There are, at least, four main reasons that are responsible for this:

- humans are equipped with two arms that are "programmed" to act independently while their task is to act freely in the space;

- arms are equipped with a lot of muscles and several joints (especially wrist and fingers ones) that enable them to move almost in all possible directions and execute a huge variety of tasks;

- the only one link between the arm and the main body is the shoulder joint; moreover, both shoulder joints are distant from each other a significant way;

- elbow joints are built the way that makes it impossible to tie the forearms to each other during an action.

First, I want to stress that I have concluded that there is no real possibility (and, what is very important, there is no real need, in fact) to find limitations of the fingers, hands and the wrists that could be useful for our purposes. The only one very important role of the fingers and the hands is to hold the club the proper way and the rest is pure physics. It is time now to present the concept of nunchakoo and the role of angular momentum conservation rule (please bare with me, since I am not a physician and want to present it in a most friendly way).

Imagine that your forearm is one stick of a nunchakoo, while the club WITH HANDS ON IT is the second one. The wrists play the role of a chain linking both sticks. Now, according to the physical rule of angular momentum conservation, during a rotational movement of the main body, the momentum is constant in a closed system. Shortly, it means that if the velocity of the rotation is constant nothing changes in a perfect model. In the golf swing, after transition, the rotational velocity initially increases, then decreases before impact letting the club catch the hands, because the main goal is not to maintain the delay (lag) but to hit the ball. The whole trick is to find the proper moment of levelling the clubhead with the grip, or, other words, to find a proper moment for a bottom of the arc to happen. It is not the role of the wrists or hands to find it (although e.g. TGM school insist on "educating hands concept") because the timing would be a protagonist here. This is the role of the proper work of the legs, main body rotation and upper arms to prepare the position that would automatically find the correct moment in a due time without even thinking about it.

Please, understand correctly what I try to say. I am not trying to say that the concept of training wrists/hands is wrong - au contre, it is a great concept how to hit the ball properly. The human brain sees the action of ballstriking the way that we need to bring the ball airborne - this is a real katharsis for all flippers and bad shots. And it is not easy to fight any subconscious rules, but not that difficult. When one of my friends, an avid physician, explained me the momentum conservation rule, I have started to hit shots with very deep divots well after the ball so my clubhead even stopped in the ground for a milisecond. Thus, one either have to convince their brains to trust in the loft of the clubhead or to educate their hands. The only one minus is that wrists and hands cannot be trained enough well - and this is true, unfortunately, because we are not robots. It is much easier to leave it to the physics of our 3-D reality.

But, back to the merits - the angular momentum conservation rule is responsible for creating and maintaining lag when only one of our arms parts can play the role of the nunchakoo chain. The wrists are biomechanically born for this goal. CoG shift that enables to turn on the lead leg (i.e. CoG shift forward) makes the arms be in a correct position at impact - in front of the ball, if needed - if only the arms are subdued to the body turn. The upper stick of the nunchakoo (i.e. the forearms) follows the body turn and CoG shift letting the lower stick to catch it late enough.

The biggest problem is that we have two forearms that cannot be tied to each other, yet it would be the best if both arms worked as an unit. Unfortunately, it is not possible because of the distance between shoulders joints and the elbow joints build. The latter consist of three independent joints closed in one big joint - they are responsible for all the motions the elbow joint is able to make. For the simplicity, we concentrate on two planes of the elbow joints motion - bending/unbending and rotation.

In The Legs chapter i have said that the elbow joint is homologeous to the knee joint, yet there are some crucial differences between them. The first one is that the elbow joint (opposite to the knee joint) can rotate only when the arm is straight . The second one is that the elbow joints (also opposite to the knee joints) may and usually do work in different planes.

Let's deal first with the rotational aspect - a bent arm in elbow can rotate roughly 180 degrees with a fixed point of the elbow due to the forearm rotation; a straight arm in elbow can rotate almost 300 degrees (thus, the elbow joint can add more than 90 degrees), which is a huge difference, especially, when we think that the clubhead can be rotated the same huge amount. It says us that there is practically no possibility of find a biokinetical limitation that would make the arm movement automatic. But there is a chance - we have two arms and two elbow joints that work in different planes. It's a bliss, since one of them can limit the other one relatively easily. The right arm is bent in elbow at impact, therefore, it cannot rotate as much (or better said, it finds its limits in the motion earlier) as the straight left arm at impact. Moreover, there is a limit of the forearm turn in relation to the elbow joint depending on the grip - look at post-secret Hogan's setup position - his inside part of the right elbow is very well visible from the FO, while his right hand is on top of the grip in weak position. IMHO, he found the rotational limit of the forearm-elbow system just at setup and maintained it until the very impact. It would excellently explain how his right elbow drops down at transition - because it cannot do anything else if the main goal of the downswing is to keep the elbow-forearm system position fixed - at impact his elbow inside part is visible. Moreover, Hogan had both arms slightly bent at address what seemed to help him not to start the backswing with an overrotation of the elbow-forearm system in both arms.

The bending aspect is more tricky. It is much easier to obey the rule of keeping the distal parts perpendicular to the spine when both arms are straight. It also gives a much better feeling of both arms working in unisono. Lastly, although straight arms in elbows enable bigger rotation, sort of "blocking" both elbow joints takes them practically out of play - like a human was equipped with arms without elbow joints. This is what can be observed in Moe Norman's action to a degree - arms perpendicular to the spine "urging" to be straight as soon as possible at the downswing.

IMO, the weak point of this scenario is that the only one link of both distal parts to the main body are the shoulders joints that are too weak taking into account the length and the weight of the arms (+ the club). This may be the most evident proof why Norman was not a long hitter, although his brain made his pivot and arms work great together in synch. Lastly, it is worth stressing that Moe had a very strong grip of the right hand and not so strong of the left one (opposite to Hogan) that promotes having both inside elbow parts to work more parallelly to each other.

So, now we come to the second golden rule of biokinetics (first was treating about perpendicularity of the arms to the spine during the rotational motion), i.e. to link the upper part of the arms to the main body during the motion. It's dynamically possible only when the main body is in a open position at impact - since this is the only one position that can ensure the left upper part be pinned to the open chest while the right upper arm is, say, at the shirt seam. A square or a closer main body at impact would inevitably lead to the necessity of having both upper part of arms in the front of the body, which is equal to increased possibility of timing issues to happen - arms less subdued to the pivot.

It can be done both ways - to want to subdue the left arm first or the right one first, or both. It is much easier to let the lead arm be pinned to the chest via the turning main body (this is what the majority of rotary swingers do, me included until now); however, it would leave the right hand in a very weak position with the inside part of the elbow more facing the target (especially with the strong right hand grip). The right arm action solo brings a danger of thrusting both elbow joints (and, consequently, both arms) in the front of the body which is bad thing from a biokinetical point of view.

The golden means is to try to subdue both arms simultaneously - right elbow must go down and close to the hip (which is easy thing to do taking into acount the CoG shift onto the lead leg during transition) while letting the lead upper arm be pinned to the chest at impact. Hogan's right arm action (I call it the right elbow is searching the left one in order to be as close as possible to it) makes his left upper arm be away from the body at first but before impact it is already pinned to his turning and opening to the target chest. It appears to be easy while maintaining the afore-mentioned limit between forearm and elbow rotation - even me, with my body flaws, can do it now decenty to a degree.

Lastly, when Hogan described the famous concept of tieing both arms with having both elbows close to each other during the motion, he forgot to uncover the elbow joints on the picture. It is obvious that both elbows cannot be turned to each other with their inside parts but rather be perpendicular to each other.

I think it is useless to analyze the optimal elbows position at setup without referring it to the wrists positions. In order to find a limit at the end of the backswing one of the crucial thing from biokinetical point of view is the amount of forearm rotation available, if I may say this way.

If you e.g. combine a weak LH grip with elbow pointing out you will find it may lead easily to overrotation (moreover, can lead also to a too inside takeaway); if you combine it with elbow pointing back (to the pocket), your left forearm has already established a certain amount of preset rotation. The same rule applies to a strong LH grip - one should not combine this kind of grip with elbow pointing back since it may appear that the rotation will end too soon before backswing is completed.

Therefore, the whole trick is to find an optimal combination of the whole elbow-wrist system at setup.

RH elbow joint should always point back since the rear arm job is mainly to fold and not to rotate. This fact creates a double security limitation. Moreover, IMHO, the best scenario is if the RH grip is weak (as in case of Hogan) while having elbow pointing in (already presetted a clockwise forearm rotation) since it also prevents from a too inside takeaway via the right wrist hinge, as well as it eliminates the possibility of overrotation of the right forearm during the downswing.

Having analyzed a lot of post-secret Hogan's footages I noticed that his right hand grip was always in a weak position, while his LH grip was "moving" between weak and neutral ones. Together with this slight grip changes his left elbow position at setup also varied - from pointing back (especially with short clubs) to pointing more out (especially with a driver). I am sure he found a method of establishing an optimal amount of his left forearm preset rotation that enabled him to finish his backswing in a due time without even thinking about it.

Since we all are different individuals, I think it is the best to experiment with various combinations of elbow-wrist system positions at setup, especially as regards the lead arm. The right arm's role is not to disturb at the backswing and deliver a pivot guided power at the downswing.

The primary importance motion of a wrist is hinging-unhinging (dorsi and palmar flexions), while cocking-uncocking (ulnar and radial deviations) is, say, of secondary importance. You can easily see how much easier is to hinge than to cock the wrist as well as how much far away you can hinge (up to ca. 90*) than to cock (up to ca. 45*). This fact determines that if both hands are tied in a golf grip, and the directions of the motions of both wrists are just close to each other (left wrist cocks while right one hinges; although usually there is no straight 90* relation between them, it is close to it in a proper grip), the direction of the total movement will be rather determined by hinging, not by cocking.

A strong RH grip will cause the right wrist to hinge too much to the inside during takeaway and backswing then. A weak RH grip will cause the wrist to hinge more up on the correct backswing plane automatically, leading the direction of the LH wrist cocking also on the correct plane without the necessity of toying with forearm rotation.

Too bad I did not know it before - I would spare a lot of hours in search of an optimal takeaway and backswing.

Now, if the plane is correct, nothing prevents both wrist from finding their anatomical limitation at the top and achieving a great angle between forearm and shaft. Just it is "a hell of a wrist cock". Please also note that in such a situation, the club reaches the straight angle towards the forearm rather soon - that's why Hogan's shaft was perpendicular to the ground just when his forearms were parallel to the ground. Thus, he might easily shorten his backswing because it feels like you are already set much before the time when the shaft is parallel at the top. Moreover, post-secret Hogan could swing the club with a short LH thumb, what emphasizes it even more (it's anatomically easier to achieve a big wrist cock with a long thumb). He had much better control and he did not lose anything from his lag. Simple, huh ?

Lastly, in a ideal model, the grip of the LH should be perpendicular to the RH one, i.e. one should combine a strongish LH with a weakish RH, but it's difficult to do because of the fact that the RH grip is somehow determined by the position of the LH thumb on the shaft.

The Legs

2010-04-14T22:43:00.006+02:00

Although a few sentences have already been written about arms, describing the legs action from the biokinetical point of view appears to be more logical as a consequence of the previous chapter about the main body. It is also much simpler to do since the legs are the base of the whole human body and the only link between us and the ground.

The evolution of species proves that the gravity is not such a huge obstacle to force to engage all distal parts with an aim to keep the main body safe, stable and balanced. A pair of "well-designed" legs is enough to enable us to make a huge variety of motions. If we look what is the main difference between us and animals (except Primates) we can see that our feet can be entirely used for a contact with the ground. This fact have pros and cons - the main advantage is that we do not usually need our arms to help us to move or maintain balance, the main minus is that we are not very flexible in a 3-D movement comparing to almost all mammals.

The impact of this fact is crucial when talking about a golf swing motion where the most important goal of the legs is to maintain balance (and not e.g. to jump or change the orientation of motion fastly). Our feet are a very solid base for the rest of the body, and, what is equally important, they are very sensitive for changes in the motion. They can be like this since the anatomy of a human foot enables to react immediately to the brain's signals with a very rich variety of actions (dorsiflexion, plantarflexion, abduction, eversion, inversion, supination, pronation, etc.) because the lower joint (malleolus=ankle) let the feet move practically in all possible directions. The good thing is that there sould be no special attention paid to the ankle joint and its limitation since the gravity and necessity of maintaining balance does it for us. It is more important to look at what feet are supposed to do (or, better said, how they should be placed) and what impact it may have on segments that are located further from the ground.

The other legs joint of huge importance is the knee joint which is, BTW, the biggest joint in the human body and is homologeus to the elbow joint in the arms, however, they both are acting differently as regards planes of motion. Simplyfying the topic, the knee joint can act in two independent planes - it can flex/extend as well as rotate. What is interesting, a two-axial joint always have the primary and secondary motion, i.e. one of the motions are much frequently used from biomechanical point of view.

In case of the knee joint, flexing and extending are the motion of the primary importance - but only in one direction - knees cannot be bent backwards. That is why the ankle joint is not located in the middle of the feet.

The lateral rotation is very limited (up to 30 degrees only) - and this fact is crucial for our golf swing motion since the knee rotation happens exactly in the same horizontal plane. Another fact worth mentioning is that flexing/extending action of the knee is strictly related to the foot motion, that means it can be subdued to a proper feetwork. I want to underline the word "feetwork", not "footwork" - the greatest ballstrikers never let put the work on only one foot practically until approaching impact (well, the truth is that if the stick is long enough and the stance very wide the rear foot is too far away from the CoG at impact and it is not entirely flat on the ground at impact).

Lastly, the hip joints, that are the true links between the main body and the legs. The fact that there are two of them plays a crucial role in all CoG shifts of the human body in action, as well as determines which of the two hip joints is the protagonist. When a main body equipped with two lower distal parts is turning and wants to do it effectively, it must act as if we have only one leg. Independent two joints are the obstacle in a turning motion and a bliss for a sway. This is why the primary thought of a golf beginner is to sway with the hips in order to gain power and not to put the vast majority of the weight of dynamically turning mass on one leg. Why ? because our brains see the ball flight as a linear motion (from the point where we are to the target). When the same beginner begins to believe in gaining power from rotation of the body, he instinctivelly places the CoG on one of the hip joints. Moreover, it is much easier to understand why it should be the lead hip joint, and not the rear one - the orientation of the linear movement is just this way. Combine the linear movement concept with conviction that rotation gives the true power and the effect will be a great CoG shift in a hip area. It is that easy, IMHO, and in a perfect accordance with the optimal hip area movement described in the previous section.

OK, now ad rem. The golf swing motion relies generally on turning the whole body back and forth. Thus, we need to find limitations in joints to ensure automatism in the whole motion. Since we already know that the main body should encounter the sum of small X-Factors it becomes obvious that it needs a stable base. Neither feet, nor knees should enable the rear hip slide back and lose the coil.

Therefore, the most important limitation that is to be found is to make impossible for the knee and ankle joint to move separately from the rest of the upper body. Unfortunately, the dominant motion of the knee joint happens in a perpendicular plane in relation to the orientation of the golf swing motion, and nothing can be done about it. That's why there are a lot of golfers (even the greatest ones) who squat down or up in certain moments of swing. It's inevitable in such a dynamic motion. Luckily, our brains are able to control it when focusing on the primary goal which is hitting the ball and not the ground. That is why casters (early release golfers) stand up before impact and that is why great golfers squat after transition in order to maximize the optimal velocity of the clubhead. Please also note that the small feet CoG shift reflects in the knee joint movement - the more is the weight set to the heel, the more the knee extends in a rotary motion, and viceversa.

Nevertheless, a lot can be done in another plane, i.e. in finding the limitation of the rotation in both knee as well as in ankle joints. Proper feet stance is crucial because there is a significant amount of friction between the sole and the ground. The more the feet is directed towards the target of the motion the more limit will be found in both joints. That's why Hogan moved his heel of the rear foot back, setting it at least perpendicularily to the target line - which move is well documented in a lot of films as well as in his books. It makes finding the limits of knee and ankle rotation very easy. When there is limit, there is no room left for screwing the motion. IMHO, it's enough, and although I follow the Sevam's thread carefully as a big Hogan fan, introducing another thought as e.g. screwing the foot into the ground is not necessary since it puts the focus on timing. The rear foot is "screwing" into the ground automatically when the knee rotation finds its limits because the foot cannot turn back due to the resistance. Therefore, in my opinion, presetting the torque does its job perfectly without necessity of thinking about it. Funny thing is that the knee joint rotates only when it is bent what would suggest that one should hit balls with straight legs...but such a swing would be deprived of power, thus, it is not a subject of the studies.

The left foot, as we know from "The 5 Lessons" should be flared and this concept is also biomechanically very sound. It allows to find the limit of rotation of the lead knee even faster than the rear one. The knee that cannot rotate further bends inwards what almost automatically makes the weight shift on a lead hip joint when the linear CoG shift happens. If the lead foot is put inward, instead flared, all tension in the knee and hip is lost. Moreover, the sum of small X-factors is being achieved properly when the lead hip "stays" early in the backswing allowing the rear shoulder find its limit without making the backswing too long and loose.

Lastly, it is to be pointed out that setting the weight in various patterns influences the limits. If a swing pattern requires setting more weight on a front foot, the rear foot needs to find its limit later in the motion because of the upper body position (mainly a necessary spine angle lateral bent when swinging back); thus, in such a situation, keeping the rear foot perpendicular or even slightly turned inwards is not a great thing. The same is true when, hypothetically, one needs to keep the majority of the weight on the rear part, but, as explained earlier, should not be discussed there because of the linear orientation of the swing motion.

The Main Body

2010-04-14T22:43:00.003+02:00

First of all, it should be defined what the term "the main body" means. Upper part leaves no illusions - the main body starts when the neck ends. Lower part is much harder to be defined correctly - some say that the pelvis area belongs to the main body, some says that this part belongs to legs, i.e. is an upper part of the legs that links it to thorax. Both concepts, from biokinetical point of view, are sound.

Nevertheless, I must look at the "big picture" when looking particularly at the golf swing motion, therefore, I treat the pelvis tare as one of three main segments of the main body THAT MAY BE and IS RULED BY LEGS (the border is coming through the hip joints). This specific point of view allows to consider all movements of the pelvis area as one of the main body movements - which is very crucial when describing the transition in the golf swing, i.e. the most crucial of all the moves in this motion (BTW, the only one when the orientation of the movement is asynchronic and opposite).

Besides, the shoulder area may also be ruled by arm motions, however, the fact that the arms, opposite to the legs, do not play any role as a base of the whole body, makes this statement of a second category in this context.

Secondly, it is very important to understand what are the three main sections of the body and why the lower part can move independently on the upper one, even in another direction without thinking about it.

So, the three sections are:

1) shoulders area (from the top of the shoulder joints to the sternum, where the rib cage begins);

2) rib cage area (from the sternum to the end of the last two ribs that are not connected to it);

3) pelvis area (from the end of last rib to the hip joints).

Some may ask why the rib cage is so important to be mentioned as one of the three main parts. The importance is linked to the very important biomechanical fact, namely, that the rib cage prevents the thorax from any lateral motions and, practically, reflects what the spine is doing. OTOH, both shoulders (althought in a very limited way) as well as hips (in much wider way) can be moved in all possible directions, independently on the spine's motion. Moreover, the specificity of the rib cage end allows to define a relatively narrow space (called colloquially "waist") that is responsible for already mentioned ability of the opposite direction independent movement of upper and lower parts of the main body. For the needs of biokinetical theory, the waist is reduced to a thin elastic horizontal stripe, despite the fact that in reality a lot of important muscles are involved there.

The most important role of the main body is to guide the swing motion the way the motion of the two upper distal parts (i.e. arms) can be subconsciousnessly subdued to it automatically. What does that mean - nothing more, nothing less that the main body movement has to be optimal enough to avoid the necessity of conscious arm movements in order to compensate errors when thinking about delivering the clubhead to the ball. Moreover, another important aspect of the main body movement is the ability of creating effortless power. That is why, I regard all swings that are pivot guided as superior to the arm guided ones that are full of timing issues to happen all the time.

Since my theory is based on limitations (because, as I said, this is the most sound way to get rid of timing issues), one can ask what kind of limitations exist in the main body action. Let us start with the upper part, i.e. the shoulder area. Shoulders are able to move independently of the spine, and what is equally important, independently on the arms. If you remember Jim McLean's concept of X-Factor - the very shoulders have their own small X-Factor as well as the possibility of maximizing it. Imagine moving both shoulder joints back Iincreasing of the shoulder X-Factor) or forward (decreasing of it) without any spine movement. If there is a X-Factor involved there must be a limitation.

Therefore, the limitation of the shoulder movement is achieving the biggest possible stretch between both shoulders. It is a very important thing (especially for rear eye dominant golfers whose upper body turn is limited due to the eyedness and, consequently, correct head movement during backswing) since it allows to gain a decent coiling and power without necessity of turning the hip area too much back. It's becoming obvious that the backswing should be monitored by the rear shoulder movement. Monitoring the backswing by the lead shoulder appears to be the same inefficient as monitoring the hip turn by the lead hip. When saying "monitioring" I do not want to say that the backswing should be initiated or led by the rear shoulder joint - what I wanted to say is that the most efficient way of swinging is when a golfer encounters the limitation in the shoulder area.

Since the rib cage section, as we said moves neutrally (so, there is a X-Factor between shoulders and rib cage) we can move down to the waist and the pelvis area. Since the one of most important goals for a golfer is to create a necessary amount of power (read: clubhead speed at impact), the whole movement cannot be uniform. The waist allows to coil the upper body against the lower body - it happens when the lower body changes direction of turn in relation to the upper body - the transition. Of course, there is another "small" X-Factor between the hips and the rib cage. It constitutes the concept of the "big" X-Factor that was the subject of McLean's life work.

Personally, I think that the real X-Factor is not the maximum angle between hip plane and shoulder plane that a golfer can reach, but specifically, the distance between THE LEAD HIP and THE REAR SHOULDER, i.e. the sum of both "small" X-Factors that is in perfect accordance with the theory of limitations. Hogan knew it and wanted us all to begin the downswing with the hip turn before the shoulders ended backswing and thanks to the very fast movements of the hips to maintain the X-Factor until impact. IMHO, this is the essence of creating lag in a pivot-guided downswing where the arms are subdued to the pivot..

In this point, it is vital to mention that the hips are not just turning. Jim Hardy explanation of the hips motion in a One Plane swing is the best I know. Shortly, the hips move as the eccentric wheel where the focal point is not between them but behind them (roughly said, the tail bone) - neither of the hips are moving forward (to the ball) - that would be impossible in case of imagining the turn of the hips in a circle. It is crucial to understand it when talking about maintaining the X-Factor until impact as well as about counterbalancing the spine bend with maintaining the tush line as well as when talking about the CoG shift in the hips area. The CoG shift, that is unavoidable because of the side spine angle and the momentum of the club, happens automatically when the hip turn is being done correctly the way it has been described above, of course with a great help of the proper legs movement.

Please also note that if the rear shoulder and lead hip are in most distant possible places STATICALLY at the end of the backswing there is no possibility of screwing the whole motion because there is no room left to do it. Since the transition is the most dynamic motion that the main body encounters in a golf swing (lower part goes rapidly in another direction that the upper part), from a DYNAMIC point of view the coiling even increases because human muscles and flexors always have some reserves.

Now, the optimum position at the top (that is defined by small X-Factors) requires a proper weight distribution that is another great thing when talking about introducing automatism in the whole motion. Keep the weight too much on the lead leg - you will find it hard to stop the lead hip; keep the weight too much on the rear leg - you will feel that the rear shoulder cannot find its limit. Both are wrong things.

The shoulders can be moving too fast or too slow in the downswing in reference to the hips since they did not find the biokinetical limit anywhere and our brain treat their movement as a DELIBERATE action of the shoulders and of the hips SEPARATELY, which won't happen when our brain can treat the motion as a whole and let it happen automatically. One needs only to understand and accept that the waist section solves this issue excellently by itself because there are no bones or joints - only the stable core (spine) and very strong muscles around it. Too many golf theories are dealing with details while our body can solve it much better by itself.

Just to add, the problems in separating lower part of the main body from the upper one, IMHO, are strongly linked to the fact that both small X-Factors have not seen their limits. That's why I consider McLean's X-factor theory (both hips angle level to both shoulders angle level) as not complete from the biomechanical point of view. However, the main concept of linking the "effortless" power of the swing to the ability of separation is great and true, especially in pivot-guided swings.

The Head

2010-04-14T22:42:00.002+02:00

The neck/head system and its impact on a motion is, IMHO, very underestimated and overlooked. First, two VERY IMPORTANT facts:

- the head is really heavy; the weight of it amounts to ca. 7.5 % of the whole human body weight; moreover, it is the most distant part from the human body CoG (which is in navel area - for an adult man; for an adult woman - a bit lower, BTW) that makes head's motion impact on ANY CoG shift even bigger;

- the spine "goes into the head" not centrally from a geometrical point of view, but from the back; this fact not only makes it impossible to turn the head more than the shoulder lie in both directions (although the head can move in all possible directions), but also implies how the head should be turned in order to be in synch with the turn of the spine - it reminds more of an eccentric wheel motion; if your shoulders turn back your head should also turn back while keeping the neck still.

Since the golf swing motion relies on turning of the whole upper body back and forth, the head should turn perpendicularily to the spine turn. However, there is no limitation in its independent movement, because, as I said before, the head can be turned more than it is needed in a golf swing; it does not - why ? If there is no limitations ? The answer is very simple - because its movement is dependent on a human's most important sense - the sight. We are constucted the way that our senses (through our brains) are the bosses. We cannot lose the golf ball out of our sight (unless someone is specially trained to do it or can play a "blind" golf). This is the most overlooked aspect of all aspects that concerns the golf swing motion...and I mean it.

Back to the topic - the limitation is then equal to the maximum turn we can make while still keeping the ball in the range of our sight. But it is not everything - eyes (as ears) are instruments that appear in a pair. Moreover, if a pair happens in our body - one of the "member" has to be a dominant over the other...no matter if we are talking about senses but also about arms or legs. There are no ambidextrous persons - one can be close to ambidextrous, but never fully ambidextrous, especially when talking about senses that are subject to our DNA (in short).

Now imagine - a right-handed golfer with a dominant right eye vs. a right-handed golfer with a dominant left eye (BTW, it seldom happens that a right-handed man is a left eye dominant person that may say why only 1% of golfers are being told as supertalented persons). It becomes obvious how much better head turn and much better upper body CoG distribution happens when the head is more in synch with the upper body turn. Look at Hogan (who was reported as left-eye dominant right-handed person) and his head position at the top. Does it disturb in their full excellent upper body turn ? No ! Look at Moe Norman - he was obviously a right-eye dominant person and he had to lift his head a bit up when coming into the top, but his instinct never told him to go further with his backswing and avoid further "collision" between left shoulder and his chin ad to worsen the relation between head position and spine angle.

Therefore, let us say that the limitation is your sight range; I do believe that many golf swings are wrecked because golf teachers are very stubborn as regards the head and its position, especially in the downswing and impact phase. Should the head be before the ball at impact or THE DOMINANT EYE BEFORE THE IMPACT ? Mind you, the head weights a lot and every possible position that is not natural may bring more harm than good. Forcing the head to be entirely behind the ball makes it being out of position in relation to the spine and may bring flaws in ballstriking easily.

In view of the above, it seems very comprehensible, that it is useless to force our bodies to be in position of Hogan while we are right-eye dominant persons; it would sound odd, but the biokinetics answers that e.g. a S&T golf swing pattern may be better suited for such a person; moreover, we cannot forget about the impact of the head movement (or lack of it) on the whole movement of CoG of our bodies in a golf swing motion. The less it is turned back, the less mass moves back. The less mass moves back, the less the CoG shift at the end of backswing happens.

The choice is - either to risk to move less mass of the whole upper body back or to risk to move the head not in synch with the spine turn (which is practically equal to unnecessary spine angle deviations).

If we choose the first option, we shall end with a poorer shoulder turn, shorter backswing, less powerful swing, less coiling, smaller X-factor, etc., BUT WE SHALL REMAIN IN SYNCH WITH OUR SPINE'S MOTION. Of course, we will not be a Re-MAX LD champ, but our accuracy increase tremendously, IMHO.

A word more about the position of the head in relation to the neck. Note that every great ballstriker's upper spine (watching from a DTL view) is not rigid, they look as a bit hunchbacked at address, and never rigid. Why ? Because they did not force their heads to be in an unnatural position starting from the beginning. They "accepted" the fact that the head weights a lot (especially if one is bent over 30-35 degrees while swinging) and wanted to subdue their head's motion to the spine motion UNTIL THE DOMINANT EYE PREVAILS. They did not want to cheat the sight with a high head position and looking throught the nose.

Moreover, increasing the spine angle (commonly watchable during transition) is always linked to the drop of the head....not coincidentally - the head respondes to the spine angle change, that's why it drops down a bit. What is funny is that hadly anyone see the coexistence of losing the spine angle with the head position and counterbalancing with our tush part. The head is so heavy that any horizontal level change of its position when swinging (while being bent !) may cause us stand up (i.e. lose our tush line). Some of the reason for this common fault may be linked to incorrect head motion during the swing.

I wish there are more researches about the impact of eyedness on various motions in sports, especially rotary-type sports, as golf is...it may be more important if we all think.

General Remarks and Introduction

2010-04-14T22:32:00.000+02:00

The role of biokinetics is crucial in any aspect of the movement while human body or its parts are involved. I do not want to go into such details as the work of nerves, muscles, ligaments or flexors mainly because my medical knowledge is not sufficient as well as I am of the opinion that it is really not necessary when one needs to see The Big Picture. In fact, it would darken the picture.

Nevertheless, this essay would be completely useless if there is no medical knowledge involved. Pure physics describes simple machines precisely well, however, a human body is an extremely complex "machine". That is why, I spent a lot of time studying such aspects of anatomy as e.g. kinesiology, arthrology, ophtalmology, orthopaedics, etc. and exchanging many thoughts with specialists. The language I use in the articles is a simple one so that the "big picture" is not unnecessarily darkened again.

First, we have to be aware what in our bodies is responsible for movements - there are three main parts of it:

- human skeleton (which is a passive base);

- ligaments (which are the links between the passive base and active elements);

- muscles (which are active motoric elements).

The above parts create a very complicated system based on levers thanks to that we, humans, are able to change the location of the whole body, change the location of various body parts in relation to others, maintain the stability and react with counterbalancing.

In short, our bodies are equipped with main body (thorax+abdomen) and distal parts of the body (neck+head, arms, legs). The fact that there are distal parts in our body is crucial for our movability, yet it brings timing issues into consideration. If, theoretically, human body consists of only main body, there would be no possibility of independent movements of any parts of the body - imagine e.g. a turning regular polyhedron.

However, when such a regular polyhedron is equipped with distal parts, the whole situation changes diametrally. Moreover, we are equipped with distal parts that, additionally, are equipped with joints (that enable considerably bigger variety of movement directions). More possible directions of movement mean more problems in coordination of the whole body movement, especailly taking into account that all distal parts tend to act independently (due to the specifics of the nervous system and our brain activity). We must not also forget that the role of two of the distal parts of our bodies, i.e. legs, is mainly to support our body and allowing to be in a vertical position.

Golf swing motion is an example of a relatively simple motion since the movements of all distal parts of our bodies can be subdued to the main body movement since the directional orientation of all the motions are practicaly the same. The only one big change of orientation may happen during transition when the upper body motion is different to the lower body one, however, let us not deal with it now. The whole trick is to subdue them in such a way that allows us to generate power to a satisfactory and necessary degree what is sort of a vicious circle as it appears.

In next subarticles of this article category, I will try to describe the biokinetic rules of all three distal sections of our bodies in a golf swing, mainly taking into account the minimalization of the timing issues that influences the coordination of the whole movement as well as describing alongsidely similarities and differences between model ballstrikers.

Less timing issues = less small thoughts and concepts = more coordinated motion = more repeatability and consistency - this is the motto of all the category of my articles belonging to this publication.