I’ve finally figured out what it is that has certain swingers jumping off of their leading foot through impact.
I know, I’ve already said it has to do with them not shifting their weight to the leading foot on the down swing, but there’s more at play here than just that one thing.
If you asked me what the issue is in a nutshell, I’d say, “Let’s go for a spin.”
As in, “spin-out city.”
How To Complicate A Golf Swing
Step 1 – Set up with a weight bias that is closer to centered than right or left.
Step 2 – Don’t shift fully into the trail side on the back swing.
Step 3 – Don’t shift your weight fully to the leading foot on the down swing.
If you think there’s more to it than that, there isn’t.
No, they aren’t “jumping off the leading foot” to get more speed, power or positive attack angle, as I’ve already shown that a flying foot has nothing to do with any of those things.
Joe Miller you’ll remember virtually jumps into the air on the down swing, and it’s more of the same, but I want to show two prime examples of spin-out swingers who are simply releasing the wrong foot because it hasn’t occurred to them to release the trailing foot.
One of the feet has to release as in walking or running, but in this regard to avoid snapping one’s body like a pretzel through impact.
Here are two prime examples:
Kyle Berkshire – Address & Top
You’ll see that body mass is still centered at the top, so he hasn’t shifted completely to the right side.
Now that you know what to watch for, watch that spin-out through the impact phase (the arrows and circle are not mine, so you can ignore them):
It’s a spin-out with the right toe anchoring him in place. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now, another legendary jumper doing the same thing.
Jamie Sadlowski – Address & Top
And the swing with the spin-out impact:
Now, the pundits will praise this move and go on and on about the benefits derived from it, but the only benefit is that Kyle and Jamie get to walk off the tee block instead of being carted off with a ruptured ACL, ankle or hip joint.
I’ll ask you, is this how you would throw a ball?
Can you imagine a pitcher never getting off his trailing leg and instead twisting his leading foot up and around?
How about a javelin throw?
I can think of two other times where this occurs – in baseball, where many swingers twist their bodies (the baseball swing is definitely a rotary motion) in order to get the bat to the ball in time, so they spin on their leading foot (and I cringe when I see that because you could spin just as well by short-stop sliding the trailing foot).
The problem with this is that the spin move gets the batter around in a purely rotational spin because there’s a ball coming at them at 80+ mph, so by the time they react to the notion that the coming ball is in the strike zone or hittable, instinct makes them spin in place if they sense they won’t be able to simply shift and step into it in time.
That’s why I shake my head watching batters in home run derbies doing the spin move. You’re being pitched a ball you know will be in the strike zone, so you can time the swing without having to spin a like a top to hit the ball, but the batters are likely programmed to spin out on all swings.
In golf, you aren’t reacting to a moving ball so there’s no need to spin in order to make contact in time. A properly sequenced swing motion gets you to the ball exactly when you should, no sooner, no later, so that spinning move is a mechanics flaw.
The end.
The second example is in the shot-put & discus where the power and speed is created both from thrusting (with the legs and arm) and rotational torque.
Again, this is a completely different example because you are swinging a club down and through to strike a ball, not to throw the club, in which case you’d look more like a javelin thrower.
And in that case, you’d plant on the leading foot and release the trailing as you throw.
And that’s about it.
WAX Golf 