“What you can learn from a no back-swing golf drill like this, is if gravity starts the downswing, the arms will be tension free and the result will be effortless power” – Daniel Lee
An Up-Route Swing mode or what some have come to know as a no back-swing golf drill, we have long believed could be the golf swing of the future. This drill promotes the body’s core to control the movement of the arms in both the back-swing and down-swing. The Up-Route Drill also helps to prevent upper body from acting as a power source in the golf swing. This drill works by making it easier to feel a total free fall of the shoulders at the beginning of the downswing, so that is may begin at the pace of pure gravity.
When swinging in a conventional mode, most golfers have difficulty fully completing the back-wing without being full of tension at the top. The reaction subsequently tends to start the down-swing early before the body’s weight has had a chance to start falling towards the target; which would create the natural kinetic motion that is desperately needed for an efficient golf swing. Starting early with the down-swing in a state of tension, is relative to someone trying to take a step forwards before leaning in the direction the want to go…it becomes very uncoordinated.
Is It Possible To Eliminate The Back-swing?
By using a “no back-swing golf drill” or starting the swing in an up-route mode as we call it, the arms and club are totally out of plane at the beginning and it is necessary to completely finish the shoulder turn before the swing starts down. Because the player will remain out of plane until the backswing is fully completed, it is best to keep the club in the place with the least amount of leverage to the rest of the body, which is straight up and down. When playing or practicing in this mode, the player’s brain becomes very sensitive to exactly where the completion of the backswing should ideally be, and where his/her perfect plane truly is. This allows the golfer to quickly develop a far more reliable sense of how to apply power properly.
The up-route mode eliminates many of the issues involved in heaving the arms and club from behind the ball as we do in a conventional swing, and much of the work. If it is practiced totally in a “no reference” mode, without a conventional address where the club is placed behind the ball to measure ball positioning, the arms sensors that are normally used by most players to “hunt” the ball in the downswing, are “blindfolded” so to speak, and the arms cannot easily function as a power source.
Proprioception In The Golf Swing
These arm sensors are called proprioceptors and are perhaps among the most interfering mechanisms in the body for any golfer trying to develop a technically ideal swing. A conventional swing mode is the easiest possible mode in which the brain can “cheat” and develop compensations for movements in the swing that are not ideal from either a physics or physiological perspective.
To understand more about why learning this game from a conventional swing mode will prolong your development, continue your research on “no reference drills” and see how much they will help you bypass a good deal of the frustration that most people encounter when trying to develop good golfing technique.
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