How the Trail Arm Creates Width In the Golf Swing

This video focuses on the technical aspects of increasing swing width in golf by adjusting the trail arm’s position. I explain the direct correlation between the trail arm’s mechanics and the lead arm’s behavior. I share a drill designed to help players maintain an optimal radius in their swings, emphasizing the trail arm’s role in achieving a consistent and expansive swing arc.

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All right uh what’s going on everybody hope this video finds you well uh we’re going to be going into I would say one of my favorite topics uh in the actual golf swing and that’s going to be width and more importantly how the trail arm actually sets our width and we’re going

To follow it up with a really cool drill for you so if you haven’t checked out the last video that I did please click on that link below also got a free crash course on understanding impact uh without further Ado let’s dive right into it so one of the biggest things

That I would say that I hear in a in the golf world and I was taught especially when I was growing up is everybody always talked about how to keep my lead arm they’re like keep your lead arm straight uh for me I personally I think

This is a very uncomfortable place for a lot of people and it also creates a lot of unnecessary tension in the golf swing when players go in and they they try and lock this elbow out lock the shoulder out lock the wrist out and we start to

Feel like we’re becoming I would say quite a bit more robotic when we try and do this so when we look at what creates what I think one of the first things to comprehend is how the arms and the shoulders actually move together here so

If I take my right arm as an example and I place it here in the back swing I take my trail arm I place it here for me to now get this to here this arm is going to be swinging more too straight if I

Take my trail arm and I create a lot of Bend in this I’m going to have a lot of Bend here in my lead arm so I would say right in here what we do with the trail shoulder elbow with the arm here is going to have a very large influence in

What we do with the lead arm as opposed to standing here and trying to keep this straight for as long as we can possibly keep it straight what I would really challenge you to do is actually try and push this Trail arm away more so this is

Where I would say this is what’s going to be helping us in regards to keeping what I would call more of a constant radius here throughout our actual motion as opposed to where I see a lot of players getting trouble here is we get a lot of early Bend and especially if we

Look at the directional movement of the trail arm as it starts to pull inward like this towards us as it pulls inward well so is my lead arm now my lead arm is going to be working inward with it as well and this is where we start to lose

Width and basically from here we’re left with one speed variable we’re left with the hands being able to work the club to create most of our speed where in actuality and we look at how the club and the arms work together these are both working on pendulum theories in my

Opinion so we’ve got the golf club that actually swings so the the wrists would swing the golf club and then from here as well we actually have the swing in what the arms would do so when we can combine those two especially keeping the width in here with the trail arm and we

Can combine those two this is where I would say it becomes a heck of a lot easier for us to be able to maintain the structure in our lead arm without putting as much value into it putting more of the value you into the trail arm

Bring being able to keep that and push that away from us as opposed to just trying to stretch out and keep the left arm straight so one of my favorite drills like this would be one drill I would say that I would give to every player type that I would actually coach

Here so this is going to be a drill I would say that we are actually going to start off inside of a freezer we’re going to start off as well inside of a slower movement pattern to actually be able to bring awareness to this cuz I

Can tell you this is an area even to this day I’ve had to work on this basically for most of my career playing and teaching to try and get comfortable with this for me it is still extremely comfortable for my arm to want to work

This way so for me I have to present width here in the takeaway I have to present width here in the takeaway I create about this much Bend in the trail arm okay my maximum that I would say is probably ever going to be is 90 and this is actually the strongest

Anatomical position for the trail arm shoulder wrist to be in right here would be this 90° angle okay so that would be the absolute maximum inside of this drill we’re going to go for more so we’re going to go takeway work it up with a little bit of

Bend so this would be in about 120° angle here and I’m going to keep this turn to the top and I might even do this push it away come back down and Chip just so that we can start to bring some awareness of knowing what width actually

Is coming from the trail side as opposed to just trying to keep the lead arm straight so I would go in here so we’re going to call this Trail arm width once we get to the top we’re going to push it away and then we’re going to come down

And Chip this here so I’ve got this ball on a t would recommend you do the same here’s how I would get into this in regards to creating this feel here so I’m in my setup take away work it to the top wide push it

Away come down and Chip and now on the through side as well we want to have the same width here with the trail arm we’re not going to have it bending we’re not going to be early releasing it it’s going to be feeling like the arms are

Staying in more of a swing together so that would be the first place that we would do it in then I’m going to move it into I’m going to move it into a swing like that without pushing it away I’m going to try and maintain what I preset here at setup

Let’s see how far can I get that so I can get it just past lead arm parallel so I’m going to go here up slow so that I can maintain this here up slow and come down and hit so that we are now training and learning what it

Actually feels like to keep the golf club on more of a constant radius that would be a lot wider than what probably most of us are used to at the last place that we would do this in is I would do this now in a freezer without pushing it away and seeing while

I’m staying on Center here working this to the top as far away from me as I can so what’s crazy about this and I’m sure that you will experience the same thing this to me feels like my trail arm is here when I’m in this position right

Here this feels like my trail arm to me is actually straight so keep that in mind when you’re actually videoing yourself make sure you get feedback when you do drills like this if this is actually an issue that you struggle with so see where it actually is versus what

It feels like and do your absolute best to get your feel is close to what the actual reel is here so this is for this one’s I’m going to do here we’re going to go freezer Trail arm width I’m going to feel like it stays as wide as

Possible forever I’m going to rehearse that once rehearse that twice freeze it and then I’ll come down and hit it so I’m going to go freeze and there would be more of that look right there so that to me felt like that was the widest possible Arc that I

Could have the golf club on while I was maintaining my Center there and the arms were working more around the spine right there so take this video to heart one drill that I would highly highly recommend literally for any player type right here is understand how the trail arm controls

Our width and has a very large factor into the size of the arc that we swing the golf club on there’s a couple drills you can use let me know if you have any questions on that I appreciate you watching see you next Time