How to Use the Trail Arm in the Golf Swing

How to Use the Trail Arm in the Golf Swing. In this video we go over the importance of how the trail arm works in the golf swing. Learning how to properly move the trail arm through the shot can greatly improve your ball striking.

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what’s up TJ today we get to talk about how to use the trail arm in the golf swing all right TJ so basically what we want to discuss is what is the trail alarm from start to finish basically we need to learn how to use the trail alarm and isolate this thing and understand exactly what’s going on so um just want you to start off with a very simple exercise okay if you just grip the club in the right hand only and kind of preset where you’d be at a dress with the club level to the ground right here notice how we automatically have a little bit of right wrist extension we have a little bit of a tilt forward kind of your forward press um add a dress so so that that alone um even just how we set this thing up at a dress see a lot of people kind of whack that one out yep um you know maybe they’ll they’ll kind of set up this way with a lot of um you’ll see a lot of like wrist flexion there yeah with right hand gets really really underneath it yep that’s no good right right cuz then our wrist isn’t set up in a way to move so you’re saying at a dress we’d actually like to see a little bit of wrist extension even at the start a little bit of wrist extension yeah so and that can only um that can only happen if we have the proper grip so again if if you have a grip that’s a little bit underneath the golf club you’re going to have a hard time doing that you can still get a little bit for shling a little bit of preset there but the rist condition will be slightly different so and folks can go watch our previous video on the grip for a little bit more in detail on how to do that but we’re going to go into the movements of the trail arm here right so okay so at a dress I’ve got a little bit of this right wrist extension yep okay perfect so go ahead and hold it in your right arm only okay okay so from right here just let the club lower now swing it up and what I want you to do is add some radial deviation and some right wrist extension and put the club just up on a 45 degree angle here okay so maybe we should Define these terms so so radial deviation is the UPC of this wrist here yes and then right wrist extension would be the sort of side cocking of the wrist correct so there’s a combination here happening of both up and side so as we leverage this club up to the top of the swing up and side and that would be kind of okay so I folded up there yep and that’ be kind of the the action that the right arm is making exactly in the back swing exactly okay yep we just haven’t had um we haven’t added any turn yet yes but basically what we’re looking for here and there’s multiple ways to to see what’s going on if you kind of look at it in like a one-dimensional look here just face on we’re essentially getting the golf club up on the plane or above the plane by doing this additionally we’re allowing that right arm to fold and we’re allowing that right elbow to kind of stay inside the profile of our body and we’re not pulling the lawn mower chain so to speak yeah so so just having this intention of letting this thing work up in front of us yep is a lot different already than a lot of people are swinging out there so yeah a lot of people get this thing started like kind of a lawnmower right y right start bending this thing up and back and across really really early yep well then I can’t work it up in front of me it’s always on my right side of my body so y so that’s that’s a cool action I like that yep and then the last thing I want you to notice as you’re doing this is there’s a couple matchups here if I keep my right elbow somewhat in front of my body then the right wrist extension can actually be there yeah if the right elbow pulls I start to lose a little bit of right wrist extension then I’m going to have to make something up through my wrist conditions I kind of just I’ll I’ll skip ahead a second I’ll go to the turn portion how often do you see that on a lesson T A lot of times yep so yep so this action can really really help both the right elbow fold but the the right wrist sort of extend in the appropriate way absolutely okay that’s that’s cool so uh moving along let’s go ahead and take a setup here sure and now you want right hand only or both uh let’s do right hand only um now you guys are probably thinking well the golf club doesn’t go straight up and down it actually does it travels up and down your midline now we need to use the body in the rib cage to curve this club as the same arm action is happening so what I’m going to ask TJ to do here from a dress is perform a little bit of a midline preset and Rib sway now he’s going to load his Trail arm into his chest now as he starts to rotate he’s going to bounce his Trail arm up off his chest continue turning continue turning and we’re going to see that look at the top of the back swing that’s cool so so in this type of orientation y the the right arm is still in front of my body yep so I could I could basically kind of pair this movement with a midline preset and turn exactly and we’ve got a back swing there exactly that’s cool y very cool yep okay so so we know that the right arm needs to work up in front of us kind of fold Bend back now trans position what’s what’s the sequence so I’m here in the top of my back swing help me kind of work through this okay so sequence would be first thing we’re going to do is allow the pelvis to reenter and start to rotate okay okay now now that we’ve created space notice how TJ’s right arm is still kind of inside the profile his body first thing we’re going to do once we’ve dropped and started to rotate we’re going to allow the right elbow to get out in front of his stomach as he rotates M that’s really really cool yep so want to show that from this face on angle here over there yep drop recenter and then the right arm’s going to work out across my stomach this way yes yes and here’s the cool thing so as as you do that go ahead and go up to the top again drop and reenter okay so if we can pretend this is a cat left hip is a cat left hip starts to rotate now the dog is that right elbow that dog is just chasing the cat curving that right elbow around his body all the way to the Finish that’s a really really cool visual so so I’m dropping I’m reentering the cat is that lead hip correct it’s going to start to curve out of the way and the right arm is going to follow it out and across here yep that’s a really really cool visual yeah okay so that can probably be best felt for people at a at a low Pace slow pace first absolutely it’s a bit of an intricate movement but it is helpful to understand sort of this sequence that goes on so it’s not this first and then I respond right there’s going to be a little bit of this leading the charge leading the parade and then the right arm is going to work across exactly okay exactly so if if we kind of took a couple steps back and isolated the right arm completely just for training purposes we would want to do something like this so from setup you’d swing it up put the club on plane keep the right elbow straight in front of your body okay good wrist condition now from right here let the golf club fall behind you and get the right elbow back in front of you and bring it back to square that’s a cool feel yeah pretty simple you can do this on the couch just watching the game you know that kind of comes back to this idea of hammering the nail right yep so it’s very very simple if I just go here Hammer the nail yep yep so it’s up in front Club Falls elbow Works across hit yep and there’s the geometry in one dimension that’s really really cool yeah so I mean if you’re struggling with that it might be helpful to break it up into this very simple piece first what does the right arm actually do well then I can start to pair that with all of the cool spiral body movements we talk about exactly and then we’ve got a whole picture of a swing there exactly right okay exactly um I know a lot of people finally right after this idea of you know the beginning and then the middle and into the impact well where’s where’s this idea of of release or you know there’s a lot lot said about this Trail elbow um what it should do through the ball that I think is really really interesting right right there’s a sort of Trend in golf instruction that I’ve seen that you know we should just try to keep this elbow bent forever I don’t I don’t think that’s true necessarily maybe there’s some truth to it in certain ways right right but where should I feel this right elbow actually start to extend and release away from my body cuz that’s that’s important in generating some power right absolutely okay absolutely um so basically if if we thought about this based on our midlines okay once once you get your right elbow essentially on your midline that is the point where you’re going to start to unload the bend in your right elbow and the extension in your right wrist so basically we want to maintain these angles all the way until we get that right elbow up in front of our body now you notice that this golf club is kind of on the target line right now AKA delivery from here that’s where that release starts to occur as you rotate up and out of the shop that’s a really cool distinction so if we thought about this like a throw right I’d say the the most common mistake that we’d see with a player is that he kind of tends to to extend and dump the angle of the club really really early could you show that with the club just so you could see what I’m looking at here so you might recogniz this in your own swing where oh I see that at impact like I have a hard time with shaan and things like that right so that maybe the most common mistake so if I was throwing this right arm’s extending before the elbow gets in front of my midline I’d get like that look right where I throw it almost like behind my body there’s no power on that right it’s not it’s no good so what you’re saying is if if we’re thinking about this like a throw the release Point’s not going to happen until after this elbow gets across my chest CH there’s a lot more power in that oh yeah well cuz then I can use my whole body to support it that’s cool that’s a hit sensation so if I’m going to throw this thing we throw it out in the range I’m going to wait till after elbow gets out in front of my chest you say that’s accurate yep and ab what that’ll look like with the club is we’ll start avoiding this sensation we’ll get more okay I’m bent bent bent bent bent but then it’s going to go right and fully release its angles and compress it all that goodness exactly you see that’s accurate absolutely and and you’re going to feel a lot of kind of load and tension okay through delivery now from here it’s almost like if I had my right arm full of water and the water is going to float into the golf club out the golf shaft I’d want to be shooting the water yeah kind of out up this Direction that’s cool the the explanation you gave earlier of kind of getting that right arm trapped and throwing down all the energy is now going down so you want it through now we want through and throwing down only leads to other problems like extension and and whatnot all right so I think um I think that’s a lot of really really good conceptual stuff for people to understand now one of the main comments we get is what kind of drills do you have for this right so maybe we could go through like one one is just a drill without even a golf ball right where we’re just working how do we work this arm in space that’s a great little drill okay can you walk me through how I’m going to like maybe turn that into a golf swing here absolutely so one of one of the favorite drills from all time so we’re going to do kind of a modified front loader exercise and we’re going to preset the right wrist conditions we’re going to preset the right elbow and then work through a little bit of a half swing front loader drill so all right show me how to do that yep first thing I want you to do just find setup okay now you’re just going to stand straight back up first thing we’re going to do from here is add some extension of the right wrist and then pin that right elbow out in front of your body okay from here I just want you to start rotating your chest towards the Target and feel that release of the golf club once your right elbow gets past the midline of your body okay so we’re here yep there correct yep and then we’re going to go turn shoot it out yeah so the chest creates the chest creates the p pattern in the shape of the golf club kind of paves the road for the golf club to go and then it’s just all up to you to find when it’s right to release in that point in time is when that right elbow is getting out in front of the the chest or right in front of the sternum and then let that thing go so that’s kind of a cool drill if we did that on an incline plane here like facing the golf ball I would go there yep might be helpful to add just a little turn back then we’re going to go through and release love it that can be a really really good way to teach yourself how to stabilize the elbow stabilize the face y get your body pivoting really really well through the hitting area there yep love it and and you can kind of start to play with this and make it as bouncy as and dynamic as you want you know you can start to add some spiral line stuff yeah that’s really really cool so try this in a uh in a front loader type of look here so same St start okay now I want you to rotate over the golf ball to what you would feel front loader would be now your job is to return back to that preset spot and return to front loader y oh that’s cool I found my new favorite drill for the next couple months that’s good yeah all right so that’s how to use the trail arm in the golf swing from beginning to end cool yeah uh as usual we love questions so throw your comments down below we’ll be sure to answer them don’t forget to like And subscribe we got new videos coming every single week talk to you soon [Music]