A huge part of getting consistent ball striking is maintaining your golf posture (spine tilt) with proper leg rotation through the swing. When your golf posture changes, your arms and hands have to compensate and it makes it difficult to have a smooth repeatable shaft and club head motion through impact. Most golfers lose their posture in the early stages of the backswing as their spine tilt will move back towards the target (known as reverse spine tilt) as the lead knee moves out towards the target line. So let's learn how to fix this flaw!
In this video, coach Nathan Ouimette shows how the rotation of the lead leg UNDER the body in the backswing is really key in maintaining the spine posture. When your lead knee moves out towards the ball your spine will tilt back towards the the target and you also tend to sway your right hip to the right. This move absolutely destroys your ability to maintain the setup spine angle. So how do you actually do the left leg rotation that brings the knee under you to maintain posture? There is a groin muscle that you should be using called the gracilis that rotates the lead leg with the proper motion.
The gracilis muscle is attached to the pelvis and the lower leg tibia bone so when it contracts it pulls the lower leg behind you and the knee moves under the body. Since you have your left foot on the ground this contraction will give you the rotation of the left knee rotating towards a position behind the right knee (for the right handed golfer). This is the UNDER the body rotation you need to have.
Don't move the left knee out towards the ball, rather rotate the left knee UNDER the body with the gracilis muscle!
The cover photo on this training video shows Max Homa as he does the rotation. Notice how you can barely see any space between the right knee and the left leg from this down the line perspective at the top of the swing. This is only done when the left knee has moved UNDER the body, and NOT OUT to the ball. Notice the angle of the left thigh. It is pointing much more towards the camera than at setup. This is a perfect position from which Max can then sit down to the lead heel in transition. Max has maintained a perfect posture during the backswing and put himself into position for a perfect transition with the proper use of the gracilis muscle.
So when you practice with the Trackman video, make sure you look for this lack of a large space between your legs from the down the line view and look for the angle of the lead thigh at the top of the swing. We can help you learn this move as well - just reach out to us at 801-823-4303 to setup a lesson so we can help you better maintain your posture.