Milo Lines Blog

How To Swing The Arms | Training Structure And Width

Transcription

Milo Lines:
We’re going to be talking about training arm structure today. And if you stick around, we’ll talk about this helpful device and how it can help you to do that.

Henry Fall:
All right. Milo, so getting some questions about sort of arm structure, especially in the back swing and transition what’s going on there. A lot of people kind of think that the arms sort of need to be pinned down and connected to us. I think connection’s a word you hear a lot in golf training or golf instruction nowadays.

Milo Lines:
Yeah. You know, it has its place, especially in smaller shots, but as the shots grow and as we go to hit the ball harder, there’s probably going to be some freedom in the arms actually. If I was going to take a ball and throw it really hard, I’ll just pretend I’m going to throw it that way, my arm would separate from me. I wouldn’t try to throw it with connection. Wouldn’t work very good. And so that’s kind of how I look at it. If I’m going to bomb it, I want a little freedom in my arms to be able to swing. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it does to me.

Henry Fall:
Yeah. I mean, and I think, we have sort of our foundation pieces laid out in the website and those are sort of built to get you sort of using your pivot. So if you want to say that would be the form of connection we’re talking about.

Milo Lines:
So your pivot transports your arms and puts energy into your arms. That’s what happens and on a smaller shot, yeah, there’s probably the upper arm and the side of your pecs kind of stays in connection. But as that grows, as there’s more energy, then there’s probably some disconnection there.

Henry Fall:
Right. So it’s kind of a fine balance. We want some structure and sort of some stability where we can still deliver the club and there’s not a lot of moving parts, but if you’re looking to create some distance and some leverage in some of these long drive guys, they’re bringing the driver up pretty high and their arms aren’t staying right on their chest.

Milo Lines:
Oh, no. You have a couple ends of the spectrum. You’ve got the people who are really connected. They hit it pretty straight, and you got the guys who are like long drivers who get this thing way up in here, they hit it really far. They don’t hit it very straight. So it’s like, there’s some happy mediums there.

Henry Fall:
Well, and those are kind of a couple variations we talked about off camera. You’ve seen this before. You take a glove, you put it under your right armpit here, and basically try to keep that pinned down throughout your swing. So you keep that glove in under that bicep or under your armpit here.

Milo Lines:
And we’ve seen really good players throughout history who had that pattern, like Ben Hogan had a little bit of that pattern in his golf swing. Mac O’Grady probably had a little of that pattern. There’s a lot of great players that had that.

Henry Fall:
And they’ve done the same thing too on this arm as well, but you’ve also seen probably the best golfer of all time, that glove would’ve been out pretty early in his back swing.

Milo Lines:
Yeah. Jack. Mr. Nicholas?

Henry Fall:
Right.

Milo Lines:
Yeah. He was famous for, they called it the flying right elbow. In reality, I wouldn’t call it really a flying right elbow. He just let his arm get disconnected. At the time, that was kind of different. He was a phenomenon and he hit it really far.

Henry Fall:
Right. And I guess in today’s game, you could sort of talk about maybe like Matthew Wolf a little bit. Right?

Milo Lines:
Bubba Watson has a lot of that also.

Henry Fall:
So they’re making this big wind up, this big turn and this trail elbow goes kind of up and it’s almost like their upper arm here is parallel to the ground. It’s not like this, right? So if I did one here just as an example, so there’s kind of a couple ways you could skin the cat, I guess you could say, right?

Milo Lines:
Yep. That second move can be really dynamic as long as in transition, your arm moves the right direction.

Henry Fall:
I had to wait on it or at least I had to feel like I had to wait on it.

Milo Lines:
Yeah. So if your arm moves like this, it’s not going to work very good, but if you get up here and in transition your arm kind of has a little bit of that kind of a move where it reconnects to you or gets back out in front of you, that’s going to be really dynamic.

Henry Fall:
Yeah. So whether you’re kind of more pinned and connected or you create some height here and sort of distance between your elbow and your side, eventually down in about the delivery position club, parallel to ground, they’re pretty similar.

Milo Lines:
Yes.

Henry Fall:
Right? Would you agree with that?

Milo Lines:
Yeah, I would agree.

Henry Fall:
From delivery position like we were talking about, this segues perfectly to the structure ball we got here from Watson Golf and you’ve probably seen other balls we’ve used before, but it’s a great way to sort of train club parallel to ground or hip high to hip high and feeling a little bit of that connection, the arms and the body starting to work a little more together through this area.

Milo Lines:
So I really like the structure ball for training hip to hip. Beyond that, it becomes a little difficult and it actually is not my optimal. My optimal is I actually like to have a little bit of that separation of the arms. I think it’s dynamic.

Henry Fall:
And you’re a power hitter and you played baseball. There aren’t many guys playing baseball that kind of get up to bat here. A lot of them get up here, and then shallow it out as they rotate.

Milo Lines:
Exactly. But for those of you who really struggle with your elbows moving really out of whack, this can be a really good tool, and we see players on the PGA tour every day using something very similar to this. Now, Henry hit a couple for us with that one.

Henry Fall:
You put this in real quick.

Milo Lines:
There we go. It goes that way? Perfect.

Henry Fall:
All right, Miles, so I got this thing strapped into me here. I got it just below the elbows in my forearms where I’m feeling pretty comfortable, and at a point where it still allows me to make a little hinge in my wrist. So one of the issues that we see a lot is sort of the over folding of this trail elbow.

Milo Lines:
It’s super common. Player’s trail arm, it bends too early, too much, starts getting behind them. Their arms start to get this kind of a look.

Henry Fall:
So this, even that setup, it puts my arms in a position where they’re basically on top of my chest too.

Milo Lines:
Yes.

Henry Fall:
So I brought up that glove drill early on where you could put it under both armpits and that sort of just that little bit of tension that set up with the upper arms, getting it on top of the chest versus kind of back under can be a good thing to have. And when I do it, I’m cognizant of the fact that my trail arm isn’t locked out either.

Milo Lines:
You want that trail arm soft.

Henry Fall:
So I have just a little bit of fold to it, and I’m basically just making these little half swings.

Milo Lines:
You can make half swings and you can introduce a little bit of hinge in the wrists, but you’re really just trying to manage that structure backing through.

Henry Fall:
You see, I’m not overly concerned with the contact here. I’m just making these little swings. And again, using my pivot to really drive this club back to the ball. The arm structures really taken care of through the hitting area with this device.

Milo Lines:
That’s a really good way to feel the connection that a lot of people talk about. I think it’s a perfect way to train basically the small parts of the golf swing from hip to hip. It’s awesome.Now, as we grow it and make it more dynamic, that becomes something that I probably recommend you stop using.

Henry Fall:
Yeah. I guess if we had someone that was getting their arm way back here and not having some width and freedom where it was kind of contracted back here, this might be a good thing to have to kind of go the opposite way and make an exact duration of where the arms feel a little more out in front of them, a little wider, and they’re keeping things a little bit more, I guess, in balance in their swing, right?

Milo Lines:
Yeah. It’s awesome for that situation.

Henry Fall:
All right, guys, hope you guys enjoyed this video and check out the Watson Golf structure ball. We got a link below, little discount for you. Definitely try it out at home. It can be a good little device to use, and we use it with our foundation pieces on our website as well. So look into that. Yep.

Milo Lines:
I hope you enjoyed this video. Please leave a comment below with any questions, thoughts, or future video ideas as we read every comment and we try to respond to each of you. If you would like further help with your game, head over to Milolinesgolf.com, my website, and you can schedule lessons with myself or a member of my team. You can also join our academy where you can get one-on-one coaching. We have members of our academy all over the world, and we’re excited to work with you no matter where you’re at. And if you’re new to our channel, don’t forget to click that subscribe button because we come out with new videos weekly. Thanks for watching.

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