There has been a lot of talk lately about pressure shift vs weight shift in the golf swing. What is the difference? A good way to think about the two is weight being the upper body and pressure is what is happening under the feet. Here is the YouTube video to go along with this blog: Moving the Pressure Correctly
In the below photo on the left is me moving my weight over my right foot, the center is me keeping my weight centered as I turned, the right is me moving my weight over my left foot. There is a vertical alignment rod behind my left heal and you can see that in the middle there is some showing, the left none showing, the right a lot showing. If the centers (torso and hips) are moving around too much in the swing it gets harder to control where the club will interact with the ground over and over.
The guys at Athletic Motion Golf shared a great video showing what was happening during a golf swing. Here are some stills from their Instagram Post:
Below at address the center of the torso is slightly behind the center of the pelvis but there is 2% more pressure under the left foot. That way there is something to push off to start the swing.
Here at left arm parallel the center of the torso and pelvis are turning on top of each other between the feet but notice the pressure has moved to 72% under the trail foot. The reason for this is the golfer is pushing up and back behind them to get the pelvis to turn on a tilted angle. The up and back also keeps the pelvis turning catered without moving over the trail foot. Just past this point the golfer starts to fall into his lead foot.
At the top of the swing, with the transition already beginning somewhere between left arm parallel and the top of the swing, the pressure gets back to 50%/50% with the centers of the torso and pelvis still on top of each other. Also notice that the centers have moved slightly towards the target from left arm parallel.
At left arm parallel on the downswing the golfer starts to apply the most vertical force in the golf swing. This is the point that the golfer is pushing up and back with the left leg. This will get the hips turning and start to raise the pelvis and torso in order to create room for the arms to come through into impact. Rotational forces will start to increase and the centers are still on top of each other.
At impact as the golfer continues to push off the ground and rotate as the pressure moves more forward. The lead shoulder is going up and back behind them as well keeping the head centered while this hips continue to move forward and up. This motion of pushing up and back gets the torso center behind the center of the pelvis.
The pressure and centers will continue to move forward as the golfer goes into the finish to stand on the left foot with 95% pressure under the lead foot and they will come out of the spine tilts and the toros and pelvis will move more forward.
Thank you for reading. To see the YouTube video on Moving the Pressure Correctly click HERE.