Hip Extension: The Most Powerful Movement In All of Sports

Say you have to toss a medicine ball as high as you possibly can vertically in the air. Are you going to keep your hips mute and have your arms do all the work for you? Of course not. I bet you would naturally squat as deep as possible before forcefully pushing your heels into the ground and fully extending at your hips and knees just before launching the medicine ball through the air to generate the most amount of force. This same concept applies to the golf swing and early hip extension. Hip extension during the downswing signals that the player has just performed the most powerful movement in all of sports… a little too early. In doing this, the player is sacrificing distance and power simply because they aren’t fully utilizing the working muscle’s abilities to apply a force to their greatest potential, which is where it’s appropriate to mention the principle of the stretch-shortening cycle. During the stretch-shortening cycle, a muscle is first actively stretched before it actively shortens. The force, work, and power output during the shortening phase is enhanced compared with muscle shortening that is not preceded by an initial active stretch. To simplify this, think of a muscle as if it were a rubber band. The further it is stretched from its original length, tension and resistance build up in the band. Once the band is released, a great force will shorten it back to its original length. A skilled player uses this to their advantage by maintaining that stretch potential to allow for the working muscles responsible for hip and knee extension to actively shorten to maximize power during the golf swing.

Getting Your Hips Out of the Way

Another issue that comes with thrusting the hips towards the golf ball on the downswing is the player creates less room for their hands and club path to travel on that desired in-to-out swing plane. I alluded to this at the beginning, but when a player extends at the hips early, it is almost always accompanied with another swing fault, such as the over-the-top swing path. Since the hips have created less room between the player and the golf ball, the only option for the hands and club to travel is from outside-to-in, leading to a slice or pulled shot depending on the position of the club face at impact. If a player extends the hips early and attempts to swing in-to-out, their hands will get jammed on their body. That is why when early hip extension is addressed it tends to alleviate other present swing faults.

A Strong Core Leads to Strong Pelvic Control

A very minute movement occurs at impact that is difficult to see with the naked eye, but this is what tends to separate elite ball strikers from the rest of the field. At address and throughout the golf swing up until the player is a fraction of a second away from making contact with the golf ball, the pelvis should remain in a neutral to slightly forward tilted position. Upon impact, the pelvis will rapidly tuck underneath the player towards the tailbone, drawing the abdomen inwards to create a crunch-like position. This is the most efficient way to transfer power from the lower body to the upper body without allowing any power to leak. This skill allows for the golfer to maintain a proper hip hinge and spine angle to support their golf swing while the hips rotate through impact, eliminating early hip extension from the golf swing altogether.

Muscles and Movement Patterns That Will Combat Early Hip Extension

Internal rotation of the lead hip allows for the lower body to fully rotate without thrusting towards the golf ball. If the pelvis is unable to rotate around the lead hip, forward and lateral movements are going to dominate the golf swing. The muscle group we want to target here are the hip external rotator muscles located underneath the glute muscles. In order to unlock hip internal rotation, these muscles must be able to properly lengthen and stretch to facilitate this movement. The glute muscles will also lengthen while internally rotating around the hip. The pigeon pose, figure four stretch, and the supine twist are all great ways to stretch out this muscle group, allowing the pelvis to rotate around the hips more freely during the golf swing.