Improve Your Golf Swing with OPTIMOTION by GOLFTEC

🍗 The 'chicken wing' in a golf swing refers to excessive flex in the lead elbow during follow-through, causing the elbow to protrude from the torso.

📏 Top golfers keep their lead elbow minimally flexed—often less than 5°—while amateurs may have much more, like 32°, leading to less effective swings.

🔄 A key to fixing the chicken wing is learning to tilt the shoulders to the right faster during the downswing, matching a 78° change seen in tour players.

🧑‍🏫 Using training aids like noodles can help golfers visualize and practice proper club path and shoulder tilt to eliminate the chicken wing.

🏌️‍♂️ Keeping elbows close together and arms straighter in the follow-through leads to a more athletic and powerful golf swing.

🚫 Common mistakes that cause the chicken wing include opening the turn too much, swinging hands too far out, and not moving hips enough toward the target.

⏱️ Practicing half swings at slower speeds helps ingrain the correct movement patterns before adding speed and length to the swing.

📉 If shoulder tilt regresses to being too far left, it's important to slow down and rebuild the correct motion before increasing speed again.

💡 Technology like Optimotion makes it easier to diagnose and correct swing flaws by providing measurable data on elbow flex and shoulder tilt.

⚡ Matching the shoulder tilt pattern of tour players not only improves form but also increases club head speed and distance.

00:00:00 - Are you more of a honey barbecue gal? Buffalo when it comes to chicken wings? Yes. Um, I'm Yeah, I'm more of just a barbecue. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. I like I like honey barbecue. Really good. I like a hot honey. That's that's my go-to. Oh, hot honey sounds good. So, when you're talking chicken wings, like when you're eating them, different flavors, all good, right? When you're talking about it in your golf swing, chicken wing, not so good. Don't like them. So, I know that's a big

00:00:22 - problem that you've been dealing with that you've been trying to work on. So, I think what we're going to use today as is just a way to continue to expand on a little bit of what you've been working on and just add a little bit more detail to the process that you're going through to fix that problem. Awesome. Sounds good. Excited to get rid of it. Let's do it.

00:00:42[ - Music] [Applause] I mean, there's nothing that bothers me more than seeing this in my swing video. Yep. How do I get rid of it? Yep. So, that's that's really what we're talking about today. So, there's a couple different ways that you could have a potential chicken wing. The one that you struggle with is in your follow-through. That's when your lead elbow flexes too much and you start to see your elbow protrude from your torso. Whereas, if you look at the best golfers in the

00:01:05 - world, they don't do that. So, um there's a couple ways that we can talk about fixing this. Okay. Um I know you've been working on the amount of elbow span or the distance between your elbows. Okay. At this point in time, we can actually measure how much elbow flex you have in your lead arm. So, that's a really super useful data point for us. You can see at this point you have 32° of flex. The best golfers in the world are going to have their lead elbow very, very minimally flexed at this point.

00:01:30 - Probably less than 5°. Okay? It's why you see the best golfers in the world when they finish their swing, their elbows and their arms are really straight. Their elbows are close together. Um, that's what the best golfers in the world do to hit the ball really far and really straight. Okay? Um, when we see the chicken wing problem for you and even for a lot of golfers out there, a lot of times what you're essentially trying to do is when your elbow flexes, it helps raise the club up

00:01:51 - into the air. Yeah. Okay. So, generally bad golfers separate their elbows a lot, flex their lead elbow more than they should as a way to lift the club up in the air and not hit well behind the golf ball. Okay. Okay. Um, I know that's sometimes a problem that you struggle with is just where you hit the ground. So, that can be part of the problem. So, a lot of this is really just understanding and identifying like what's actually happening. Okay. The second number I have up here is the

00:02:12 - amount of shoulder tilt that you have. So the best players in the world tilt their shoulders to the right in the down swing and in their follow through really really fast. So like when your lead arm is parallel to the ground in the back swing to when your trail arm is parallel in the follow through, there's a 78° change that happens. Wo. Okay. So that change helps them to raise the club up in the air. It helps them to shallow the angle of attack and it just makes it

00:02:35 - easier for you to then keep your elbows and your arms really straight. Okay. Okay. You do a pretty good job of this. Like the tour average at this point is 45° to the right. So you're really close. You're at 42. The problem for you happens in the down swing. So when we look at it in the down swing, okay, again, your elbow flex 3° totally fine. Like if I looked at your trail arm relative to our tour pro over here, very similar look. Okay, the big difference

00:02:58 - is in how your shoulders are working. So your shoulders are still tilted 3° to the left. At this point in time, the best golfers in the world actually have their shoulders tilted 12° to the right. Wow. Okay. Okay. So, what that does is it helps with their club path. Okay. And then it also helps to shallow their angle of attack. So, what you've got going on right now, because your shoulders are tilted too far to the left, what you have to do to shallow the angle of attack and not smash the club

00:03:22 - into the ground is you have to start bending and flexing and separating your elbows. It's the only way that the club works up into the air. If you kept your arm straight and did everything perfectly um and continued to match this pattern of how your shoulders tilt, you'd smash the club into the ground behind the golf ball. So you do that one time and you go, "Well, that's dumb. I'm not going to do that anymore." So then you start to change things. Okay? So

00:03:41 - what we need to work on is continuing to keep your elbows close together, but also understanding how your shoulders need to work from the position in your back swing where your left arm is parallel to the ground to this position in your down swing. So getting your shoulders to tilt to the right faster will help to start moving the butt of the club up into the air, which will make it easier for you to then keep your arm straighter in the followrough. Okay. What are some other common mistakes that

00:04:04 - people make that lead to a chicken wing outside of shoulder tilt? Yeah, so some of those things could be they could have their turns too open. So a lot of slicers that you see typically move their hands too far out to start the down swing. That steepens the pitch of the shaft and makes the swing direction too far to the left for a right-handed player. When you do that, again, if your swing direction is too far to the left, you'll see a lot of golfers start to bend and separate their elbows cuz

00:04:27 - that's the only way they can hit the golf ball, which is what I used to do. Correct. So, this is sort of a byproduct of what you used to do. Now, it's still part of what's going on in your swing, but that's another big common thing that you'll see. Again, really all that the chicken wing is in the follow through is just having too much flex in your lead arm with your elbow. Okay? And so, then you see your elbow come out of your before your your club does exiting on

00:04:50 - your torso. It's really all it is. So, when that happens, it can be caused by the the shoulder tilt problem, which we're going to talk about, the turn problem. You'll also see a lot of golfers don't move their hips way towards the target enough. So, even for those of you at home, like if you just wanted to try this, keep your hips moving like away from the target, so backwards, the wrong direction, and try to tilt your shoulders to the right at the same time. Yeah, it hurts. Like,

00:05:12 - it's almost impossible to do. But a lot of golfers swing the club that way. They move their hips way away from the target in the down swing and then they try to tilt to the right. Well, they can't tilt to the right enough. So, what do you end up doing? You separate your elbows. you flex your lead arm too many degrees and then you start to see your elbow pop out from your torso. Okay. So, there's a lot of things that can lead to the chicken wing. For you, Lexi, though, it's really

00:05:32 - just how you move from the position in your down swing where your left arm's parallel to the ground to this spot in time. And then from there, if we can keep your elbows really close together and continue turning, tilting, and all the other things that you do really well, you'd be in a really good spot. That'll make it easier for you to keep your arms closer together and keep your elbows straighter. So, let's practice that. Yeah, let's do it. So, we're going to use two noodles to to take care of

00:05:51 - this. So, we've got one on the ground just to remind Lexi of your desired club path. So, tour average for a club path is right around 4°. That represents the noodle there. So, that's why that's there. We're going to use this other one as a way to help you understand how to tilt to the right more in the down swing. So, what golfers typically struggle with when they tilt to the left too many degrees or they don't tilt to the right enough is their hands and their clubs start to work too far out

00:06:11 - and away from them. Okay. It's kind of what you were pointing out when we were looking at the tour player swing. You're like, "My elbow seems like it's really far away from my body versus the tour player." Well, that's because you're not tilting to the right enough. So, we'll use this noodle as a way to just control where your hands and where your arms move in the down swing. And then the really only thought for you is just avoid both of these noodles and try to

00:06:28 - keep your arms really straight in the followrough. Okay. So, we're just going to work some half swings to start and then we'll start to add speed as we go. Sounds good.

00:06:38 - So, halfway back, halfway through. Yep. There. Yep. And you're basically you're you're trying to keep your right elbow closer to your hip, your right shoulder lower than your left as you go to hit this thing. Okay. At what point should I feel my like is there a point that I should start to feel myself bend backwards or uh when you say bend backwards, what do you mean? I guess uh my shoulder tilt. Yeah, tilt to the right. So for you, you just need to tilt to the right earlier in the down. So

00:07:05 - what you do right now is you tilt to the right. You just don't do it fast enough. So I would say as soon as you start moving the club down, your right shoulder needs to get below your left. Okay,

00:07:17 - good. You might block a couple and hit them out to the right. That's fine. We're not worried about where the face is, right? Okay. But this would be a really good way to help you understand just how the shoulder tilt pattern needs to work. And then when you finish your swing, Lexi, I want you to actually pause when you get to the position of your follow through where your arms are parallel to the ground. And then that way you can check to see where your elbows are and how how flexed or how

00:07:37 - extended your lead arm is. Okay? [Music] Here's where you were before. So, you can see at this same spot in time how your left shoulder is higher than your right shoulder. It almost looks like you're shrugging, right? You're like pulling your shoulders up towards your ears. If you look over here on the right hand side, you see how now this trail shoulder of yours is more externally rotated. Uh your shoulders are now tilted 8° to the right. Again, players at about 12. So, you're super super

00:08:12 - close. You're only 11, you know, you're only what, 4° off, but that was an 11° change from what you were doing before. So, what this has helped you with now, if we look at the follow through again, at the same point in time, this is where you were before. Like, your shoulder tilt number wasn't bad, but you could see how we had a ton of elbow flex. Now, you're actually tilting more to the right, so you're staying in your posture a little bit better, which helps you

00:08:33 - control where you hit the ground. And your left arm is a lot straighter. It's at 22° instead of 32. So, you've lost 10 degrees of flex. And I don't see your elbow popping out. I see the club head first, which is a huge indicator that means you don't you did something really well. So, the the other number I threw up there was that elbow to elbow span. That's the one you were talking about before. You can see how much narrower it is. You're actually an inch closer in

00:08:54this one than you were in that one. So, this movement not only makes it easier for you to eliminate the chicken wing piece in your follow through where your elbow flexes too much, but it also makes it easier for you to keep your elbows closer together. Yeah. I mean, there's such a stark difference between this one and this one. This one, first of all, the elbow's there, which I hate to see. I can see myself shrugging a little. This one just looks so much more

00:09:16 - athletic. I'm sure. Um, then, this is just me assuming here, that in the follow through, if I keep it straighter, can I get more distance on that too, instead of pulling it with the So, so what we were talking about with the shoulder tilt change, right? I was saying tour players change their shoulder tilt by 78° from the position where their left arm's parallel to the ground to when their right arm's parallel to the ground. So that 78° change is a huge component when it comes

00:09:38 - to club head speed. Okay? Like the more you can do that or match that pattern, the faster you can move the club. Where the slowest golfers in the world screw this up is the butt of the club or the top of the grip stops moving. Yeah. And when that stops moving, that slows everything down. The best golfers in the world keep the club or the butt of the club moving towards the target and up in the followrough for a much longer period of time than amateur golfers do. It's

00:10:00 - why they can hit the ball so far when they're hitting a seven iron. Yeah. Okay. So, that rightward tilt pattern, continuing to move that direction. Yeah. Keeping your arm straighter, all those things combined to create more speed. The hard part for you is going to be doing it faster. Yeah. Right. You can do it slow, but as and this is the same thing when you learn anything, any new skill, right? You don't just jump in and, you know, you're learning how to drive a car, you don't immediately jump

00:10:21 - onto the interstate and go 70 mph. You're on like a side street. You're trying to figure it out. It's the same thing for a golf swing, right? So, you need to work a lot on these half swings. Right? Now, as you add speed, what's going to happen is your elbows aren't going to stay as close together. Your elbows aren't going to stay as straight. It's okay when you actually hit a full shot to have some amount of flex in your left arm. The problem you run into is

00:10:42 - you don't tilt to the right fast enough. So you end up flexing your elbow as a way to lift the club up in the air. As you understand how to tilt to the right and how to match that to her average pattern, then you will be able to continue to turn, continue to bend backwards, which you do really well already, and that will keep the club head speed where it should be. She'll actually still be able to hit the ball really far. Okay? It's a common misconception I hear from people all the

00:11:05 - time when they say, "Well, you know, if you're making half swings, it's really easy to do it, but when you add speed, things are going to break down." Well, yes, that's because you haven't learned how to do it yet. As you practice this and as you add speed and add length to your swing, this thought or this metric is something that you would monitor and just continue to work on and make sure that it doesn't change too much. If you are regressing or moving backwards, like

00:11:26 - let's say your shoulder tilt goes back to being too far to the left, well, guess what? We go back to slower swings, teach you how to do that. start to add speed, add length, and just build it up from there. So, um it's it's 100% accurate when people go, "Yeah, it's really hard to do at full speed." I totally understand that, but that's why you learn kind of in the stages that we talk about. Yeah. So, this is one of those things that if I were to try to troubleshoot on my own why I was doing

00:11:47 - this, I would have never ever come to this conclusion. Sure. So, seeing this and also just seeing the effect that it had on my whole swing. Yeah. Is so cool. Yeah. So, just another way that you can use Optimotion, all the different data as a way to make teaching golf really easy. Like, that's I think the biggest misconception about when you're using all this technology is that it makes it super hard and confusing. Actually makes things really simple. Yeah. Um because

00:12:09 - we can look at it, we can go, "Well, here's what this number should be. Here's what you're doing. And here's why it's a problem." Mhm. For sure. Cool. Well, you got something to work on. Definitely. [Music]