Discover the Pro Secret: Disassociation Explained

It’s Thursday and you’ve got this coming,

⛳️ Let's get serious about making a change to your club path.

There are many golfers out there looking to improve their golf swing, and oftentimes they’re trying to make technical changes that their body simply doesn’t allow them to do. We’re talking about how our body moves, and there’s something that is very common in really good golfers, but not as common in average golfers. So, let’s dive into it!

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ONE TIP
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The thing I’m talking about is dissociation, and specifically, are we able to disassociate our upper body from our lower body? For a simple explanation, dissociation in the golf swing means: can we move our upper body independently of our lower body, and vice versa?

When we see PGA Tour golfers on Sunday afternoon having their swings analyzed, announcers often marvel at the ability of these tour players to finish their backswing with their upper body while their lower body has already started changing direction to initiate the downswing. That is called dissociation.

If you struggle with common swing faults like coming over the top or early extension, it’s likely that you don’t have the ability to disassociate your body the way you want to.

There are three main components. I'll give a text breakdown here, but the YouTube video I’ve linked above does a great job providing the visuals. Please note that in these examples, I’m not as worried about how far you can rotate in either direction, but more about whether you can actually disassociate at all.

1. Can you move your upper body without moving your lower body? In golf posture, cross your arms over your shoulders and see if you can rotate your shoulders as if you’re making a backswing and downswing, without your lower body moving. In all these examples, using a mirror will give you the best feedback. Note: this is the easiest one, and I hope most of you can do this.

2. This one is trickier for most. In golf posture, can you keep your upper body still while rotating your hips back and forth, as if you’re making a backswing and downswing? If you don’t want your partner to laugh at you, make sure they’re not around when you do this—LOL! I’m assuming most of you will struggle with this one, and it highlights a real opportunity. Understanding how to rotate and move your lower body independently from your upper body is so important if you want to create an efficient golf swing. Players who can do things like shallow the golf club, maintain their posture, and generate force from the ground up generally have very good control over disassociating their lower body.

3. If you pass number one and number two, I’ll give you the ultimate test with number three: the ability to control your pelvis, specifically tilting your pelvis in an anterior and posterior manner. In simple terms, can you flatten your back and arch your back using only your pelvis, while staying in golf posture? TPI has a great explanation of the importance of pelvis control here.

In summary, I know so many of you want to improve your golf swing, but often there’s a limiting factor hindering you long before you get to the driving range. If we want to control the golf club, we have to understand how to control our body. For many golfers, a key differentiator between good and bad golf swings is the ability to disassociate your upper and lower body, and the ability to control your pelvis.

P.S. If you try these tests—and I encourage all of you to do so—and you struggle, please reply to this email and I’ll send you a couple of exercises that are often recommended by fitness professionals to help you improve your ability to disassociate and gain better control of your pelvis.

Remember, if you want the full breakdown video, you can click here

Hope you enjoy today’s tip, you can let me know what you thought at the bottom of this email!