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by: Chris Cooper PT, DPT OCS, CSCS
Have you ever been told that your golf swing comes “over-the-top”? Hopefully not……but most likely if you are an amateur player, this swing characteristic has been part of your game at some point in time. For those of you who have corrected it….good for you and you probably do not have to read the rest of this article. However, for those of you who still struggle with this move I hope you can learn something if you keep reading.
Over-the-top happens at the transition part of your golf swing when you initiate your downswing from the top of your backswing using your upper body rather than your lower body. This results in the club coming over the intended swing plane, leading to an “outside-in” swing path, leading to a pull if your clubface is square and the dreaded “banana-ball” slice if your clubface is open. I would say either way, the resultant shot would be less than desirable—(not straight and not far).
In order to prevent this phenomenon a few things need to occur and a few physical characteristics need to be developed. First of all, you need to have solid swing mechanics instruction from a PGA Golf Professional because if not instructed in proper sequence initially, your body will find all kinds of different ways to inefficiently swing the golf club even if you were physically able to swing the club perfectly. The club is in your hands which are connected to your arms and then your trunk. As a beginner, it is very easy to want to overuse the arms in the golf swing which is not a very powerful or efficient method (as far as energy transfer sequencing) to strike the ball and can lead to overuse injuries in the wrists, elbows and shoulders. It can and usually will also lead to you coming “over-the-top” and being stuck with the results which can be very frustrating in
deed.
Now if you have good instruction, then you need certain physical characteristics to allow for the proper sequencing of movement from the top of the swing to impact. We call this the proper “kinematic sequence” which starts from the ground up. There needs to be a weight shift from your trail leg to the lead leg and that needs to start from the legs and then move through the trunk, into the arms/hands and lastly through the club so that you can most efficiently “crack the whip” at impact.
In order for a good weight shift to occur, you need to have strength in your hips/glutes and core and not just in the robotic front to back plane. Yet most traditional strength training machines and exercises you see people doing in the gym only target this plane. The initiation of the downswing is a lateral movement quickly followed by rotational movement toward the lead leg. So it makes sense in order to strengthen your golf swing movement, we need to strengthen not only in the front to back plane (because we are bent forward) but also in the side to side and rotational planes. Describing all of the possible exercises is beyond the scope of this article but I hope to get you thinking about what you might be doing in the gym or at home currently and consider getting some instruction in what would optimize your functional golf strength in the future.
For that good weight shift to occur we also need to make sure our hips are not only strong but also mobile in rotation. If your body knows (and it does!) that you do not have proper mobility into your lead leg (left leg for righties, right leg for lefties), it will prefer not to want to get weight shifted to it while rotating at a high speed. Thus, you will probably overuse your arms and potentially come over-the-top. Hips need motion in all planes. This is a very crucial point not only for golf but for life. Lack of motion in the hips front to back, side to side, and/or in rotation can lead to all sorts of issues in the golf swing as well as in life. I often see patients in the clinic with lower back pain primarily because the hip/thigh musculature is tight/short often from prolonged sitting at work but also from prolonged unwillingness to get on a regular mobility/stretching routine
to combat it.
Lastly, if you have great strength in the glutes and core, weight shift ability, as well as amazing hip joint mobility in all planes yet you are unable to coordinate a dissociation between the upper and lower bodies, you still will probably come over-the-top. What I mean by this is that when you are at the top of your backswing, you need to be able to create a pelvic rotation toward the target while not moving the trunk. This happens in a fraction of a second but we can test your ability to do this by having you set up in a golf posture with your arms across your chest, then see if you can keep your upper body still while rotating your pelvis left and right. They key is rotating and not sliding in the side to side plane.
If you cannot coordinate this move, again even if all of the other factors have been met including good golf swing instruction, you probably will still create the outside-in swing path from the over-the-top swing fault.
As you can see not coming over-the-top is much more complex than someone saying “don’t come over the top”. There are factors at work here either for or against you. I am including one coordination exercise video and one swing drill video for you to try but I will encourage you to come to learn more on March 31st from 6-7 pm with Tetherow Golf Academy Director of Instruction Mike Lewis. Mike will be giving your more ideas from a golf instruction standpoint and I will be there to discuss the physical limitations and how we can address them. Hope to see you then!
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