I just read your post and didn't catch that 5 to 10 degree thing . . . . My question is where? On the backstroke? Downstroke? Another thing would be what plane angle are we talking about?
First let me clarify my definite student status on this. But this is my understanding.
The 5 to 10 degrees refers to the downswing. What is being referred to is that when the forces created against the ground at the beginning of the downswing cause the hips to start turning back they actually only need to turn a few degrees to begin the kinetic link. They will then stop, and even counter torque - ie reverse direction momentarily - which will pass the momentum created up to the torso. This force is transferred through the stretch created along the muscles of the torso from the left hip (rh golfers) to the right shoulder. These muscles stretch and then fire (this is a short stretch cycle) creating rotational speed in the torso and shoulders.
Some things that have helped my to understand this:
Think of Short Stretch Cycles in regard to jumping as high as you can. First you dip down a few inches and then explode upward. This is a SSC. If you drop and pause you lose that energy. If you drop down as low as your flexibility will allow you wont jump nearly as high. Yet in much golf instruction I see pausing and going close to or even to your max flexibility. Biomechanically these don't create the best conditions to create maximum speed in balance.
The ground forces can easily be understood if you stand on a chair that turns and try and swing a club. These forces are what actually drives your hips around. They are the equal and opposite reaction. Similarly if you move this principle up the chain the equal and opposite reaction when you slow your hips after they've moved back at the start of the downswing will be for your torso to rotate (because your feet are still gripping the ground so the force cannot go that way. Similarly when you slow your shoulders (as Bio says, as they come back into alignment with your hips) that momentum will be passed through your shoulder joint into your arms. Finally your arms will slow through the impact zone and all that energy will be released into the clubshaft which will accelarate massively.
None of these things can be controlled consciously. Try and throw a ball consciously, maybe by consciously managing how and when your hips turn back on the downswing. I bet you don't throw it that well. But there are exercises we can do to improve these actions. In my case some of them are very golf like involving a club and impact bag. But they are never an actual golf swing and I have to be told time and again not to try and "do" these exercises at the course! )
I am writing as an interested amateur. Bio is the expert. But perhaps coming from an amateur as opposed to a technical background I can make this stuff a little more comprehensible to the other amateurs out there!
)
Threaded Mode
