Are you “Chicken Winging” during your golf swing?
What is Chicken Winging?
This type of swing fault is extremely common in beginners and older populations. Chicken Wining as defined by the Titleist Performance Institute is, a “loss of extension or breakdown of the golfers lead elbow through the impact of the golf ball.” It is also paramount that the lead arm is straight and that there is adequate width at impact. To see video of Chicken Winging in detail, click below:
http://www.mytpi.com/improve-my-game/swing-characteristics/chicken-winging_v2
If the golfer is having trouble with this swing fault during the down swing, he/she will notice a significant decrease in the ability to develop speed and power. Probably one of the best ways without having video analysis of your swing to determine if you’re chicken winging taking notice that your golf shots are consistently high and weak. This type of swing action will also create excessive force on the outside of the elbow joint. Over time these excessive forces can lead to the development of lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) in your lead elbow.
What causes a chicken wing swing fault?
There are three common reasons that the body chicken wings during the down swing. The first thing you look for is a physical reason.
Many times the golfer has a deficit in the range of motion (flexibility) in the lead side shoulder. If the golfer is unable to rotate the arm around the shoulder due to muscular or joint restrictions it forces the body into a chicken wing pattern to compensate for this lack of mobility.
Second, is the lack of adequate strength in the lead arm?
To figure out if you have mobility or muscular strength issue, I suggest getting evaluated by a Certified Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) Professional. The TPI Professional will evaluate the golfer by performing a physical screen and video swing analysis. The physical screen will use several movement tests to determine what the potential causes of this swing fault are. After the physical evaluation has been completed and it’s been determined that your mobility and strength are sufficient, the third thing that needs evaluating is your downswing sequence. This sequence is evaluated by video analysis.
If during the downswing sequence it’s been determined that your club is traveling from an over-the-top swing fault position this action will cause your body to produce an unnatural swing pattern. The forces that will be applied to the lead arm from this unnatural swing pattern can also cause a chicken wing arm action.
What can you do to eliminate this swing fault action?
Once you have established the root cause of this swing fault action these are some corrective approaches you can take. If you’re chicken winging due to physical restrictions than it will be important to work on myo-fascial restrictions (knots), increasing Lat length (flexibility), scapular stabilization and external rotation of the shoulders.
If it’s determined that it’s an upper-body strength issue I would recommend a variety of corrective and strength generating exercises.
If the video analysis shows that you are performing this swing fault due to improper arm action from an unnatural swing pattern it will likely be caused by poor motor learning skills.
Under these circumstances what is often needed is to re-educate those motor skills. This can be done by working on specific drills that give you the proper sensations and patterning to generate the correct arm swing pattern.
Couple simple strategies to help with the pattern changes are swinging your club with just your left hand, then with just the right hand. This will help you feel what the correct role of each arm is in the downswing.
Here are a couple of great swing exercises to practice from TPI:
http://www.mytpi.com/exercises#lead_arm_only_swings
http://www.mytpi.com/exercises#lead_hip_high_lead_shoulder_low_swings