According to many golfers, the arms and body move together. The prevalent thought on the downswing is to keep swinging the arms fast enough so that they stay in front of the chest. Is this however the best thinking? Is this what really happens in the swing?
Sequence pictures of an effective swing show that when the arm swing occurs the shoulders and especially the hips have already turned. Because of this, if the arms stayed in front of the chest all the time during the downswing, it would not give you more clubhead speed. In fact, you would have less power.
The reason for this is that there will be no independent arm action and the shoulders would for the most part, carry the arms, rather than the arms adding additional power to the swing. Any time you have more than one action occurring at the same time, the amount of force generated will be equal to only one of the actions that is mainly responsible for the motion.
Understand that the shoulders initiate the bringing of the arms down. As the shoulders are come to a halt, the arms go into action to speed up the club. This is what all good golfers – who have an effective swing – do in the downswing. These golfers all have the same sequence of actions starting with the legs and working up through the hands.
For more information on the body and joint actions that occur during the golf swing see Explosive Golf.