Reintroducing the Frontal Plane to the Golf Swing

This week, I want to focus on an essential yet often overlooked aspect of the golf swing: re-integrating the frontal plane, or side-to-side motion. Even for those who exercise regularly, side-to-side movements are rarely a priority in training routines.

Take a moment to think about your last workout—how often did you shift or move side to side? Likely, the majority of your training occurred in the sagittal plane, focusing on movements like squats, bench presses, bicep curls, or deadlifts—primarily involving flexion and extension directly in front of you.

While these exercises are valuable, the game of golf demands something different. Golf is dominated by side-to-side and rotational movements, yet we spend so much of our time training and living in the sagittal plane (think sitting, standing, or forward-focused exercises). Let’s dive into practical ways to bring the frontal plane back into focus and improve your golf performance

Defining planes of motion

We typically think of motion as being segregated into one of three planes. The sagittal, the frontal, and the transverse planes. The sagittal plane houses motions of flexion and extension in front and behind us, like the action of the knees in a squat. The frontal plane is home to motions to the sides of us and side to side shifting, like raising your arm out sideways. The transverse panes define rotation, like twisting your palm towards the ceiling, and then back down towards the ground.

The frontal plane in the golf swing

As I mentioned, most of our daily life and exercise is taking place in the sagittal plane. That being said, it is the frontal plane and transverse planes that are especially important for the golf swing. Now, the sagittal plane still offers critical force creating movements for the golf swing that we must maximize if we want to hit the ball as far as possible. But, we cannot neglect the other planes of motions if we are to play our best golf, pain free.

Shifting in the golf swing vs. sliding and swaying

The key frontal plane action in the golf swing is the weight shift. As we load into the backswing, we need to shift our weight into the back leg before we lead the downswing with a forward weight shift. The lateral or side-to-side shifting that is taking place does not make itself especially obvious. In fact, we want to make sure that there is not too much shifting occurring in this plane. When we see this, we call it sliding or swaying. The key differences here is that we want to maximally shift into each side without allowing for the pelvis and hips to drop and create excessive movement. We can move maximal weight and force side to side without allowing movement, meaning we need to be strong and have the motor control to create and except force laterally without letting it change our joint angles excessively.

This is another reason to emphasize training in this plane. We need to be strong enough to produce and accept high forces in this direction without compensating (slide and sway). The more force we can produce in this way, the more speed we can create without creating opportunity for pain and injury.

What does training the sagittal plane look like for golfers?

Mobility

To start, let’s look at addressing some mobility aspects in this plane. To do this, we can start by unlocking the hip and pelvis with glute max and adductor (groin muscles) isolation exercises. These drills force us to use specific muscles that act on the pelvis and hip to create adduction or abduction (frontal plane movements) without allowing for other compensatory muscles to take over, helping to improve range of motion as well as motor control over that motion.

Strength

Next, let’s look to create strength into this plane with a classic, the Cossack Squat.

This version of a squat forces us to shift and accept load side to side, challenging our mobility and strength in this plane.

Power and speed

To integrate power and speed into this plane in the gym and clinic, we can use drills like the step to kettlebell swing, med ball throw, and side-to-side kettlebell swing, among many others!

Integrating the swing

We MUST be able to translate these mobility, strength, and power characteristics to the swing. To help this process, we can encourage you to use the frontal plane with swing drills. Try these drills for 5-10 swings, then go back to your normal range session.

1. Load Lead Leg

This drill helps feel a forward weight shift and get comfortable with it throughout the swing. Although we want to shift weight backwards first before shifting forward, we can emphasize the feeling of a forward weight shift by starting here, loading here, and following through here. Then, when we return to our normal practice, we can think about getting to this sensation at the end of the swing.

2. Lift Lead Heal

This is a great drill for creating a backwards weight shift that we can translate into an aggressive forward weight shift. Again, try this for 5-10 swings before returning to your normal practice session and look to feel the same sensation.

Conclusion

Reintroducing the frontal plane could be one of the most impactful changes for your golf game. Neglecting to train in this plane limits opportunities to develop strength, speed, and power in a critically important range of motion.

By focusing on the frontal plane, we can help prevent injuries, boost clubhead speed, and address negative swing characteristics like slide and sway. Simply assessing and training in this range of motion can make a world of difference.

If you’d like a deeper understanding of your mobility, strength, and power in the frontal plane, reach out! I’d be happy to explore what you might be missing and how we can optimize your performance.

-Dr. Nick DC, MS, TPI, CSCS

If you would like to learn more about your body, pain, and performance, send Dr. Nick an email at contact@integratedrpc.com or call at (585)478-4379, or schedule a FREE discovery visit at Contact.

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P.S. if you have mobility deficits, joint restrictions, pain, or injury that is limiting or holding you back in golf and fitness, consider how regional interdependence is at play and impacting your ability to recover, create swing faults, and lead to continued pain and injury.