Understanding Your Swing Metrics: Spine Stability Explained
Perfect your golf posture by understanding the pivotal role of spine angle throughout your swing. Our article sheds light on why maintaining the right posture is crucial for your game. With Swing Tune-Up, delve into the intricacies of your swing by exploring spine angles at key phases:
P1 - Address
P4 - Top
P7 - Impact
Spine Stability measures how much your shoulders, hips, and spine moved between key phases of your swing.
The movement is calculated as a percentage of your address height and can be displayed in centimeters (cm), inches (in), or percentages (%) based on your preference (Settings → My Info).
Grading Scheme
Your movement is evaluated against tour pro data and graded as follows:
Excellent – Falls within the top 90% of tour pro data.
Good – Within 1.2x the bounds of Excellent.
Okay – Within 1.5x the bounds of Excellent.
Caution – Outside the Okay bound, indicating excessive movement.
Shoulder
Backswing
Tracks how much your shoulder center moves from the address position to the top of the backswing.
Downswing
Tracks how much your shoulder center moves from the top of the backswing to impact.
Example
If the backswing metric shows “Forward 1.0%, Downward 4.0%”, the center of your shoulder moved 1.0% forward of your height and 4.0% downward during the backswing.
If the downswing metric shows “Backward 2.4%, Upward 1.9%”, the center of your shoulder moved 2.4% backward of your address height (the vertical distance from your nose to your heel) and 1.9% upward at impact.
Hip
Backswing
Tracks how much your hip center moves from the address position to the top of the backswing.
Downswing
Tracks how much your hip center moves from the top of the backswing to impact.
Example
If the backswing shows “Forward 4.9%, Downward 1.6%”, the center point of your hip has shifted 1.0% forward of your height and 2.0% downward during the backswing.
If the downswing metric shows “Backward 1.0%, Upward 0.9%”, the center of your hip moved 1.0% backward of your height and 0.9% upward at impact.
Spine Angle
This section measures how much your spine is leaning relative to the ground at key phases of your swing, measured in degrees (relative to the y-axis).
Address
Tracks your spine angle at the address position.
Top
Tracks your spine angle at the top of the backswing (when the hand reaches its highest point).
Impact
Tracks your spine angle at impact (when the club makes contact with the ball).
Example
If the address metric shows 34°, your spine is tilted 34° towards the horizontal axis at address, with 0° representing a fully upright stance.
If the impact metric shows 42°, your spine is tilted 42° towards the horizontal axis at impact, relative to a fully upright stance (0°).
Spine Angle Delta
This section measures how much your spine angle changes between key swing phases, measured in degrees (relative to the y-axis).
Backswing
Tracks the difference in spine angle from address to the top of the backswing.
Downswing
Tracks the difference in spine angle from the top of the backswing to impact.
Example
If the backswing metric shows -10.3°, your upper body has risen by 10.3° from the address position to the top of the backswing.
If the downswing metric shows 1.9°, you have bent forward by 1.9° from the top of the backswing to impact.
Progress Chart
Swing Tune-Up automatically aggregates metrics calculated from your swing videos to show how you are improving over time! It currently shows the following stats.
Swing Quality - Shows the percentage of swings within the target bound over time.
Histogram with bounds - shows the distribution of each metric with its target bound.