Set the pathpal to 90 degrees, insert an alignment rod with a pool noodle, and place the device just outside the lead heel. The pool noodle sits at leg height just beyond the heel's lateral boundary — any sway or collapse of the lead leg outward will contact the noodle immediately. The drill cue is "stand up around it" — the lead leg braces and pivots around its own axis rather than sliding into the boundary. Take three to four practice swings feeling the lead side stay inside the noodle, then hit a shot. The 90-degree vertical rod and pool noodle combination is the same configuration Matt uses for the Anti-Early Extension Drill on the trail leg — reinforcing that both drills are paired tools that share the same hardware setup applied to opposite legs.

Lead-side sway occurs when the lead leg and hip slide laterally away from the target during the backswing — the entire left side moves outward rather than the hip rotating around a stable axis. A related fault is lead-side collapse, where the lead knee buckles inward or outward under the weight of the backswing pivot. Both faults destabilize the pivot point that the downswing rotates around. When the lead side isn't a stable brace, the downswing rotation lacks a fixed axis to accelerate against — the body is chasing a moving center rather than rotating around a stable one. The power loss is direct: rotational speed requires a stable axis, and a swaying or collapsing lead side removes that axis at the exact moment the downswing needs to push against it.

"Standing up around it" describes the correct pivot motion when the lead leg is stable — the body rotates around the lead leg's axis rather than sliding through or past it. The imagery of "around" is spatially precise: the golfer's center moves in a circular arc that keeps the lead leg as the fixed point, rather than a lateral arc that carries the center past the lead leg. "Standing up" adds the extension component — the lead leg extends and braces as the downswing fires, pushing up into the ground to create the vertical force that Cody Carter also identifies in his Lead Knee Extension Drill. The pool noodle makes "around" tangible: if the noodle is contacted, the motion was through or into it, not around it.

Indoor simulator bays at facilities like DBL CRS Sim Lounge have defined space constraints — the swing area is bounded, and traditional rigid training aids create collision risk in confined setups. The pool noodle converts the 90-degree rod from a rigid collision barrier into a soft, give-based contact indicator that's appropriate for both indoor and outdoor use. This is the second time Matt uses the pool noodle modification — the first being his Anti-Early Extension Drill on the trail leg — and the consistency of that choice reflects a deliberate design philosophy: barriers should provide feel-based feedback without creating fear or injury risk, especially in an indoor sim environment where students are often newer golfers who benefit most from accessible, low-intimidation feedback tools.

Both drills address lead-side stability during the backswing, but they catch different fault geometries. Cody's 30-degree rod inside the knee catches a rotational collapse — the knee buckling inward toward the body's center. Matt's 90-degree noodle outside the heel catches a lateral sway — the entire lead side sliding outward past the heel boundary. A golfer could fail both drills simultaneously (knee collapses inward while the heel slides outward) or just one. Used together as a paired station — Matt's noodle outside the heel, Cody's rod inside the knee — they create a complete lead-side boundary: the leg cannot sway outward past the heel noodle, and the knee cannot collapse inward past the 30-degree rod. The lead leg is bracketed on both sides, enforcing a stable, pivoting position for the entire backswing.