Hitting Mechanical Faults: Pushy Hands

We want to hit bombs... like nukes! Every time we step up to the plate.

You ever get the feeling when you swing the bat that you just feel smooth. There is no point in your swing that feels as if there is a block that you have to push through before the rest of the swing is smooth?

That is the feeling we strive for and typically is what happens when we figured out the mechanical side of our swing. Once this is figured out, the sky is the limit for bat speed and exit velo... literally, you'll hit rockets!

To get that smooth feeling in our swing, we have to create an efficient swing first. What does that mean? It means that there cannot be a kink in our swing where we are leaking energy, or force, that we create from our feet and bring it with us all the way to the bat. We have to be able to create a whip from our feet to the bat that causes increased bat speed, leading to increased exit velo.

How do we do this? We have to remove all mechanical faults in our swing. Not every one will swing the same, or have the same baseball hitting mechanics. However, there have been specific landmarks in every swing that has been shown to decrease your efficiency. What are these mechanical faults?

First up, pushy hands. 

What Is Pushy Hands?

One baseball hitting mechanical fault that is commonly seen, is pushy hands. What does this look like? Take a picture of yourself right at the time when you make contact of the ball in your swing, if your back elbow is farther away from the pitcher than your hands, you have pushy hands. 

What do we want to see? We want to have your back elbow in front of your hands at contact of the ball.

Why is this important? We are trying to create a whip with your body. If a part of your body is behind the bat at contact, we are not creating that big whip we want. That means we are leaving a little bat speed at the plate. Potentially only giving us warning track power instead of hitting moon shots!

Why Do I Have Pushy Hands?

There can be many factors contributing to having pushy hands. One could be just a hitting mechanical error. You may not know you are doing it, or just misunderstanding what your coach is asking from you. If that is the case, correcting it may be pretty simple once you have identified you have pushy hands. You do some mechanical drill work, and boom, pushy hands gone. 

You may also have limitations in your ability to create elastic energy, think pulling a rubber band back to create tension and then letting it go to use that extra force you created. This would be a performance/strength and conditioning issue. Work with your strength and conditioning coach to build up these performance metrics to watch you become more whippy. 

The other reason you may have pushy hands is just due to a movement/mobility issue you have. A common mobility issue you see with someone that has pushy hands is a lack of Shoulder External Rotation while the elbow is close to your ribs. If you are limited here, you physically will not be able to get your hands behind your elbow at contact, you just do not have the mobility to do it. 

You can do a simple check if you have enough Shoulder External Rotation by standing at home plate, facing a base (1st or 3rd). Keep your elbow on your ribs and rotate your hands towards 2nd base. If you can get your hand pointing past second base, you most likely have enough Shoulder External Rotation. If you do not, you need to work on this. 

What Can I Do to Improve My Pushy Hands?

There are tons of things you can do to decrease your pushy hands and improve your hitting mechanics. The first thing that needs to be done though is to identify if it is a mechanical issue, a performance issue, or a mobility issue. 

If it is a mobility issue, simple mobility work is where you will have to start with. You will have to work at mobility work to improve the range of motion you have at your shoulder. Some times that is all you need to do, but most of the time you will have to continue to build performance (strength and power) through that new range of motion and then start doing hitting mechanical drill work to put it back into your swing. Not to say you cannot work simultaneously on all these.

A simple mobility exercise I like to perform to improve Shoulder External Rotation is the Seated Wall Angel. This really helps drive motor control and really helps you feel how your spine and shoulder blade should line up to be able to create this motion. 

Give this a try and retest to see if you gained any Shoulder External Rotation. After doing this, you should be able to get your hand a little more past second base when performing the mobility test.  

Improve this, and next time you step up to the plate, go yard!

If you are having trouble with improving your shoulder mobility or still having pushy hands, shoot me an email. I would love to help you out!

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