How Your Set-Up/First Move Affects Your Swing

The past year has certainly provided its fair share of unique challenges and opportunities. For me personally, it was a roller coaster of emotions that left me searching for a silver lining. Following the cancellation of our season at ASU, I was given the opportunity to sit around a private cage for a couple of weeks and observe a few big league guys prepare for the MLB season, what an experience. Compound that with the fact that I had spent the last three months with a brilliant hitting mind (Jeff Harger), I was equipped with the motivation I needed to become a better coach.

The silver lining was I had time, but I needed goals, so I formed two.

My two goals were simple:

1. Eliminate Absolutes
2. Expand My Anatomical Knowledge & Eliminate Ambiguity

The goal of this post isn’t to share where I stand with achieving my goals, but to simply share my findings in hopes that it can help instructors and inevitably help players. This also doesn’t discuss many mechanical topics, just how certain limitations can effect your hitters.

First, understand this, for years we have looked at the swing as a whole in 2D. Meaning, coaches saw Chipper Jones foot finish on his toe and told our players you need to finish on your toe etc. Coaches would look at where the foot would start and where it would finish (skipping everything in between) and form their opinion on what they saw. This created a survival of the fittest environment, if your movement profile didn’t allow you make a move similar to Chipper Jones you were labeled unathletic and they moved on to the next player. I personally have been guilty of this, telling a player to get into a position that I later found she was incapable of achieving.

So let’s talk about how using anatomical information can help players get into better postions to hit and may alter their set-up.

Back Foot Orientation

How we orient our back foot needs to be dependent on how much internal rotation we have available in our hip socket. First understand the role of the hip socket in the body. The hip socket is a ball and socket joint that has a ton of rotational capacity and and can handle extreme amounts of flexion and extension as well as create stability for the pelvis. Simply put your femur (big bone in the thigh) sits a socket (joint capsule), and when rotated the bone inserts deeper into the socket. This rotation takes up all of the space in the socket and create joint stability. If you don’t rotate your femur deeper into the socket you rely on local tissues to support and your body will search for stability and downstream joints will never be stable and could result in loss of power and risk injury.

Let me simplify this as it pertains to the back foot, if your player has a lot of mobility in their rear hip, you should pigeon toe them, this will help them create tension in the rear hip and become stable without a large amount of counterrotation of the hips. If your player lacks mobility in the rear hip, toe them out, this will allow them some counter rotation of the hips and still allow them to create the stability/tension in the rear hip while maintaining the ground. A common flaw I often see with hitters is when they begin to externally rotate the femur they lose foot stability as they invert (roll onto the outstep) their foot due to the discomfort their body feels in the hip socket, these players also typically go to their toe in the forward advance.

A stable rear hip, knee, and ankle will allow the player to create maximum speed from the middle of their body.

First Move

The first move a hitter moves can often be the most important. How you begin to set up the glute/ham and hip socket is vital to how you move out and how well you set-up your window. First, consider the amount of core strength/pelvic stability it takes to properly set up the glute/ham and hip socket from a wide stance without a lateral shift (this could also be weak glute medius). If your player starts with a wide stance and their first move is a lateral shift they most likely will want to narrow their stance due to lack of strength.

Another observation I make when watching a hitter is the knee. Know this, you want to load your hips first during the gather. The joints that get loaded first in movement get loaded maximally during during movement. For example, if your players first move is to lateral shift loading the quad and the knee (you’ll see the knee start to track over the toes), they're going to continue to load the quad and knee throughout the stride phase and often leads to a lower body push and lack of control in the stride phase.

On that thought, understand why the glutes are important. The glutes serve multiple fuctions in the swing and forward advance. First the help stabalize the pelvis during the stride, very important for tempo, timing, and sequence. Second, they assist in extension, the powerful movement that helps you create a little more juice in your swing (Hip Extension).

Pelvis Orientation

Anterior pelvic tilt that is very common in young hitters as they sit at a desk all day in “S” posture and over time it becomes the norm. If your hitter starts in this posture it can be problematic, outside of the injury risk it can lead to an array of issues. Setting the rear hip is pretty much unanimous throughtout hitting circles. What I didnt understand was the impact the pelvis has on setting the hip. If your hitter starts in anterior tilted at the pelvis this alters the position of the femur into a internally rotated position, not allowing the player to externally rotate the femur or set up the pelvis (changes mobility capability). I have seen this with a kid that was assessed(On Base U) and was said to have sufficient IR of rear hip but couldn’t IR the femur due to pelvis. Changed my perspective on what to assess.

This will often lead to the rear leg dumping into IR early and limiting rotation in the middle of the body and leave the hitter struggling to engage the glutes, this also effects my next topic, the spine. Start by addressing the issue and helping the hitter understand what a neutral pelvis is and then what it feels like in their set-up.

Spine Position (Similar to Pelvic Tilt and effected by the pelvis)

Kinetic Chain, Sequence, Bracing.. These are common buzzwords thrown around in cages from coast to coast. Very few however, talk about the spinal position and its roll in allowing energy to be transferred. As explained by Dr. Kelly Starrett “consider the spine as the “chassis” for your pelvis and shoulders to create optimal force”. All hitters should be looking for a neutral spine, meaning, your ribcage is balanced over your pelvis, your ears are aligned with your shoulders and your’e engaging the muscles of your trunk. When you align your spine like this force can travel effectively up the body and out into the barrel, assuming you decelerate correctly. If your hitter is struggling to maintain a neutral spine you need to look at the set-up, do they start with a neutral spine, some hitters can start with some extension and achieve a neutral spine during the gather phase, if that isn’t occuring they will need to address that in the set-up or out of the cage.

Hip Abductor (Glute Medius)

I mentioned this above but wanted to touch on it. If you have players that perform a leg kick or lift their front leg off the ground, you will often see their rear leg collapse or become “knock kneed”. Often times this is due to glute medius (hip abductor) weakness. If the medius can’t support the weight the pelvis tips and the knee will dump under them forcing them out of their hinge and effecting their ability to rotate from the pelvis. This “knee valgus” postion will also effect the spine and ability to hold a back leg load. Something I have done with hitters in the past that struggle with this is add side planks with leg lifts or any other glute medius exercise to their movement prep.

This is just a small portion of the things I have discovered when listening and learning from the best people in the sport. If your hitter is deficient in any of these areas it doesn’t mean they won’t hit, it just simply means they could possibly be more efficient and get into better positions to limit risk of injury. I will say, the better hitters are typically the athletes that have been exposed to general lifting principles (hinge, neutral spine etc), allocate your time wisely.

— BRYCE