Drive Through Your Hips

Drive Through Your Hips

 

Throwing a ball, swinging a club or a tennis racket and even punching an opponent revolve around rotational force of the hips as well as forces produced through the ground, rather than solely upper extremity strength.  The order of recruitment of power, particularly with heavy hitters is as follows: the swing is led first by the hips, then the trunk, arms, hands and finally the bat.  The more rotational velocity you can produce with your hips, the greater the force transmitted to the ball.  To improve this hip velocity and ground force, you should practice the movement pattern as well as practice the actual task (specificity of training).  If we learn how to create more force through the ground, this increased force will transmit through our bodies and into our target.  Check out the hip position and trailing foot in these pictures:

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we practice a technique that focuses on hip rotational velocity and explosiveness, we will throw further/faster, hit harder, punch with more force, etc...Here are some simple exercises that will help "groove" the hip rotation motor pattern:  Notice the trailing leg, how the foot pivots, the hip extends, and the 'snap' of the hip rotation/extension.  This creates the force that transmits through the trunk, into the upper extremities, directed toward the goal.  If you do not pivot on your trailing foot, you risk injuring your knee.

 

 

Here, I use a Persian Mil to help train the pivot, hip rotation, and trunk stability, as I thrust the Mil forward. This works the above discussed movement pattern as well as grip strength and shoulder stability.  To challenge the grip even more, I perform this technique using Neurogrips

 

 

 

 Now, I perform the same activity using a longer lever which makes control and stability even more difficult.  This further develops rotational hip velocity, trunk control and coordination of my lower extremities.

 

 

 You can try this out with a wooden dowel to smooth out the movement pattern, and progress to a weighted bar.

 

 

 

 





More on Forearm and Wrist Strength: Pronation and Supination

More on Forearm and Wrist Strength:

Pronation and Supination

 

 

In previous posts I spoke about forearm, wrist and hand grip strengthening in the direction of elbow flexion (Bottoms Up Bicep Curl), wrist flexion and extension, and wrist radial and ulnar deviation both dynamically and statically with the focus on maintaining wrist stability while a resistance is applied at a certain direction.  Today I will discuss training forearm pronation and supination. 

 This photo is of my hand, wrist and forearm in the neutral position holding a dumbbell

 This photo is of my hand moving into the pronated position

 This is a photo of my hand in the supinated position
 

Moving from neutral to pronation and back to neutral holding the weight in this manner is training the supinators

 

        

Moving the weight from neutral to the supinated position and back to neutral is training the pronators 

 To make the above exercises more challenging, just increase the length of the lever you are trying to move (Here I use a Persian Mil) - Neutral Position

Pronated Position

 

 
Supinated Position
 
To add even more of a challenge, add thickness to the handle using Neurogrips.  This will challenge your grip as well as your forearm strength

Neutral Position Using Neurogrips

 

 

Pronated Position Using Neurogrips
 
Supinated Position Using Neurogrips

 And now to challenge your grip and forearm muscle endurance... Maintain a static position of your hand, wrist and forearm while a pronation or supination force is applied:

 Here, the Persian Mil apply a force in the direction of forearm supination and in order to prevent any motion, the pronators must contract isometrically while I perform kneeling rear delt lifts

Here, the Persian Mil apply a force in the direction of forearm pronation and in order to prevent any motion, the supinators must contract isometrically while I perform kneeling rear delt lifts

 

Try the above progressions to further improve your grip strength