We've gotten a ton of traction in the past talking about common fallacies when it comes to hip shoulder separation. It's not that we don't like it. We just don't like how it's often taught.

However, we've recently come to an understanding of hip shoulder separation that we think is going to make a ton of sense for coaches and players.

It all started by thinking about how you open up a pickle jar...

If you got hungry and decided to grab a pickle jar out of your refrigerator, how would you proceed to open the jar? Would you unscrew the lid using your top hand or your bottom hand? If you're like most people, you probably said your top hand. The bottom hand keeps the jar stable and allows the top hand to unscrew the lid. Makes sense, right?

Now let's think through a baseball lens. If the top hand on the jar is our trunk, the bottom hand is our pelvis. If we wanted to open the jar up, we wouldn't try to unscrew the lid with our bottom hand. We'd do it with our top hand. Creating good hip shoulder separation works the same exact way.

We don't want the pelvis to open up the trunk. We want the trunk to open up the pelvis. Creating good counter rotation with the trunk allows our pelvis to reciprocate against it and open slightly into landing. 

The bottom doesn't open the top. The top opens up the bottom. 

If you're currently working with a hitter or pitcher that's struggling to figure out their lower half, switch up your strategy and try attacking the top. You'd be surprised how much it can clean up.

Maybe we should call it "shoulder to hip" separation? 🤔