Why does my player's hit keep lifting off the ground?

Most often the player is getting underneath the ball, so the flat face of the stick is not travelling through it. Todd Williams suggests pulling the ball position back to where the flat face can drive through the middle of the ball, keeping the head over it, so the ball stays low rather than rising into a dangerous, foulable hit.

Where does power in a hockey hit actually come from?

From a long lever and weight transfer rather than effort. Wind the stick back far enough to engage the wrists, keep the hands together at the top so all the force runs through one pivot point, straighten everything at contact, and let your weight move towards the target with the head over the ball.

How do I coach the hit so players get power without lifting or fouling?

Q: How do I coach the hit so players get power without lifting or fouling?

Coach power as a simple, repeatable swing rather than muscle. Keep the hands together at the top of the grip, load the stick back to engage the wrists, then straighten everything through a flat stick face as the weight moves towards the target. Lifting and fouling usually come from undercutting the ball or a poor ball position, not from a lack of strength, so keep the head over the ball and the flat face driving through it.

Quick answer. Power in the hit comes from a simple, repeatable swing rather than from muscle: hands together at the top of the grip, the stick loaded back to engage the wrists, then everything straightening through a flat stick face as your weight moves towards the target. Lifting and fouling almost always trace back to undercutting the ball or a poor ball position, not to a lack of strength. Keep the head over the ball and the flat face driving through it, and coach the outcome by reading what the ball actually does.

That is the short version, but here is why the coaches on The Hockey Site would tell you not to stop there. A clean, powerful hit is a chain of small things, and most problems live in one link of that chain.

Start with why you are hitting at all. In his Hitting the hockey ball masterclass, Todd Williams makes the point that the hit is coached less than it used to be, because players can now push, slap and sweep so efficiently. It still matters, though, because it is the one weapon that beats a goalkeeper from distance and the pass that reaches a free player when nothing else will get there. Power is not the goal in itself. It is there to serve an outcome, so coach it as a means to an end and the technique tends to follow.

Power comes from a long lever, not from effort. Williams describes winding the stick back far enough to engage the wrists, then straightening everything at the point of contact so the full length of that lever travels through the ball as fast as possible. His detail on the grip is the part coaches often skip: the hands sit together at the top so that all of the force you generate runs through one pivot point into the stick, with a little of the stick showing above the left hand. Players who try to hit harder by swinging with their arms usually lose speed, not gain it.

Let the body deliver the power, not the shoulders. The same masterclass stresses a strong, wide base, weight transferring towards the target, and the head over the ball through contact and follow through. Williams treats the head position as a useful check: if the player is balanced and over the top of the ball, the weight is doing what it should. This is where real power lives, and it is also what keeps the hit low and controlled instead of wild.

Do not ignore the left hand. In Why the left hand matters, Simon Letchford argues that the top hand is the steering hand, and that gripping the stick correctly in the left hand lets every skill be executed better and produce a bigger outcome. He also reads the stick itself, noting that the strength and speed you can generate sit down the face of the stick: the lower the right hand travels, the stronger the position. His warning is that this is heavily under-coached, because top players do it by instinct and everyone else quietly misses it.

Lifting is usually undercutting, not a rules problem. This is the crux of the question. Williams points out that when a hit keeps rising, the common cause is that the player is getting underneath the ball, so the flat face of the stick is not travelling through it. The fix is not to hold back on power. It is to pull the ball position back to where the flat face can drive straight through the middle of the ball, with the head over it, so the ball stays down and true. Coach that flat contact and much of the danger, and the foul risk that comes with a lifted hit, takes care of itself.

Fix ball position before you fix anything else. A poor ball position, Williams says, is the single most common reason for a bad hit. You can have a good grip, a good swing and the right body shape, but if the ball is in the wrong spot, usually too close to the feet, it compromises everything. Get the ball in the right place and the rest of the technique has a chance to work. It is a cheap thing to check and a quick thing to change.

Treat the grip as the hidden engine. In Essential Grip Skills, Adam Falla and Ross Gilham-Jones from Leap Hockey make the case that grip sits underneath power and control, not just neat technique, and that bad habits creep into the fundamentals even at the top level. Their point is that grip is never simply a starting point to move past. Small changes in hand position and rotation change ball flight and whip, so brief, direct grip checks are worth doing with experienced players, not only beginners.

Coach the outcome, and let the ball tell you. Williams returns again and again to a simple idea: the ball does not lie. When a player is inconsistent, do not start by rebuilding their grip or their feet. Ask what the ball did. Did it lift, slice, lack power or miss the target? Then work backwards to the one thing that caused it, and always hit to a target so every repetition gives you feedback. For a reminder that the hit still earns its place in open play, Fede Tanuscio’s Rediscovering the Hit Pass is a good companion.

None of this is a checklist to read out on the pitch. The coaches above give you a way of seeing the hit, so that when a player lifts one or leaks power you can find the link in the chain that broke. Watch the masterclasses in full, borrow the parts that fit your players, and let them work it out with you rather than copy a swing they do not understand.