My Forehands 18/07/11

These are my forehands recorded yesterday.

It is amazing the awareness I have after watching my shots on video. I feel empowered to change the swing completely if I want to although for me it is still my best shot. In this post I'll try to address the commonalities and differences between my forehand and the forehands of the pros.

Before trying to point out what I can do to improve my technique, first it is important that I try to understand what I am really doing when I'm hitting my forehand:

I start my preparation with a unit turn. As I've demonstrated with plenty of videos available here on the blog, this is one of the most important aspects of the forehand technique for every single player to master. The unit turn is quite simple to execute. I've seen a lot of players that had never been coached with a unit turn and players who play every day without a unit turn. They have no clue to how much they can improve their swing if they just learn to prepare like the pros...

Starting from the ready position, notice how as soon as I start reacting to the ball, my whole body starts to turn as a unit. We can see my right foot turning to the right at the same time as my left shoulder and hips turn till 90 degrees to the net. We can call this position the unit turn . Try freezing the video when my shoulders are perpendicular to the net. Where is my racquet and right hand? Go back to the start and freeze again at the same picture:
How much have I moved my right hand or racquet from the ready position till that moment?


Although both my right hand and racquet moved, the important part is that they HAVEN"T MOVED INDEPENDENTLY FROM THE BODY!!!
I can still see my hand very close to my belly button just like I had it on my ready position. We can observe as well two key aspects of the preparation on the forehand; The first is that the left hand hasn't moved independently either from the rest of the body and is still holding the racquet by the throat. The left hand on the racquet helps the execution of the unit turn because it makes the preparation more compact. Last on my unit 1, my left foot turns as well to the right with the rest of the body and it stays on the ground enough time to allow my body turn to create spring power from shoulders and hips. So as I start the unit turn my feet are positioned with an open stance.



As I am studying my forehand I am beginning to observe of a lot of little things that I do that I wasn't aware of.
After that position that we called the unit turn, I initiate the full turn that happens after the shoulders turn perpendicular till the power position.
I start elevating a bit more my left hand. Because my right hand still hasn't gone back or upward yet, the racquet becomes more vertical during this phase of the swing (with just a little bit of a forward tilt). This is the moment that my left foot is already crossing over my right foot as I am moving to the ball.
Until this moment my right hand and elbow hasn't moved independently from the rest of the body. It is quite extraordinary that for 0.37 seconds my right hand did not move from the position where it was on the ready position in relation to my upper body. It counts for 35% of the time until contact is done. That's how important is the unit turn!

Finally as my left hand leaves the racquet, my right hand and right elbow start separating itself with the rest of the torso. However it isn't an total independent take back of the racquet although during this time the right hand and racquet seem to travel faster than other parts of the body. As the racquet continues to move back, the right elbow goes a bit back away from the torso and also seems to go towards my back on my left. As all of this is happening my left arm stretches parallel to the baseline which helps the shoulders to rotate maybe another 15 to 30 degrees more.

By the time that my right foot lands on the ground ready for the power position, my left arm is already on an angle about a 45 degrees to the net and remains fully stretched. At this moment the racquet head finally catches the right hand and for the first time in the swing is positioned behind the right hand. This happens as the right hand slows down and prepares the racquet head for the final acceleration to the ball. I have reached what we call the power position.

The full turn itself accounts for 0.6 seconds which represents 0.57 of the overall swing from the ready position till the contact point. So these are the numbers, if the unit turn accounts for 35% and the full turn, 57% we have already 92% of the swing between ready position and contact point. The remaining 8 per cent accounts for the time between the power position and forward swing till contact.



The most interesting aspect of my preparation is that contrary to what I've observed within the pro game, my right hand doesn't have any upward movement at all! It is quite possible that here relies one key aspect that I may to change on my swing to improve it. But I am not certain as well if I need to change it or if I really want to. I am not concerned with my technique, and I am always trying to find a more efficient way to execute my shots. I have nothing to loose, I love to change, but hey isn't it cool that we all have a special way of hitting our forehands?

In this power position, my body is in the lower position since the ready position. My left knee is much lower than my right knee. As the racquet head gets behind the right hand and starts to accelerate forward the left knee starts pushing up and the left foot turns and points to the net. At this moment the hips are turning faster than the shoulders, but by the time the knee caps are leveled at the same height the shoulder seems to turn faster than the hips. This position where both knees are at the same height coincides with what we call the hitting arm position, where the butt of the racquet points on a straight line to the ball. At this moment we can say that hips and shoulders are parallel, but as soon as the racquet accelerates the last few frames till contact the shoulders rotate much faster than hips and they keep rotating faster throughout the followthrough.




Contact was made more in front on shots 1, 3 and 4 because those shot were hit crosscourt.

At the moment I'm still thinking on the replications of what I've observed with my forehand. From the fact that my right hand has no upward movement in the entire swing I can say that is a shot more compact than all of the pros that I have observed. Of course that doesn't mean it is a more efficient technique. On the contrary it might be giving my swing less power and maybe even less topspin, although I'm not so sure about it. Maybe the upward swing is not the important key aspect of the preparation. Or maybe I don't have upward right hand movement because hand and racquet head start already on a high position...