if most of us are swinging at 50% or so perhaps we should be playing with heavier, headlight, racquets.
For the most part, do you guys swing full out, or do you swing casually? I've been told I swing too hard, but I'm positive that most pros swing very hard.
I guess the take-home message here is never hit 100% as fast as you possibly can. Always dial it back. 60 to 75% of your max velocity is all that's needed.
I find that when I do approach 100%, my shots sail long.
Actually I hit as hard as I could but a tad before I lose my form due to speed. I always believe that ultimately sport is a competition of strength so why aren't you giving all your strength if you could?
Because it's inefficient and a waste of energy. :razz: Why would I waste effort on all my strokes, when I get better performance swinging at only 2/3 of full strength.
-Fuji
You mean you can hit at 2.5/3 but you won't? Or your strokes will break down at anything over 2/3?
If it's the latter than you have no choice. 2/3 in effect is your full strength. LOL.
If it's the first, then think about this. If your opponent is near or slightly less than your level and hits and runs a tad harder than you, who's gonna win? Ha
You mean you can hit at 2.5/3 but you won't? Or your strokes will break down at anything over 2/3?
If it's the latter than you have no choice. 2/3 in effect is your full strength. LOL.
I disagree. There is a certain level called "100%" that essentially means consciously making a decision to go for a very low-percentage shot, mustering all of your energy and transferring it into the ball (into spin, speed, what have you).
While your success rate might be minimal, that is still your highest level of shot. When you max out a flat serve at 120 with 1/10 success, that is still your personal best speed-wise, i.e. 100 percent. It is not a measure of the effort that you put in when victorious, but what you are capable of.
To use your scale, any tennis player trying to hit at 3/3 will either shank, net, or hit the fence on the fly most of the time, yourself and myself included.
Let's simplify. Watch atp pros, do you think they hit at their best strength generally through out their match? To me, they do. But for some reason rec players start to give them % like pros only hit 70%, etc.
Good question!
it becomes a matter of how much I'm looking to push my opponent back and go on offence, vs how much I am looking to play more defence. So in short: Yes I do hold back my ground strokes to an acceptable level of "risk."
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My court coverage is pretty darn solid, so speed of my opponent doesn't really come into play either. If my opponent is a "Fast" mover, it just means some good rallies will ensue which I really enjoy.
-Fuji
I only dial down when I'm not confident or when I'm against much lower players, ie just play enough to win, but that's not what we're talking about. That's not true competition or how a match is intended to be played.
Here's the logic: If you are hitting low-percentage shots, and putting everything into each shot throughout the course of a match, and doing so successfully:
1. You're a master of fitness, mental fortitude, have perfectly sound technique, and impeccable movement; teach us your ways!
2. It's not 100% of what you're capable.
Look at the title of this thread.
Match-play situations call for tactics, which isn't quite what the OP was asking about.
Frankly I no longer sure what we're arguing about My point is, with all things equal, for a shot that you can swing all out to take advantage of pace and topspin and put pressure on opponent, why would you swing only at 70%?
Now to suit your argument you introduce "low percentage" stuff or unique situation. Well, threading needle situations require finesse. So strength and swinging hard is meaningless. Like volleying or dropshot!
psv,
Well, I read the OP asking if you swing full out or casually, and my take is that I tend to play almost every shot like I try to win with it. That's my idea of worthwhile, fun tennis (and obviously losing is never fun for me, so no hitting the fence).
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In my experience fluctuating your hitting power seems to do more harm than good. I play my best when I hit with one consistent, strong power. It actually simplifies alot by letting me focus on other things.
psv,
Well, I read the OP asking if you swing full out or casually, and my take is that I tend to play almost every shot like I try to win with it. That's my idea of worthwhile, fun tennis (and obviously losing is never fun for me, so no hitting the fence).
I think this argument gets confusing cuz we all have different ideas of swinging "full out" or try to split hair with the concept. OP certainly didn't define what he meant by "full out". Or maybe he meant just that!
In my experience fluctuating your hitting power seems to do more harm than good. I play my best when I hit with one consistent, strong power. It actually simplifies alot by letting me focus on other things.
Sounds good! I try to do the same.
But I end up hitting the fence way too often
Actually, consistency of any kind is a great start. If you already have that kind of "hit the fence" power, keep the same confidence/feel and just adjust amount of topspin and net clearance. Many players tend to "shrink" as a rally gets longer or at a critical point. I'm learning to do what I call "decisive strokes" and if I need to increase "percentage" at critical points I do it with placement (well inside the lines) and more topspin as opposed to swinging ...less or 70%.
Fintft,
I'm actually against "variety" in term of power and strokes You're messing yourself up by introducing too many unfamiliar elements.
Yes, if you watch Djokovic play, you'll see he clearly has rhs on every shot, especially on defensive, on the run shots. Youtube has some clips of Berdych playing close-up, he plays like he's high on caffeine
Maybe it was fun for him or some sort of obsession, but it surely wasn't successful ...Even Federer started to like the idea...
Maybe it was fun for him or some sort of obsession, but it surely wasn't successful ...
Hey since you mentioned chess, you could see tennis as chess and use chess concepts also. Play with a purpose and arrive at the configurations that favor you. Train yourself to recognize and implement as many configurations as possible.
the occasional drop shot, once every game or two, keeps baseliners unsettled.
I swing hard when it makes sense.
I swing hard when it makes sense.
Timing and technique gives you more power than just swinging hard.
I agree as I've just experienced that last night, when my hand was hurting after a return of serve.
Couldn't swing too hard, or at least it made me swing with no tension whatsoever neither in my grip, nor in my arm and it did wonders, especially since I was forced to hit 1H BH most of the time in those practice rallies...Found my timing, based on feel mainly and on longer swings.
It also reminded me of that poster with his "swing with minimum effort" video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NehyqjhDbsM
What kind of racquet do you use?Resurrection
Anybody feel that they need to concentrate on not swinging too fast? I find that if I don’t purposefully keep the backswing slow and relaxed - making sure I only accelerate towards contact - I have really bad timing. I find I hit better with a slower stroke with slight acceleration before contact.
What kind of racquet do you use?
Unless you are a really big strong guy, it's heavy enough to not let you backswing fast effortlessly. So may be a jerky bad habit of musculing the "fast" backswing. Meanwhile, timely cruising into the backswing to then speed up smoothly through the forward swing shall provide best result. So maybe your case is to concentrate on not swinging too fast - for some time, to build a habitWilson blade 93 - about 12 ounces strung
i have been described as a brute and just try to bash every ball
but thats whats fun in my mind
I think most club players swing too hard.
If you look at the pros youll be surprised how little power they put into their shots, they just hit it clean.
This courtside view of Fed vs Raonic makes you realise theyre not smacking the ball with incredible speed, just precision and control.
Ridicilous, they swing extremely fast on the serve and most groundstrokes when they have time to set up and a good ball to swing at, the reason they are not swinging fully alot is because the ball is so fast and hit away from them that they are rarely setup properly to swing extremely fast and fully.
You should swing extremely fast, but not swing HARD.