Fed FH; pronates before or after contact ?

[xFullCourtTenniSx]

Originally Posted by paulfreda

hy don't you hold a racquet and turn you forearm CCW and tell us if the face closes or opens.

It is my contention that since Fed's racquet face is very closed in the backswing and still closed at contact, there is no way he can pronate until AFTER contact. Other wise [going closed to more closed] he would drive the ball in to the ground.

It does neither. And BOOM - You're whole thought process is shot dead.

Damn that was fast!

[paulfreda]

Originally Posted by KenC

It may be helpful to the OP to think of pronation not in terms of arm position but in degrees rotated.

.....In the WW FH the amount of pronation measured on degrees will be different based on the grip used. A full western FH will have the palm up at ball contact and then fully pronate 180 degrees to become palm down, as in checking your watch. With a continental grip you don't do much pronation and it is more like 90 degrees. The Eastern grip and Semi-western fall in between.

.......With my SW grip the movement of the arm at the shoulder causes the racquet face to go from having the strings perpendicular to the ground in the ready position, to parallel to the ground at the finish of my backswing, back to perpendicular at contact. My forearm and wrist have nothing to do with that.

KenC ; You make some excellent observations and points here.

1/ I agree that one can pronate thru contact IF one holds a Western grip and hits way out in front. Then the face can be open [just barely with a FWFH grip] at contact and close as one wipes across the ball. But Fed uses a near Eastern grip and hits at his body, not way out in front. He is closed throughout the entire swing.

2/ I do not see how you can claim to go from strings vertical at ready position to strings horizontal [closed] in the backswing without rotating your forearm ?? I just can not see how this is possible. Can you elaborate a bit ?

[paulfreda]

Originally Posted by xFullCourtTenniSx

It does neither. And BOOM - You're whole thought process is shot dead.

Really ??
Actually you are correct under one condition......
If one holds the frame well out in front of the body with arm extended, throat perpendicular to the forearm with the wrist laid back in the extreme.
Then the racquet is like the hand of a clock and can turn CCW or CW without opening or closing the face.

But the way Fed hits the ball is nothing like this as the pics clearly show.

If you were a betting man, I could do quite well with a bet here.
I would even give you 2 to 1 odds that if you ask 10 tennis players my question [see below if you have forgotten] that at least 8 would say it closes.

Question: If one holds a racquet and rotates the forearm CCW, does the stringbed become more open or more closed ??

[xFullCourtTenniSx]

Originally Posted by Bud

I already clarified my statement.

Always good to do it on the first time around though, don't you agree? Then we could have avoided this off topic reassessment of your communication abilities...

Though now that it's over, we can put it aside and deal with other things in our daily lives. (Like food.)

[Bud]

Originally Posted by xFullCourtTenniSx

Always good to do it on the first time around though, don't you agree? Then we could have avoided this off topic reassessment of your communication abilities...

Though now that it's over, we can put it aside and deal with other things in our daily lives. (Like food.)

Kindly place a cork in it, already

[KenC]

Originally Posted by paulfreda

KenC ; You make some excellent observations and points here.

1/ I agree that one can pronate thru contact IF one holds a Western grip and hits way out in front. Then the face can be open [just barely with a FWFH grip] at contact and close as one wipes across the ball. But Fed uses a near Eastern grip and hits at his body, not way out in front. He is closed throughout the entire swing.

2/ I do not see how you can claim to go from strings vertical at ready position to strings horizontal [closed] in the backswing without rotating your forearm ?? I just can not see how this is possible. Can you elaborate a bit ?

I think we really need Tricky to come in here!

1. Technically you can pronate using a continental grip with the WW FH but the amount of rotation would be inferior to the rotation from a full western grip. In the continental your hand is basically in the handshake position and just needs to turn about 90 degrees to be palm down to complete the WW FH. I seem to recall people saying the WW FH works best with a semi-western FH grip. I also think that Federer uses an extreme eastern FH grip (between an eastern and a semi-western) and uses a normal eastern BH grip. Note that he is also very good at hitting the classic FH and may use a normal Eastern grip for that. I am sure he is hitting the ball in front of him, probably in line with his front foot. Unfortunately some of the slo mo footage of Federer hitting isn't of a perfect shot and we have to take that into account. If you think about it, he is playing world class tennis players that are trying to beat him at all costs and are launching missiles at him from all angles. Its amazing that he usually hits them back.

As for the racket face being open or closed on ball impact, I suppose it could be a few degrees open or closed at impact and still make the shot work, assuming that the pronation occurring at impact is imparting topspin on the ball. If it is slightly open I guess the ball would go higher over the net before the topspin brings it down. Closed would drive the ball closer to the net. I never really thought about this as I typically try to keep the racquet perpendicular or maybe a degree or two closed as I strike the ball.

2. Try hold the racquet with a SW FH grip as if you were just about to hit the ball with the racquet face perpendicular to the ground. Now move your arm, from the shoulder to where the racquet would be in a typical backswing. You arm should have gone from being closer to your side to outstretched. You arm just made a pendulum movement and the racket carved out the bottom half of a "C" path during that movement. That causes the racquet head to change from perpendicular to parallel to the ground. As you then swing forward the racquet head naturally returns to its perpendicular state at contact. All that movement is caused by your shoulder muscles moving the racquet in a pendulum swing. Your forearm should be "stiff" or not move during the backswing and the forward swing. Only in the WW FH does the forearm rotate (pronate) as contact is made and through follow through.

[paulfreda]

Originally Posted by KenC

2. Try hold the racquet with a SW FH grip as if you were just about to hit the ball with the racquet face perpendicular to the ground. Now move your arm, from the shoulder to where the racquet would be in a typical backswing. You arm should have gone from being closer to your side to outstretched. You arm just made a pendulum movement and the racket carved out the bottom half of a "C" path during that movement. That causes the racquet head to change from perpendicular to parallel to the ground. As you then swing forward the racquet head naturally returns to its perpendicular state at contact. All that movement is caused by your shoulder muscles moving the racquet in a pendulum swing. Your forearm should be "stiff" or not move during the backswing and the forward swing. Only in the WW FH does the forearm rotate (pronate) as contact is made and through follow through.

Son of a gun. You're right.
The face can open and close without forearm rotation.
Thanks

But my original question still stands.
How can Fed, with a level swing path that finishes well below his shoulder, pronate [closing the face] thru the ball without driving it in to the ground ?
I think he pronates after the hit, but suppinates in to and thru the ball.

Is there no one who agrees with me on this point ??

[WildVolley]

Originally Posted by paulfreda

Pronation IMHO is universally understood to be a counter-clockwise[ CCW ] rotation of the forearm.

Why don't you hold a racquet and turn you forearm CCW and tell us if the face closes or opens.

It is my contention that since Fed's racquet face is very closed in the backswing and still closed at contact, there is no way he can pronate until AFTER contact. Other wise [going closed to more closed] he would drive the ball in to the ground.

I wonder if Tricky or BB or Yandell could comment on my question ?
The expert opinions are what we need here.

This is confusing, but I think you can pronate without changing if the racket is closed or open.

Hold your arm straight in front of you with the racket head pointing up and you looking through the strings. You can supinate (to the right for a right-hander) or pronate (to the left) and the racket stays facing away from you.

When a player swings, the racket is moving through three dimensions and there's more than pronation or supination going on. The shoulder is lifting the racket forward which tends to open the racket face. You can still pronate at the same time (slightly) and hit the ball over the net. Also, the wrist is layed back and becoming less so, allowing the racket face to open some from the closed position.

[paulfreda]

Originally Posted by WildVolley

This is confusing, but I think you can pronate without changing if the racket is closed or open.

Hold your arm straight in front of you with the racket head pointing up and you looking through the strings. You can supinate (to the right for a right-hander) or pronate (to the left) and the racket stays facing away from you.

When a player swings, the racket is moving through three dimensions and there's more than pronation or supination going on. The shoulder is lifting the racket forward which tends to open the racket face. You can still pronate at the same time (slightly) and hit the ball over the net. Also, the wrist is layed back and becoming less so, allowing the racket face to open some from the closed position.

Yes I agree with your 2nd parapgraph as I described the same thing in my post #23.
And as I said there, Fed does not hit that way. He hits much farther back and the frame
is no where near pointing up.

I do not think these other motions of shoulder lifting and wrist layback are as significant as the pronation and suppnation.

I would agree he can pronate [closing the face] thru the ball and still get it over the net.
IF
he were swinging very low to high. That is one way how you clear the net with a strong FW grip.
But he does not swing very much low to high.
His swing plane is nearly horizontal finishing wrapped around well below his shoulder.

I wish someone could justify the contention he pronates before and/or during contact.
I think he pronates after contact to relax the arm and keep the swing natually fluid.

[GuyClinch]

^^^ Hmm? It seems pretty obvious when you look at his swing in slow motion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmhvKafCYsk

At 18 seconds his racquet is pointed down towards the court but by contact at 19 seconds you can see its starting to turn round..

FYB has pointed out that Roger pronates where other pros turn from the shoulder but either way you have to change the swing before contact IMHO.

Pete

[KenC]

Originally Posted by paulfreda

Son of a gun. You're right.
The face can open and close without forearm rotation.
Thanks

But my original question still stands.
How can Fed, with a level swing path that finishes well below his shoulder, pronate [closing the face] thru the ball without driving it in to the ground ?
I think he pronates after the hit, but suppinates in to and thru the ball.

Is there no one who agrees with me on this point ??

In this classic slo mo video we are studying, I really think he is hitting a ball that is coming really fast at him and he really wants to hit a down the line. To me it seems he is a little late with his swing as his wrist did not fully straighten out. Therefore, studying this video we have to take it with a grain of salt that it may not be the perfect example. That being said:

It seems to me that he is using an extreme eastern grip, or the V of his hand is resting on the ridge between bevels 2 and 3. When he struck the ball the racquet face was pretty much neutral or closed maybe a degree or two. If we use the same grip we see that the inside of our forearm is naturally up at contact and closed at the end of follow through. Also our palm would be mostly up in the beginning and down at the end. To further clarify, the grip he is using in that video naturally causes the palm to be up, and his forearm to be up, so he doesn't need to supinate (as a verb) in any way. He turns his palm from up to down, and his forearm from inside to outside, during the swing, so he pronates during the swing.

I think you you should think of pronate and supinate as verbs that describe an action, and pronation and supination as nouns, not adjectives. You seem to still be thinking of them in terms of position, which is leading you to confusion. Pronation is just the rotation of your forearm from palm up to palm down. It is the rotation that is key here. Supination is just the rotation of the forearm from palm down to palm up.

[tricky]

Okay, so here's how wiping action works.

Try this experiment. When you initiate your forward swing, try to "force" your thumb to be completely parallel with your forearm through the entire forward swing. See what happens. If you know different kinds of FHs, try each one with this forced position. See what happens.

What happens is that your racquet face will always close well before you reach your normal contact point. If it's a closed stanced FH, the racquet face closes a little bit. If it's an over-the-shoulder finish, you'll see close to a 45 degree slant. If it's WW FH, you might frame the shot. In addition, you'll see that your wrist does not lay back much, if at all.

What the experiment does is repress your wrist/hands from ulnar flexion. Ulnar flexion is what keep the racquet face open while the forearm pronates during the forward swing. But not just pronation. The act of swinging across your body at anything but a perfect horizontal angle would also close the racquet face without radial deviation.

Ulnar flexion is also what causes wiping action. Or, you can put it this way, the radial deviation counteracts pronation and other motions from closing the racquet face. The more pronation (and "other stuff" there is, the more ulnar flexion is needed to keep the racquet face. As a result, the more wiping action you get. As a result, we can say that pronation increases wiping action, without necessarily closing the racquet face.

Moreover, ulnar flexion doesn't necessarily prevent the racquet face from maintaining a true 90 degrees angle with the ground. The total "arc" or "freedom" with radial deviation is dependent on the laid-back position of the wrist. The more laid-back, the radial deviation is allowed. Moreover, the more likely the racquet face will stay perfectly open. However, if a forward swing has enormous amounts of pronation, then the laid-back position of the wrist will significantly change. This is due to bone structure. You can verify this by laying back your wrist and then turning your forearm counterclockwise. You will find that, though your wrist is still laid back, the laid-back position becomes more neutral as you turn your forearm. Because Federer has so much pronation occurring and because he uses an Eastern grip (which puts the forearm in a more pronated position than, say, a Hawaiian grip), his racquet face does not have a 90 degrees angle at contact. In fact, if you were to experiment with your WW FH and use a continental grip, you will also find it difficult to maintain a perfect 90 degrees angle. Whereas if you use a strong Western grip, where the forearm starts at a more supinated position (thereby allowing the wrist more room to lay back), you will get a more square angle.

For the most part, there's nothing intentional done by Federer. It's just a reflection of how much wiping action he has in his stroke, and that he uses a fairly conservative grip.

[paulfreda]

Could you define these terms for us ...
ulnar flexion
radial deviation

There are 4 wrist movements as I recall.

And the different kinds of FH ??

Thanks