Finding my strokes after 20 years. Stroke video inside - Page 12

Greg G · 09-01-2012, 12:56 AM

Sorry, been out with a calf strain. Finally felt it was safe to do some light hitting.

Ugh. So hard to break the habit. Today's hit:

http://youtu.be/bqsVf8bOBzU

I decided that I need to just rebuild that section, so tried just short fed balls with (almost) no backswing. Concentrating on keeping a neutral wrist and the stretch shortening cycle. Felt pretty good with nice power, but looking at the video, am still not completely happy. The left hand is still messing it up. lol.

http://youtu.be/ufjgw0GYV08

5263 · 09-01-2012, 06:00 AM

a lot of those look really good.

Power Player · 09-02-2012, 11:09 AM

Greg, I said in the beginning of this trhead that I think your strokes were great.

Here is an article you should read. It contains excellent pieces of advice because it comes from established pros with track records.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...03470774.html#

Limpinhitter · 09-02-2012, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg G

Sorry, been out with a calf strain. Finally felt it was safe to do some light hitting.

Ugh. So hard to break the habit. Today's hit:

http://youtu.be/bqsVf8bOBzU

I decided that I need to just rebuild that section, so tried just short fed balls with (almost) no backswing. Concentrating on keeping a neutral wrist and the stretch shortening cycle. Felt pretty good with nice power, but looking at the video, am still not completely happy. The left hand is still messing it up. lol.

http://youtu.be/ufjgw0GYV08

That backswing is a HUGE improvement. You don't need any more backswing than that. And, with the shorter, lower backswing, your contact point is more out front and your finish is longer and more relaxed. Well done.

Now, when you turn, try to keep the racquet straight up and down rather than tilting it back. Also, your balance looks much better when you hit from a lower, wider base. I know you're guarding a muscle strain, but, just be aware of it for when you recover.

Greg G · 09-02-2012, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Limpinhitter

That backswing is a HUGE improvement. You don't need any more backswing than that. And, with the shorter, lower backswing, your contact point is more out front and your finish is longer and more relaxed. Well done.

Which backswing- both, or the second video? Cos I thought the second one was just a pat the dog exercise

@ Power Player:
Thanks! Nothing radical has been changed, just tinkering with the forehand which has been a problem spot even before the 20 year layoff. I would say the retooling done over the past months has been quite successful actually. It's at the very least a dependable stroke, and I would venture to say it's now a weapon. With the old forehand, I could not hit out for fear of hitting long, and tended to tighten up during a match. Now I can do the opposite and hit out under pressure. Been starting to test it out in match conditions, and it's holding up pretty well. Now if only I could get my serve up to speed to start the points on a more aggressive footing, I could use this forehand to dictate more.

I read the article and watched the video. I do appreciate the advice, and I do take only what I feel improves my game. More importantly, I try to understand the why of it, which makes it easier to implement changes. I find that if there was something wrong, it was because I did not fully grasp the reason for it.

Limpinhitter · 09-02-2012, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg G

Which backswing- both, or the second video? Cos I thought the second one was just a pat the dog exercise

. . .

Both. However, in the second video, your hand is moving back more in a straight line, which I like. But, IMO, you should keep the racquet vertical when taking the hand straight back and the left hand should stay on the throat longer. Keeping the racquet vertical helps preserve that pre-stretch potential that you and Cheetah like to talk about. One thing I noticed in the second video that I didn't like is that you are hitting too many forehands in a neutral stance.

Power Player · 09-02-2012, 04:06 PM

Yeah if you are afraid of hitting long then topspin is definitely going to help.

I swing pretty relaxed but I get a lot of racquet head speed so my problem was finding the right tension so I wasn't swinging too hard and missing shots from over hitting.

The more spin you hit with, the bigger you can hit, and the more powerful you can make your racquet setup.

Cheetah · 09-02-2012, 04:10 PM

yea, what's up with the neutral stance?

Greg G · 09-02-2012, 05:38 PM

Hey I'm going with the calf strain excuse!

Besides I'm at midcourt, I might need to use a neutral stance sometimes!

Limpinhitter · 09-02-2012, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg G

Hey I'm going with the calf strain excuse!

Besides I'm at midcourt, I might need to use a neutral stance sometimes!

Don't buy in to that. Open stance is preferable at midcourt too. You hit neutral stance when you are hitting while moving in and don't have time to load up in an open stance.

Greg G · 09-02-2012, 06:28 PM

Yes, that's what I meant to say

Greg G · 09-14-2012, 11:07 PM

Anyway, took a week off to let the body rest. Felt much better today.

Here's video from today's hit. Front, rear, reverse side views, and inside out forehands. The forehand seems more consistent, but I feel like I am hitting the ball too low over the net. Might be time to restring, the Tour Bite has been on for 2 months already. Still not completely satisfied with the takeback. I think the next step would be better footwork. As always, comments and suggestions are appreciated.

http://youtu.be/Ti9M5_zaN10

Cheetah · 09-15-2012, 01:02 AM

Looks good.

You still have a sizable problem with weight transfer and your energy is not being focused onto the ball at contact as I mentioned before. Your left foot is causing a large percentage of this. I'll explain tomorrow. bed time.

Greg G · 09-15-2012, 01:12 AM

Am I not transferring the weight to the left enough? I may be subconsciously guarding the calf strain. It's almost gone, but there is the occasional twinge. Or is it something else?

Uploading some slow motion vids for better analysis:

From the front:
http://youtu.be/SHWh9ALJcxM

From the side:
http://youtu.be/nopIZjsCwAg

From the back:
http://youtu.be/DWlkuaNWkAI

PS. It felt good to finally hit with no elbow brace, calf brace, etc etc.

Limpinhitter · 09-15-2012, 05:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg G

Am I not transferring the weight to the left enough? I may be subconsciously guarding the calf strain. It's almost gone, but there is the occasional twinge. Or is it something else?

Uploading some slow motion vids for better analysis:

From the front:
http://youtu.be/SHWh9ALJcxM

From the side:
http://youtu.be/nopIZjsCwAg

From the back:
http://youtu.be/DWlkuaNWkAI

PS. It felt good to finally hit with no elbow brace, calf brace, etc etc.

Your shot preparation and stance are way off on all 3. As a result, your balance and contact point are off. Adjustment steps before finishing your set up, and a lower, wider base will help a lot.

Cheetah · 09-15-2012, 12:34 PM

Ok here we go.

Setup:
Your setup and preparation as limp says is way off. When the ball bounces you are still moving back and the racquet is not back. You look rushed all the time.

Pause your video here at 4 secs where the ball bounces.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nopIZ...ature=youtu.be

The racquet is still in front of you, your wrist is c0cked back (which i don't like), you are in a neutral stance and are moving backwards.

At this point you should be already setup with weight loaded on the right leg, the racquet back with neutral wrist, knees bent and left arm extended, body coiled and waiting to strike. None of that is happening here at this point.

Take a look at image A above. You are off balance, Look at the angle of your racquet - your wrist is c0cked back, you are stepping forward with your right foot??

and your hips are not coiled ( which they never are )

Coil:

You are not coiling your hips so your whole swing is done from the shoulders and arm only.
Look at your forehands here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti9M5...ature=youtu.be
There is no torque in your hips. they are pretty much facing the net the whole time. You have a very slight hip turn but definitely not enough. Your hips should be turned more than your legs. Your torso and shoulders should be turned more than your hips. This creates the torque that is unleased.

Left Leg:

You have a habit of actually stepping to the left with your left leg. You should be loading your weight on your right leg and pushing off the right leg.

Look at the forehands here and focus on your left leg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti9M5...ature=youtu.be

You are stepping (not loading) on your right leg and then actively doing a step to the left with your left leg almost like you are loading on your left leg. This shifts your balance and weight far to the left before you make contact. This throws you way off balance.

Look at image B above. A lot of your shots look like this because you are stepping w/ your left leg and it throws you off balance. See where your left arm is? It's dangling out there trying to keep balance. It almost looks like you are going to fall over.
Balance is everything. Gotta fix that.

So when you don't coil, don't load and step to the left like that you are off balance, there is no explosion, and the energy will not be directed to the contact point. Instead of loading and exploding the energy at contact your energy kind of slowly dissipates throughout the whole swing with the focus of the highest point of release being somewhere out in front of you, to the left and above the contact point.

Look at images A, B and C above. The yellow 'x' is where your energy seems to be focused.

Look at Safin in image D. The red 'x' is where his energy is directed and released at. See the difference?

Now with 'focus of energy release' in mind take a look at your fh's starting here. Note the left leg action, the (lack of) hip coil and just the whole 'feeling' of the strokes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti9M5...youtu.be&t=32s

Now, contrast that with these 2 fh's here by Safin. Look how he loads, coils and explodes on the ball. Especially the 2nd one. You can really see the explosion of energy directed at the contact point. He's not even going all out 100%. It's just that all his effort is directed to one point in space. Focused energy. In fact his rhs is about the same as some of your shots. yours is pretty good. It's just that he knows where to put it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYJgy...g-vrec&t=3m06s

So, given the above points, I'd suspect that you can't really hit an effective inside out fh right? And probably all of your shots have the same type of spin every time correct? There's probably no sidespin or reverse sidespin component on your shots I would guess. If you can address some of the above I'll bet that would change.

If you can fix the feet issues that would be a good start.

Greg G · 09-15-2012, 03:57 PM

Wow. Quite a bit to digest there! Did I regress from the video on top of this page?

The setup for the rally was that we were standing on opposite corners exchanging crosscourt forehands, so I suppose a large percentage of shots would be taken with me shifting to the left. Perhaps I should add a cone to which I would recover between shots, so I don't hang out in the corner, making the drill more realistic. Perhaps doing that has formed a bad habit.

Yes, you are spot on that I have an issue with inside out forehands. I do now see the issue of the dissipated energy. Kind of like the serve issue.

Cocked wrist- mea culpa

But really, thanks guys! I would never have spotted these details on my own. As I wrote above, I actually felt I was hitting pretty well. Will work on correcting the issues. Will also include recovery footwork after hitting.

Link for inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npCboVNZO8g

Cheetah · 09-15-2012, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg G

Wow. Quite a bit to digest there! Did I regress from the video on top of this page?

No, you didnt regress. The fh looks much better than before for sure. It's just that you've fixed most of the previously mentioned issues (except takeback and ptd) so now it's time to move on and fix other issues.

What? Did you think your fh was so good that you only had to fix 2-3 things and then it would be perfect?
Who do you think you are? Roger Federer? LeeD?

Greg G · 09-15-2012, 08:08 PM

Lol. I wish

5263 · 09-15-2012, 09:33 PM

You also don't have to manually fix everything.

Much of this will work it's way out if you just relax and hit a lot of balls, since
you are pretty close overall. These guys (and me) can tear apart nearly any Fh,
since few are that perfect really.
Each one of the big 4 on Men's ATP has things I don't care for on their Fhs, lol.

I think you are at a point where you can just hit a bunch for a few weeks and just
see how it feels and flows. That's how I learned the WW Fh, as it just sort of came to
me as I hit a lot of balls.
At least mix some of this in there.

09-01-2012, 06:00 AM	#222
5263 Legend Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 7,371	a lot of those look really good. __________________ ************ MTM Instructor -Pro Supex Big Ace

09-02-2012, 11:09 AM	#223
Power Player G.O.A.T. Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: On my iPhone Posts: 13,551	Greg, I said in the beginning of this trhead that I think your strokes were great. Here is an article you should read. It contains excellent pieces of advice because it comes from established pros with track records. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...03470774.html# __________________ 🐐ing

09-02-2012, 04:06 PM	#227
Power Player G.O.A.T. Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: On my iPhone Posts: 13,551	Yeah if you are afraid of hitting long then topspin is definitely going to help. I swing pretty relaxed but I get a lot of racquet head speed so my problem was finding the right tension so I wasn't swinging too hard and missing shots from over hitting. The more spin you hit with, the bigger you can hit, and the more powerful you can make your racquet setup. __________________ 🐐ing

09-02-2012, 05:38 PM	#229
Greg G Semi-Pro Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 591	Hey I'm going with the calf strain excuse! Besides I'm at midcourt, I might need to use a neutral stance sometimes! Last edited by Greg G : 09-02-2012 at 05:50 PM.

09-15-2012, 01:02 AM	#233
Cheetah Hall Of Fame Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: San Diego Posts: 2,243	Looks good. You still have a sizable problem with weight transfer and your energy is not being focused onto the ball at contact as I mentioned before. Your left foot is causing a large percentage of this. I'll explain tomorrow. bed time. Last edited by Cheetah : 09-15-2012 at 01:08 AM.