Forehand Help

tennis doggo

tennis doggo

New User
NTRP 4.0 player
Ever since I torn my left elbow ligaments and came back to tennis, my forehand hasn't felt the same...
so I would like to rebuild my forehand from 0. What can I do to improve my forehand?

 
Funbun

Funbun

Professional
Two things I'm noticing:

You're choking up on the racquet handle. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, you will find more power and leverage if you grip further down, with your pinky right above the slight bump of the handle.

Your left elbow is too close to your body. You will get easier natural power if you keep your arm extended and fluid throughout the entire swing. (If this is difficult due to your prior injury, then I totally understand.)

Keep up the good work!
 
ballmachineguy

ballmachineguy

Hall of Fame
Why do people insist on taking racquet back, pausing, waiting for the ball and then swinging? Why not just start from that post-takeback spot, if you aren’t going to take advantage of the momentum provided by the drop?
Oh, and fire Coach Viet! Instead of trying to trick you into hitting better by making you follow through, how about he teaches you to hit correctly that will cause you to follow through?

EDIT:
Upon further review, where you take the racquet back and wait, you are keeping your elbow up and still in good position to come forward to contact. Since you were hitting hard and flat, I didn’t see your elbow drop on the way to the ball and assumed it had already happened on the takeback before the pause. You didn’t deserve my criticism. You are actually very close to having Nishioki’s forehand. Keep it up!
 
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Funbun

Funbun

Professional
LeeD said:
You're jerking at the ball, trying for improved racket head speed without early prep work...getting racket back sooner.
And bent elbow loses power, and can lead to running elbow.
Click to expand...
I actually think the prep and racquet takeback timing is fine, save for a few balls where the footwork clearly wasn't there, or follow-throughs on the left side.

Rather, just a bigger takeback loop at the same speed would help a lot with generating easy, consistent power.

It's a fine forehand!
 
C

coolvinny

Rookie
Biggest issue is lack of space…hitting elbow is way too close to body. Not sure if because OP had elbow injury and is trying to guard it? Anyway, increasing the space will address other issues like lack of extension and will allow to hit more out front. Current contact point is too far back.
 
tennis doggo

tennis doggo

New User
Thank you so much everybody. :notworthy:
Clearly the biggest issue is the spacing and the ball being too close to my body.
I'll try to focus more on keeping contact point forward and work on better footwork for spacing.

If there is specific training focusing on such, pls let me know.

I will try to show the improved forehand hopefully in a few months:laughing:
 
J

jga111

Hall of Fame
With the greatest respect, I literally just clicked on the video before reading anything from your post.

I notice two things straight away. First, your prep was quite late. But more importantly I could almost feel how tight you were holding the racket. Then I noticed another thing - how high up the handle bar you were holding it. Fair enough I guess, but only means more effort required on the swing.

So I’ve seen red flags for an injury , in particular golfers elbow.

Then i read your post and saw that you’re recovering from injury. I don’t know if this is why you’re playing like this - but either way, this is going to make things worse.

My biggest advice first and foremost, is to loosen your grip more, relax. Maybe hold it lower the handle bar for more whippier lighter swing too.

Cheers
 
user92626

user92626

G.O.A.T.
tennis doggo said:
NTRP 4.0 player
Ever since I torn my left elbow ligaments and came back to tennis, my forehand hasn't felt the same...
so I would like to rebuild my forehand from 0. What can I do to improve my forehand?

Click to expand...
I think your FH is pretty good, and your coach seems very good, knowledgeable as to have gotten you there.

You got a few fundamental things down cold, solid. (y) As recreational players we really can't ask for perfection.
 
tennis doggo

tennis doggo

New User
user92626 said:
I think your FH is pretty good, and your coach seems very good, knowledgeable as to have gotten you there.

You got a few fundamental things down cold, solid. (y) As recreational players we really can't ask for perfection.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much. Your words gives me confidence.
My coach has been teaching me since day 1 of my tennis journey started in 2016.
I have found him on craigslist and so far it has been the best thing I have found on the internet lol


jga111 said:
With the greatest respect, I literally just clicked on the video before reading anything from your post.

I notice two things straight away. First, your prep was quite late. But more importantly I could almost feel how tight you were holding the racket. Then I noticed another thing - how high up the handle bar you were holding it. Fair enough I guess, but only means more effort required on the swing.

So I’ve seen red flags for an injury , in particular golfers elbow.

Then i read your post and saw that you’re recovering from injury. I don’t know if this is why you’re playing like this - but either way, this is going to make things worse.

My biggest advice first and foremost, is to loosen your grip more, relax. Maybe hold it lower the handle bar for more whippier lighter swing too.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Now you have mentioned it, I can see how tight i'm holding the racket in the video.
I remember before the injury I was practicing how loose I could hold the racket for the FH.
I'll try to relax more for the next practice.

I like holding racket short for the volley and I was focusing on my doubles game recently so that maybe where I developed that habit...
 
M

mac-1210

Rookie
Interesting how far up the grip you hold your racket. From day one and no instruction, I always felt most comfortable holding the racket at the very bottom of the grip and today I think I'd really struggle to go higher.
 
C

Chas Tennis

G.O.A.T.
tennis doggo said:
NTRP 4.0 player
Ever since I torn my left elbow ligaments and came back to tennis, my forehand hasn't felt the same...
so I would like to rebuild my forehand from 0. What can I do to improve my forehand?

Click to expand...
Your injury makes you a special case. Using upper most body turn may increase the stresses on your injured elbow.

Below compares your technique in your video to the ATP pro technique in just one very important regard, separation.

A large power source for the forehand is separation. I've posted on forehand separation many times. Basically, the line between the two shoulders turns back farther than the line between the two hips and there's more.........(search). This allows abdominal muscles to lengthen and be used in the forward swing and also these abdominal muscles may be stretched and used in stretch shorten cycles. You don't do much separation. I looked at only one forehand.

Forum search: forehand separation trunk
Member: Chas Tennis

Google: forehand separation Chas
Google: forehand separation ITF

Separation was recognized around 2000, when biomechanics took a big jump in tennis, and there are ITF presentations and references that discuss it. Awareness of separation as a distinct biomechanical feature of tennis strokes seems to have declined in the last 20 years, outside of the ATP and WTA. ? Djokovic and Swiatek are great examples of separation. You can see it on TV broadcasts, especially the high camera views.

See if you can spot Swiatek's separation?

Comparing your strokes to ATP strokes - high speed video frame-by-frame & side-by-side is the best source of information available. Instructions.

Video Comparisons of Your Strokes to Pros, Single Frame on Forum

Copy the instructions below with videos or substitute other videos, especially compilations & model players, and insert your stroke video. You can copy the entire post below but the videos do not copy & paste. Copy and paste each video by clicking on the video and "Copy URL" or Copy URL at...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com tt.tennis-warehouse.com

Find leftie ATP forehands and post their videos above or below yours and you will see the same differences that I see. Start with F. Lopez. The more similar the camera angles are, the more accurate the stroke comparisons are.
 
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T

TropicalFruit

New User
It looks like your kinetic chain is broken because you pre-rotate your forearm during your forehand preparation. This is causing all the downstream problems people in this thread are referring to:

1. Your elbow is tucked in too close
2. You can't extend through your shot
3. You're jerking the ball instead of fluid

If you attempt to fix these without fixing your pre-rotated forearm, for...

1. Your stroke will feel extremely weak and uncontrollable.
2. You'll hit the ball down into the ground before the net.
3. You'll end up staying sideways and neglecting the hips and abs completely.

Here are two great articles and a great video that address this and related issues:
faulttoleranttennis.com

Forehand Wrist Lag Demystified - Myths vs Reality

Many bad cues originate from watching the pros; to the untrained eye, it looks like Rafael Nadal is turning his racket over through contact, even though he isn’t. As we watch on TV, there are two fundamental information barriers that routinely lead to bad coaching cues
faulttoleranttennis.com
faulttoleranttennis.com

1 Trick to Stop Missing Forehands Out

Almost every tour player prepares for their waist height forehand with their strings down, often with their palm down as well. Some even begin with the hitting face of their racket pointing behind them. Why?...Continue reading
faulttoleranttennis.com
 
Nostradamus

Nostradamus

Bionic Poster
I have a forehand swing path similar to JJ Wolf, which is smaller simpler loop then step into the ball... Now a pro at my local club saw me hitting and said,,,, you know you hardly have any loop on your forehand, and you should add more bigger higher loop so you can increase the racket head speed even more....... Well so i added more bigger loop on the back swing and it's completely messed up my forehand which was my 2nd best shot. This pro is an idiot, why do you really need a big loop on the backswing anyway ??

This is what my swing normally look like, see JJ Wolf hitting his forehands with smaller more compact loop, that's the technique i use




and this is what the local pro is trying to get me to which is bigger higher loop which i just can't do no matter how hard i try
 
P

Pumpkin

Professional
Unit turn is good. Hips rotate nicely into the stroke. The problem is the shoulders come with the hips as you swing into the shot. This means you have to jerk at the ball to create power and you fall to the right during follow thru.

Simply keep rotating the hips as you already do but make the shoulders lag behind and finally come whipping thru at the last second.

May take some practice to change the muscle memory.
 
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