Forehand with the lag
- Thread starter jga111
- Start date
ARKustom93
Professional
Pass on the bong ...
I'm nonplussed. What does taking the racket all the way back have to do with lag? Sharapova, for example, takes it all the way back, hits WTA, but definitely lays her wrist back, then relaxes it, and lets it lag as she pulls the butt cap forward. I take "lag" as the natural reliance of the racket to get momentum from the hand/arm. This reliance, or source, means that the racket is always, into the hit, pressing against the palm of the hand.
Sharapova's ATP and laid back wrist and lag are clear in this slo mo video. See, e.g., forehand at 0:45.
I take the WTA forehand to mean one in which the player both takes the racket far back and does not close the racket face. Everybody, WTA or ATP, initiates the forward motion with the UB, lets the upper arm/shoulder roll briefly into ESR, and pulls the racket forward initially butt-cap-first. Or so it seems to me.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
I should have said: there is less room for lag if you take the racquet all the way back with a laid back wrist. I doubt you will still object to that. You can try it yourself. Start the forward swing while the tip of the racquet is almost pointing towards the net or maybe to the side fence the maximum and see the lag and then do as Sharapova does. I think you will notice instantly what I'm trying to explain.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
By the way I watched Sharapova's video after replying to your post. And I don't see even the slightest lag there. It only confirms what I already said before. When we talk about 'the lag' we don't mean taking the head of the racquet all the way back and start the forward swing but rather the hand starting the forward swing while at the same time the head of the racquet going backward for a split second, than catching up with the forward moving wrist towards the contact. I'm too busy to find one at the moment but watch Federer's slo mo forehand side by side with Sharapova's.
No that's when YOU talk about lag. Lag means just that - lag. Your shoulders come through before your arm - that's lag. Your hand comes through before your racquet - lag. Pro men use a relax wrist such that the racquet and arm will hang back - and then come through. But you certainly do not have to hit that way to have lag in your swing. Men get some extra pace and spin because of the SSC in the forearm area.
But you will notice with Sharapova - her shoulders will come through first - and then her arm catches up and then goes past her shoulders.. Think body rotation - then arm..
You'll see the lag if you look for it. The place to observe that there WAS lag is to look at her racket and wrist at and through contact. Her racket goes slightly further back to 90 degrees when she initatiates the swing (for example at 0:01 in the video). Approaching contact the racket clearly catches up... reducing the forearm-to-racket-handle angle significantly, the whip that betrays the lag's existence. The whip of the racket when the hand pulls to the left an instant before contact (for a rightly) is one value of the lag. Another is that the lagged racket's inertia causes the grip to press against the palm, insuring racket stability through the swing to contact, the hand and loose wrist transferring the racket's weight in lag to the large muscles of the forearm....stretching those muscles, the big spring of the forehand.
McLennan's definition of lag suffices in that regard:
"On the forward swing (said again, the forward swing and not the backswing) the hand pulls on the handle, but the racquet head actually delays, lagging behind, then catches up in a whipping motion at impact. Note the lagging racquet head picks up speed at impact, with a short yet somehow loose motion. Not a big backswing, not an enormous follow through, but serious racquet head speed at impact."
http://www.tennisnow.com/News/Featured-News/The-Modern-Forehand-–-the-secret-is-the-Lag.aspx
If you think that lagging the racket MEANS visibly throwing it one way while the grip is being pulled, it's simply a matter of disagreeing on the definition. I don't think it means that. Sharapova, just as an example, lays back the wrist intentionally in her back-swing, achieving the forearm-to-racket angle that a typical ATP player only reaches when he's rotated forward about 45 degrees. That doesn't mean Sharapova's racket isn't lagged, isn't "lagging behind" her hand, pressed against her palm by its inertial. On the contrary, it simply means that she achieves that relationship.
Put another way, first-rate WTA forehands do not give up the benefits of wrist lay-back and racket lag, or of initial upper-body-momentum transfer to the racket via external shoulder rotation at the start of forward motion. What a good WTA-type forehand gives up (vis a vis the so-called ATP form) is compactness of the swing, violence of the lag, and extent of ESR and then of ISR into contact. The elements are all there, simply in less compact and slightly (for most...) less muscular form.
That is my view on the thing. There are others, I'm sure.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
If you don't see the difference between Federer's and Sharapova's forehands in terms of lag, I don't think we need to discuss it any further. Anyone who knows a little about ATP forehand will agree that by the lag we mean the backward movement of the racquet head caused by the sudden forward movement of the wrist at the start of the forward swing. Sharapova doesn't do that at all. She takes the racquet all the way back with a laidback wrist and then all the way forward. Of course the racquet has to eventually catch up towards the contact but that's not the same as what's happening in Federer's forehand.
In the clip you linked she isn't hitting full forehands. In the clip I linked at #53 she is.
You simply disagree about what lag means. You consider the action needed to put the racket into lag in a compressed ATP forehand to BE the lag, rather than a way to force, accelerate, lag. So....we disagree.
I think McLennan's definition suffices.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
It's so simple and obvious but somehow you don't get it or you don't want to accept it. I think I have said and shown enough. The rest is up to you.
GregSV
Semi-Pro
Shadow swinging is the key for me here, and this is how I improved so much. Assuming you're right handed:
[...]
Shadow this - everyday if you're a tennis addict like me
How many swings do you do each day? Curious shadow swinger here who picked shadowing up again recently. Working at catching up the racket with my off hand on the FH and windshield wiper motion on my 1HBH. Right now at 200 shadow swings each stroke... - but daily
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5263
G.O.A.T.
and notice when you snap a towel how you change directions with the hand to accel the towel end.
