How relaxed should the wrist be on a forehand?

[fuzzybabybunny]

Should the wrist be really, really loose on a forehand, as in if you shake your arm your hand should just be flopping around because your wrist is that loose?

My forehand is always very inconsistent, and I think it's because I try to control my wrist and have it at a certain angle at the point of contact. This added complexity with wrist angle and timing mixed with the speed of a forehand swing makes my forehand not repeatable - it's just too many variables to try to dial in and time.

When I look at the following image of proper contact point, I'm thinking "ok, the player is purposefully making sure that his wrist is exactly 145 degrees in relation to his forearm. It's cocked all the way back at 90 degrees at the start of the wrist lag, but by the time he contacts the ball he has purposefully moved his wrist to be 145 degrees from his forearm."

Is this not the right way to be doing wrist control?

Other things I've tried in the past:

- Drive with my wrist. I actually load my wrist back and snap it forward to drive through the ball during my forehand motion. This is completely incorrect, right? Plus opening myself up for injury...

- Lock my wrist into a certain angle (like 145 degrees or whatever) on takeback and contact. Feels very unnatural. Also wrong, right?

- Should I be snapping forward with my elbow to generate spin?

- If the wrist really is very very loose, like floppy-loose, how is it possible to get precise, repeatable racquet head angle to aim the ball?

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Floppy, No. Relaxed, Yes. (Perhaps firmer on the volley). The wrist is relaxed enough so that it extends (bends back) at the start of the Fh forward swing. It is primarily passive -- it is allowed to lay back in order to get the racket head to lag at the start of the forward swing. The grip is also relaxed at that point.

Once the forward swing is underway, I'm not really paying any attention to what the wrist is doing. Not focused on the grip either -- I allow the grip to firm up, naturally (w/o conscious effort), prior to contact.

I do not promote active c0cking of the wrist as you appear to suggest. I allow it to bend. No conscious "snapping" either. Prior to contact, I allow the lagging racquet head to catch up and accelerate into the ball. No thought of snapping. It could be counterproductive to actually focus on the wrist action into contact.

 

[FIRETennis]

If the tightest grip is a 10, then a 3-4 is what you want to aim for.
Snapping of the wrist is a myth.
You want to hit through the ball with internal shoulder rotation and abduction to essentially rotate the elbow from facing down to facing up as fast as possible.
The wrist should already be in position during the take back in order for the racquet to meet the ball at a slight angle (not open as pictured in the photo above).
Watch some super slow motion frame by frame videos of Nadal or Djokovic for good examples of this.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

In case you missed it, there was a "loose wrist" thread started just a few days ago. It might provide more insight. Or it might just serve to confuse. Absorb the feedback above, from @FIRETennis and me, before getting sucked into this other thread:

https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/my-issue-with-the-loose-wrist-obsession-might-help-others.694972/

 

[GuyClinch]

I wouldn't even worry about it. You clearly kind of know the answer - relaxed but not floppy... but its more complicated then that - you do tighten up near contact IMHO.. But here is the thing - you shouldn't really think about that. Think about where you want to hit the ball - what kind of ball flight you want to have and how you want to finish. And then let your unconscious mind work out the details. Don't go down this road of analysis paralysis..

So much of sports depends on the natural motions and anatomy of the human body but yet people tend to think of it like some elaborate dance step where they never get in tune with the beat.

You have to understand that when teaching pros give these kinds of instructions they are going after common problems - not providing logical rules for you to follow. Plenty of people are too tight with their strokes and try to manhandle the ball. So they make videos about being more relaxed. But then if you go around watching all these videos and trying to implement there stuff as logical rules - you end up with too many rules that were not set out in any real careful way in the first place.

Basically if you don't have people telling you that you are play crazy tight - you don't need to implement the super tight wrist "fix".

 

[ZanderGoga]

Should the wrist be really, really loose on a forehand, as in if you shake your arm your hand should just be flopping around because your wrist is that loose?

Pretty much. Don't worry about how loose, though. Just don't tighten it or think about it at all. Think about the rest of your body.

- Drive with my wrist. I actually load my wrist back and snap it forward to drive through the ball during my forehand motion. This is completely incorrect, right?

Yes. Completely incorrect.

- Lock my wrist into a certain angle (like 145 degrees or whatever) on takeback and contact. Feels very unnatural. Also wrong, right?

Sub-optimal, for sure. Though there have been some good forehands hit like this. I wouldn't know how to teach it, though, nor the data on injury, though any time you do things that use tension to counteract the natural movements of the body, you're at greater risk, and this would certainly qualify.

- Should I be snapping forward with my elbow to generate spin?

I don't know what this means, but it's most certainly not something you should be doing.

- If the wrist really is very very loose, like floppy-loose, how is it possible to get precise, repeatable racquet head angle to aim the ball?

Human biology plus the immutable laws of physics. Set your body up the right way, and use the same muscle patterns to power your stroke every time, and the racquet will travel the same path, face angle and all, so long as there's enough friction between your hand and your grip to ensure it. If you have an especially tacky overgrip, you can hit perfectly sound FH's and serves with just a couple fingers on the racquet.

 

[5263]

Should the wrist be really, really loose on a forehand, as in if you shake your arm your hand should just be flopping around because your wrist is that loose?

My forehand is always very inconsistent, and I think it's because I try to control my wrist and have it at a certain angle at the point of contact. This added complexity with wrist angle and timing mixed with the speed of a forehand swing makes my forehand not repeatable - it's just too many variables to try to dial in and time.

When I look at the following image of proper contact point, I'm thinking "ok, the player is purposefully making sure that his wrist is exactly 145 degrees in relation to his forearm. It's cocked all the way back at 90 degrees at the start of the wrist lag, but by the time he contacts the ball he has purposefully moved his wrist to be 145 degrees from his forearm."

Is this not the right way to be doing wrist control?

It is a complex issue that can be made more simple. Being complex makes it hard to answer with loose or firm, but you can simplify it Imo.
The one handed shots are very Momentum and timing dependent. This is what the martial arts deal with in controlling energy or chi force. It is a combination of being loose in the creation of momentum, then to be firmer for a brief moment, when you transfer the energy out to the racket head at the right moment to make shots. This is all further confused in that the wrist has 2 primary positions at contact depending on the type of shot you intend. The wrist can be in a pretty neutral position for contact, having left the drag position to work the ball one way, or left still in the drag position trailing the hand some for contact to work the ball in another way based on shot intent. Hopefully this addresses some of your concerns in a way that makes it a bit more simple by realizing that like the serve, there is more than one approach to Fh contact.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

So... as a follow-up analogy:

Say that I'm doing a one-handed forehand, but I'm holding something heavy instead like a baseball bat. In this case, the weight and inertia of the bat far outstrip any amount of power that my wrist can muster, so if I were swinging a baseball bat, I would just leave my wrist loose and forget about trying to guide the bat into a certain position with my wrist.

In this case I would just be focusing on timing things with my legs, hips, shoulder, etc with my wrist out of the equation.

Is this kind of what I should be doing with a tennis racquet in terms of the wrist? Let the inertia of the swinging racquet guide my passive wrist, rather than have an active wrist trying to guide the racquet?

 

[Dragy]

So... as a follow-up analogy:

Say that I'm doing a one-handed forehand, but I'm holding something heavy instead like a baseball bat. In this case, the weight and inertia of the bat far outstrip any amount of power that my wrist can muster, so if I were swinging a baseball bat, I would just leave my wrist loose and forget about trying to guide the bat into a certain position with my wrist.

In this case I would just be focusing on timing things with my legs, hips, shoulder, etc with my wrist out of the equation.

Is this kind of what I should be doing with a tennis racquet in terms of the wrist? Let the inertia of the swinging racquet guide my passive wrist, rather than have an active wrist trying to guide the racquet?

Good analogy - correct conclusion. Provided your grip is solid enough the thing isn’t dangling and is actually pushed be the hand as long as it laid back - not only pulled as if you held it with 2 fingers.
I like to thing of hand and wrist as a rubber socket. It has some firmness, but it gives way when force applied goes up. So you don’t need to have insecure grip when you just hold in or move slowly (to block the ball, for example). But ramping up swing intensity, increasing rate of acceleration, you better avoid tightening up and actually let your “rubber socket” to be bent and stretched, and then time and guide the release - not muscle towards some desired configuration.

 

[Jay_The_Nomad]

Feel tennis did a great video on this. I think that’s a screenshot of him you’ve posted. As a side note, I actually know which hotel court he was using to film that video!! Unmistakable.

Basically hit it with the maximum amount of looseness that still allows you to retain excellent racquet face control.

If this requires you to be super rigid to get reliable contact, then so bit it. Clean contact is better than excessive racquet head speed that results it shanks.

 

[Tennis_Hands]

Relaxed bordering on floppy. Otherwise you are not transferring the energy from the kinetic chain correctly.

 

[Dragy]

If this requires you to be super rigid to get reliable contact

This is usually a case with those using too light, too unstable frames against their level of competition. Heard it many times - need to grip hard, or the racquet twists and flops... Then you get a solid SW/TW stick, and those contacts which felt like complete shanks start to be solid enough to not care to tighten up.

 

[Jay_The_Nomad]

This is usually a case with those using too light, too unstable frames against their level of competition. Heard it many times - need to grip hard, or the racquet twists and flops... Then you get a solid SW/TW stick, and those contacts which felt like complete shanks start to be solid enough to not care to tighten up.

Yep agreed. You won’t hear anyone using a RF97 talking about floppiness or how loose to have their racquet. The weight (and corresponding wrist pain) demands proper mechanics.

To the OP -I just re-read your post and on reconsideration, it sounds like your still learning the fundamentals of the stroke. I’l actually suggest on learning to lock your wrist in that L-Shaped position (lots of online material on that). Build muscle memory on that first. Once you got that down pat (excuse the pun) then you can gradually loosen up for more racquet head speed. Wrist lag is really a product of being more relaxed through the shot. But you NEED to have the proper L-Shaped position first.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Good analogy - correct conclusion. Provided your grip is solid enough the thing isn’t dangling and is actually pushed be the hand as long as it laid back - not only pulled as if you held it with 2 fingers.
I like to thing of hand and wrist as a rubber socket. It has some firmness, but it gives way when force applied goes up. So you don’t need to have insecure grip when you just hold in or move slowly (to block the ball, for example). But ramping up swing intensity, increasing rate of acceleration, you better avoid tightening up and actually let your “rubber socket” to be bent and stretched, and then time and guide the release - not muscle towards some desired configuration.

Got it. Ok... seems I've been hitting forehands wrong for a couple decades then...

BTW, is this loose wrist thing a modern forehand technique?

When I see old-timers hit, their shots are always very flat, skim the net, really solid flat contact, but I don't feel like I see wrist lag and snap.

 

[Dragy]

When I see old-timers hit, their shots are always very flat, skim the net, really solid flat contact, but I don't feel like I see wrist lag and snap.

Low flat shots don’t require that high RHS, there’s even a limitation after which margin for error shrinks too much. Loose wrist lag-drag-release techniques became dominant in men’s game not more than 15 years ago. Even the basic “butt cap forward” swing with laid back wrist and contact in-front was ultimately accepted as preferred not that long ago. For decades, while some figured out better ways, most players were convinced they should use the racquet as arm extension for more control.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Low flat shots don’t require that high RHS, there’s even a limitation after which margin for error shrinks too much. Loose wrist lag-drag-release techniques became dominant in men’s game not more than 15 years ago. Even the basic “butt cap forward” swing with laid back wrist and contact in-front was ultimately accepted as preferred not that long ago. For decades, while some figured out better ways, most players were convinced they should use the racquet as arm extension for more control.

Haha, this is all kinda blowing my mind right now. I usually use a semi western grip and when I try the continental or eastern grip my balls always go sailing, but now that you mention limiting RHS it makes perfect sense.

Obviously the swing angle should be modified but I also had a similar RHS to my normal semi-western grip, which would account for a large part of why my continental grip shots go wild.

I also feel like if I were to shank a ball very hard with a continental grip with a high RHS, my wrist will explode.