Shadow swings vs hitting the ball.

[Minion]

I like my racquets, alot. And often I will just take them and swing them around in the house. And I've noticed, that when I do FH shadow swings - it is completely different to how I swing when I play tennis, I mean, they're not even remotely the same.

For example, when I do shadow swings, my arm is straight through 'contact', and the whole motion feels natural to me. I can do this a hundred times, and it will look the same, and feel natural and good.

Then I step onto the court, and I hit this chicken wing, gimpy thing of a FH, that doesn't even remotely feel natural to me. It is like I cannot take a shadow swing onto the court and make it work.

Has anybody else experienced this, or is it just me? I hope it's not just me.

 

[Cyclone]

I think most people have had this experience the issue is that when you get on court there's someone across the net, as well as your own expectations/fears/hopes and the tension of playing for points or even just wondering what your opponent/partner thinks about you, or what the people on the next court think, etc etc etc etc.

Next time you get on court, commit to hitting every ball with a shadow swing, regardless of outcome,and see how it goes. Because the ultimate outcome would be for you to hit your forehand the way that feels natural and good, rather than the survival-based "I'm just going to get this ball in the court period."

 

[Minion]

I think most people have had this experience the issue is that when you get on court there's someone across the net, as well as your own expectations/fears/hopes and the tension of playing for points or even just wondering what your opponent/partner thinks about you, or what the people on the next court think, etc etc etc etc.

Next time you get on court, commit to hitting every ball with a shadow swing, regardless of outcome,and see how it goes. Because the ultimate outcome would be for you to hit your forehand the way that feels natural and good, rather than the survival-based "I'm just going to get this ball in the court period."

Thanks for the reply, that's some good advise there

 

[Curious]

I have experienced the same thing especially with shadow serves. Nice and smooth until the ball comes into play!

 

[xFullCourtTenniSx]

Fooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooootwooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooork.

 

[mbm0912]

I struggle to see a ton of benefit in shadow swings, other than just loosening up and stretching. As far as actual technique goes, a ball will change everything. I think a soft, nerf ball or something, would add some validity to this exercise.

 

[mye0330]

it is what others are saying. you need to get the timing and footwork right for you to hit the ball the way you imagine. unfortunately the only way to do that is in the court with a real ball. you have to judge the bounce correctly, move to the right place, then you can swing. shadow swings are useful but only to a very limited extent. if you timing is off or not in good location to hit then you start adjusting the arms and body to get to the ball.

Sent from my LG-H950 using Tapatalk

 

[onehandbh]

My shadow swing serves in the living room go 130mph.

My serves on the court...

 

[atp2015]

I have tried shadow swings for months with interesting results. Just like OP, the ground strokes could not be reproduced on court. But, it worked very well for serve - all 7 steps(backswing, toss, power position, racket drop, body stretch, hitting up and follow through) of a serve progression. I used a tennis sensor (POP) to measure spin, speed and style - and the shadow stroke always showed very poor score on style even though it felt good to hit. Spin was much higher and speed was about the same in shadow strokes. So I concluded that the shadow strokes don't really work for ground strokes because of the timing and footwork.

 

[rkelley]

Assuming the shadow swing is good, then when you shadow swing (which I think is an excellent exercise), visualize the contact point. Lock your eyes on it during the entire swing. Now when you go out on court, as you see the ball coming at you, try to figure out where the contact point is going to be. Then, like someone else said, perform the shadow swing. That's the goal for this exercise. Not consistency, contact, spin, balance, etc. Just do the swing, even if you miss the ball entirely. Shadow swing in between balls.

Eventually you'll get it. You'll hit some balls with the same form as the shadow swing. You have to learn that new timing and feeling. It will take time.

Taking video of both the shadow swings and the swings with balls will help this process.

 

[Deleted member 23235]

I like my racquets, alot. And often I will just take them and swing them around in the house. And I've noticed, that when I do FH shadow swings - it is completely different to how I swing when I play tennis, I mean, they're not even remotely the same.

For example, when I do shadow swings, my arm is straight through 'contact', and the whole motion feels natural to me. I can do this a hundred times, and it will look the same, and feel natural and good.

Then I step onto the court, and I hit this chicken wing, gimpy thing of a FH, that doesn't even remotely feel natural to me. It is like I cannot take a shadow swing onto the court and make it work.

Has anybody else experienced this, or is it just me? I hope it's not just me.

lol, shadow swings are like singing in the shower or dancing by yourself... it is awesome as long as no one is watching and/or i'm not getting feedback (lol, or there's no music playing).
how do your "shadow swings" look when you just self feed a ball to yourself?
the most humbling is self feeding yourself a bh... you'd be surprised at how awkward it is, even for players at 4.0-4.5

 

[geca]

here is what's happening.

when you shadow swing, there is no ball.... so yeah all is smooth.

your subconscious mind works much faster than your conscious mind....when you swing at a real ball, the subconscious mind knows if the face is too open and you will hit the ball over the back fence, therefore it orders the hand muscles to contract and shut down the face, how all is out of sequence and you get a jerky motion.

flipping the face is the number 1 sin in amateur tennis, bar none.

it's not the foot work, not the lack of confidence blah blah.

only a complete newbie can be completely confident... but once he sees the ball flying over the back fence a couple of times, he turns into one of the thousands of amateur hacks who hit jerky forehands.

how to keep the racket face on the swing plane is the number one key for the fh/bh.. you are supposed to initiate the attack with the leading edge of the racket, so the face will stay on plane.

most amateurs start the attack with the string bed, it would make perfect sense to the amateur, after all, you hit the ball with the strings right?

unfortunately that's not how the fh works.

 

[Cyclone]

here is what's happening.

when you shadow swing, there is no ball.... so yeah all is smooth.

your subconscious mind works much faster than your conscious mind....when you swing at a real ball, the subconscious mind knows if the face is too open and you will hit the ball over the back fence, therefore it orders the hand muscles to contract and shut down the face, how all is out of sequence and you get a jerky motion.

flipping the face is the number 1 sin in amateur tennis, bar none.

it's not the foot work, not the lack of confidence blah blah.

only a complete newbie can be completely confident... but once he sees the ball flying over the back fence a couple of times, he turns into one of the thousands of amateur hacks who hit jerky forehands.

how to keep the racket face on the swing plane is the number one key for the fh/bh.. you are supposed to initiate the attack with the leading edge of the racket, so the face will stay on plane.

most amateurs start the attack with the string bed, it would make perfect sense to the amateur, after all, you hit the ball with the strings right?

unfortunately that's not how the fh works.

That seems like a valid point, though to lump "footwork" and "lack of confidence" into the category of "blah blah" seems more than slightly reductionistic

 

[geca]

That seems like a valid point, though to lump "footwork" and "lack of confidence" into the category of "blah blah" seems more than slightly reductionistic

point taken...

what I am trying to say is -

1) you cannot force the brain to be confident on a flawed motion. the subconscious mind would rather hit a jerky fh than hit it over the back fence.

2) footwork is important, no doubt.... but amateurs too often use it as a cop-out or band aid... they miss a shot, they say well my footwork was bad. Wrong. the number 1 sin is the flipping of the face, bar none.. when you have good face control, you have a very long/wide contact zone, so you can be early/late/out of position and still produce a reasonable result. But when you are flipping, you have to be in that perfect spot with perfect timing to produce good result.

the hand is the king... if it does the right thing the rest of the body will be smooth.

 

[geca]

golf wins hands down on this shadow/real swing thing.

most golfers shadow a few times before the real shot... and all is usually smooth.... until they address the real ball.

during the down swing in that split second the subconscious mind senses that the club face is too open, so the golfer does 1 of these 2 things:

1) stop the smooth body rotation, let the hands take over and flip.. too late he hits a block to the right, too early he hits a hook to the left;

2) change the swing path to outside-in, he hits a massive slice that starts to the left but mad curves to the right.

yeah, the brain is smarter than you realize

 

[tennis_balla]

Fooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooootwooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooork.

Exactly, that's 90+% of the issue right there.

 

[atp2015]

the number 1 sin is the flipping of the face, bar none..

very good point. Lock that wrist away to prevent the flipping of the face....

 

[jm1980]

I have experienced the same thing especially with shadow serves. Nice and smooth until the ball comes into play!

A progression helps. Hit a few shadow serves with no ball. Then a few serves with the ball but against the fence. Then do a couple of shadow swings before actually hitting the ball while facing the court.

It's important (at least initially) not to focus on the end result of the serve going in, but how the service motion feels to you.

 

[jm1980]

your subconscious mind works much faster than your conscious mind....when you swing at a real ball, the subconscious mind knows if the face is too open and you will hit the ball over the back fence, therefore it orders the hand muscles to contract and shut down the face, how all is out of sequence and you get a jerky motion.

flipping the face is the number 1 sin in amateur tennis, bar none.

it's not the foot work, not the lack of confidence blah blah.

I disagree. With proper footwork and enough confidence you should be able to hit a proper forehand. It's precisely the lack of confidence that allows your subconscious to take over and make you hit bad shots; specially if you are result-driven. If you feed these people perfect balls to their strike zone with a ball machine I bet they would be able to hit their forehand.

I had a similar problem stemming from lack of confidence in my forehand that would make me hit loopy and spinny buggy-whip FHs whenever I was slightly out of position. I think I did it because I did not trust my normal forehand (which I could really crack if I were in position). But I subconsciously knew my defensive shot would land in more often than not. It was a confidence issue. And many times the reason why I felt I had to hit that shot in the first place was because of poor footwork.

No way around this but to practice with the ball. First develop the stroke and confidence in being able to hit that when you are properly set (a ball machine helps with this). Then work on the footwork that allows you to be in position to hit your shot.