Unmyth Of The Wrist Snap

JohnYandell

Hall of Fame
bhupaes,

If you read my detailed post above, think you'll see that I acknowledge--as does anyone who looks closely at video of good serves--that the wrist is moving on the upward swing. Whether it's conscious contraction is debatable and that's discussed in Brian's great post.

The whole point I want to make is about the "snap the wrist forward" (past neutral) teaching cue. And that is still commonly taught, talked about as the truth by commentators, and demonstrated in one minute tv clinics.

Doesn't happen and my personal opinion is that it usually does harm to try to break the wrist because it reduces or stops or eliminates the critical racket and arm rotation.

To say it one more time, I think it's about the positions in the motion. How you get to them though is something else. Theoretically the opposite of the truth could work for some people. But an accurate image of the motion itself is a good place to start. If the idea of breaking your wrist causes you to make the same arm positions as Roddick or any good server before and at and after contact--go for it! Not my experience though in filming a few hundred lower level players with problems in their serves.
 
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GuyClinch

Legend
Now my serve isn't that good and I can't say I think about wrist snap when I do it. However if someone says "snap your wrist more" (which you hear all the time) I'd swear I can do it. In fact you can hit a better then dink serve holding your arm up and using all wrist..

Like the "unscrew the lightbulb" demo that is done on tennis one. It's funny because every pro I have ever had talks about the wrist snap. Then again maybe I haven't had enough good pros..

Since I don't have like a good serve myself I can't really comment one way or the other. However I always suspected that when you get good at serving you just don't have to think about using your wrist muscles thus people call it a myth...
 

Puma

Rookie
I'm hurt nobody commented on this piece of video!

http://www.tennisplayer.net/public/high_speed_archive/pro_men/andy_roddick_v1/index.html

But seriously, here is a high speed Roddick clip that shows how the racket stays netural right on out into the followthrough. No doubt there is "flexion" in the upward swing, and in this case it might actually still be going on at the contact.

My point is that if you want to call that wrist snap go for it. BUT look a few frames after contact and see how the wrist is perfectly in line with the arm. Most of the motion is the continuation of the left to right racket and arm rotation.

The "wave bye bye" thing or maybe we should call it "wrist break" rather than snap--that's the part that's not happening and why the demonstrations like those on the Tennis Channel one minute tip may be counterproductive.


Thanks for the video. I have no doubt now for sure.
 

bhupaes

Professional
bhupaes,

If you read my detailed post above, think you'll see that I acknowledge--as does anyone who looks closely at video of good serves--that the wrist is moving on the upward swing. Whether it's conscious contraction is debatable and that's discussed in Brian's great post.

The whole point I want to make is about the "snap the wrist forward" (past neutral) teaching cue. And that is still commonly taught, talked about as the truth by commentators, and demonstrated in one minute tv clinics.

Doesn't happen and my personal opinion is that it usually does harm to try to break the wrist because it reduces or stops or eliminates the critical racket and arm rotation.

To say it one more time, I think it's about the positions in the motion. How you get to them though is something else. Theoretically the opposite of the truth could work for some people. But an accurate image of the motion itself is a good place to start. If the idea of breaking your wrist causes you to make the same arm positions as Roddick or any good server before and at and after contact--go for it! Not my experience though in filming a few hundred lower level players with problems in their serves.

Thanks, John - appreciate your response.
 

gzhpcu

Professional
If you read my detailed post above, think you'll see that I acknowledge--as does anyone who looks closely at video of good serves--that the wrist is moving on the upward swing. Whether it's conscious contraction is debatable and that's discussed in Brian's great post.

The whole point I want to make is about the "snap the wrist forward" (past neutral) teaching cue. And that is still commonly taught, talked about as the truth by commentators, and demonstrated in one minute tv clinics.

Doesn't happen and my personal opinion is that it usually does harm to try to break the wrist because it reduces or stops or eliminates the critical racket and arm rotation.
John,
What I would like your opinion on is the following:
IMHO, the "wrist snap" on the serve is not solely extension - flexion (you do this when you hit a smash where the ball is behind your head), but rather extension, then ulnar deviation, followed by flexion. The ulnar deviation prior to flexion, inhibits the extreme flexion you have when you just do extension-flexion. This is why the wrist does not break forward post impact.
 

JohnYandell

Hall of Fame
Phil,

Could be. Again, the wrist is laid back at angle, with some degree of radial deviation at the drop. Then goes up to neutral around the contact. Ulnar deviation is part of this. But as I have said over and over all this is a function of making the positions. And the idea of wrist snap associated with forward breaking of the wrist is one of the bad ideas in modern coaching.
 

larry10s

Hall of Fame
we will never get concensus but i think the 2 people john yandell and brian gordon are the most credentialed and respected posters whos job is trying to figure all this out. the role of "joint torque" vesus "motion dependent torque" and the blending of each still needs to be worked out. but i am in johns court that the idea of wrist snap ie breaking foward IS a myth and a bad teaching concept as he mentioned in post #101
 

J011yroger

Talk Tennis Guru
we will never get concensus but i think the 2 people john yandell and brian gordon are the most credentialed and respected posters whos job is trying to figure all this out. the role of "joint torque" vesus "motion dependent torque" and the blending of each still needs to be worked out. but i am in johns court that the idea of wrist snap ie breaking foward IS a myth and a bad teaching concept as he mentioned in post #101

No honorable mention for Jolly who was willing to be the guinea pig?

J
 

NoBadMojo

G.O.A.T.
The fact that the term 'pronation' always causes so much confusion and disagreement around here indicates that it isnt a good verbal cue....pronation is a type of wrist snap..in fact the verbal cue wrist snap tends to work better for most lessons than pronation. the term pronation seems to have a tendency to get people to start doing funky things <not a very technical expression> with their elbows and shoulders like hooking/hooding their elbow or shoulder and not releasing the wrist in an effort to 'pronate'. i've seen people injure themselves trying to pronate..you also end up having people who are posing at serving rather than having a smooth natural comfortable release of the racquet. i see nothing wrong at all with those 30 second lessons like the Cobra serve or whatever they call it empasizing 'wrist snap'..it encourages the release of accumulated energy....anyway..if you do all the right things up until pronation/wrist snap w. a reasonable grip. the wrist stuff tends to take care of itself anyway.....
 

crash1929

Hall of Fame
The guy with the best serve I know. (like 130ish- when i try to receive his serve its like going into the twilight zone another level of speed and movement all together and I play 5.5 players on occasion..) says he snaps his wrist (meaning he thinks about doing it) and that doing this helps him place his serve. He also said that his coach would stand behind him and at the last moment tell him weher to hit the serve. He said snapping his wrist help him disguise where the serve would go. I think I remember this correctly.....just food for thought.
 
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crash1929

Hall of Fame
I was trying to conciously snap the wrist this moringing and it helped with placement but seemed to slow my serve down.
 

larry10s

Hall of Fame
The guy with the best serve I know. (like 130ish- when i try to receive his serve its like going into the twilight zone another level of speed and movement all together and I play 5.5 players on occasion..) says he snaps his wrist (meaning he thinks about doing it) and that doing this helps him place his serve. He also said that his coach would stand behind him and at the last moment tell him weher to hit the serve. He said snapping his wrist help him disguise where the serve would go. I think I remember this correctly.....just food for thought.
crash thank you for contributing but if you read thru the 100 plus posts before yours we have been thru that and are trying to come to closure even if not concesus.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
This is incorrect. Kuerten did not suffer hip problems from the excessive use of the open stance FH. I did not say dismiss the USTA out of hand. I said just because the USTA publishes something does not make it true.

Are you saying that Kuerten did not suffer from hip problems or that his hip injuries are not attributable to his prolific use of the fully open stance FH? The USTA's High Performance Coaching newsletter (Vol. 8, No. 2/2006) warns the open stance causes hip injuries and uses Gustavo Kuerten as a prime example of this. Revolutionary Tennis has an in-depth article on this very issue.

revolutionarytennis.com/rebuttalforehand2.html

In previous threads, I also provided links to a couple of books that indicate that excessive use the open stance FH appears to cause additional stress to the racquet shoulder and (racquet) hip. I can try to dig those up if you need additional sources on this.
 

Wegner

Rookie
Open stance is safer than closed stance.

Dear SystemicAnomaly, I personally coached Guga up to 14 years old, and I am friends with him and his family, although I haven't been in Brazil lately. Guga Kuerten's injury is an exception to the rule. There are about 2,000 women and men in the professional tennis tour, and the great majority plays open stance with no such injury type. Why? Because it is the most natural thing to do. The closed stance is the old classic style used at the time tennis was a much slower game. The modern open stance was adopted by the best players so far back that, when I asked Jack Kramer why he played open stance on the forehand he replied, because it is easier to hit the ball and to get back to the center without wasting time. I asked him if he hit with topspin, and he said yes, except on his forehand approach to the net. I asked him about Tilden and Fred Perry, and he concurred that they also hit the same way. I told him then that I had written a book that recommended it, and I was wondering why nobody teaches this, and he was mystified and could not respond, asking me instead for a copy of my book. When a type of injury affects less than 5% of the players, especially at the pro level, where there is so much pounding of all partds of the body, then you can see that the Guga's hip injury is not common. This USTA Coaching Newsletter is in the wrong side of the track. I can attest that the open stance forehand actually reduces injuries, especially to the left knee in righthanders. I have corrected many and the results has always been less or no pain. Could this be an attempt to discredit modern tennis coaching methodology, or perhaps a justification of the old ways of coaching so difficult to part with in the USA? Sometimes "the experts" are wrong, even though they are proficiently schooled. And when you add engineering to the functions of the body, and you choose, as you would be in building a bridge, the stronger parts (large muscle groups in this case) to stroke the ball, the open stance makes more sense than the baseball stance, or what is commonly known as the closed stance. I have plenty of attests to this fact in medical/chiropractic fields, but don't need to bring them into view due to the fact that this particular hip injury shows in such small percentage of open stance players, including at the club level. that it would not be intelligent to take it as a rule.
Guga did indeed exert his body in tennis to make about 12 million dollars a year, but his injury could have well happened at the rough ocean beach 2 miles from his house, from his closed stance surfing, a sport at which he did not excel.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
^ is this Oscar W or Lucile B? While some aspects of the "Wegner" method appear to have merit, other aspects of "the method" do not appear to make sense from what I've observed. There have been quite few discussions of your approach in these forums in the past.

Tennis itself, as well as other athletic endeavors, is going to result joint, muscle, ligament and tendon injuries, particularly if the sport is played on a daily/regular basis. Some actions, such as the serve, are going to take its toll eventually. The human body was simply nor designed to perform these overhand actions with a high degree of force & repetition. Other actions in tennis in tennis are going to stressful as well -- some more than others. In the 35+ years that I've been playing, injuries in tennis have increased considerably in the past decade or two. Much of this has to do with how the "modern" game is played -- some actions in tennis will exceed the body's ability to produce them without injury.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Open Stance Forehand, the modern game & possible injuries

I found one of my book links that talk about possible injuries linked to the prolific use of the open stance FH (but could not locate the other). The post also includes several other links that talk about this:

tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showpost.php?p=2394828

Note: I am not saying that the open stance FH should not be used. I am saying that it should not be overused. I employ a variety of fully open stances, semi-open stances and neutral stances (with an occasional closed stance) on my FH shots. It is this variety, much like the variety that Federer uses, that minimizes overuse injuries to particular areas of the body.

Came across a NY Times article from 2005 that talks about the seemingly higher number of injuries seen in the modern game of tennis. I've always assumed that racket technology has been responsible for much of this -- lighter rackets appear to be stressful on the shoulder and other body parts. Also with modern rackets, players have been able to generate considerably greater spin and pace that has taken its toll on the bodies of pros and amateurs alike. However, the NY Times dwells primarily on many of the new hitting styles as being a significant factor on the plethora of injuries.

NY Times article

.
 
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T

tennis angel

Guest
Curious, since I sent an email to you about my recent response to your post and subsequently get a response from a newly created username with the name "Wegner".

Curious minds need to know :)

Thanks for the explanation, but I didn't receive any e-mails from this forum.
 
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Wegner

Rookie
You are right, my friend, in the way you play

Note: I am not saying that the open stance FH should not be used. I am saying that is should not be overused. I employ a variety of fully open stances, semi-open stances and neutral stances (with an occasional closed stance) on my FH shots. It is this variety, much like the variety that Federer uses, that minimizes overuse injuries to particular areas of the body.

I love what you say here. I play the same way, naturally and without thinking of my feet, depnding on the situation. If I am stationary, or get to the ball comfortably, I prefer the open stance, because it aids my topspin stroke and my arm.

Came across a NY Times article from 2005 that talks about the seemingly higher number of injuries seen in the modern game of tennis. I've always assumed that racket technology has been responsible for much of this -- lighter rackets appear to be stressful on the shoulder and other body parts. Also with modern rackets, players have been able to generate considerably greater spin and pace that has taken its toll on the bodies of pros and amateurs alike. However, the NY Times dwells primarily on many of the new hitting styles as being a significant factor on the plethora of injuries.

NY Times article

.[/QUOTE]

i looked at this article, thank you, and concur inthat they are several reasons for injuries, including the speed of today's game, which forces the player to react much more forcefully. Hard courts have been made slower by making them rougher, and Wimbledon has a much slower grass as well, so points are much longer onboth surfaces. So tennis matches at the pro level are grueling. Now, with respect to injuries due to travel, now the top players play more of an abreviated calendar, except when they have commitments they can't pass up. The tour has adopted more of a break at the end of the year, plus those dreaded trips to China and back are not a must. On Kuerten's era, and this is also true for the Williams sisters and "older" players on the tour, they are carrying years of stress both on the court and traveling. So all this blame on the open stance, as you can deduce from the above and from some of the circumstances expressed in the New York Times article, is just a justification of the old ways and, unfortunately, misleading the public. People in general resist change, or to try unfamiliar tasks. I understand that, that is why I keep plugging my methodology, which has produced miracle results in 5 continents so far.
And yes, I am Oscar Wegner, I just signed up for this Forum, as required, even though I am a moderator on my own Forum on another Tennis Warehouse site, to reply to your initial thoughts on the subject.
Thank you for your contributions. They are well stated.
Oscar Wegner
TennisTeacher.com
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
^ Welcome to the forum, Oscar. It is always great to get some good alternative perspectives on tennis concepts, especially from someone of your calibre. We are not going to agree on all concepts but it good to have different perspectives just the same. Will have to take a look at your forum as well.
 
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