So, in summary, you can use the wrist lag to maximize the kinetic chain, but you must grip the racket tighter than you think. Steven has a very good point about stability at the contact to be consistent, particularly for the rest of us who are not pros. That’s why you can’t just copy the pro’s strokes on YT and get better at tennis.
I have watched a lot of Federer in 1/4 speed. My two favorites are a 2013 and a 2018 practice at Indian Wells because of the more relaxed stroke at a great camera angle. What he does to get racquet speed is a finger flick, not a wrist action. At the bottom of his loop, he gets the racquet with the strings down and the external rotation of the arm creates a lot of pressure on the index finger. He then uses internal rotation to throw the racquet to the outside which quickly brings the strings so they face the net and so they get to the outside of the ball. At the same time, he rolls the pressure from the index finger to the little finger which accentuates the out, forward and up motion of the internal rotation. The combined feel is like your arm unfurls from the shoulder to the shoulder to the little finger. Analysts like to show Federer hitting the ball at head level, but that is really an awkward version where he swings from outside to inside to get at a high contact point.
You are one of the best coaches who explained the lag and snap of the forehand. There are too much info in your video that I think I need to watch it again and again. I am determined to be one of the best players in my club. That's super difficult for me because I'm 56 and I started learning tennis 1 year ago. Thanks for your explanation. Keep it up.
Not too many people seemed to agree. All I want to say is I bought the loose grip stuff and it threw my game into a tailspin for about 5 years. If you actually look at the great ball strikers you will see the swing is like a gun turret. The entire torso, upper arm and racquet turn as a unit for the most part. The bulk of the power at contact, 45% on serves and groundstrokes, comes from long axis rotation of the arm. In order to create that you need a firm grip early in the swing.
I don't know that this is the best way to phrase it, I see a lot of misinterpretation in the comments where people are thinking you mean static, isolated wrist manipulation like when you're doing a dumbbell wrist curl or something, which is not the point. People also just don't get it because this is something not visually obvious when watching the pros swing, but something that anyone who has gotten good at swinging something knows the exact feeling of. This is just describing a properly-executed stretch-reflex cycle. You're spot on about muscles needing start with some limited tension and to exert rapid, "reactive strength" (anyone confused about the difference should look that up) in response to the stretch placed on them by the "lag" phase in order for the stretch-reflex (AKA lag-snap) cycle to be complete. If that doesn't make sense to anyone, think about a rubber band being stretched and then snapping back into place; you can feel the tension building as you pull the band further and further. Same thing with your stroke, the muscles start with low tension (not zero though), and as the body rotation pulls the arm through, the muscle tension builds more and more in response to the stretch until it finally releases all at once to accelerate the stroke. Without any muscle tension at all, the "reflex" part of the stretch-reflex cycle loses most of its energy. For maximum racquet acceleration you should be able to feel the stretch-reflex pass through the obliques, pectoral, shoulder, elbow, and wrist in very quick succession. Timing and precisely moderating the tension is important though, because too much tension before the swing begins will prevent the stretch phase from initiating, but too little will make you too unstable to control the swing, you need to find a healthy balance between tension and relaxation.
Even an untrained eye or a beginner in tennis can see that Federer's power comes from a relax wrist at the end of a big kinetic chain that starts from the legs to the torso then the arm. With a relaxed wrist, it naturally breaks at the point of contact with the tip of the racquet serving as the tip of the pendulum in the same kinetic chain. A relaxed wrist that NATURALLY snaps at the point of contact provides added racquet acceleration. This means the tip of the racquet becomes even faster than the speed of the arm due to the relaxed wrist. It's not an opinion...it's physics.
Here is another physics approach. Although the wrist is relaxed, you do not snap it. Instead you push into the butt of the racquet with the index finger, perpendicular to the strings. This creates torque which increases the rotation speed of the racquet head. This creates a smooth controlled acceleration in the rotation of the racquet head not a sudden jerk that makes timing difficult.
i agree with you except for that phrase "snaps at the point of contact". Rather I think the wrist changes position without any snap. Instead it is more of simple passive hinge responding to the forces of the swing and weight of the racket. I absolutely hate the term "snap" when used in describing forehand technique. Consciously trying to snap the wrist is a fool's errand. John Yandell actually has researched this and reviewed it with guys that study biomechanics. Yandell states that ATP pros actually inhibit wrist movement to control the direction of the shot and do not snap the wrist.
risingStar look up Walter Lewin a 3 minute video on rotating wheels. The key words are “This is, of course, totally non-intuitive. The sensible way to create topspin is to pull up on the edge of the shaft to lift the racquet. However, this weakens everything. Actually, pretend you are angular momentum chasing the torque as in the video. Push down and out on the third bevel and the racquet will eventually turn up and across with devastating force.
risingStar yes. My thought is that you hit the ball with the fastest moving part of the racquet, not the sweet spot which simply has less vibration. You can feel the racquet pull toward that location when you swing. The down and out simply gives you time to build up speed. If you are a 5.0, you probably hit there already. For example , on a serve it is the upper left quadrant of the racquet for right handed players. Oh topspin it is lower tip of the racquet.
risingStar saw an interesting golf video on inside out swing. They took the swing of the average poor golfer, outside in, 80 mph duplicated it with a robot. Then they left everything else the same and changed it to an inside out swing. The ball traveled 30 yards farther.
I watched this video again after my wrist (thumb side) gets slightly inflamed after hitting forehand mainly with wrist lag and brushing motion. The killing point is sometimes I got insane hot shot, but I also got tons of vibration and destabilization at contact. So this video solves my problem. Quick tip: don't let racket face leads handle too much at contact, keep strings behind or at least on the same surface with handle, which happens naturally with more western grip without bending wrist (wrist extension) too much.
I have slightly more lag in my normal baseline rally ball than you do, and if my feet are set and I am really seeing the ball then I can exaggerate the whip quite a bit. I disagree with you about the role of forearm strength, at lease the way my mind thinks about it. I feel like I am only putting a few ounces of extra forearm juice when I am really whipping the wrist. My forearms never feel fatigued on those wristy days, and I dont have particularly strong forearms either. I did come to tennis after years of squash, and squash pros have been talking about the wrist whip and lag for a lot longer than tennis gurus, and they have a more advanced vocabulary for it. Squash pros will talk about how a wrist may not be either just locked or fluid, and how stability is created by a fluid wrist that dynamically starts to lock through the strike zone and then releases again in the follow through. Or they may talk about how a wrist is a multi dimensional joint, and it may be fluidly in motion in one plane (say with a bye bye motion) but be completely locked in another plane (say as in revving a motorcycle). All interesting things to think about.
I have recently discovered something, you are pushing the wrist parallel to the strings. You should push into the racquet perpendicular to the strings, the entire forward swing with a slow acceleration. This creates torque which speeds up the rotation not toward the net but vertically as desired. You do not need exceptional strength to do this because your arm is naturally strong this way. Of course, you can do it late like Federer and get a little more power but you have to practice to get the timing down.
Love the series about the wrist. I've experimented using less big muscles and using more of the smaller ones and liking the results so far. You analyze technique to an even stupider deep level than I do.
hi, I've been addicted to y our videos and just realised they are mostly 5 years ago.. amazing the they are still relevant today. why are there so few videos these days? are you retiring ?
I used to hit straight back with no lag and I rolled my wrist into the ball. I could not lag like Federer with the high take back but I could with a mid level take back. My wrist turns over naturally. It is an extremely high level skill to relax the wrist. Get the feeling of lagging with a stick.
The trick to a reasonably firm grip but looser (not completely loose) wrist is to understand that using the tips of the fingers to squeeze the racquet activates the flexor muscles of the forearm. Since their tendons cross from the forearm bones past the wrist to insert into the finger tips they inevitably make the wrist rigid when activated. (The extensors are simultaneously activated too to counteract the flexors but we’re less aware of their activation.) To have a firm grip and looser wrist you need to activate as much as possible the intrinsic muscles of the hand not the forearm muscles. (Have you ever shaken the hand of a professional tennis player? It’s not the size of their forearm that impressed me but their massive intrinsic hand muscles which make their hands huge and hard as nails.) As an exercise to feel the difference try squeezing the racquet handle by opposing your thumb on the racquet and keeping your thumb and fingers straight (obviously you need to flex at their metacarpal phalangeal joints). Apply pressure on the handle with your thumb only and resisting on the other side of the handle by keeping your fingers straight and fixed. You’ll see that the wrist will remain more relaxed and the grip will be acceptable to provide stability at contact. If not, you need to practice this exercise with a racquet or one of those wrist strengthening balls. Just feeling the difference between a death grip using your fingertips and using more intrinsic muscles will give you a starting point to getting stability at contact with sufficient wrist movement through impact. Obviously, we use all muscles in all phases of the stroke but it’s highly nuanced by their timing and activation sequences. I highly doubt coaches ever said « use your intrinsic hand muscles Bobby! », but players also learn though imitation, trial and error, and do it subconsciously.
I think your analysis displays a lot of thought based on observation and I enjoy your work. In this case your analysis is based on Federer who unlike most of the top pros uses a grip that is more between a semi western and eastern grip than the semi-western grips that is prevalent among most other pros. (the examples of Sampras and Del Potro are interesting as the former uses a grip similar to Federer and Del Potro has one of the more unique forehand swings and does not have a pure semi western grip as well) I do think there is a difference in how the modified eastern and semi-western grips function in creating lag and how they impact forces on forearm and wrist during the contact. I think the semi-western grip positions the hand in such a way that it requires less grip strength to handle similar force of balls coming into the racquet and generate similar speed leaving the racquet compared to the modified eastern grip during the hit.
Hi Coach Stevens, Thanks for the video, i completely agree with you. One point, that i missed was the aspect of grip size. Your grip size seems to be quite big for the size of your hand. The bigger the grip the more stiff the muscles of lower arm tend to be and the freedom of the wrist movement is blocked. You can see this at ROger again, he seems to use a real small grip. Cheers C
Actually, you have it reversed. You can grip your racquet as tight as you wish on the groundstrokes as long as you do not tighten the thumb and index finger. 45 % of your power at contact in both the serve and groundstrokes comes from long axis rotation of the arm. On the serve the arm rotates at up too 900 degrees per second. Which means if it persisted for a full second your arm would twist around almost 3 times and probably fall off. It seems to me, however, that you need the grip more early in the swing when you transition to the forward swing. That is when you create the rotation that you release into the ball.
Hi It is vise versa. Smaller grip force you to squeeze more on the handle of the racket to control the whole racket at contact which puts lots of strain on the muscles. By the way, smaller handle is a main reason of tennis elbow. A little bigger handle is better and high squeezing is not required. Try to play using smaller grip and a little bigger grip to feel the difference. Thanks
@@bsmmhr1778 Interesting. I have just the opposite feeling: a smaller grip size will allow a broader range of motion for your wrist, which translates into faster racket snap/motion. If the grip is too small, you might have a problem with a 'fluttering' non-stable wrist. a bigger grip size will provide better stability, but a too big grip will make your wrist stiff. When you look at players like Nadal and Federer, you see they use a quite small grip size. The experience i have after working for 30 years and never having a student with an tennis elbow is, that a grip that´s too big, tends to induce more often an tennis elbow. But of course there are more things, that put an influence on this. Anyway, i will check it out again.
@@Shmaltzmalwonia hi Thanks for your comments. I wanted to say that: 1- select the proper comfortable grip size that match your hand size of which you will get the best results. 2- selecting too smaller or too bigger is not good for reasons we all know. 3- A little bigger has more advantages than a little smaller, I quote: The benefits that Rafa and Federer are feeling [with smaller grips] come from the increased wrist snap they are gaining on the serve. It is not imagined. The increased head speed leads to devastating movement and kick on their serves. At a world class level, there are not any drawbacks to speak of, but for mortal players, a smaller grip can lead to a problem in technique with forehands and backhands being too wristy. It’s also much more difficult to keep the grip from turning in your hand on off-center hits when the size is very small.” Smaller grips may also make it harder to volley or hit groundstrokes with traditional (i.e., continental or eastern) strokes, due to reduced stability. What’s more, smaller grips may stress players’ wrists and hands, because of the extra wrist flexion such grips allow, and because they force some players (with bigger hands) to squeeze harder to keep the grip from slipping. Thank you
Loose Grip = Unstable contact = Bad energy transfer. Federer must have fairly tight grip or the racket head would drape more when making contact with the ball. Make sure your contact point is right, then the wrist will do the job on its own. Always producing good video, Thanks.
Wrist this wrist that. Power comes from the legs, and wrist should be the last thing on someones mind. If your forearm hurts, that means you're not using enough kinetic energy from your bigger muscles (legs/core) and the concept of wrist lag should be spread towards the whole body movement/timing
you hit the nail on the head. Many younger pros and juniors talk about "snap" during a forehand. The phrase "snap" probably destroys more forehands than it ever helps. Legs, core rotation, let the wrist lay back as the swing starts forward (some call this dropping into the slot) and then you really don't have to worry about the wrist. Many high speed video shows Federer and many other pros with the wrist laid back before, during and after contact. Snap is a 4 letter word.
I tried serving or hitting with the pinky hanging at the edge of grip, but upon hard impact with the ball, even with the sweet spot, that’s a lot more vibration to the hand and really hurts my pinky. So I gave up trying. I go with stability instead.
I love the stuff you discuss and think about. My favorite part is that you share sincere observations rather than some handed down wisdom. I think there was a lot of resistance to your ideas in the last video exactly because you are breaking away from conventional wisdom. For a long time tennis pundits denied the wrist, just as they denied the existence of the open stance. Now that the lag/whip is obvious the current conventional wisdom is that it is not something that one does, but it is something that just happens because of the big rotation of the kinetic chain. They are wrong, and you are right. All parts of the kinetic chain are intentional. One can elect to add more whip and less of it while keeping the same big rotation. You should alert your audience that you are going against the conventional wisdom of much more famous and accomplished gurus.
Hello Steve are you going to a new video on your membership website .Also do you go give private lesson .I have spend a lot of money on coach but I was very disappointed of what the thought me .thank .you are doing a great job thank for all you help
Off court, take your arm to your shoulder height and make 100 fists in a roll. Do this for how many sets you like every day. If you do so, you'll have plenty of chance to make lots of fists like Rafa.
Thanks for your video man, you're really great! I started playing tennis in January and since then I have had some improvement. I gathered you don't recommend trying to hit my one handed forehand with wrist lag. Am I correct? P.S. I'm not really strong but I have some muscles :P
How to lag. Go to Home Depot and buy a 1/2 inch wood dowel. Cut it down to 30 inches.. Practice lagging with this to get the feel. Absolutely do not do it like Roger Federer. Very few ATP doubles players lag the way Fed does. Take the racquet back mid level with the racquet closed in the exact angle you will hit the ball with. If your arm only goes back 1/2 way because your timing was off you can still lag and hit a great ball. I watched Dimitrov today and it looked like he started bringing it back high but gradually lowered it and it was closed as he brought it back not on its side like Fed. I did not invent this technique. I saw a talented college player convert from the Federer way to the mid takeback or gradual drop. Lagging is just a relaxed wrist. It is like a whip. When you convert from a straight back swing to lagging you immediately see how much racquet speed you get from lagging. I asked a student why he was not rotating and he said don't have to now. I told him no keep rotating. But I can hit with my arm alone not rotating better than I did straight back no lag and fast rotation.
Great work and awesome effort you put into these videos, appreciated. I agree with you that timing is more difficult the faster your racket goes. But i argue that if you want to become good at tennis it is ESSENTIAL you master the 'whip' like motion. And this whip like motion is impossible to execute perfectly with a tense wrist (the exact same reason there are no rigid parts in the whip except for the handle). Especially for the serve and baseline rallies this looseness is key to achieving maximal racket head speed. The CONTROL comes from the topspin you impart on the ball. Choosing between control and speed should therefore be a choice between topspin and a flatter shot and NOT a choice between a more rigid or a more loose wrist. Your advocacy for more grip stength, i think this is very confusing for players trying to get better at tennis. If anything most players should relax WAY more to become better at tennis. Even tiny kids can hit immense tennis balls if they are relaxed and master the 'whip'. These kids dont have immense strength just a sound use of the kinetic chain. What you are advocating is basically gearing more towards what is commonly known as a 'girls' throw (i.e. pushing the ball, or a shot put type of throw that has no snapping motion, not whip like effect and therefore not much speed) instead of a 'whipping' throw (i.e. professional baseball pitchers / stone skippers where the ball is accelerated immensely due to the whole arm acting like a whip culminating in the middle and index finger). It is this looseness and whippyness that contributes immensely to the speed of the ball. Ask a baseball player to throw with a stiff / strong wrist and he'll look at you like you are crazy. Some examples that hopefully illustrate why 'looser' 'whippier' is better: - Agassi was taught first to be able to SMACK the ball (didn't matter if he hit all the balls in the fence) and then he was taught how to hit them inside the court. It is important to FIRST master this whip / throwing motion and then learn how to control it. You will never become a great player if you do not master this skill. A good whip cannot be achieved with a static wrist. - Often when the opponents serve is out, you will hit it 'nonchalant' and very relaxed, and you will hit some of your best shots you have ever hit. Do you hit these shots while gripping your racket tightly or are you relaxed? Opposite to this, the more tense and nervous you are during a match the more balls you will miss. You will have less racket snap, less spin and a different racket path towards the ball making you misshit. - Why do you think people good at throwing (e.g. baseball players) catch onto tennis that quickly and are able to hit very hard very quickly? They already have the basics in place to execute this 'whip' motion with a relaxed wrist. - The contact with the tennis ball last literally a split of a second, the path of the ball is determined by the angle the racket face is in, even a racket standing on its buttcapp that is hit with a tennis ball will deflect the tennis ball in the direction the racket face is facing towards. It is the miss-timing (racket face not facing in the right direction) that causes the ball to fly off in an unwanted direction and not the 'looseness' of the wrist or how hard you grip the racket. I think the only situations where SLIGHTLY more wrist tension is needed is when blocking the ball or when volleying. But even then it is more the abbreviation of the stroke combined with good timing than a tense hand / wrist. Your floppy wrist experiment makes no sense since it doesn't account for topspin and you are obviously not trying as hard. Also the fact that it may be harder to time doesn't make it worse. Top basebal pitchers throw HARD AND ACCURATE because they trained this over and over and over again, just like tennis. You are saying it costs Fededer 'tons' of strength to execute his whiplike motion, i really disagree on this. Federer has very well trained and coordinated muscles and he has great tenacity yes for sure, but he is definately not immensely strong. He is the opposite, he is slender and STILL manages to create immense speed. Due to his perfection of the 'whip' / the 'pendulum' / the 'kinetic chain' COMBINED with perfect timing (i.e. looking at the ball untill the very last moment and his incredible footwork). Your approach gives the delusion of control but you will never reach exceptional levels of tennis with this approach. 2. The index finger of Federer being higher up the racket costing him MORE forearm strength. I argue the opposite, this finger actually DECREASES the amount of strength needed to control the racket. Since it makes the arm (in the physics sense of the word) smaller and therefore the required strength needed. --> try and hold an axe all the way at the tip with 1 hand the further you move up the shaft the easier it will become. This index finger just gives him more control of the tip of the racket due to slightly decreases the 'arm'. He doesnt engage this finger in this acceleration fase of his strike thoguh, just just 'throws' his racket by pulling on the buttcap. 3. You saying Del Potro use less of a whip action, i argue he used immense whip action and ALSO wrist lag. (check slowmotion videos of his forehand). The size of arms gives him even more 'whip' effect. (the longer the whip length the higher velocity the tip (or the racket) can achieve.His insane speed comes from him having this physical advantage as well as him hitting more flat. (more topsping decreases the speed of the ball, a more flat stroke with less spin increases the speed of the ball). Racket head speed can be the SAME but the angle at which the ball is hit will either make it topspin or a flatter stroke. All in all my point is this: if you want to become a great tennis player you need to WHIP, and you cannot get the perfect whip with a rigid wrist. You can only become so good with it, but never exceptional. It may be hard but you will learn to time it and need to work on watching the ball and great footwork. Then you can truly become awesome at tennis. Faster balls you need to abbreviate your swing.
I couldn’t have said it better. I hope he picks something out of this. In his nee videos, he’s still insisting on his logic. I guess to each his own, but I just hope people’s games don’t get messed or worst, their forearm or elbow.
@@ronglengco143 He's got a lot of great stuff in most his videos, sometimes he's wrong though. It's hard for any one person or coach to be right on all aspects of tennis. It's up to the viewer to figure out what's correct and what's not quite correct. I totally agree with everything @August said here, the whip like mechanic is the most core fundamental piece of good groundstrokes/serves.
Coach Stevens, thanks for the video. I think my experience is a bit different than your analysis. I do hold my racket loosely. So loose in fact that sometimes on a humid day, it flies off my hand. I also have a lot of lag on my stroke. The thing about my forehand is that I had to add lead tape to racket to get more plow-through because it was too light and unstable at contact. And even though I had good technique, the ball just didn't have enough pace. The extra weight helped both deficiencies. So my conclusion is that a player can benefit from a very loose wrist if they have a racket that is heavy enough to plow through the ball. This is particularly evident with Fed, who plays with a 12 oz. racket which is very heavy and you can see on video that he maintains a loose grip even through contact.
Just a comment plz It looks you know that heavy rackets produce more power and the heavier the head is the more power you get, but keep in mind that the new rackets even light ones are designed to give power . My kind advice is that you concentrate on your preparation and the total body rotation that starts from legs, hips and the final shoulder turn that will drive your arm and lagged racket forward to meet the ball. The mistake the coach is doing in his video is flicking and moving his wrist at contact to hit the ball with poor body work (simply slapping the ball). Note: young guys really hit very solid heavy shots using light weight rackets.
@maccajoe Thanks! What you said is correct and thanks for correction. But apart from seince, 1- Heavy racquet: in general puts lots of strain on the muscles. 2- Grip: to select a comfrotable grip size. I believe that too small grip will mean that a tennis player must grip the racket harder to generate the force necessary to stabilise the racket head on impact with the ball, this increased effort means a greater workload is placed on the muscles around the wrist and elbow which can sometimes lead to overuse injuries. Thanks Maccajoe
You're usually right on point but this was a miss. Federer is able to handle such a heavy racquet because he starts every swing with either his feet balanced and able to push off the ground or with his incredibly strong core (oblique) muscles. You are right to focus on the weight of Fed's racquet as I use his RF97 Autograph and it does things other racquets just can't do. But strength is not what allows his magic wand to work. Rather it is kinetic energy and physics. Roger uses his racquet as a whip rather than a club. He tailors his whole game to the weight of his racquet (which actually is about what old racquets used to weigh). Fed knows that the added weight on tbe frame causes the strings to cup the ball and impart incredible spin with a flat appearing swing. The catch is that the racquet is too heavy to force so you can't cheat (even on a low buggy whip shot). You absolutely must start every swing with your hips. You can shorten it up and be fine but you must change your game to fit the racquet. If fed used Nadal's pure drive, his game would fall apart. But with the weight and the whip action Fed can carve the ball around the court with LESS EFORT and less strength than other players. His serve is really the most amazing shot he has. He somehow creates that whip action he has with an incredibly heavy stick and yet he hardly looks like he's working. No shoulder strain at all. It's incredible. Please please do a segment on the physics of heavy racquet. It changed feds game.
Roger does not use his forearm muscle. He relies on footwork and swing mechanics that allow the racquet to isolate just before impact. essentially the arm runs out of room and the wrist comes thru. Manipulating it at these kinds of speeds is simply impossible. This is physics not opinion
yeah and Roger has some big pipes...if you know anything about biomechanics this guy is completely wrong. All sports that swing a club or racquet are the same. You really think Tiger hits it long because he is ripped? See women golfers. You think baseball players muscle balls out of the park? Good luck to you
@@kathrynegan4336 What? Roger does not use his forearm muscle? I disagree. Look at his right forearm compared to his left. The muscle is bigger because it is used. Is it the primary muscle being used for power? Definitely not. The forearm is there to help hold the racket up at all and stabilize both swing path and contact. By the way, "this is physics not opinion", is such a pretentious statement that shows how close minded you are to context. Sorry, I got triggered, just my opinion.
Man ur missing the point of lag. Federer can hit shots with lag bc he’s used to hitting the ball with it. There’s no strength Involved at all. The mechanics of it come from hip rotation and coiling from the legs and letting ur wrist loose enough to have the tip of the racket lag behind. Ur contact point is right when ur lag is stopping which is why u think u need to engage ur forearm. Federer’s contact point is right after which means the acceleration he made from the backswing is doing all the work. There’s hardly any muscle involved at contact.
I am 55 years and trying to learn just to hit the ball correctly. Paid so much for “coaches” telling me to do the wrist lag.?! I am not a junior player. This “free” you tube is more worth it. Thanks!
Your wrist will naturally lag behind with fast racket head spin. Many will try to try and do the snap purposefully, it’s not supposed to be like that. It’ll happen naturally
@@KaptainOW Ummm.... I doubt it...some people say it;s coming naturally...some people say it's something you have to learn...I believe the second,,,with eastern grip there will be more lag wrist...with semi-western less but more suppination
Maty Verona it’s something you have to learn, in a sense that you have to learn not to have your wrist be extremely tense, but it will happen naturally once you do that
no, man. you need to be limp. we are at a stage that completely relaxed wrist, the limp wrist is expected to be perfectly controlled by the correct body movement. those of us who can do this are actually throwing the racquet at the ball every time we hit them. if you do this right, you feel no different from practice swing without hitting balls even when you are hitting them except the pleasant vibration of contact that surpasses the combined forces of racquet head speed and weight of racquet. you have no idea what you are talking about. stop misinforming the public with your limited understanding.
You are way off with this active wrist manipulation and forearm flexing stuff. There maybe some firm forearm required in blockinig situations (like on return of serve Federer is doing in your vid), or during akward situations, but for a regular rally ball the wrist should be relaxed and getting pulled (forward and up) by the big muscles untill right before impact when that pull converts into release and effortless flight of the head of the racket.
Anton Vilinskiy You're absolutely right and it's too bad because this channel usually nails the physics of tennis...which is the best part of tennis. Fed's racquet is magical when used properly but it's incredibly hard to use properly and requires incredible footwork and focus. You can't muscle a ball or get lazy or you're done. If you do master the kinetic chain however you find spin and power and spin/pace combos you wouldn't think possible. You literally surprise yourself. I should add that you have to string the racquet right too. Without a loose soft stringbed you can't tap into the cupping action this racquet magically creates.
A passive wrist can and does naturally change position during a swing. Also a loose grip can be used in conjunction with a full kinetic chain working from the ground up. I think a lot of information in this video misrepresents good technique. Most players usta level 5.0 or lower should actually work on controlling their wrist. You can still use a full kinetic chain with a passive or controlled grip to hit the ball very fast. The demo where the instructor tries to show how a passive loose grip is incorrect is silly. The demo is using no leg or torse power to rotate into the shot. "SNAP" is a 4 letter word and is a fool's errand if you are trying to snap your wrist in your forehand swing.
I could show you, it's called the modern forehand , you don't need to be a professional to do it, but if you can't do it....you probably shouldn't be trying to teach it. I really feel for some players it might be too much to handle, it really depends on what your looking for when you play tennis fun or competition.
I am sorry brother your trying to confuse people. I fail to understand what exactly you are trying to do here. 99% of your viewer which are club level player will only make their thehnique worse watchimg your video. Every individual will find its own destination following a lot of repetitions with a racquet lag. I understand you want views out of controvercy but this will not take you far!
Hi Much a talk for ..... (23 minutes). The whole story of lagging can be summarized in 4 or 5 steps without such very detailed information. You are exaggerating your wrist relaxtion and tend to slap the ball at contact as you open your very loose wrist before and during contact instead of keeping it back on contact with a windshield action after (like Fedrer). The way you do it will result in wrist injury and less control. Let lagging comes naturally through relaxed taken back wrist, unit turn and full body rotation that will fire the shot. I saw you demonstarting it, but really not correct, above all poor style of play far below coachs' level. I really advise you to again watch Fedrer's forehand in high slow motion doing the lagging and windshield motion after contact. Man, watch yourself in slow montion, you are not correctly lagging but slapping the ball with very loose wrist. Simply immitating top pros in a wrong way.
wow at 7:50 I lost interest how can you say Federer has incredible grip strength everyone knows he has loose grip in fact every all coaches on RUclips says keep loose grip because tension restricts wrist and motion.
This is a very misleading video. If you don't use your body, then, of course, you have to use your arm and wrist muscles. But, if you do use your body (rotationally), as you should, your arm and wrist can be passive (loose). You do not need strong arm muscles.
Man, this dude is confused - he's got everything almost right and then he messes up when he starts talking about the wrist. Seriously - just stop guessing - get yourself some high-speed video of top pro players like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic - study them and add them to your next video when you understand the function of the forearm and wrist combination.
i think this video is too focused on trying to hit like roger federer, look at Djokovic where he doesnt have as much wrist lag. He is alot more consistent than RF
Your video are too long and you are wrong on most part. Make it simple so people will understand about the wrist lag. Just a suggestion, feel the weight at the bottom half of the string NOT the top frame as you swing. Also, trying to whip thru the ball so that the air compress inside the ball to explode. You should be able to hear a loud pop as you hit the ball. The whole point is to compress the air inside the tennis ball. Good Luck!!
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I coach high school tennis and I come back to your videos time and time again because I learn so much here
So, in summary, you can use the wrist lag to maximize the kinetic chain, but you must grip the racket tighter than you think. Steven has a very good point about stability at the contact to be consistent, particularly for the rest of us who are not pros. That’s why you can’t just copy the pro’s strokes on YT and get better at tennis.
I have watched a lot of Federer in 1/4 speed. My two favorites are a 2013 and a 2018 practice at Indian Wells because of the more relaxed stroke at a great camera angle. What he does to get racquet speed is a finger flick, not a wrist action. At the bottom of his loop, he gets the racquet with the strings down and the external rotation of the arm creates a lot of pressure on the index finger. He then uses internal rotation to throw the racquet to the outside which quickly brings the strings so they face the net and so they get to the outside of the ball. At the same time, he rolls the pressure from the index finger to the little finger which accentuates the out, forward and up motion of the internal rotation. The combined feel is like your arm unfurls from the shoulder to the shoulder to the little finger. Analysts like to show Federer hitting the ball at head level, but that is really an awkward version where he swings from outside to inside to get at a high contact point.
you are the only tennis coach who explains these things. keep up the good work
You are one of the best coaches who explained the lag and snap of the forehand. There are too much info in your video that I think I need to watch it again and again. I am determined to be one of the best players in my club. That's super difficult for me because I'm 56 and I started learning tennis 1 year ago. Thanks for your explanation. Keep it up.
Not too many people seemed to agree. All I want to say is I bought the loose grip stuff and it threw my game into a tailspin for about 5 years. If you actually look at the great ball strikers you will see the swing is like a gun turret. The entire torso, upper arm and racquet turn as a unit for the most part. The bulk of the power at contact, 45% on serves and groundstrokes, comes from long axis rotation of the arm. In order to create that you need a firm grip early in the swing.
I love the nuance. So many YT videos on this topic just give a one size fits all binary answer. Thanks coach Steven.
I don't know that this is the best way to phrase it, I see a lot of misinterpretation in the comments where people are thinking you mean static, isolated wrist manipulation like when you're doing a dumbbell wrist curl or something, which is not the point. People also just don't get it because this is something not visually obvious when watching the pros swing, but something that anyone who has gotten good at swinging something knows the exact feeling of. This is just describing a properly-executed stretch-reflex cycle.
You're spot on about muscles needing start with some limited tension and to exert rapid, "reactive strength" (anyone confused about the difference should look that up) in response to the stretch placed on them by the "lag" phase in order for the stretch-reflex (AKA lag-snap) cycle to be complete. If that doesn't make sense to anyone, think about a rubber band being stretched and then snapping back into place; you can feel the tension building as you pull the band further and further. Same thing with your stroke, the muscles start with low tension (not zero though), and as the body rotation pulls the arm through, the muscle tension builds more and more in response to the stretch until it finally releases all at once to accelerate the stroke. Without any muscle tension at all, the "reflex" part of the stretch-reflex cycle loses most of its energy.
For maximum racquet acceleration you should be able to feel the stretch-reflex pass through the obliques, pectoral, shoulder, elbow, and wrist in very quick succession. Timing and precisely moderating the tension is important though, because too much tension before the swing begins will prevent the stretch phase from initiating, but too little will make you too unstable to control the swing, you need to find a healthy balance between tension and relaxation.
Even an untrained eye or a beginner in tennis can see that Federer's power comes from a relax wrist at the end of a big kinetic chain that starts from the legs to the torso then the arm. With a relaxed wrist, it naturally breaks at the point of contact with the tip of the racquet serving as the tip of the pendulum in the same kinetic chain. A relaxed wrist that NATURALLY snaps at the point of contact provides added racquet acceleration. This means the tip of the racquet becomes even faster than the speed of the arm due to the relaxed wrist. It's not an opinion...it's physics.
Here is another physics approach. Although the wrist is relaxed, you do not snap it. Instead you push into the butt of the racquet with the index finger, perpendicular to the strings. This creates torque which increases the rotation speed of the racquet head. This creates a smooth controlled acceleration in the rotation of the racquet head not a sudden jerk that makes timing difficult.
i agree with you except for that phrase "snaps at the point of contact". Rather I think the wrist changes position without any snap. Instead it is more of simple passive hinge responding to the forces of the swing and weight of the racket. I absolutely hate the term "snap" when used in describing forehand technique. Consciously trying to snap the wrist is a fool's errand. John Yandell actually has researched this and reviewed it with guys that study biomechanics. Yandell states that ATP pros actually inhibit wrist movement to control the direction of the shot and do not snap the wrist.
risingStar look up Walter Lewin a 3 minute video on rotating wheels. The key words are “This is, of course, totally non-intuitive. The sensible way to create topspin is to pull up on the edge of the shaft to lift the racquet. However, this weakens everything. Actually, pretend you are angular momentum chasing the torque as in the video. Push down and out on the third bevel and the racquet will eventually turn up and across with devastating force.
risingStar yes. My thought is that you hit the ball with the fastest moving part of the racquet, not the sweet spot which simply has less vibration. You can feel the racquet pull toward that location when you swing. The down and out simply gives you time to build up speed. If you are a 5.0, you probably hit there already. For example , on a serve it is the upper left quadrant of the racquet for right handed players. Oh topspin it is lower tip of the racquet.
risingStar saw an interesting golf video on inside out swing. They took the swing of the average poor golfer, outside in, 80 mph duplicated it with a robot. Then they left everything else the same and changed it to an inside out swing. The ball traveled 30 yards farther.
I watched this video again after my wrist (thumb side) gets slightly inflamed after hitting forehand mainly with wrist lag and brushing motion. The killing point is sometimes I got insane hot shot, but I also got tons of vibration and destabilization at contact. So this video solves my problem. Quick tip: don't let racket face leads handle too much at contact, keep strings behind or at least on the same surface with handle, which happens naturally with more western grip without bending wrist (wrist extension) too much.
I have slightly more lag in my normal baseline rally ball than you do, and if my feet are set and I am really seeing the ball then I can exaggerate the whip quite a bit. I disagree with you about the role of forearm strength, at lease the way my mind thinks about it. I feel like I am only putting a few ounces of extra forearm juice when I am really whipping the wrist. My forearms never feel fatigued on those wristy days, and I dont have particularly strong forearms either. I did come to tennis after years of squash, and squash pros have been talking about the wrist whip and lag for a lot longer than tennis gurus, and they have a more advanced vocabulary for it. Squash pros will talk about how a wrist may not be either just locked or fluid, and how stability is created by a fluid wrist that dynamically starts to lock through the strike zone and then releases again in the follow through. Or they may talk about how a wrist is a multi dimensional joint, and it may be fluidly in motion in one plane (say with a bye bye motion) but be completely locked in another plane (say as in revving a motorcycle). All interesting things to think about.
I have recently discovered something, you are pushing the wrist parallel to the strings. You should push into the racquet perpendicular to the strings, the entire forward swing with a slow acceleration. This creates torque which speeds up the rotation not toward the net but vertically as desired. You do not need exceptional strength to do this because your arm is naturally strong this way. Of course, you can do it late like Federer and get a little more power but you have to practice to get the timing down.
Love the series about the wrist. I've experimented using less big muscles and using more of the smaller ones and liking the results so far. You analyze technique to an even stupider deep level than I do.
hi, I've been addicted to y our videos and just realised they are mostly 5 years ago.. amazing the they are still relevant today. why are there so few videos these days? are you retiring ?
I used to hit straight back with no lag and I rolled my wrist into the ball. I could not lag like Federer with the high take back but I could with a mid level take back. My wrist turns over naturally. It is an extremely high level skill to relax the wrist. Get the feeling of lagging with a stick.
This guy is a natural born educator. Really good vid!!
I think my tennis has just gone to a new level. The more i listen the more I like....
The trick to a reasonably firm grip but looser (not completely loose) wrist is to understand that using the tips of the fingers to squeeze the racquet activates the flexor muscles of the forearm. Since their tendons cross from the forearm bones past the wrist to insert into the finger tips they inevitably make the wrist rigid when activated. (The extensors are simultaneously activated too to counteract the flexors but we’re less aware of their activation.)
To have a firm grip and looser wrist you need to activate as much as possible the intrinsic muscles of the hand not the forearm muscles. (Have you ever shaken the hand of a professional tennis player? It’s not the size of their forearm that impressed me but their massive intrinsic hand muscles which make their hands huge and hard as nails.)
As an exercise to feel the difference try squeezing the racquet handle by opposing your thumb on the racquet and keeping your thumb and fingers straight (obviously you need to flex at their metacarpal phalangeal joints). Apply pressure on the handle with your thumb only and resisting on the other side of the handle by keeping your fingers straight and fixed. You’ll see that the wrist will remain more relaxed and the grip will be acceptable to provide stability at contact. If not, you need to practice this exercise with a racquet or one of those wrist strengthening balls. Just feeling the difference between a death grip using your fingertips and using more intrinsic muscles will give you a starting point to getting stability at contact with sufficient wrist movement through impact.
Obviously, we use all muscles in all phases of the stroke but it’s highly nuanced by their timing and activation sequences.
I highly doubt coaches ever said « use your intrinsic hand muscles Bobby! », but players also learn though imitation, trial and error, and do it subconsciously.
Again thanks for posting this!
I think your analysis displays a lot of thought based on observation and I enjoy your work. In this case your analysis is based on Federer who unlike most of the top pros uses a grip that is more between a semi western and eastern grip than the semi-western grips that is prevalent among most other pros. (the examples of Sampras and Del Potro are interesting as the former uses a grip similar to Federer and Del Potro has one of the more unique forehand swings and does not have a pure semi western grip as well) I do think there is a difference in how the modified eastern and semi-western grips function in creating lag and how they impact forces on forearm and wrist during the contact. I think the semi-western grip positions the hand in such a way that it requires less grip strength to handle similar force of balls coming into the racquet and generate similar speed leaving the racquet compared to the modified eastern grip during the hit.
I agree with you
0-2-0 is what creates wrist lag - the 2 is the grip strength at contact with the ball -
Hi Coach Stevens,
Thanks for the video, i completely agree with you. One point, that i missed was the aspect of grip size. Your grip size seems to be quite big for the size of your hand. The bigger the grip the more stiff the muscles of lower arm tend to be and the freedom of the wrist movement is blocked. You can see this at ROger again, he seems to use a real small grip.
Cheers C
Actually, you have it reversed. You can grip your racquet as tight as you wish on the groundstrokes as long as you do not tighten the thumb and index finger. 45 % of your power at contact in both the serve and groundstrokes comes from long axis rotation of the arm. On the serve the arm rotates at up too 900 degrees per second. Which means if it persisted for a full second your arm would twist around almost 3 times and probably fall off. It seems to me, however, that you need the grip more early in the swing when you transition to the forward swing. That is when you create the rotation that you release into the ball.
Hi
It is vise versa.
Smaller grip force you to squeeze more on the handle of the racket to control the whole racket at contact which puts lots of strain on the muscles. By the way, smaller handle is a main reason of tennis elbow.
A little bigger handle is better and high squeezing is not required.
Try to play using smaller grip and a little bigger grip to feel the difference.
Thanks
@@bsmmhr1778 Interesting. I have just the opposite feeling: a smaller grip size will allow a broader range of motion for your wrist, which translates into faster racket snap/motion. If the grip is too small, you might have a problem with a 'fluttering' non-stable wrist. a bigger grip size will provide better stability, but a too big grip will make your wrist stiff. When you look at players like Nadal and Federer, you see they use a quite small grip size. The experience i have after working for 30 years and never having a student with an tennis elbow is, that a grip that´s too big, tends to induce more often an tennis elbow. But of course there are more things, that put an influence on this.
Anyway, i will check it out again.
@@Shmaltzmalwonia hi
Thanks for your comments.
I wanted to say that:
1- select the proper comfortable grip size that match your hand size of which you will get the best results.
2- selecting too smaller or too bigger is not good for reasons we all know.
3- A little bigger has more advantages than a little smaller, I quote:
The benefits that Rafa and Federer are feeling [with smaller grips] come from the increased wrist snap they are gaining on the serve. It is not imagined. The increased head speed leads to devastating movement and kick on their serves. At a world class level, there are not any drawbacks to speak of, but for mortal players, a smaller grip can lead to a problem in technique with forehands and backhands being too wristy. It’s also much more difficult to keep the grip from turning in your hand on off-center hits when the size is very small.”
Smaller grips may also make it harder to volley or hit groundstrokes with traditional (i.e., continental or eastern) strokes, due to reduced stability. What’s more, smaller grips may stress players’ wrists and hands, because of the extra wrist flexion such grips allow, and because they force some players (with bigger hands) to squeeze harder to keep the grip from slipping.
Thank you
@@Shmaltzmalwonia Both can cause tennis elbow....use the grip size that matches your hand size
good stuff
Loose Grip = Unstable contact = Bad energy transfer. Federer must have fairly tight grip or the racket head would drape more when making contact with the ball. Make sure your contact point is right, then the wrist will do the job on its own. Always producing good video, Thanks.
Your videos are the best! So detailed!
A great lesson. By a passionate professor. Much thanks!
very helpful video!
thanks for your help!
my wrist has been hurting lately from wrist pronation and supination.
im gonna try out your advice
Let them happen naturally
Other RUclips channels just tell us to copy RF but only you explain the nuts and bolts of the fundamentals
Wrist this wrist that. Power comes from the legs, and wrist should be the last thing on someones mind. If your forearm hurts, that means you're not using enough kinetic energy from your bigger muscles (legs/core) and the concept of wrist lag should be spread towards the whole body movement/timing
you hit the nail on the head. Many younger pros and juniors talk about "snap" during a forehand. The phrase "snap" probably destroys more forehands than it ever helps. Legs, core rotation, let the wrist lay back as the swing starts forward (some call this dropping into the slot) and then you really don't have to worry about the wrist. Many high speed video shows Federer and many other pros with the wrist laid back before, during and after contact. Snap is a 4 letter word.
I tried serving or hitting with the pinky hanging at the edge of grip, but upon hard impact with the ball, even with the sweet spot, that’s a lot more vibration to the hand and really hurts my pinky. So I gave up trying. I go with stability instead.
I love the stuff you discuss and think about. My favorite part is that you share sincere observations rather than some handed down wisdom. I think there was a lot of resistance to your ideas in the last video exactly because you are breaking away from conventional wisdom. For a long time tennis pundits denied the wrist, just as they denied the existence of the open stance. Now that the lag/whip is obvious the current conventional wisdom is that it is not something that one does, but it is something that just happens because of the big rotation of the kinetic chain. They are wrong, and you are right. All parts of the kinetic chain are intentional. One can elect to add more whip and less of it while keeping the same big rotation. You should alert your audience that you are going against the conventional wisdom of much more famous and accomplished gurus.
This guy is an amateur that doesnt know what he is talking about. Dont belive everything you can see on youtube.
@risingStar This guy is dangerous. Search for Intuitive Tennis on youtube, he is really good in explaining and knows what is he talking about
@risingStar ruclips.net/video/k_iLAQnOsRY/видео.html And here is video explaining tennis lag
I agree
@risingStar I like "Tennis Evolution" with Jeff Salzenstein
Hello Steve are you going to a new video on your membership website .Also do you go give private lesson .I have spend a lot of money on coach but I was very disappointed of what the thought me .thank .you are doing a great job thank for all you help
So the main question for me is how tight do you hold the racket and how can I improve my forearm strength?
Off court, take your arm to your shoulder height and make 100 fists in a roll. Do this for how many sets you like every day. If you do so, you'll have plenty of chance to make lots of fists like Rafa.
Once you nail it, it weirdly becomes effortless because your whole body is going into the move, driving the power up from the ground. #taichi
Thank u so much for tou videos. It helped me a lot👏👏👏👏
Liked the forearm drill. Thanks
Here is a simpler question from them. Listen to the pros when they hit the ball. Does your loose gripped swing sound like that.
But isn't gripping the handle hard contrary to swinging the racket like a weight?
So deep! Bravo!
Thanks for your video man, you're really great! I started playing tennis in January and since then I have had some improvement. I gathered you don't recommend trying to hit my one handed forehand with wrist lag. Am I correct? P.S. I'm not really strong but I have some muscles :P
I open the racket in last process. Please help. Its hard to me add a rotation. I hit very often flat.
How to lag. Go to Home Depot and buy a 1/2 inch wood dowel. Cut it down to 30 inches.. Practice lagging with this to get the feel. Absolutely do not do it like Roger Federer. Very few ATP doubles players lag the way Fed does. Take the racquet back mid level with the racquet closed in the exact angle you will hit the ball with. If your arm only goes back 1/2 way because your timing was off you can still lag and hit a great ball. I watched Dimitrov today and it looked like he started bringing it back high but gradually lowered it and it was closed as he brought it back not on its side like Fed. I did not invent this technique. I saw a talented college player convert from the Federer way to the mid takeback or gradual drop. Lagging is just a relaxed wrist. It is like a whip. When you convert from a straight back swing to lagging you immediately see how much racquet speed you get from lagging. I asked a student why he was not rotating and he said don't have to now. I told him no keep rotating. But I can hit with my arm alone not rotating better than I did straight back no lag and fast rotation.
great video!! Loved it.
Great work and awesome effort you put into these videos, appreciated.
I agree with you that timing is more difficult the faster your racket goes. But i argue that if you want to become good at tennis it is ESSENTIAL you master the 'whip' like motion. And this whip like motion is impossible to execute perfectly with a tense wrist (the exact same reason there are no rigid parts in the whip except for the handle). Especially for the serve and baseline rallies this looseness is key to achieving maximal racket head speed. The CONTROL comes from the topspin you impart on the ball. Choosing between control and speed should therefore be a choice between topspin and a flatter shot and NOT a choice between a more rigid or a more loose wrist.
Your advocacy for more grip stength, i think this is very confusing for players trying to get better at tennis. If anything most players should relax WAY more to become better at tennis. Even tiny kids can hit immense tennis balls if they are relaxed and master the 'whip'. These kids dont have immense strength just a sound use of the kinetic chain.
What you are advocating is basically gearing more towards what is commonly known as a 'girls' throw (i.e. pushing the ball, or a shot put type of throw that has no snapping motion, not whip like effect and therefore not much speed) instead of a 'whipping' throw (i.e. professional baseball pitchers / stone skippers where the ball is accelerated immensely due to the whole arm acting like a whip culminating in the middle and index finger). It is this looseness and whippyness that contributes immensely to the speed of the ball. Ask a baseball player to throw with a stiff / strong wrist and he'll look at you like you are crazy.
Some examples that hopefully illustrate why 'looser' 'whippier' is better:
- Agassi was taught first to be able to SMACK the ball (didn't matter if he hit all the balls in the fence) and then he was taught how to hit them inside the court. It is important to FIRST master this whip / throwing motion and then learn how to control it. You will never become a great player if you do not master this skill. A good whip cannot be achieved with a static wrist.
- Often when the opponents serve is out, you will hit it 'nonchalant' and very relaxed, and you will hit some of your best shots you have ever hit. Do you hit these shots while gripping your racket tightly or are you relaxed? Opposite to this, the more tense and nervous you are during a match the more balls you will miss. You will have less racket snap, less spin and a different racket path towards the ball making you misshit.
- Why do you think people good at throwing (e.g. baseball players) catch onto tennis that quickly and are able to hit very hard very quickly? They already have the basics in place to execute this 'whip' motion with a relaxed wrist.
- The contact with the tennis ball last literally a split of a second, the path of the ball is determined by the angle the racket face is in, even a racket standing on its buttcapp that is hit with a tennis ball will deflect the tennis ball in the direction the racket face is facing towards. It is the miss-timing (racket face not facing in the right direction) that causes the ball to fly off in an unwanted direction and not the 'looseness' of the wrist or how hard you grip the racket.
I think the only situations where SLIGHTLY more wrist tension is needed is when blocking the ball or when volleying. But even then it is more the abbreviation of the stroke combined with good timing than a tense hand / wrist. Your floppy wrist experiment makes no sense since it doesn't account for topspin and you are obviously not trying as hard. Also the fact that it may be harder to time doesn't make it worse. Top basebal pitchers throw HARD AND ACCURATE because they trained this over and over and over again, just like tennis.
You are saying it costs Fededer 'tons' of strength to execute his whiplike motion, i really disagree on this. Federer has very well trained and coordinated muscles and he has great tenacity yes for sure, but he is definately not immensely strong. He is the opposite, he is slender and STILL manages to create immense speed. Due to his perfection of the 'whip' / the 'pendulum' / the 'kinetic chain' COMBINED with perfect timing (i.e. looking at the ball untill the very last moment and his incredible footwork).
Your approach gives the delusion of control but you will never reach exceptional levels of tennis with this approach.
2. The index finger of Federer being higher up the racket costing him MORE forearm strength. I argue the opposite, this finger actually DECREASES the amount of strength needed to control the racket. Since it makes the arm (in the physics sense of the word) smaller and therefore the required strength needed. --> try and hold an axe all the way at the tip with 1 hand the further you move up the shaft the easier it will become. This index finger just gives him more control of the tip of the racket due to slightly decreases the 'arm'. He doesnt engage this finger in this acceleration fase of his strike thoguh, just just 'throws' his racket by pulling on the buttcap.
3. You saying Del Potro use less of a whip action, i argue he used immense whip action and ALSO wrist lag. (check slowmotion videos of his forehand). The size of arms gives him even more 'whip' effect. (the longer the whip length the higher velocity the tip (or the racket) can achieve.His insane speed comes from him having this physical advantage as well as him hitting more flat. (more topsping decreases the speed of the ball, a more flat stroke with less spin increases the speed of the ball). Racket head speed can be the SAME but the angle at which the ball is hit will either make it topspin or a flatter stroke.
All in all my point is this: if you want to become a great tennis player you need to WHIP, and you cannot get the perfect whip with a rigid wrist. You can only become so good with it, but never exceptional. It may be hard but you will learn to time it and need to work on watching the ball and great footwork. Then you can truly become awesome at tennis. Faster balls you need to abbreviate your swing.
I couldn’t have said it better. I hope he picks something out of this. In his nee videos, he’s still insisting on his logic. I guess to each his own, but I just hope people’s games don’t get messed or worst, their forearm or elbow.
@@ronglengco143 He's got a lot of great stuff in most his videos, sometimes he's wrong though. It's hard for any one person or coach to be right on all aspects of tennis. It's up to the viewer to figure out what's correct and what's not quite correct.
I totally agree with everything @August said here, the whip like mechanic is the most core fundamental piece of good groundstrokes/serves.
If we really analyze the stroke, the wrist is ahead so I think the actual term is racket head lag.
Coach Stevens, thanks for the video. I think my experience is a bit different than your analysis. I do hold my racket loosely. So loose in fact that sometimes on a humid day, it flies off my hand. I also have a lot of lag on my stroke. The thing about my forehand is that I had to add lead tape to racket to get more plow-through because it was too light and unstable at contact. And even though I had good technique, the ball just didn't have enough pace. The extra weight helped both deficiencies. So my conclusion is that a player can benefit from a very loose wrist if they have a racket that is heavy enough to plow through the ball. This is particularly evident with Fed, who plays with a 12 oz. racket which is very heavy and you can see on video that he maintains a loose grip even through contact.
Just a comment plz
It looks you know that heavy rackets produce more power and the heavier the head is the more power you get, but keep in mind that the new rackets even light ones are designed to give power .
My kind advice is that you concentrate on your preparation and the total body rotation that starts from legs, hips and the final shoulder turn that will drive your arm and lagged racket forward to meet the ball.
The mistake the coach is doing in his video is flicking and moving his wrist at contact to hit the ball with poor body work (simply slapping the ball). Note: young guys really hit very solid heavy shots using light weight rackets.
@maccajoe
Thanks!
What you said is correct and thanks for correction.
But apart from seince,
1- Heavy racquet: in general puts lots of strain on the muscles.
2- Grip: to select a comfrotable grip size.
I believe that too small grip will mean that a tennis player must grip the racket harder to generate the force necessary to stabilise the racket head on impact with the ball, this increased effort means a greater workload is placed on the muscles around the wrist and elbow which can sometimes lead to overuse injuries.
Thanks Maccajoe
well done! Stevens!
Homework to self :Grip strength.
Lindsey Dia No no no! Don't grip the racquet too tight! Think...whip action not grip. Gripping too tight will kill your game and your hands!
Loose wrist + Strong enough grip + Rotate Shoulder Enough + Enough Racket Mass to counter the incoming ball = Federer @ 05:18
Lindsey I know you are a bbc lover
Shoulder rotation is very important...loose your wrist
Loose wrist
Nice job !
Yes I know awkward and Federer do not go in the same sentence. By the way, the backhand is exactly the same action.
He’s got interesting views. I’m not sure why there is so much hate. Indeed his videos are super long....
You're usually right on point but this was a miss. Federer is able to handle such a heavy racquet because he starts every swing with either his feet balanced and able to push off the ground or with his incredibly strong core (oblique) muscles.
You are right to focus on the weight of Fed's racquet as I use his RF97 Autograph and it does things other racquets just can't do. But strength is not what allows his magic wand to work. Rather it is kinetic energy and physics. Roger uses his racquet as a whip rather than a club. He tailors his whole game to the weight of his racquet (which actually is about what old racquets used to weigh). Fed knows that the added weight on tbe frame causes the strings to cup the ball and impart incredible spin with a flat appearing swing. The catch is that the racquet is too heavy to force so you can't cheat (even on a low buggy whip shot). You absolutely must start every swing with your hips. You can shorten it up and be fine but you must change your game to fit the racquet.
If fed used Nadal's pure drive, his game would fall apart. But with the weight and the whip action Fed can carve the ball around the court with LESS EFORT and less strength than other players. His serve is really the most amazing shot he has. He somehow creates that whip action he has with an incredibly heavy stick and yet he hardly looks like he's working. No shoulder strain at all. It's incredible.
Please please do a segment on the physics of heavy racquet. It changed feds game.
Roger does not use his forearm muscle. He relies on footwork and swing mechanics that allow the racquet to isolate just before impact. essentially the arm runs out of room and the wrist comes thru. Manipulating it at these kinds of speeds is simply impossible. This is physics not opinion
I bet Nadal also doesn't use his forarm either and all his muscles are for show
This guy is dangerous to normal club tennis players, so many poor guys wont be able to set their forehand after watching this amateur bullshit :(
yeah and Roger has some big pipes...if you know anything about biomechanics this guy is completely wrong. All sports that swing a club or racquet are the same. You really think Tiger hits it long because he is ripped? See women golfers. You think baseball players muscle balls out of the park? Good luck to you
@@kathrynegan4336 What? Roger does not use his forearm muscle? I disagree. Look at his right forearm compared to his left. The muscle is bigger because it is used. Is it the primary muscle being used for power? Definitely not. The forearm is there to help hold the racket up at all and stabilize both swing path and contact. By the way, "this is physics not opinion", is such a pretentious statement that shows how close minded you are to context. Sorry, I got triggered, just my opinion.
One word. elbow. focus on that.
Wrist lag should happen naturally !!
rock climbing helps with grip strength.
Man ur missing the point of lag. Federer can hit shots with lag bc he’s used to hitting the ball with it. There’s no strength Involved at all. The mechanics of it come from hip rotation and coiling from the legs and letting ur wrist loose enough to have the tip of the racket lag behind. Ur contact point is right when ur lag is stopping which is why u think u need to engage ur forearm. Federer’s contact point is right after which means the acceleration he made from the backswing is doing all the work. There’s hardly any muscle involved at contact.
I am 55 years and trying to learn just to hit the ball correctly. Paid so much for “coaches” telling me to do the wrist lag.?! I am not a junior player. This “free” you tube is more worth it. Thanks!
Your wrist will naturally lag behind with fast racket head spin. Many will try to try and do the snap purposefully, it’s not supposed to be like that. It’ll happen naturally
@@KaptainOW Ummm.... I doubt it...some people say it;s coming naturally...some people say it's something you have to learn...I believe the second,,,with eastern grip there will be more lag wrist...with semi-western less but more suppination
Maty Verona it’s something you have to learn, in a sense that you have to learn not to have your wrist be extremely tense, but it will happen naturally once you do that
why not make the long story short you are saying nice stuff but ...
no, man. you need to be limp. we are at a stage that completely relaxed wrist, the limp wrist is expected to be perfectly controlled by the correct body movement. those of us who can do this are actually throwing the racquet at the ball every time we hit them. if you do this right, you feel no different from practice swing without hitting balls even when you are hitting them except the pleasant vibration of contact that surpasses the combined forces of racquet head speed and weight of racquet. you have no idea what you are talking about. stop misinforming the public with your limited understanding.
You are way off with this active wrist manipulation and forearm flexing stuff. There maybe some firm forearm required in blockinig situations (like on return of serve Federer is doing in your vid), or during akward situations, but for a regular rally ball the wrist should be relaxed and getting pulled (forward and up) by the big muscles untill right before impact when that pull converts into release and effortless flight of the head of the racket.
Anton Vilinskiy You're absolutely right and it's too bad because this channel usually nails the physics of tennis...which is the best part of tennis. Fed's racquet is magical when used properly but it's incredibly hard to use properly and requires incredible footwork and focus. You can't muscle a ball or get lazy or you're done. If you do master the kinetic chain however you find spin and power and spin/pace combos you wouldn't think possible. You literally surprise yourself.
I should add that you have to string the racquet right too. Without a loose soft stringbed you can't tap into the cupping action this racquet magically creates.
A passive wrist can and does naturally change position during a swing. Also a loose grip can be used in conjunction with a full kinetic chain working from the ground up. I think a lot of information in this video misrepresents good technique. Most players usta level 5.0 or lower should actually work on controlling their wrist. You can still use a full kinetic chain with a passive or controlled grip to hit the ball very fast. The demo where the instructor tries to show how a passive loose grip is incorrect is silly. The demo is using no leg or torse power to rotate into the shot. "SNAP" is a 4 letter word and is a fool's errand if you are trying to snap your wrist in your forehand swing.
Sexy wrist lag ? What is he talking about ?
Federer's forehand
I could show you, it's called the modern forehand , you don't need to be a professional to do it, but if you can't do it....you probably shouldn't be trying to teach it. I really feel for some players it might be too much to handle, it really depends on what your looking for when you play tennis fun or competition.
I am sorry brother your trying to confuse people. I fail to understand what exactly you are trying to do here. 99% of your viewer which are club level player will only make their thehnique worse watchimg your video. Every individual will find its own destination following a lot of repetitions with a racquet lag. I understand you want views out of controvercy but this will not take you far!
Hi
Much a talk for ..... (23 minutes).
The whole story of lagging can be summarized in 4 or 5 steps without such very detailed information.
You are exaggerating your wrist relaxtion and tend to slap the ball at contact as you open your very loose wrist before and during contact instead of keeping it back on contact with a windshield action after (like Fedrer). The way you do it will result in wrist injury and less control. Let lagging comes naturally through relaxed taken back wrist, unit turn and full body rotation that will fire the shot. I saw you demonstarting it, but really not correct, above all poor style of play far below coachs' level. I really advise you to again watch Fedrer's forehand in high slow motion doing the lagging and windshield motion after contact.
Man, watch yourself in slow montion, you are not correctly lagging but slapping the ball with very loose wrist. Simply immitating top pros in a wrong way.
Good lesson but you talk too much. too much is too much
wow at 7:50 I lost interest how can you say Federer has incredible grip strength everyone knows he has loose grip in fact every all coaches on RUclips says keep loose grip because tension restricts wrist and motion.
This is a very misleading video. If you don't use your body, then, of course, you have to use your arm and wrist muscles. But, if you do use your body (rotationally), as you should, your arm and wrist can be passive (loose). You do not need strong arm muscles.
Man, this dude is confused - he's got everything almost right and then he messes up when he starts talking about the wrist. Seriously - just stop guessing - get yourself some high-speed video of top pro players like Federer, Nadal and Djokovic - study them and add them to your next video when you understand the function of the forearm and wrist combination.
i think this video is too focused on trying to hit like roger federer, look at Djokovic where he doesnt have as much wrist lag.
He is alot more consistent than RF
Your fh is really really bad
plz adopt me 1 week
So passionate but so misleading
Your fh is bad
Your video are too long and you are wrong on most part. Make it simple so people will understand about the wrist lag. Just a suggestion, feel the weight at the bottom half of the string NOT the top frame as you swing. Also, trying to whip thru the ball so that the air compress inside the ball to explode. You should be able to hear a loud pop as you hit the ball. The whole point is to compress the air inside the tennis ball. Good Luck!!