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Hey John,
Really enjoyed your article on the Andy Murray forehand and the possible implications of the stances.
I definitely agree with you on the analysis that Murray does not make full use of the hip and shoulder turn and that he hits too much open stance. Nevertheless, I think another factor could be very important when we talk about the question why his forehand is not as fast and heavy on average as those of the other 3 top guys.
Andy does not get nearly the amount of lag or pre-stretch as some people call it with his wrist on average compared to the other top guys.
Attached are a few screenshots from your high speed archive. I couldn't figure out how to directly put them into the post. Of course these are just two shots but I looked at a lot of his forehands and on average he does not get nearly the angle between wrist and forearm that Fed, Nadal, and Djokovic get.
In order to maximize your racket head speed you obviously need to maximize the amount of energy created in all aspects of your stroke. I guess the difficult question now is what factor contributes how much to the lack of speed and spin in Murray's forehand. Is X-Factor/hip and shoulder rotation more of a factor or is it the amount of lag between wrist and forearm ? Tough to say obviously but my guess is that the lag effect contributes a little more.
The two reasons I believe that:
#1: experimenting with my own forehand and my students
#2: I've spend quite a bit of time studying the mechanics of the golf swing with my friend Oliver Heuler who is regarded as the leading golf instructor in Germany. He told me that in Golf the lag effect contributes more towards racket head speed than X-Factor and is by far the number aspect to look at when someone lacks distance with their swings.
Obviously there are differences between Golf and Tennis and answering this question is quite difficult but I am sure there is somebody out there with the equipment to exactly measure these contributions. Brian Gordon maybe ?
What are your thoughts ?
Regards,
Florian Meier
Really enjoyed your article on the Andy Murray forehand and the possible implications of the stances.
I definitely agree with you on the analysis that Murray does not make full use of the hip and shoulder turn and that he hits too much open stance. Nevertheless, I think another factor could be very important when we talk about the question why his forehand is not as fast and heavy on average as those of the other 3 top guys.
Andy does not get nearly the amount of lag or pre-stretch as some people call it with his wrist on average compared to the other top guys.
Attached are a few screenshots from your high speed archive. I couldn't figure out how to directly put them into the post. Of course these are just two shots but I looked at a lot of his forehands and on average he does not get nearly the angle between wrist and forearm that Fed, Nadal, and Djokovic get.
In order to maximize your racket head speed you obviously need to maximize the amount of energy created in all aspects of your stroke. I guess the difficult question now is what factor contributes how much to the lack of speed and spin in Murray's forehand. Is X-Factor/hip and shoulder rotation more of a factor or is it the amount of lag between wrist and forearm ? Tough to say obviously but my guess is that the lag effect contributes a little more.
The two reasons I believe that:
#1: experimenting with my own forehand and my students
#2: I've spend quite a bit of time studying the mechanics of the golf swing with my friend Oliver Heuler who is regarded as the leading golf instructor in Germany. He told me that in Golf the lag effect contributes more towards racket head speed than X-Factor and is by far the number aspect to look at when someone lacks distance with their swings.
Obviously there are differences between Golf and Tennis and answering this question is quite difficult but I am sure there is somebody out there with the equipment to exactly measure these contributions. Brian Gordon maybe ?
What are your thoughts ?
Regards,
Florian Meier
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