Developing an ATP Forehand Part 1: The Dynamic Slot

[johnyandell]

Would love to hear your thoughts on Brian Gordon's new article, "Developing an ATP Forehand Part 1: The Dynamic Slot".

[stroke]

Amazing piece on the ATP type forehand. There is nothing like quantitative analysis. Count me in as one of those who felt the stretch shortening/dynamic slot portion of the ATP forehand involved the wrist as a primary rotation. I know better now.

[Alfred140mph]

I am watching Federer right now and I can see exactly what Brian is talking about. That flip rotation. Wow.

[jryle1]

Wow, this really is incredible. I just did a tiny experiment on my own forehand, shadow swinging in the conservatory.... I've always consciously to do what Brian calls "The flip".... instead this time, what I did was try to get into the position, elbow in line with the shoulders, away from the body, racket slightly above the hand and toward the hitting side... and instead of consciously trying to do "The flip"... I just told myself to like drive my hand forward.... and even do it didn't feel like "The flip" was happening (it actually felt a lot better, it felt faster and less stressful) when I recorded it on camera "The flip" actually happened anyway despite it not feeling like it. This is gonna require some experimentation on the court with some hi-speed video!! I'll let you guys know what I find but, I've been waiting for these articles for a long and they're better than I imagined! Great work Brian, John, Rick and everyone involved. Another gem for a gem of a site.

Jono.

[DougEng]

Significant body of work

Congratulations to Brian on a terrific article! Very significant work.

The slot and stretch-shorten (contract) movement is paramount. Many good coaches are teaching this which develops maximal acceleration. Many children often develop fuller motions due to weaker core, shoulder and less ability to take higher velocities in the arm. But it is trainable and requires physiological adaptations (e.g, increasing strength of shoulder stabilizers and higher bone density).

Juniors often also open the racquet face at the top of the helicopter swing. Rick Macci also encourages "pat the dog" which closes the face and gets the racquet aligned into the slot properly. Players are taught to make a C swing which is primarily involves the larger muscles but the best forehands in the world are often more of a boot-shaped swing. Imagine a boot with the toe box facing down. The racquet path goes around the back of the boot and over the heel and then an extra drop at the toe box. Federer and Djokovic clearly use this. Some players also use it but slightly more to the side than back (hence the box box is farther forward) such as Del Potro.

However, there are other players even at the ATP level who use closer to a Type II swing. For example, Lleyton Hewitt. Perhaps those players have less offense.

Interestingly the backhand corresponding technique to Type 3 include the more compact U swing with neutral wrist positions but the laid back (extended) wrist on the upper hand (or left hand for the righty). And also sometimes the wrist-breaking position with right hand (not all the time). Many WTA players use the large arc (using the hand and arm rotation and swinging closer to the body at contact) to generate a Type 2 like backhand. The men's U-like swing has a similar movement but the stretching is not only in the left arm (s-s cycle) but the upper right arm (triceps).

Best,
Doug

[makhan67]

Developing an ATP Forehand?

As usual another great research to unearth the secrets of an effective ATP forehand.

This past February, 2012, I was in Orlando, USA, where I attended the PTR International Tennis Symposium. Great presentations were held on topics ranging from Tennis10 to Elite Juniors to Professional tennis, and on a personal note in the 60+ Singles Championships in the semi-final, I survived handful of match points and beat the ever green Ken DeHart, the PTR and USPTA Master Professional, in three sets. I will never forget this match and I am sure Ken will remember this as well. In one of the match points that he had in the second set tiebreak, he hit a real wide serve to my BH and closed in for a volley. In fact, his wide serve almost crashed me to the left side fence; my BH return was a weak cross-court and he was up there at the net with a volley which he had not missed so far in the match. Sensing the end of the match I ran towards him to shake his hand but I think he thought I was trying to cover his BH volley which he was set to hit down the line; he rushed and hit his volley into a court side water-cooler. I managed to win the tiebreak 10-8 and then the third set. This match was the talk of the Symposium.

Tennis provides you with many golden moments both for the coaches, players at all levels. During my 40 years of tennis playing and coaching I came across so many teaching systems but let me tell you that it is so easy to learn from these super slow motion videos that John uploads for us.

The ATP Forehand has it all. My daughter Sarah Khan is on an Athletic Scholarship to one of the U.S. Universities. She is on vacation right now. I called her to view this article so that she learns. I wish the new generation of players will realize the importance and effectiveness of mental imagery that one gets through these videos.

If you are a player trying to achieve excellence or a coach trying to learn new teaching techniques you don't need to go anywhere else. Everything is here and I congratulate John Yandell for his outstanding work.

Thank you John, keep up the good work.

Mahboob Khan
MKTA, Islamabad Club
Islamabad, Pakistan.

[johnyandell]

Thanks Doug and Mahboob--but mainly thanks goes to Brian!

[10splayer]

Great article on the modern forehand. (it is Gordon after all)

One of keys (IMO) when teaching and learning this "flipping" action, is the timing/sequencing of the transition stage. (downswing to forward swing)

What "flips"/pat the dog to buttcap to ball, (external rotation) is the forward rotation of the body. If the body rotates "late" the arm is going to stall, and the hitting structure (external rotation) will be set up late. Anything but a dynamic slot position. IMO, this is what we saw in the Angela Park and Pat the Dog 2 thread.

One of keys to using this "ATP" backswing, is to make sure the forward rotation of the torso, occurs well before the racquet "bottoms out",, to insure a smooth, continuous, "dynamic" change of direction.

Just my 02 cents.

[jasonfrausto]

A very good read, it builds on and elaborates on what Heath Waters had talked about with the stretch shortening cycle on the forehand on his site 6-7 years ago. Brian does a nice job of sharing extra details and information, and this data further backs up the belief that especially on the forehand, the technical setup and hitting critical checkpoints allows for strokes to get to optimal levels. Great work!

I would still be curious as to what the exact difference is between the women being able to do this and the men? Cleary Usain Bolt isn't going to be beaten in a 100 meter dash by any woman more than likely ever. Our bodies are also built differently (breasts), so I'm curious to see what his research will say in regards to the limitations body wise between men and women? You have to wonder if the benefit of the stretch shortening cycle for women outweighs being comfortable in the traditional WTA type swing? If women have less maximum ability to accelerate will this benefit them enough to make it standard in their strokes? Interesting arguments can be made all around.

I have attempted to teach this to female students in the past, and it is very difficult. Now if you have an academy girl training 6-7 days a week from the start, I'm sure that the sheer number of reps will help as well.

Great read, keep it coming as it helps in the development of juniors.

Edit: It is also my belief that the preparation position is critical in setting this up. Most women wait in a style of preparation position that is conducive to the WTA type swing, and many of the men wait in a position that is more adept at getting the hitting elbow away from the body at the start. If you look at Stosur, she has the more common ATP style ready position on groundstrokes like (Fed, Nadal, and Djokovic).

[johnyandell]

Jason,

Good comments and maybe Brian will jump in. However his research leads to very different conclusions about stretch shorten cycles than some others including Heath--who never developed any actual data. In the second part I think you will be surprised by what he has to say about how the wrist actually functions, but I'll let that article speak for itself.

I saw quite a few kids at Macci's with the backswing shape Brian teaches and some were quite young. Having experimented with this myself I really think the key is just what Brian says--getting the racket head above and to the right of the hitting hand with the arm on a slight diagonal away and to the right of the torso.

[tennis_chiro]

Early hip turn

Great article on the modern forehand. (it is Gordon after all)

One of keys (IMO) when teaching and learning this "flipping" action, is the timing/sequencing of the transition stage. (downswing to forward swing)

What "flips"/pat the dog to buttcap to ball, (external rotation) is the forward rotation of the body. If the body rotates "late" the arm is going to stall, and the hitting structure (external rotation) will be set up late. Anything but a dynamic slot position. IMO, this is what we saw in the Angela Park and Pat the Dog 2 thread.

One of keys to using this "ATP" backswing, is to make sure the forward rotation of the torso, occurs well before the racquet "bottoms out",, to insure a smooth, continuous, "dynamic" change of direction.

Just my 02 cents.

I think Larry makes a great point here. You need to complete the turn of the hips and even, to a certain extent, the shoulders before the arm moves the racket in that explosive move forward to the ball. The hips and shoulders should turn from the position where the hips are at least perpendicular to the net and the shoulders are even further back than that to a finish where the bellybutton is basically facing the net. Some are quicker than others, but the I think the hand is quicker than the hips, as well as the eye. We generate power with our hip turn and thereby use our core and leg power, but in the sequential firing of the kinetic chain, I think the hips and shoulders need to go first. I'm always trying to get my juniors to feel the power they get from their core and legs by making them through medicine balls or feel the power of an uppercut punch with an isometric exercise at the contact point, but I understand that the reality is that by the time the racket gets to the ball, the legs and shoulders have done their work and the energy is just being released into the ball and directed by the wrist.

I loved the article and I'm dying to see the 2nd article about the true function of the wrist. As much as this treatise elucidates the importance of getting inside with a stretch-shortening cycle, I am still a little unsure of one of my basic questions: "Is Federer's forehand as great as it is because of or inspite of that little wiggle he does at the beginning of his downswing?" Clearly, he is benefiting from an exaggerated stretch-shortening cycle, but there are a lot of huge forehands that manage to incorporate the stretch-shortening aspect to their stroke without that wiggle. (I think Bottle calls it the "mondo". I've never been entirely sure.) I feel like that contributes to his propensity to go off and miss a lot of easy forehands. We used to have a lot of discussions about that on this site, especially with Air Force.

Finally, I think it is important to recognize their are other advantages to that little "loop" that drops the racket into the "slot". Tennis is a lot more than power. In the moment when that racket head is traveling through that path, your inner computer is feeling the position and orientation of the racket and of the racket face. It is thereby more able to make the necessary millions of computations it goes through to make the racket meet the ball. And the rhythmic feel of that motion (please, I am not advocating a rhythm hit) relaxes the body and gives it a chance to respond "Oh, yeah. I remember this. I know how to do this. I've done this a million times before." That is a clear advantage over the simpler straight back and down backswing that is still taught to a lot of beginners. And when you drop into that little loop from a Type III ATP forehand backswing, you are able to generate momentum directly at the target from the beginning of the swing instead of only after the Type I backswing stroke has turned the corner. These aspects may be a little harder if not impossible for Brian to measure, but they are still very important in understanding the importance and advantages of that ATP style forehand.

don

[jasonfrausto]

Jason,

Good comments and maybe Brian will jump in. However his research leads to very different conclusions about stretch shorten cycles than some others including Heath--who never developed any actual data. In the second part I think you will be surprised by what he has to say about how the wrist actually functions, but I'll let that article speak for itself.

I saw quite a few kids at Macci's with the backswing shape Brian teaches and some were quite young. Having experimented with this myself I really think the key is just what Brian says--getting the racket head above and to the right of the hitting hand with the arm on a slight diagonal away and to the right of the torso.

John,

Thanks for the response. I'm really looking forward to part 2 of the article and I'm glad that this subject is being covered with further depth and statistical analysis to bring validity to the importance of hitting the forehand this way.

What I'm really interested in is the statistical data differences, the checkpoints I've taught and was aware of in making the stroke work in this way, but hard numbers help to get the kids to understand the benefits of doing this versus what they might be comfortable with. I love statistics so hopefully we'll get plenty of hard data in part 2 or 3!

I remodeled my forehand after learning from Heath through his site, so I can attest to the difference it makes, and it's great to get analysis like this on tennisplayer to lead people in the right direction to developing their game.

How many parts will this consist of?

[privas]

Someone mention breasts?

Wow! What I found most amazing about this system is that it can be taught to women and children since it would appear that the shoulder strength and stability is very important, as well as the pectoralis muscle contribution (underneath the breasts). Certainly if the frame is light enough, perhaps a kid or woman can do this...one would think. Does it require a lighter frame for them?

Perhaps there is a positive correlation between how much someone can bench-press in the weight room, and the amount of spin they can generate with this technique...if the same person with the same technique and racquet were to be followed longitudinally? Women are generally smarter than us guys. I think they would have figured this out sooner if their anatomy allowed. I look forward to Part 2. Pedro

[brent]

Great analysis of the 3 swings/backswings and the flip. The videos really make the points pop out. I think the comments about timing of the rotation as it effects the flip are right on. Going to pay particular attention to that this week.
It's common teaching to keep the grip loose and not choke the racquet. I can't wait to see what else/different Gordon has to say about the grip and tightness of the forearm.

[holyhobo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCoCT5X6yK4

Not Bad Eh?