A forehand review article by Elliot

[julian1]

Let us start

Thanks for the response, Julian. While post #23 is rife with possibilities, I am not sure how it helps... perhaps because the issues you are raising are part of an ongoing discovery process. Maybe you could just dispense with the details and just say what a player should do - like move the wrist from extended to flexed position during the course of a stroke, and/or deviate the wrist radially, etc.

Hi,
I was trying to look at

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/fernando_verdasco/fv_forehand/fv_fh_center/fv_fh_center.html?FVFHCenterOpenStanceFront1.mov

Please find a frame or 2 frames before the contact.
Would you agree that a hitting hand of Verdasco is AT SOME MOMENT in extended position?
If NOT I will try to find another video
the definition of ulnar deviation is

http://pages.uoregon.edu/esorens1/hphy362.pbwiki.com/Ulnar%20deviation.html

BTW:my E-mail address is juliantennis@comcast.net
Julian W.Mielniczuk
PS
Please let me know which part below is NOT clear
---->
Hand rotations: Approximately 25% of the racket
speed at impact is produced through a combination of
palmar or ulnar flexion. The nature of this combination
depends on the type of grip (Elliott et al., 1997) but is
independent of stance (Bahamonde and Knudson, 2003).
More recently, the magnitude of wrist flexion has been
shown to increase with heightened forehand hitting speed
(Seeley et al., 2011). The wrist generally flexes in the late
forwardswing but the hand is likely to remain hyperextended
to some level at impact. The work of Rogowski et
al. (2011) investigated how changes in racket velocity
Reid et al.
229
profile are produced and revealed that radial deviation
increased racket-face vertical velocity more at impact
from the flat to topspin forehand drives than did shoulder
abduction. This highlights the important role of the wrist
in changing the racket’s trajectory and, presumably, the
effect imparted to the ball. In the opinion of the authors, it
also highlights a paradox of sorts, where the emphasis
placed on the role of the wrist in teaching the forehand
stroke seems inconsistent with the attention it has been
afforded (as compared to internal rotation and trunk rotation)
in the tennis biomechanics literature. To this end,
and as aforementioned, it can be difficult for coaches to
appreciate the role of the wrist in the context of the required
rotations at other joints. Nevertheless, there would
appear an opportunity for future research to evaluate wrist
joint motion in forehands played

[stroke]

Hi Julian,

Two points in response to the tennis wharehouse thread.

1. In my opinion, the amount of wrist extension, or not, has much more to do with out going shot line intent. You'll tend to see more extention with down the line shots, (with the most being on inside out shots) and less on crosscourt shots. (in more of a flexion state)
2.Contrary to most on this thread, I do think its a good find and has implications in teaching. Ulnar to radial movement (within the context of an overall movement of pronation, internal rotation etc) is an extremely important component to the vertical racquet head speed. I've mentioned this before, but in a more modern forehand, topspin is created more by this move, then by the lifting action (low to high path) of the arm. I've seen studies where on stock forehands, the low to high path is only upwards of 20 to 30 degrees. However, the wiping action is significant and accounts for much of the spin rates.

Crosscourt shots(more of a flexion state) is I think what enables Nadal to get to the outside of the ball and hit his favorite shot, the crosscourt hooking topspin shot. I think he is an extreme example of a type 3 forehand getting to the outside of the ball with wrist flexion. When Nadal is hitting down the line with the wrist more extended(except with the running forehand), he has more difficulty getting the hook on the ball.

[julian1]

Contact point

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/HD/Novak_Djokovic/Forehand_Backhand/Forehand_Backhand.html?djokovic_fh_center_side1.mov

is a good example what is happening at the contact point
It is suggested to go frame by frame using the the right arrow on PC
The same in the case

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/rafael_nadal/rafeal_nadal_high_speed.html?FHWideSide-0522205-0001.mov

[julian1]

In a nut shell

Thanks for the response, Julian. While post #23 is rife with possibilities, I am not sure how it helps... perhaps because the issues you are raising are part of an ongoing discovery process. Maybe you could just dispense with the details and just say what a player should do - like move the wrist from extended to flexed position during the course of a stroke, and/or deviate the wrist radially, etc.

Basically we have a transition from extension to flexion at the contact point.
It happens for high performance players.
Now we have three different directions to continue:
1.check whether the statement above is true
2.check whether the transition would increase the head racket speed
3.see whether drillls can provide a succesfull transition from extension to flexion at the contact point

[bottle]

Forgive me, but the first thing I would try to do was make sure that everybody knew what extension of the wrist and flexion of the wrist means, or more important, how you, the teacher or writer intended to mean these words. A lot of tennis players are dyslexic and always apt to confuse these two functions. It's a fact. People need help sometimes with the most simple things.

[tennisplayer]

Basically we have a transition from extension to flexion at the contact point.
It happens for high performance players.
Now we have three different directions to continue:
1.check whether the statement above is true
2.check whether the transition would increase the head racket speed
3.see whether drillls can provide a succesfull transition from rxtension to flexion at the contact point

Thanks, Julian. This much I had deciphered from your original post, but it's good you confirmed my understanding. In matters concerning the wrist, I'm with bottle... I basically keep it relaxed and leave it alone, a lesson I've learned from trying to get the Federer like action on it and almost losing my forehand as a result! But that's another story, for some other day, in a different thread.

[julian1]

Ulnar deviation

Forgive me, but the first thing I would try to do was make sure that everybody knew what extension of the wrist and flexion of the wrist means, or more important, how you, the teacher or writer intended to mean these words. A lot of tennis players are dyslexic and always apt to confuse these two functions. It's a fact. People need help sometimes with the most simple things.

I provided one related definition above
----->
the definition of ulnar deviation are

http://pages.uoregon.edu/esorens1/hp...deviation.html

http://pages.uoregon.edu/esorens1/hphy362.pbwiki.../Ulnar%20deviation.html

Somehow the links got TRANSLATED INCORRECTLY here.
One can do
google ulnar deviation uoregon
to get the list of links

[stotty]

http://www.jssm.org/vol12/n2/2/v12n2-2pdf.pdf
Couple of comments
1.The article/link is NOT read protected
However I would prefer to provide a LINK instead of full text.
If from some reasons one cannot "open" the link please let me know.
2.I think that the opinion about teaching of forehand for Under10Tennis programs
is interesting (see the introduction part of the article)

It's a decent paper. I always imagine these things are aimed at other sports academics rather than tennis coaches. Coaches are due the next stage when the article gets turned in to English that coaches can better understand.

The bottom line is how can coaches use information like this in their trade? The best way to deliver "silver bullets" is in videos like the Rick Macci ones on Tennisplayer. From a practical standpoint, videos or concise, simply written articles are way better than reading a white paper for most coaches. Although I enjoy reading just about anything on tennis, few of my colleagues do.

To take issue with a couples of things:

I disagree with the abstract. I think the forehand is the most important stroke, not the serve. I can think of average servers who have won a slam, but none have done so with an average forehand.

No matter how many studies a scientist does about this game, involving however many players, there are always going to be uniqueness of some kind in every player. The forehand stance of Falla on grass, cited in the paper, being a prime example...who would have thought that?

[julian1]

Two authors are coaches

It's a decent paper. I always imagine these things are aimed at other sports academics rather than tennis coaches. Coaches are due the next stage when the article gets turned in to English that coaches can better understand.

The bottom line is how can coaches use information like this in their trade? The best way to deliver "silver bullets" is in videos like the Rick Macci ones on Tennisplayer. From a practical standpoint, videos or concise, simply written articles are way better than reading a white paper for most coaches. Although I enjoy reading just about anything on tennis, few of my colleagues do.

To take issue with a couples of things:

I disagree with the abstract. I think the forehand is the most important stroke, not the serve. I can think of average servers who have won a slam, but none have done so with an average forehand.

No matter how many studies a scientist does about this game, involving however many players, there are always going to be uniqueness of some kind in every player. The forehand stance of Falla on grass, cited in the paper, being a prime example...who would have thought that?

Stotty,
just couple very trivial remarks:
two authors of the paper mentioned in post #1 are coaches-one of Tennis Australia (Machar Reid),second of ITF
(Miguel Crespo).
as you probably know.

Should we classify all three authors as "scientists"?
I do NOT know.

If one would go to
www.tennisicoach.com there are multiple presentation of BOTH of them
at multiple ITF conferences (ex Egypt).

Whether coaches do benefit from conferences and professional training is another issue.
In States coaches do go to conferences-there is even a trend to recertify coaches (OMG)

Regards,
Julian

[10splayer]

Crosscourt shots(more of a flexion state) is I think what enables Nadal to get to the outside of the ball and hit his favorite shot, the crosscourt hooking topspin shot. I think he is an extreme example of a type 3 forehand getting to the outside of the ball with wrist flexion. When Nadal is hitting down the line with the wrist more extended(except with the running forehand), he has more difficulty getting the hook on the ball.

Hi Stroke, sorry I haven't responded earlier. Maybe you could explain why you think it's easier for him to "hook" the ball on a crosscourt ball (with the wrist in a more flexed state) then a down the line shot. Not saying I disagree, just don't know.

My gut feeling is, that it shouldn't make any difference. As I mentioned before, I believe that initial shot line is governed by face angle, and spin (in this case) hook spin is created by an extreme inside-out path. One of the clearest examples is when a player is running (to the forehand side) and they "hook" the ball from outside the singles line into the court. (easy to see the flight path with the singles sideline as a reference) If you look at the path of racquet into contact, it is approaching from a pronounced "inside" position. The racquet face looks like it's almost moving sideways. (and of course, up)

It's interesting, because the golf teaching profession has been profoundly impacted by Trackman, which has proven that much of what has been taught in the past is flat out wrong. In a nutshell, it has revealed that the start line of shots is reflection of the clubface and impact, and the flight characteristics are determined by the path. Very similar to tennis.

[julian1]

Defintion of wrist flexion

http://www.exrx.net/Articulations/Wrist.html#anchor260949

[10splayer]

Give the author a prize then. And $100,000. And a banquet. Can I come, too?

Ulna to radius movement is important but not "extremely" so. More seminal is the partitioned spearing with the racket butt. Somebody reading this 10splayer post cold might think you mean that the puny muscles that cause ulna to radius deviation ought to generate big topspin.

Will see him at the hospital.

Ugg. One will not end up in the hospital. Besides, if you've survived your mad science laboratory of experimentation, you have nothing to fear. Rotation of an arm, can produce speed. (much more so than big muscle groups) And since topspin, is not just a function of the path, but speed along that path, it is an important component..

[10splayer]

http://www.exrx.net/Articulations/Wr...l#anchor260949

Julian,

Can we agree (at least as it relates to a forehand tennis stroke) that in the forward swing, because the racquet is pulled butt cap first, the weight of the racquet head will produce an "extended" position with the wrist in the forward swing....If we can agree on that, then all we're talking about is how much, if any, the wrist move into flexion at impact... As I've mentioned before, this movement has a profound impact on the "start line" of shots.

[julian1]

We agree on both statements

Julian,

Can we agree (at least as it relates to a forehand tennis stroke) that in the forward swing, because the racquet is pulled butt cap first, the weight of the racquet head will produce an "extended" position with the wrist in the forward swing....If we can agree on that, then all we're talking about is how much, if any, the wrist move into flexion at impact... As I've mentioned before, this movement has a profound impact on the "start line" of shots.

10splayer,
we agree on both statements.

If one wants to visualize

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/high_speed_archive/pro_men/HD/Novak_Djokovic/Forehand_Backhand/Forehand_Backhand.html?djokovic_fh_center_side1.mov

would be a good demonstration of BOTH YOUR statements.

Regards,
Julian

PS #1
The video quoted above is probably valid/correct till ONE frame before
the contact.

The part which is more difficult is:
say a player reverses a cross court ball.
How does wrist control two different components of
a speed vector:
parallel and perpendicular to a baseline
PS#2
The paper

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/ajp/79/5/10.1119/1.3556712

by Rod Cross provides some modelling/numerical of the scenario you described

[stroke]

Hi Stroke, sorry I haven't responded earlier. Maybe you could explain why you think it's easier for him to "hook" the ball on a crosscourt ball (with the wrist in a more flexed state) then a down the line shot. Not saying I disagree, just don't know.

My gut feeling is, that it shouldn't make any difference. As I mentioned before, I believe that initial shot line is governed by face angle, and spin (in this case) hook spin is created by an extreme inside-out path. One of the clearest examples is when a player is running (to the forehand side) and they "hook" the ball from outside the singles line into the court. (easy to see the flight path with the singles sideline as a reference) If you look at the path of racquet into contact, it is approaching from a pronounced "inside" position. The racquet face looks like it's almost moving sideways. (and of course, up)

It's interesting, because the golf teaching profession has been profoundly impacted by Trackman, which has proven that much of what has been taught in the past is flat out wrong. In a nutshell, it has revealed that the start line of shots is reflection of the clubface and impact, and the flight characteristics are determined by the path. Very similar to tennis.

I would think it is kind of because of the same reason it is easier to hit a more extreme kick serve to the ad court than the deuce court(for a right hander). I have noticed when Nadal attempts to hit an inside out forehand from his ad court area to his opponents deuce court, and hit his signature hook, the hook does not take or happen sometimes. I am not sure why that is. It appears to be just not as natural a shot as when he is hitting it from his deuce court to his opponents ad court.