Forehand forearm supination question

[gzhpcu]

Eric,
Yes, sorry, got the wrong clip. Nobody, not even tennis teachers seem to work with a video camera here in Switzerland. I have been using video analysis for about 3 years, and it really helps me monitor my technical improvement. I am very visually oriented.


The software I have allows me to view the clips frame by frame, as opposed to youtube which does not. I'll see if I can come up with something better...

In the meantime, doesn't this frame by frame sequence of pictures show it?

[EricMatuszewski]

Yes, I'd like it to be clearer, but there does seem to be a stretch and release to contact going on here. Frames 1 to 3 (left to right from above) show the opening of the hips and the probable stretching of the flexors. I wish frame 5 (contact) was clearer. As this would show the back to approx. 135 degree angle I spoke of above (this is the angle of the loose relaxed wrist prior to being stretched in frame 3.

Two frames after contact @60fps I see an "overshoot" (the hand going past neutral as it presumably slows down gradually) with all the elite male players I've taped (including juniors). It seems to be there on you, however it's really difficult to be sure with all the blurring.

Your grip is more eastern than the players I'm used to dealing with. Much more traditional, but It does seem to use some of this interesting elastic quality of the hand flexors. I can't see the supination/pronation part from this angle really.. for that you need to see the rear view. That's the movement that really interests me more because it is more unique to the latest development of the male pro game. Too bad I can't evaluate it with this angle too well.

So it seems to be kind of a mix of the old and new. I hope it continues to bring you lots of compliments and fun points on the clay.

Do some rear views and we'll talk more...

Hope my comments are usefull.
Eric Matuszewski

[gzhpcu]

Thank you for your time and comments Eric. Yes, I am using an Eastern grip.
Here is a rear view:

[EricMatuszewski]

Phil,

These pics are so much better! Now we can talk!

and thank you for giving me the chance to offer my comments. It's really fun collaborating with someone so far away, you're my first Swiss student. That's new ground for me.

There appears to be a little pronator stretch going on from frames 2 to 3 and 4. I can see a change in the racket angle in these frames ,as your hips open up. Your stretch seems to be more flexor stretch (probably because of the eastern grip) than pronator stretch. My theory is that this will cause more ball speed than spin compared to a more forcefull pronator stretch.


I'd also like to add that your elbow angle is pretty straight which seems to be the trend in the evolution of the elite male forehand, probably because the further you get the hand away from what's turning (your trunk), the faster the hand will be moving (all things being equal).

Also notice how that arm is bent @frames 1 and 2 and suddenly straightens out for frame 3 on when the stretch action happens. This is very similar to Nadal/Federer.

There seems to be some correlation to suddenly straightening the arm at time of hip rotation and getting a stretch in the forearm. My theory is that because the hand is further away from what's turning (the trunk) it's going faster and thus gives a more extreem "lag" because of the racket tips Inertia (tendency not to move untill acted upon by enough force).

So the forearm muscles stretch until that critical moment is reached where the stretching and some type of contraction (likely eccentric) are greater than the opposite force caused by the inertia of the racket tip, and the tip begins to accelerate to contact. (I'm trying to keep the terminology easy here.) On pro's this usually happens 1/15th of a second before contact, hence the "sudden burst of racket tip speed" people are calling "racket speed" or "hand speed".

This is the moment where if there was a sudden enough force, a SSC might theoretically happen.

To date, the technology doesn't exists to prove whether or not this happens in a forehand. But I don't see this as really a critical thing we have to know to get someone to hit a great forehand. I see it more as just an interesting phenomena which would explain how some players get such an explosive burst of racket tip speed.

There are other qualities of muscle that can't be proven either, but these qualities are nevertheless helpfull in thinking about muscles and reasoning as to the most efficient ways to use them.

Sliding filament theory comes to mind. Although, I think the theory has been accepted in general for so long it's treated like fact and this model of how a muscle contacts is the model the worlds scientists use when thinking about contractions. It is still a theory.

We don't call it scientific fact. Although every medical text I've read teaches this model as the way muscles contract. It's still "only" a theory. The point is, these humble theories can be pretty helpfull despite their unproveability.

So Phil, hope you find these comments entertaining.
Sincerly,
Eric Matuszewski

P.S.
I'd still get another camera with a faster shutter (It will be worth it!)

[gzhpcu]

Thanks Eric!

P.S. If you look at the interactive forum where super slow motion of Federer's forehand is shown, it seems to me that the ball hits his racket towards the tip of the racket. I noticed that this seems to be the case for me as well. Up until now I thought this was only the case for the serve. Is the sweet spot a myth?

[EricMatuszewski]

I think the "sweet spot" isn't really so important with the pro's as they don't really need the racket to give them ball speed (with their technique a "dead" racket does just fine.)

Hitting the ball closer to the tip has it's advantages if your interested in making more spin in that this part is moving faster than the part of the strings closer to the hand, thus, All things being equal, the "brush" of the ball will be faster at this point and you should get the ball to spin faster.

This is more of an issue with this pronation technique. If you are just relying on the ball being spun due to a low to high swing (as traditionally done) and less extreme pronation speed then the tip and the handle aren't moving at such radically different rates.

Notice how around frame 5 the tip "dissapears" or "blurrs out" while the handle area is still somewhat visible?

this is because the tip is moving faster than your shutter can catch it and the handle is not...essentially this proves my theory above. Or at least adds credence to it as there will always be an alternative explanation. The idea is to pick the most plausable one.

Eric

[EricMatuszewski]

Phil,
just looked at the interactive forum and the fed clips are no longer up. My bad(edit) the clip is up...

I have alot of my own clips taken up close of his forehand that show him doing this over and over. I suppose he probably likes the feel of the extra spin he gets from this. Notice he's hitting a low ball, it looks like he's trying to "dip" this one. I love when he does this shot. It's probably my favorite forehand of his to watch.

Why don't you ask him about this? Go to a local thing while he's in town, be polite and courteous and while he's signing autographs or whatever he does in Switzerland pop this question on him.

Players generally don't mind answering a well thought out "fresh" question. They have to answer alot of repetetive questions by journalists who could have done the homework and got the answers to these "background" questions before the interview.

You can be our Switzerland Federer correspondent. Kind of like Lois Lane and Superman without the whole sex thing.

I'm pulling for you,
Eric

[tonye10spro]

Professional opinions

For the past seventeen years I have studied the wonderful sport of tennis and I have searched everywhere for anything related to the sport, a plethora of tennis magazines or books and, for the last eight years, the Internet. In my professional opinion Heath Waters' pioneering new concepts, from the millennium forehand, to the stretch shortening cycle, to his Ace System of teaching have helped me to see the sport of tennis in a new light.



Heath has by far the firmest grasp on the technical and biomechanical points of all the techniques in tennis. Take for instance Robert Lansdorp, who has recently coached Sharapova, Myskina, and other great tennis players. He is just now seeing and observing what Heath saw over ten years ago. The first article I ever read by Heath was titled the Millennium Forehand on the WTA tour website back in 2001. He used state of the art software to show four of the top players' forehands at the time, side by side by side. The players were Safin, Agassi, Moya, and Ferrero. They all finished around their hip with their strings pointing to the ground. This was due to the pronation of their forearms.



I have been in contact with Heath to find out how he gets his information and am aware that he studies the sport religiously. He uses high-speed video, at 200 frames per second, and works with biomechanical experts daily. So, I was alarmed when I read Brain Gordan's comment about Heath's credibility, considering that Brian has never spoken with Heath personally. It just didn't seem like a very professional thing to say about him.



I am very excited to see coaches, such as Lansdorp, changing their methods of teaching because I feel that this will help to keep the sport evolving well into the future. Thank you John Yandell for this forum. I hope others will use it to express their thoughts and opinions because there are a lot of passionate coaches in the world who need it.

[alechorton]

Professional opinions

John, et al.
I have been extremely impressed with all of the comments from the coaches/players alike. I worked with Vic Braden and taught at the VBTC when he was doing Biomechanical studies with Gideon Ariel at the Coto research center in So Cal. At that time it was way way ahead of it's time ( and to some degree still is!). What was interesting is that many of the teaching myths in many sports were shattered but the typical teaching pro thought Vic was insane. With the help of John Zimmerman (the best!) we filmed players at 30,000 frames per second (at about $1000 per shot). So when Jimmy Connors was #1 in the world and his serve never went faster than 65mph it was classic. When we went into the film room it was very clear as to why he was biomechanically in-efficient.
Vic was talking about the pre-stretch forehand in the 80's,way before the tennis 2000 book.
I think people like John Yandell, Heath Waters and Bruce Elliot in there own ways have really helped the average player and interested pro with the visual truths.
As far as groundstrokes go, the grips of players/students really do change the followthough. the reall question is how fast and at what angle the racquet going to produce the topspin you desire.
Of course my opionion on the racquet head speed today is also due in part to the racquets as well as the extremely slow courts (everywhere).
I think that is a bigger issue!

But I love the dialogue.

Alec Horton
Men's Tennis Coach
Saddleback College
Go Gauchos!

[johnyandell]

I have to agree those are some good questions and god willing we will have answers one day on Tennisplayer!

[gzhpcu]

To sum up the discussion with Eric, I think we are talking about two types of pre-stretching here. The original one I had brought up and Eric mentioned as well (his pronator stretch), is supination of the forearm in order to get more pronounced ensuing pronation. The other pre-stretch (flexor stretch) is the laying back of the wrist in order to whip the wrist into the shot. As Eric pointed out, these have two separate effects: the first for more spin, the second for more speed. I would think the ideal thing to do is to combine both for the best of both worlds. I suspect that the earlier investigations mentioned by Vic Braden, et al, were in respect to flexor stretch, and not the pronator stretch.

P.S. Eric, since I don't see myself as Lois Lane, I rather take a Clark Kent role and interface to Sharapova...

[EricMatuszewski]

Phil,
Good luck on the Sharapova thing .

(I have a feeling your not the only one wanting to interface with her), Maybe recruit a foxy Swiss babe to get the info from Fed. (Although he seems to be immune to the advances of other women, He seems committed to Mirka).

I'd still like to know more about what Fed thinks of his forehand technique.

The interviews I've read with him seem to ask the same questions that have already been asked before.
Do you think they are pre-arranged as to what questions he will answer, or do the reporters just ask the same ones over and over. Or perhaps there's another possibility I haven't considered.

Eric

[EricMatuszewski]

As for the flexor stretch/release = speed. Pronator stretch/release =spin. This mirrors all of my experimenting over the last two years.

Note that without using the hips appropriately, your not going to get enough loading for these stretches to happen and for them to really do anything for you. I can't stress this enough.

Also, I've found that tightening the wrist muscles (trying to be firm) really inhibits these actions.

As for the "golden combination" of speed and spin....

My quest for this started back in college, I had no forehand and could basically never hit a pressuring shot off that wing.

Over the last couple years, thanks to using video cameras every day and doing simple experiments, I got to the point where I could hit the ball over 100mph on the forehand over and over with the eastern grip/flexor stretch thing, but....

When I had a "bad day" it became a nightmare. I couldn't get anything in at times. But the feeling of being able to force so many errors is pretty incredible.

My friends still criticise me for not hitting like this anymore. They were impressed by the speed but don't realize how much luck is involved in getting that thing in!

With this eastern/flexor style I found that it was actually sidespin comming off the racquet, so as you could imaging @ 100mph and no "true" topspin my margin for era was ridiculously low. (I had to hit it less than a foot over the net or it's going out). And I'm not a good mover (very tall, tip over easy) so that makes it even harder.

So I experimented with more spin. Now, I've gotten the pronation part and the really complicated wrist/forearm movement down pretty identical to top players (as evidenced by video) and It works alot better. I had to change my grip to more of a semi western in addition to just learning the movement.

I can do things now I never realized were possible, make angles, pull in short balls. Etc.

The ultimate goal is to be able to get the best qualities of each style. But if I had to pick one to use I would definitely pick more of the pronation style. Why?

It opens up the court for you. You can make angles that don't exist when hitting flat. And when your tired or the match is in a tight moment, that Heavy ball doesn't get attacked as easily as the "pushed" flatter one. That's really the part that probably makes the most difference.

Eric

[gzhpcu]

Eric,
Just to make sure we understand each other: the pronation stretch means supinating the forearm to accentuate the pronation, right?

I might start experimenting with a semi western....

[EricMatuszewski]

This is really just my theory but,

I don't think you should intentionally try to supinate. I think the inertia of the racket tip should do this for you, your job is more to keep that musculature really loose.

I think supinating on purpose (doing a contraction) will inhibit what your ultimately trying to do which is to cause a quick "rebound like action" in the pronators. I don't think the "on purpose" supinator contractions will be able to relax fast enough for the pronation part to happen unhindered.

You'll just end up slowing down the pronation. Not optimal to racket tip speed and thus spin.

Again this is all just my theory, I wish there was a way to know this stuff more certainly but I just don't have the funding to have access to that kind of technology.

But then again if everything was proveable, and we had all the answers I'd probably give up tennis. The challenge to explain these mysteries keep me going!

Eric