Forehand forearm supination question

[gzhpcu]

To pronate on the serve, you need the right grip: continental or eastern backhand. I find that for good topspin, you need to be able to supinate the forearm at the bottom of the backswing (to achieve a higher degree of forehand forearm pronation and also to get a better go low/high trajectory on the stroke). To do this, you need a semi western at the least, otherwise the wrist gets blocked. (just as a eastern forehand grip blocks pronation on the serve) Am I right on this? Specifically: you need to supinate your forearm to get good topspin, and in order to do this, you it is facilitated with a semi western or western grip.

[johnyandell]

Definitely disagree. Not really sure what you mean by supination. But Federer has a conservative grip and hits as much or more topspin than Roddick. We'll be publishing data on this later.

The only thing that determines topspin is the vertical vector of the racket path at contact--created by some combination of brush and/or wiper. There is a complex relationship between grip and these movements. Suggest you read the forehand article in Advanced Tennis section.

Below the 5.0 level topspin is way overrated. It's a buzz word but it doesn't have inherent value. (or little.)

[gzhpcu]

I probably did not explain myself well. (or maybe I'm still wrong... ) What I meant, is to rotate the hand clockwise at the bottom of the loop to get the racket head a bit closer to the body....

edited to add:

Pronation needs supination to occur first.

[vmiller]

Below the 5.0 level topspin is way overrated. It's a buzz word but it doesn't have inherent value. (or little.)

This is surprising to me, would you mind sharing the reasoning behind it?

gzhpcu,

Are you referring to the racket head dropping lower than the hand? I think that is discussed in the Federer forehand article.

[gzhpcu]

Vmiller,
Yes, I am basically. To help get the racket well below the ball at the bottom of the backswing and initially to have the face of the racket facing downwards.

[CrazyLefty]

Supination?

I never thought there was much supination in the forehand stroke and still feel this way after viewing the Federer high speed clip (I know small sample but a model forehand).

If he supinated his forearm at the bottom of the loop his right palm would face the sky and not the ground.

You can pronate without supination by pronating from a neutral position. It looks like the forearm is in a fairly neutral position at the end of the loop.

CL

[johnyandell]

Right--at most there is a slight rotation backwards of the hand and arm tilting the tip of the racket downward on some balls with Federer. But the players with more extreme grips don't do this as much if at all.

Again "jargon" can end up confusing things more than it clarifies because there is no common set of reference terms. I'm sticking to English for now, as much as possible, or if we use technical terms they have to be clearly specified.

It's history versus sociology or political science. I am leery of "experts" who like to confuse the uninitiated with technical terms only they can understand...

If your explanation is good enough it will satisfy the expert but be simple and clear enough that a non-specialist can easily follow and understand.

[johnyandell]

As for topspin. There is an inverse relationship between speed and spin. There is only so much racket head speed and it can go into one or the other.

The goal of hitting topspin is not to hit topspin. The goal is to make the ball behave in a certain way. Like drop two feet inside the baseline. If however your goal is to hit spin for it's own sake, you may succeed and the ball will bounce on the the service line.

Spin should be proportional to the quality of the ball. This is another reason why extreme grips don't work that well at the club level. Because you must turn the hand over to get thru the ball they naturally produce more spin. If you can't crank the ball with the extreme grip you can give up a lot of depth--in addition to increasing errors because the hand rotation is a difficult motion to master and execute well.

[vmiller]

Thanks John, that makes a lot more sense than what I orginally thought you may have meant.

[gzhpcu]

I have seen some articles talking about the forearm stretching shortening cycle. This is what I meant when I started this thread. This has been addressed recently by Heath Waters and Vic Braden.

[BrianGordon]

supination/pronation

Phil-

Have not looked around John's site recently and while snooping around in a free moment noticed this forum thread and could not resist - based on my data your observations are quite valid and very important.

Supination (an external rotation of the forearm as if one were holding a bowl of "s(o)up" in the palm of their hand) is a natural, and perhaps the most important, attribute of the vertical component of the looped back swing path. In other words, the forearm will be rotated externally to facilitate the downward racquet motion - EVERY looper does this to some extent.

The importance relates to the muscular conditions of the internal forearm rotators which pronate the forearm near the contact point and are the source of the most efficient action to generate the vertical racquet speed component needed for topspin. These internal rotators are contracted to slow the afore mentioned external rotation, prior to actually accomplishing internal rotation (pronation) of the forearm. This slowing contraction is a "pre-tensing" which eliminates the problem of TIME to maximum force production found if starting from a relaxed state. Also, it does activate most, if not all, other beneificial aspects of the "stretch-shorten" cycle if executed correctly.

In short, the supination/pronation chain of events is a counter movement pattern that greatly facilitates action of the forearm internal rotators. We routinely quantify the extent to which this mechanism is used as an indicator of prowess in stroke mechanics at our player development center. It is extremely important on the forehand, backhand, and serve, it is independent of grip style, and having identified this years ago I've always been surprised the tennis gurus had not noticed it earlier - nice work in recognizing its relevance- Brian

[johnyandell]

No that is interesting! Brian it's virtually an article. I may try to pry a little more info out of you on this. Get ready.

[stroke]

This is a very interesting thread. I think what Brian is describing with the relaxed external rotation on the forehand is a technically detailed layout of what Vic Braden(mentioned earlier by Phil) calls the pre-stretch forehand. Vic refers to it in his book Tennis 2000 on the forehand section, and uses Andre Agassi as an example of this type of forehand. Vic says, and Brian seems to concur in his thoughts earlier, that this relaxed pre-stretch type of forehand allows one to tap into huge power with a very short backswing, and allows one to take the ball on the rise. Several top players seem to be using this type of forehand, Roger probably being the ultimate example. He has such a short backswing, and is so relaxed. In the slow motion video of his forehand, I think one can definately see his forearm start forward on his swing, and at the same time, his racquet head lags, or seems to go in the opposite direction, before playing catch up, producing his explosive forehand. Someone like Sharapova does not use this type of forehand at all, it seems to me. I think the big backswing type of forehands like Hewitt and Gonzalez are less likely to be using this type of forehand too. I think this pre-stretch type forehand requires a short backswing. Like John, I would love to see an article on this.

[gzhpcu]

Brian,
On the backswing of a serve, supination to accentuate pronation (and keep racket farther away from the body)?

And the topspin backhand: pronate first then supinate?

[BrianGordon]

sup/pro cont.

To "Stroke":

What Braden describes in 2000 is too vague to determine any specific meaning. Based on his wording he is certainly not referring to the supination/pronation counter movement. To his credit he does seem to recognize the benefit of some mechanical patterns that facilitate muscular force production - and there are many that I have identified on all strokes. Yet "pre-stretch" is only important as a part of a cycle of events to accomplish such a facilitation - perhaps his terminology hides his true meaning. Further, if stretch IS what he means, a larger not smaller pattern would give more stretch as this stretch is more pronounced at the extremes of joint range of motion.

At any rate - "pre-stretch" is not a "particular" type of stroke, it is a mechanical tool incorporated, along with many others, to varying degrees in all strokes.

To Phil:

Yes - on a serve supination precedes pronation and is utilized in the early portions of the upward swing phase as the racquet completes the lateral sweep exiting the back swing loop. It is less pervasive than on ground strokes because the role of pronation on the serve is relatively smaller.

And yes - on a backhand the sequence is pronation/supination - however it is supination/pronation for the top arm on a two hander. Cheers - Brian