"Modern" Forehand

[johnyandell]

TennisPlayer,

The modern forehand swing, like any throwing motion is a coordinated combination of lower and upper body activities. It most definitely is not an isolated arm movement that isn't preceded by uncoiling leg-hip-shoulder movements. However, neither is it just a leg-lift driven hip-and-shoulder-uncoil driving a limp, passive arm. It's a complementary blend of both. My understanding of the arm action of the "modern" topspin forehand groundstroke, after the shoulder turn starts forward, is a pull of the racket forward then across, as the shoulder continues to uncoil forward. This arm action occurs together with forearm pronation and a bending of elbow so racket ends up either above or lower outside the non-dominate shoulder.

My conjecture is that players who learned with wooden rackets or were taught to extend their stroke through the ball toward the target had a comparable arm action that was a push of the racket, after the start of the shoulder turn forward. Among the tennis teaching community, the influence of Oscar Wegner and his disciples is apparently not as widespread as I had assumed, at least not in the U. S. Of three certified teaching pros I polled on the modern forehand question, one said the arm action was a pull, one said push and the other said it was more a "œreactive drive" of the arm. Now this is after I tried to get them to distinguish between the forward shoulder rotation pushing the upper arm forward and what the arm action was after the start of shoulder turn forward.

An elder and formerly national ranked player in our area says he asked Fred Perry that very question, pull or push? The answer Perry gave was pull. Besides Perry, Wegner in his first book describes the forehand as finding or meeting the ball then pulling your hand to over left shoulder. I also found two biomechanical references to using the muscles of front of trunk and chest and biceps to accelerate racket. Nobody else seems to clearly spell this out in any instruction literature I have seen. And I have read many an article or book chapter on the so-called modern forehand. Am I wrong or off-base in thinking that we should have a consensus and clear recommendation in the tennis community on such a basic issue? In summary my question is pull, push, or not relevant? I would appreciate your thoughts and opinion please. Thanks

Leonard Credeur

[johnyandell]

Leonard,

There are some assumptions in what you write that I don't think hold up. First, on consensus. On any complicated issue in any field you will always find passionate and seemingly credible people arguing on all sides of an issue.
So, no, I don't think that agreement will happen and orthodoxy could be very dangerous because it may exclude valuable perspectives.
Second, until we drill holes in people's arms and insert electrodes to measure muscle contraction sequences, questions like push/pull or the sequence of uncoiling of the torso, etc, etc and how these are really related, will never be perfectly determined.
The quantitative work that Brian Gordon and a few others are doing is going to advance all this but it's just not widely available enough or accessible enough yet to have a wide impact. So my own opinion is that the only defensible way to really look at it is in terms of positions.
The forward swing starts with the hitting arm in a certain position, the body rotates at certain angles at various points. The racket reaches certain points over the course of the forward swing. I believe in teaching these key positions, based on model imagery extracted from hundreds of video examples and then letting the players connect the dots.
But the thing I find fascinating is that so many people who spend hours arguing about the arm motion and the forward swing, when you see them on video, their initial turn and preparation almost always suck, to use a technical term. So you have to look at the whole pattern of the stroke and the complete motion and all the positions. Otherwise the discussion is useless.
AND there is a further complication, because there is no such thing as THE forehand to start with. There probably is a basic forehand drive in the center of the court with only a few variables, but over the whole court, side to side and forward and back, there are a couple of dozen key variations--or more.
What I see is that people will seize on one forehand hit from one position on one particular ball and try to generalize from that. Another reason to fear orthodoxy.
Back to the specific question. Can a pro say push or pull at a certain moment to facilitate that? Sure. Pull if the player is having trouble moving the arm in tight at the start of the swing. Push to get all the way through and extend and maintain the hitting arm shape. And a few dozen other key words that work for different players, coaches, at different times. But again that's all a waste of time unless you actually look on video and see whether you are in fact making the positions.
Luckily in the end it's a matter of imagery and feeling more than complete intellectual understanding.

Regards,
John Yandell

[evikshin]

"Luckily in the end it's a matter of imagery and feeling more than complete intellectual understanding"

Verbal analysis is a real killer in sports. No wonder that very few top pros engage in it. I never really developed what I would consider "good" strokes until I started filming myself, and comparing my motion to the that of the top pros--it was a tedious process: film, compare, film, compare, ad infinitum, but perhaps the best and only way to improve.

[gzhpcu]

"Luckily in the end it's a matter of imagery and feeling more than complete intellectual understanding"

Verbal analysis is a real killer in sports. No wonder that very few top pros engage in it. I never really developed what I would consider "good" strokes until I started filming myself, and comparing my motion to the that of the top pros--it was a tedious process: film, compare, film, compare, ad infinitum, but perhaps the best and only way to improve.

I'll agree with that. Same experience.

[maverick1]

I'll agree with that. Same experience.

Me too.

Only after seeing video did I realize that what I FEEL I am doing is different from what I actually do.
For example, I thought I had a normal knee bend on my serve, but turned out I didn't. I had to exaggerate the knee bend to something that felt(and still does) like a ridiculous extreme to achieve a normal knee bend.

I mostly tape my serve practices. If I had my way, I would tape every time I played, but people seem to snicker at that stuff, so I do it occasionally

[mdhubert]

I mostly tape my serve practices. If I had my way, I would tape every time I played, but people seem to snicker at that stuff, so I do it occasionally

Let them snicker and do what you feel you have to do to improve, no shame about commiting yourself to your passion, on the contrary. I have a few laughs at well but these people do not know what it is to be passionate about something, this is sad for them.

[jeffreycounts]

Me too.

Only after seeing video did I realize that what I FEEL I am doing is different from what I actually do.
For example, I thought I had a normal knee bend on my serve, but turned out I didn't. I had to exaggerate the knee bend to something that felt(and still does) like a ridiculous extreme to achieve a normal knee bend.

I have done a lot of work videotaping people and this response occurs pretty much 100% of the time. It is also true of players who hit the ball very well. They don't know what they are doing either.

When I was revamping my forehand years ago, I videotaped myself and saw I was breaking my elbow coming into the ball. If you have read my double bend articles, you know that this would immediately destroy the hitting structure, so it was disastrous.

I had no idea I was doing this at all. Other people couldn't see it either because it happened too fast. I paid a lot of money for lessons as a junior, but instructors always talked about everything but the one thing that was killing my forehand.

When I saw it on video years ago, it became immediately clear what I needed to do. And I fixed it. But without video, it would have been impossible to a) know I was doing and b) know that good players DON'T do it.

Video is really a godsend for tennis.