Critique form - FH loop

Hello and welcome.

For serving, Brett Clarke's video on reverse pendulum backspin serve provides useful hints.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCNEhb13iic
Check out his other videos as well.

I will leave finer pointers for your FH loop to the many helpful and higher level players here.

I could be wrong after a brief watch, but it looks like your upper and lower body rotate about the same amount. Having more shoulder rotation than lower body would be more correct.  

wilkinru wrote: Brett Clarke's videos are so amazing. He's transforming my game slowly. With that said, you need to extend your arm at some point during the shot. You currently leave it at 90 degrees throughout the shot. That was the first thing I noticed. I was kinda surprised because no one ever told me. I really emphasize this aspect of the loop when I train younger players. Surprisingly I don't do this myself. I will pay real close attention to this next time. Also you need to relax your wrist a little to get some whip. Lastly you need to get your finish position a little closer to the middle, as you go a little too far. Now that I've looked at the video again it looks as if I hit the ball too late. Is this why I can't seem to shift my bodyweight forward? The bouncing also does you no good. Power comes from shoulder rotation and the core, not jumping. I know it costs money, but ttedge.com has wonderful videos that will show you how to correct your swing. He goes over the issues you have in detail even. For the record I'm just a member there and have nothing to gain.

The technique of OP is more similar to that used by Samson Dubina but you can see that some of the details that heavyspin and wilkinru point out are reducing the quality:

Edited by NextLevel - 07/04/2015 at 12:02pm

There's a lot of things that need to be improved with your fh. I would take things step by step to not overwhelm you. Start with the biggest problem first. To me it is that you are not spinning the ball much at all. It's a very flat shot. To create more spin try focusing on loosening your wrist and with your wrist creating a higher trajectory on the ball. 

Edited by Tk5 - 07/04/2015 at 4:02pm

To be honest I wasn't really working on fixing the transfer. I wanted to make a video which showed most of my flaws in this strike.

TTHamme wrote: Ringer84: Could you elaborate on this? Isn't it sufficient to rotate the body so the elbow is still visible to the opposing player? That's what our regional coaches preach when training young ones.

TThamme, your forhand style is not too bad, more like a drive, maybe only practice spin from a fixed place first as your drill looked like a footwork drill and adding in the forehand 2nd

smackman wrote: TThamme, your forhand style is not too bad, more like a drive, maybe only practice spin from a fixed place first as your drill looked like a footwork drill and adding in the forehand 2nd  So you are 29 years old,  how do you go in competitions? can you add more loop? or do you more loop in game situation? what level are you in a leauge?

Edited by TTHamme - 07/05/2015 at 9:22am

I can't see anything in particular wrong with your technique, for an amateur player its pretty solid. Its easy to keep good shape when being fed by a robot though, Maybe in competition, when under pressure, the flaws show, but that will be down to other aspects of your game.

I think it's pretty stiff and would fall apart vs. backspin or no-spin balls.

You don't need to be omnipotent to have a feel for the racket head speed and timing flexibility.

NextLevel wrote: You don't need to be omnipotent to have a feel for the racket head speed and timing flexibility.

I see a guy who is playing against a robot feeding balls pretty fast (too fast), and possibly not accustomed to filming himself (which might explain lower racket speed than optimal*), with a nicely schooled stroke (now 29, has played in Germany or maybe Netherlands or Belgium since he was 9) and who is nicely light on his feet and quite obviously fit.   

I for one have no idea what he would look like in free play, against other kinds of spin.  And you are right, I should have written omniscient.  And I'm still not that.  I have no idea.  

* One thing I have seen a lot is that as soon as someone starts filming themselves, they suddenly become much less relaxed.  It is pretty common, and people have to more or less forget the camera is on before they start to play their natural stroke.

Ringer84 wrote: I'm not saying you're wrong, but the idea that upper body rotation (shoulder rotation) should exceed lower body rotation (hip rotation) is something that's debatable and not always clear. They were discussing the exact same thing in this golf thread here.  I think there's alot of advantages in making a full turn with the hips over the extra bit of torque created by over-rotating the shoulders, so I'm going to keep doing it  that way...

TTHamme wrote: What I would like to achieve is more spin under pressure. If someone plays fast I have a lot of difficulties producing a spinny loop. When there is more time to prepare for the shot (e.g. when opp pushes long or serve drifts long) it's easier.

OK, but why do you want that?  Spin is a means to an end, but speed kills.  Also, if the ball if coming at you with pace, it will spend less time on your blade and you will usually impart less spin. An offensive oriented player just needs to hit more shots in a row than the next guy. 

The other thing of course is from as close to the table as you are playing in that video, except for a third ball when you may be attacking underspin,  you are just not going to be achieving or needing that much spin -- ever.  That shouldn't even be the goal if you are looping from that close in.  From there especially, speed kills.  It would be more helpful if you showed some video of when you  are looping off topspin from farther back, a circumstance when spin matters more.