i made a video about using the wrist on the forehand not only the forehand the backhand
as well and the serve and i heard a funny song a flick of the wrist and this song
was so funny to me it was a pretty bad song i'm not a fan of it but in any case i thought okay
let me make a video to this song and i'm gonna try really hard to flick my wrist and use my wrist on
the shots and i think it's a pretty funny video and of course if you follow me for a while i do
not want any of my students to use their wrist on any shot in tennis so in any case one commenter
said all the atp players nowadays especially the next gen use the wrist and he mentioned sinner and
aliasimme and supposedly these guys use the wrist and i'm here to tell you that the reason why
i don't teach my players to use the wrist it's because my methodology is based
on how the best players in the world play and they don't use the wrist either guys say
what you want about my technique but one thing you can say about me is that i'm a hard hitter
anybody who's ever played against me knows i can hit that ball pretty hard take a look
at this wrist does this look strong i mean i know my arm is thinner than it used to be but
take a look at this flimsy wrist do you think this thing right here look how pathetic it is
do you think this can generate power i don't think so in fact if i try to use my wrist i'm going to
hurt myself pretty pretty bad and i'm trying to use the wrist here you can see the result it's
an absolute disaster guys so the way i developed my methodology which by the way i did way prior to
going on youtube once i got on youtube i basically presented my methodology to you guys but basically
i studied the best players in the history of the game and i continue to study them because tennis
will continue to evolve so here's the deal when we're talking about the guys who are supposedly using
the wrist the guy that play with a lot of topspin for example nadal it is very confusing to students
of the game of tennis because even the players themselves might say that they use the wrist
the player's coaches maybe tony nadal i've heard him mention that the wrist is very
important a fast wrist so this is why everybody is confused the players themselves will sometimes say
that they use the wrist the coaches will often say that they use the wrist but it is undeniable
fact that you when you observe super slow motion footage the wrist is passive shortly after contact
and guys this applies to everyone if we're talking about sinner or aliasimme or
you take any top player you're going to see the same thing which is basically
a contact that is established with the wrist in an extended position independent of the grip yes
the grips can make the wrist be positioned at a different location but let's just say we're
talking about a semi-western grip so the wrist is going to be positioned in this way so basically
an active wrist at contact means that immediately when the ball hits the strings the wrist would go
this way and this is simply not what happens so this is not something that you will see on
any high level player this movement right here does not exist in tennis in fact what you will
see when you observe super slow motion footage i'm not gonna feature it here but there's tons of it
available and you just screen record your phone you put it in your phone app and then you go step
by step and we take a look at the first second and third frame after contact what you will see
is that the tip of the racket is still positioned towards the outside now the ball has already left
the racket which means that the wrist is passive at contact and shortly thereafter yes once that
racket starts to go here now some players will activate the wrist and do a movement like this
and this is where the confusion begins because you have to realize that players are not aware
what happens at the moment of contact because that part of the stroke is over
in milliseconds they are however aware later on in the stroke so they regain consciousness of
the stroke somewhere around here and that's where they feel the wrist when coaches observe players in
real time they cannot see what's happening right here that part of the stroke is over
too quickly just try watching it on tv or in real time you won't see exactly what happens here
but you can see what the racket does in this area because this is where the racket decelerates
and yes some players will use the wrist in this part of the stroke but fact is
that shortly after contact the tip of the racquet will be positioned towards the outside which is an
indicator that the wrist indeed is passive at and shortly after contact on all high level forehands
now why would this be the case well let's take a look at the wrist now let's position my wrist
at the proper contact let's make sure it's the exact contact that i have in a semi-western grip
so my wrist would be like this so i'm going to let go the racket and you can see my wrist in
this position now if i wanted to move my wrist in isolation i just hold my arm right here and
i try to move my wrist in a vertical fashion you see how far i get the wrist is completely
locked which means that even if i wanted to move my wrist i can't move it past this point so
what ends up happening is that i turn the entire forearm like this this would indeed be possible so
when players are instructed to use the wrist what they will do is they will make a forearm movement
in a circular fashion like this and look guys anything that you hear on the intuitive tennis
youtube channel is not theory because i'm not sitting in my living room theorizing about this
stuff i know how to play tennis i could try this stuff out but also i tried this stuff out on my
students and when i instruct my students to use their wrist this is what the forehand will turn
into today we're not going to talk about the other strokes we're just going to talk about the
forehand but here's what will happen the players will be focused on executing a wrist movement at
contact now in order to do that movement this part of the stroke not only will have to be slowed down
but it will be abruptly shortened in order to execute that movement it would look something
like this you take any player and have them use the wrist you will see an abrupt shortening of
the finish now why is this bad what's bad because this movement is occurring in isolation you know
nothing else is happening in the body except the forearm going around the ball like this and this
is not a good thing because it will rob you from number one control because you're drastically
changing the angle of the racket face remember you talk about the most top spin on the forehand of
all time which is rafael nadal the racket doesn't immediately go like this the racket stays on this
side three four five frames before it finally starts going over this way the reason why this
is the case is for stability and control if you drastically change the angle of racket face right
at contact you will often miss hit the ball you'll hit it close to the frame but it's not only that
when you do this movement in isolation you will be robbed of
power so all the players that are instructed to use their wrist they will immediately feel a loss
of power their balls will be extremely thin yes they will get topspin because indeed is
a vertical movement of the racket but they will hit the ball very thin sometimes the ball might
not even make it over the net and if it does it's going to go very short on the other side
so you're probably thinking nick how does the racket go up then well it doesn't go up with the
movement of the wrist what happens in reality and this is on all the heavy topspin players
is that the entire arm goes up you can take a look at nadal for example he'll hit the ball
somewhere between his shoulder and his waist this will be dependent on the incoming ball of course
but in any case it doesn't matter what kind of forehand he's hitting the entire arm will be
going up so you take a look at the contact point the second frame you'll see the arm be a little
bit higher you take another frame the arm will be higher and then take another frame the elbow
will be somewhere around his chin and that's where he will do his buggy whip follow through so it's
not the wrist that is making the racket go up it is the entire system it's the arm it's the body
remember on the forehand there's a thing called vertical momentum where players are straightening
their body and they're becoming airborne so the entire system is working on the task of developing
a vertical swing path and this is not taking place in isolation so most players will not be able to
conceptualize the idea of using the wrist but unfortunately there's going to be some students
who are really good listeners and they're really good at conceptualizing ideas that coaches have
and it's these players that i'm worried about because i've seen it at the junior circuit
here in southeast florida that some players who are good listeners who are conceptualizing what
the coach is telling them they will indeed try to use their wrist and they will end up
with forehands that look very abruptly shortened they don't look fluid they don't look continuous
and most importantly they're like the two most important elements which are control and power