Hi guys I'm on the lookout for a secluded court because I'm going to be
hitting some balls over the fence for a very specific reason. I want to show you
how intuitively we rotate our torso to gain more power. So let's check this
place out I want to make sure there's a nice big area with nobody around right
behind the court and this place looks perfect I'm gonna hit some balls over
the fence.
So while I'm picking up the balls let me explain to you why I'm doing this. So you
see professional players will many times hit balls into the stands either out of
joy or out of anger. And the shot they use when they do this
doesn't have a name it's hit on the forehand side and the purpose is to hit
the ball as hard as possible and as far as possible. And the interesting thing
about this shot is that it is a completely intuitive shot that nobody learns and
nobody practices. So in today's video we're going to get into the biomechanics
of this shot and how it relates to getting power on the forehand.
The biomechanics behind this shot are very interesting and players do not
learn how to hit the shot they simply pick up a ball and rip it as hard as
they can and they perform certain body actions in order to get power intuitively.
And these intuitive actions in order to get power is the loading and
the unloading of the torso so what happens is when we are ready to hit the
ball as hard as we can we're going to go down with the upper body a little bit
and we're going to create a V via between the outside leg and the upper
body this works in a closed stance position as well but your upper body
bends and will create a V shape between the leg and the upper body.
So this is the loading stage now in addition to that we're not going to
start with the racket down we want the racket to pick up a little bit of
momentum so we're going to start with somewhat of a loop and also we're gonna
be in a continental grip to hit the ball as flat as possible and as hard as
possible. So from here, we are simply going to straighten the upper body and accelerate.
The contact point on a shot like this
ideally needs to be lower somewhere between the hip area and the knee. So
check out when I rip one where I make contact.
So the lower the ball drops the more my racket can accelerate into the slot.
Now because the contact point is going to be lower our right shoulder will drop and
our left leg will usually lift off the ground as we accelerate downwards
Once we have made contact we simply continue going this way and we rotate
the torso fully
And the body action that's responsible for the most amount of acceleration is
the loading and the unloading so when we go from here and now we leave from this
side straighten the torso and rotate at the same time see this action right
here this accelerates the racket tremendously and take another look so
I'm going to load and now when I unload a good credible amount of acceleration
from this action.
A slight variation of the shot I just performed is sometimes seen on the Pro Tour.
Back in a day when guys used to come to the net with a bad approach shot
against Ivan Lendl he would unload his forehand in a very similar way and he
usually aim for the guy's head or chest.
Another player who sometimes hits balls like this in real matches is Nick Kyrgios
And these are some of the hardest for hands who will ever see. The speeds that
are generated on these forehands are well over a hundred miles an hour. However and
most of the time shots like this are hit either out of anger or out of
carelessness. And it's impossible to sustain a shot like this over the course
of a long match and because the probability of missing is very high with
this type of shot
Do not try this shot in a real match it's not worth it you're gonna make one
out of ten if that. It's simply impossible to get the ball in it's just
too low percentage of a shot. However we can learn a lot in how we get power on
this shot and we can do the same thing when we hit our forehand. On the regular
forehand stroke we always need to have control as our top priority. However if
you are an advanced player you can start thinking about adding a little bit of
power and the great thing we can learn about in this intuitive shot, where we go for
maximum power is you can try to load a regular forehand the same way. So as we
are waiting for the ball with both hands on the racket we can start leaning
towards the hitting side of the body we can start bending our torso forward we
can create a slight V shape. We then should be able to load and unload the
forehand the same way and we will get more power. So let me try one out I'm
gonna feed myself a ball and I'm gonna try to load it the same way. Load here
and I unload. Let me try another one I'm going to load it the same way by going
down a little bit and then unload it. Let me try another one I'm going to load it
the same way then unload.
And the wrist is not part of a powerful shot like this anytime we use the wrist
in tennis is for finesse when it comes to power, the wrist does not play a role.
You are not actively slapping the ball or snapping the wrist. If you think about
that logically you will not going to generate the maximum amount of power
possible with a fragile small piece of the human body and if you try to use
your wrist to get power for any type of forehand a few things are going to
happen. Number one it is going to shorten the stroke overall because you are
consciously doing an action at the contact point. So usually what will
happen is the stroke would be cut off short. In addition to that the risk of
injury is very high and the probability of the ball going in is very low.
The important takeaway from today's lesson is that intuitively we use the torso
rotation to generate power. So if you are actively trying to step forward towards
the ball regardless of the penetration of the ball and then in addition that
you're trying to hit forward while staying sideways you're doing yourself a
big disservice to your forehand. Instead of that utilize the body's
rotation to achieve more power and more control.