Hi guys Nick here from Intuitive Tennis. What is the wrist lag and is the wrist
lag something that you have to master to have a good forehand? Check out
today's video and find out.
What is the wrist lag? Well it's basically the wrist in an extended
position lagging behind the arm and this happens on every forehand a
classic forehand or modern forehand. So let's start off with a classic forehand.
These players even back in the wooden racket era still had wrist lag on their
forehands. This is not a modern characteristic of the forehand. So
basically they would take the racket straight back and when they started the
forward phase of the swing and the racket would lag behind like this and
the same way it lags on the modern forehand.
On the modern forehand we have to differentiate between the ATP forehand and the WTA
forehand and both of these forehands have wrist lag. So on the WTA forehand
a common way to take the racket back is behind the body like this and so we get
and pretty much an immediate wrist lag and once the racket drops here and as
the player comes around the wrist is lagging behind at the arm in the forward
phase of the swing like this. On an ATP forehand what most players will do is
they will close the racket here and now it's going to be a slight delayed
wrist lag. So as they initiate the forward phase of the swing the wrist
will then lag behind like this. The modern forehand has a lot more rotation
and power compared to the classic forehand and what the wrist lag on the
modern form it actually look like is that the tip of the racket will actually
point a backwards like this as the wrist lags back. So it will not go straight
back like this as it did on the classic forehand the wrist will actually as a
racket drops it will actually go a little bit further behind the body like
that and this is true for all high level players. The wrist lag is very pronounced
on the ATP style forehand that has a closing of the racket face on the
outside of the body on the hitting side of the body and so what will happen on
the hitting side of the body is let's take Federer for example and the strings
will close here and then as Federer initiates the forward phase of swing the
racket will not stay like this as he goes forward it would actually flip in a
straight position so we'll go from here into a wrist lag like this and
is not something that you need to worry about this will happen naturally because
we intuitively know that we're not going to be able to make
contact if we go towards the ball with the closed strings like this so we
naturally are going to always open up the racket face as we initiate the
forward phase of the swing.
How do we make this wrist lag happen?It's something that you don't have to
make happen. It's going to happen on its own if you make all the proper steps on
the forehand you will achieve this wrist lag intuitively and you will not be
aware that it's taking place and one way I can prove to you that this is true is
if you try to perform a shadow swing you will not be able to make the wrist lag
the same way you do it and when you do a normal forehand and what will happen
is if you do a shadow swing you will not be able to do this here because you're
completely unaware that it's taking place when you hit your forehand in a
live ball situation. On a shadow forehand you will basically take
your racquet like this and then you will start coming forward without the wrist a
lagging behind as much as it would on a normal forehand. So it's absolutely
impossible to recreate this wrist lag because we perform it without being
aware that it's taking place.
Is it possible to have a forehand without of wrist lag? Yes it is and it
only happens on a forehand that's hit in a completely sideways position through
the entirety of the shot. So if you take a look at my forehand here, if I stay
sideways and I can keep my wrist pretty straight this way and now as I go
forward into the contact and I stay sideways I can maintain this straight
wrist throughout the entire stroke. So the wrist is not lagging behind as much as
it would on a rotational forehand and so if I start rotating, the wrist will
lag behind a lot further you can see there's a bigger L shape in my wrist and
if I don't rotate if I stay sideways you can see that the wrist position is
straight through the entirety of the stroke so with rotation the wrist lag
will happen naturally.
Is the wrist lag something that you should practice? Absolutely not and in
fact if you do practice the wrist lag you might make your forehand worse. The
most crucial part of the stroke is the acceleration phase. This is where you
want to gain your maximum acceleration and the only way you can mechanically
make this wrist leg happen at a conscious level is by slowing the stroke
down and what ends up happening a lot of times for players that do think about
the wrist lag, they will slow down the stroke right here to make this happen
and they end up having a hitch in their swing. You should definitely never
ever concern yourself with the wrist lag, if you do all the components of the
forehand correctly this wrist lag will happen intuitively.
Thank you guys for this video, hope you enjoyed it, please hit that like button and
subscribe if you haven't already I'll see you next time.