Forehand loop internal shoulder rotation

[Ilia Minkin]

Thanks for the videos.

Is that better?

Tried to finish more in front of face and lean back less.

That is definitely better. But you have to not just lean back less, you need to lean forward. It will give you better balance (it is hard to move for the next shot when your weight is behind) and let you keep the trunk lower, which gives more space to accelerate the arm.

 

[Dominikk85]

Thx, so leaning forward I will try. Also try to stop the follow through earlier in front of face.

Btw freitas said that the shoulder of the hitting arm should be lower than the other? Is that correct?

 

[Ilia Minkin]

Thx, so leaning forward I will try. Also try to stop the follow through earlier in front of face.

Btw freitas said that the shoulder of the hitting arm should be lower than the other? Is that correct?

Depends on the ball you are hitting. If it is a low, heavy backspin ball -- you need to drop the hitting sholder more, if it is a regular straight topspin -- a bit less, if it is a semi-high ball -- don't drop at all.

 

[ttmonster]

Better way to put it is that you should not be raising the shoulder under any circumstance .... it should be natural and unless you are 10 feet away from the table you don't need any power from the shoulder , it should be the forearm snap and the movement of the arm is more of a follow through motion ...

Thx, so leaning forward I will try. Also try to stop the follow through earlier in front of face.

Btw freitas said that the shoulder of the hitting arm should be lower than the other? Is that correct?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Thanks for the videos.

Is that better?

Tried to finish more in front of face and lean back less.

Well, TTMonster has a good point. But at the same time, it actually is better so it is good that Ilia pointed that out.

From the standpoint of the followthrough, the feed ball has the best followthrough. But on that one you are leaning back even more than all the others.

The second one your followthrough goes across and your racket finishes next to the far side of your mouth. The next one your followthrough finished on the far side of your right eye.

And the last one, your racket ends up wrapped around your neck and if you pause at the end of the followthrough, most of the head of your racket is visible behind your head on the far side of your body.

So, progressively, each stroke goes further than the one before it. By the forth shot you wind up with your arm and racket wrapped around you.

The good news is, your reset is way better.

The other news is that, part of why you are leaning back is how you are tossing for the first shot.

What if you let the ball bounce on the table and hit it on the second bounce so you could set yourself before you swing and so that you have to bring your weight forward if the ball is over the table.


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[UpSideDownCarl]

This may be a better exercise for you to practice. This is self hitting.

Note the ball bounces 2x before I hit it. Note, I make sure the ball does not bounce too high. Ideally, if the ball is below the net when I contact, I have to spin to arc the ball over the net. My toss here is a little higher than what would be ideal. The second bounce is maybe 2-3 inches higher than I would actually want.

Notice, I am on the BH side of the table going towards a righty opponent's BH side. From that corner, though, you could go anywhere. Shooting from that corner works well for this training exercise. Note how where the ball is bouncing on the table, also keeps my weight forward. Also note where my followthrough ends and yet how much I am getting into the ball with really, very little effort so I am set for the next ball.


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[Der_Echte]

I see a lot of players in local club with not so much coaching trying to develop strokes. So many different things they try to do for power or consistency. I hear the same question. Where do I finish?

Of course I follow the classic explanation to finish with bat near center forehead.... but I follow the KJH way to approach it and ask a deeper question.

How does one make the stroke so that one can finish there and be ready again and again? What causes one to NOT make it powerful/quickly repeatable consistent?

I see the problem with many amatures of poor balance, poor muscle coordination, trying to hit ball somewhere out of strike zone (usually too far in front), using way too much arm, upper arm or shoulder... and these things sap power and/or consistency and can make you finish off balance or in a not so optimal reset position.

What I would say to look at is how the ball is being impacted. Of course there is more than one repeatable way to impact. I would refer to what KJH explains how to impact.

He advocates more shoulder turn, a little more use of waist and waiting for the ball. His way is to let the ball come deeper into the zone to your side (not front if you were standing feet parallel to table endlines), but be turning waist then shoulders (about 75% of the shoulder turn BEFORE impact) so that at impact, you have generated maximum force to the ball.

What is good about that is that most of the violent movement is already done before impact so there is no Gigabit sized kinetic energy to slow down and draw back. This makes reset simple. This is a totally new way to look at impact for some people.

One of the keys of using legs/waist and shoulder turn so that right before impact you are using lower arm snap and wrist snap at impact. There is no heavy-azz shoulder or upper/lower arm combo to try to slam on brakes and rest. All you got is your lower arm exploding through the ball (leveraged by the leg/waist/shoulder/stop upper arm)... The upper arm only carries through a tiny little. This reduces the distance to finish and reduces the distance to coil for shot. That is one way to be compact powerful and repeatable.

Since you slowed down or stopped the upper arm, all you got is the lower arm and bat for weight to worry about. That is a LOT less than all the arm and shoulder and anything else you let along for the ride.

When a player is balanced, leveraged, and coordinated, it is easy to generate the power and get back ready to hit.

 

[Der_Echte]

This is the thread with the vid of KJH breaking it down in his new club south of Seoul.

https://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/...oon-covers-basic-FH-stroke-fundamentals-Intro

 

[Dominikk85]

Sorry if this is stupid but who is kjh?

 

[NextLevel]

Kim Jung Hoon. Former Korean national team player.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Kim Jung Hoon. Former Korean national team player.

In addition to this he has made several excellent instructional videos.

Note, if you look at the blade listed as being used by Der_Echte, NextLevel and me, it is a Tibhar Kim Jung Hoon blade. That is KJH's signature blade.


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[UpSideDownCarl]

For you it may be worth understanding that you are trying to apply the mechanics of a tennis FH to TT. It works for a shot or two. Even the leaning back. But then you would be toast when the ball comes back. And against someone decent, the ball will come back.

I remember one time I was playing a tennis guy who thought he was good. He wanted to play games to 21 so I knew he didn't really play but it was still fun.

In one of the points, I gave him something easy to smash and he smacked the hell out of it. But all I did was put my racket out and block it back and he watched it go past him helplessly. Then he said: "No way! You did not just return my smash!" And he turned to a friend and said: "Did he?"

There was nothing he could do. And it still isn't a good shot because the stroke doesn't produce enough spin.

Tennis and table tennis are different. You will go farther in the sport if you start learning TT technique for TT. The trick is, that, then when you are playing tennis, you go back to tennis technique for tennis.

Even how you hold the racket is completely different for the two sports.


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[Dominikk85]

I think spin is much more important in table tennis, right?

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

I think spin is much more important in table tennis, right?

Believe it or not, this is an understatement. In TT a good player often counterloops with his racket facing straight down and contacts the very top of the ball. In tennis the ball would just fall straight down. In TT that gives a lot of spin.


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[Dominikk85]

Does my bat play a role for the spin. I have a ready made tibhar bat (I think the rubber on it is called "volcano" or something. Could that prevent me from using a lot of spin?

 

[NextLevel]

I see a lot of players in local club with not so much coaching trying to develop strokes. So many different things they try to do for power or consistency. I hear the same question. Where do I finish?

Of course I follow the classic explanation to finish with bat near center forehead.... but I follow the KJH way to approach it and ask a deeper question.

How does one make the stroke so that one can finish there and be ready again and again? What causes one to NOT make it powerful/quickly repeatable consistent?

I see the problem with many amatures of poor balance, poor muscle coordination, trying to hit ball somewhere out of strike zone (usually too far in front), using way too much arm, upper arm or shoulder... and these things sap power and/or consistency and can make you finish off balance or in a not so optimal reset position.

What I would say to look at is how the ball is being impacted. Of course there is more than one repeatable way to impact. I would refer to what KJH explains how to impact.

He advocates more shoulder turn, a little more use of waist and waiting for the ball. His way is to let the ball come deeper into the zone to your side (not front if you were standing feet parallel to table endlines), but be turning waist then shoulders (about 75% of the shoulder turn BEFORE impact) so that at impact, you have generated maximum force to the ball.

What is good about that is that most of the violent movement is already done before impact so there is no Gigabit sized kinetic energy to slow down and draw back. This makes reset simple. This is a totally new way to look at impact for some people.

One of the keys of using legs/waist and shoulder turn so that right before impact you are using lower arm snap and wrist snap at impact. There is no heavy-azz shoulder or upper/lower arm combo to try to slam on brakes and rest. All you got is your lower arm exploding through the ball (leveraged by the leg/waist/shoulder/stop upper arm)... The upper arm only carries through a tiny little. This reduces the distance to finish and reduces the distance to coil for shot. That is one way to be compact powerful and repeatable.

Since you slowed down or stopped the upper arm, all you got is the lower arm and bat for weight to worry about. That is a LOT less than all the arm and shoulder and anything else you let along for the ride.

When a player is balanced, leveraged, and coordinated, it is easy to generate the power and get back ready to hit.

Very deep post.

 

[Hallux]

The comparison with tennis forehands is missing a crucial factor which makes a MASSIVE difference. These modern tennis forehands involve a Western grip, standard table tennis grips are the equivalent of continental grips which were used on side-on closed stance forehand groundstrokes in "old school" tennis many years ago. The mechanics are different.

With a full Western grip you can rotate internally and follow through across your body with no pain or impingement if you do it with a continental grip forcefully and face on you will tear your shoulder as you pronate and follow through. I know because I did it and required cortisone and then it wore off and nearly 4 years later it still causes me a lot of grief.

Despite my limitation and injury I can hit a blistering TT forehand with a Western grip with no problem and far more acceleration and speed than a standard grip, but of course you are stuffed if it comes back quickly to your backhand with this grip - no time for extreme grip changes!

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

The comparison with tennis forehands is missing a crucial factor which makes a MASSIVE difference. These modern tennis forehands involve a Western grip, standard table tennis grips are the equivalent of continental grips which were used on side-on closed stance forehand groundstrokes in "old school" tennis many years ago. The mechanics are different.

With a full Western grip you can rotate internally and follow through across your body with no pain or impingement if you do it with a continental grip forcefully and face on you will tear your shoulder as you pronate and follow through. I know because I did it and required cortisone and then it wore off and nearly 4 years later it still causes me a lot of grief.

Despite my limitation and injury I can hit a blistering TT forehand with a Western grip with no problem and far more acceleration and speed than a standard grip, but of course you are stuffed if it comes back quickly to your backhand with this grip - no time for extreme grip changes!

This is good info. May I ask what caused you to wake up a thread that has been dormant since 2017?

 

[Hallux]

This is good info. May I ask what caused you to wake up a thread that has been dormant since 2017?

Most certainly. Forgive me for being long-winded. I was desperate to find good info on how I can avoid shoulder impingement on my TT forehand drive with my shakehand grip and found good info on here. Needless to say I have learned a lot through the trauma and experience as I play a lot of tennis also and am relatively ignorant when it comes to TT.

If I go near certain swing paths and follow throughs I get extreme pain and impingement which completely inhibits me and helps me to miss sitters through fear of pain, yet I hit winners from much harder shots at times.

Some things have helped slightly such as suggestions to get low, swing from the hips and use the torso more, keep compact and not follow through past the midline etc. etc. I had a job to keep the bat face closed enough and at present the only thing that seems to help is to have the bat face more open on the take back and close it as I swing forward and also keep the handle pointing downwards (which may be helping to keep my elbow lower and avoid the impingement) I guess this is all probably unorthodox and may be would be regarded as a slap shot?