Cocked Wrist issue

So for a long time now my coach has been trying very hard to get me to un-cock my wrist. I had always thought the reason I had it the way I do is because of the way I hold the paddle. While this may be slightly the case we have actually found out the real reason why. When I un-cock my wrist, I can no longer hold a relaxed stroke, the reason I can't relax my stroke is because I have so little muscle around my wrist area that It's actually a struggle to hold it uncocked for long, gravity is what usually uncocked my wrist. And while it seemed to her that the problem was getting worse, (my wrist was becoming more and more cocked) it was really the exact same problem. But my stroke we becoming quite a bit quicker so it looked more cocked. As my forearm pushed the paddle through the air quicker it left me hand behind making it appear more cocked, as with doing my backstroke it looked like it wasn't cocked at all. We tested this problem with a measly 3 pound weight that she runs with. I held the weight in my hand with my arm out and tried to lift the weight with my hand and to no avail, I couldn't budge the weight. Strange that a muscle that people use since childhood picking up objects and holding them and whatnot, that I would never have developed this muscle very far. I've always had shakey hands and now I've found out why. Once holding them out for about 20 seconds I'm actually straining to keep them out. It's like flexing a muscle non-stop. She is not thinking of another solution at the moment to my cocked wrist.

Before you go on with "lots of players have a cocked wrist it's fine, look at mizutani" take into consideration this picture I made. If your wrist isn't cocked the paddle is directly in front of your hand, so when you do a stroke it's quite easy to judge where the ball is. Just try and hit the ball with your hand and your paddle will get there first. If the wrist is cocked, the paddle is away from your hand, almost like an extension thats farther away from your hand. So you have to judge on an area that you normally wouldn't go through.

There are also pro's and con's to this action that I've noticed.

Pro's to cocked wrist, I believe looping is much easier, plus I guess technically you would have a better reach to do a full stroke, since it's actually farther than your hand.

Con's: It's easier to get jammed with your forehand since it's away from you, my biggest issue in games isn't necessarily missing the table or misreading the spin, but simply wiffing the ball while keeping my eyes on it the whole time. quite often I hit my thumb which I believe would happen less frequently if my paddle was in the same plane as my hand.

I've been fighting the cocked wrist for quite some time now, and I've always noticed that once I get tired I start to play better. I think part of that is because since I'm not FLEXING my wrist to hold it in the right place, I can finally relax my stroke again.


So here's the dilemma: What should I do, Keep fighting the cocked wrist and try to develop those muscles? Or have an incorrect stroke and play better.

All advice AND criticism is welcome, please provide your input. Also I'd like to hear more pro's and cons to holding it these two ways.

P.S. If my coach decides to do something it be make an adjustment or keep fighting it, I'm going to end up ignoring conflicting advice and follow what she says








Sorry for my terrible drawing. Here's what I mean.


BAD=




GOOD=

thekleifheit13 said:

My suggestion is to learn to un-cock your wrist by practicing shadow strokes. It took me about 2000 shadow strokes

Click to expand...

Great advice, but the problem for me is the wrist strength, so I can do maybe 2 shadow strokes with it uncocked. Then entire arm tightens and after about 10 of my arm being tightened up my wrist goes limp again. Once it's limp again I don't have to strain the muscles and I can do my shadow strokes again with easy. I can do maybe ONE and a HALF hammer curl. Right now I'm trying to get it stronger without any weight by holding it up as long as possible. at about 30 seconds it starts to shake and after about 2 minutes i cant even hold it up with it shaking. I did this quite a few times yesterday and today I can hardly move my wrist. I think I overused it yesterday trying to develop some muscle in it.


P.S.
I'm glad to hear once you got your issue solved it was able to help you so much! best of luck to you!

yea, this sounds like a really good idea, going to be frustrating taking that step back but I'm sure it will be worth it.

Nuke Skywalker said:

for clarity's sake, I'm assuming you are saying that the incorrect grip is the first picure? Yes? Because would call the second grip "Cocked"

Click to expand...

incorrect, the second picture is cocked and is wrong according to my coach . gravity is whats causing my cocked wrist, i don't have muscle to uncock it.

Sorry about that. I'll update the pictures with real images of what I'm talking about.

NextLevel said:

The pictures do not reflect a cocked wrist. Or at least, they don't show what I am thinking.

Click to expand...

I now realize the word "cocked" wasn't the right way to say it. I've posted real pictures now on my original post of what I mean.

Archosaurus said:

An exercise I do to improve grip strength, that could also help in this is as follows:

Take a barbell of adequate weight. I normally go for 25 - 30kg but you will NOT be able to hold anything close to that weight any time soon. I recommend starting and trying with 10kg.

Hold the barbell with a comfortable shoulder width grip, with the palms facing down. The opposite of the bicep curling grip.

Put your elbows to your sides, so your arms are pointing straight down and bent 90 degrees.

With your wrists straight, hold the weight there for 10 sec. You should not try to "chicken wing" your elbows out nor should you cock your wrists up or down.

Release the weight slowly, bending from the legs and slowly release your grip as you lower the weight. Spiking pain can occur if you just suddenly drop it, I do not suggest it.

This should in theory reduce the speed you can cock your wrist at for a topspin for example, but I have not noticed a difference apart from far better grip strength and less fatigue along with more stability.

Click to expand...

I can do this WITHOUT a weight for about 10-20 seconds until my hands start to shake from the strain. Definitely not with a 10kg barbell. I simply couldn't straighten my wrist out with a 3 pound weight (1.3kg) let alone a 10kg weight for a longer duration.

SchemeSC said:

My wrist looks like the "bad" photo pretty much all the time when I play relaxed table tennis. Hopefully it's not all that bad. I usually wear it proudly like I'm some kind of Wang Liqin wannabe.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily that bad, it makes looping fairly easy for you I'm assuming, but high balls would be more of a struggle than they should be as well as other flat hits. You also probably hit your fingers more often than others do. It's like having your paddle farther away from your body opposed to being in front of where your hand would go during a stroke.