Question on Biomechanics of the FH Loop

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I have a question concerning the use of body rotation used in the FH Loop.

How can i make proper use of turning the body while looping a backspin ball?
Looping a backspin ball requires a more vertical stroke.
Now this makes it hard to turn your body into it without leaning back. Because if you don't you will hit the ball flat and it will drop into the net.

The other thing that I do in that situation is to not turn the body and more like jump from one leg onto the other in a jumping jack fashion if that makes sense. So its more a leaning sideways that helps with additional power.

What is your take on that?
 
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Some tips from Werner Schlager: http://www.experttabletennis.com/stroke-development-tips/

"The more topspin I put on the ball, the less I need to consider the existing rotation of the coming ball. The more spin I put on the ball, the less I need to consider the existing rotation."


You may remember that I used this in my recent blog post about How to Return Spin Serves. It is probably my favourite Werner Schlager quote!


What he’s saying is that using lots of spin on your own strokes can help to weaken the effect of the spin that was put on the ball by your opponent. If you play a high-quality shot, with plenty of spin, you don’t have to worry as much about which spin was on the ball. You can counter that spin with your own spin.


"Personally, I don’t see a clear difference between the topspin against topspin or backspin."


Some coaches teach that there are two types of loop. The loop against topspin (where you hit more through the ball, or over the ball) and the loop against backspin (where you have to spin up the back of the ball). My coach when I was a junior used the talk about brushing the ball at “3 o’clock” when looping backspin – basically, brushing up vertically.


This kind of thinking is probably useful when working with relatively new players – as their biggest problem is usually looping backspin balls into the net. However, if you watch the top Chinese you’ll notice that even when looping backspin they appear to make contact close to the top of the ball. Professional players are able to do this because of the quality of their strokes.


So, professionals probably don’t have to worry too much about whether the ball has topspin or backspin because their loops are so perfect and spinny. This goes back to the point above about heavy spin strokes weakening the spin already on the ball.

TLDR: the higher the racket speed is, the more similar two strokes (against backspin and topspin) are.
 
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Some tips from Werner Schlager: http://www.experttabletennis.com/stroke-development-tips/



TLDR: the higher the racket speed is, the more similar two strokes (against backspin and topspin) are.

Thank you! Very good post. I just started reading the blog posts on experttabletennis when you posted :)

SO the solution is to have a super loop who fits all... This will be a long therm goal!
However for amateurs i think there really are two loops.
 
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I have a question concerning the use of body rotation used in the FH Loop.

How can i make proper use of turning the body while looping a backspin ball?
Looping a backspin ball requires a more vertical stroke.
Now this makes it hard to turn your body into it without leaning back. Because if you don't you will hit the ball flat and it will drop into the net.

The other thing that I do in that situation is to not turn the body and more like jump from one leg onto the other in a jumping jack fashion if that makes sense. So its more a leaning sideways that helps with additional power.

What is your take on that?

I think we may need to see what you are actually doing.

One thing I can say is that, the more you practice looping backspin, the more it clicks; the more you start being able to choose your timing: top of the bounce, as the ball is dropping....the more you start being able to choose your arc: direct or high.

From a theory standpoint, if you use both legs together, and they are timed with the contact properly, they give you power in a small up motion so that your stroke can go more forward and your hips can give you rotation that moves you forward. Because if you are looping heavy backspin and the whole motion is up, you are going to get a slow, high arc loop. That is okay. But looping forward gives you pace and it is worth being able to loop with pace off backspin.

Just to be clear, the legs working together for a little up movement does not mean that you come all the way up. You should start low so your legs are loaded. And they press into the ground to cause a small up movement while your stroke is still forward.

As you practice, you start getting better at this. Then you can choose high arcs for safety and to mess up opponent's timing and more direct forward loops for the pace.
 
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I have a question concerning the use of body rotation used in the FH Loop.

How can i make proper use of turning the body while looping a backspin ball?
Looping a backspin ball requires a more vertical stroke.
Now this makes it hard to turn your body into it without leaning back. Because if you don't you will hit the ball flat and it will drop into the net.

The other thing that I do in that situation is to not turn the body and more like jump from one leg onto the other in a jumping jack fashion if that makes sense. So its more a leaning sideways that helps with additional power.

What is your take on that?

Why not just watch better players do it and then see what they are doing? Here is the guy with the best loop against backspin in the world (his record against choppers is impeccable) - he is the model when I am telling people to loop backspin. Straighten the arm on the backswing so that the racket dips the blow the ball. when you come round the side and up, it will feel as if there is no backspin on the ball. Going downwards deliberately is not right in my view. Use some spin avoidance by not hitting the ball square from the back.



 
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By the way, here is an old video of Zhang Jike looping vs Joo Se Hyuk, so he is looping against very heavy backspin. You can see how, in this video, his loop motion goes mostly up, but his hips give him forward momentum. They show the same rally several times making it slower and slower so it is easy to analyze.


You can also see his hips move him up a few inches on most of those shots. But he never comes all the way up and his legs stay bent to varying degrees the whole time. You can also see his weight transfer and how his left foot comes up while he is powering up from the legs and when his left foot lands, his right foot comes up a tiny bit.
 
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Thanks for yours answers i really appreciate it.

As I see it there are different approaches on looping backspin. Xu Xin does it by avoiding the spin. Which i like very much, this flows into the same principle as the Werner Schlager one. One loop to fit them all. As XX uses sidespin in almost all of his loops.

One principle stands above all - Racket speed. In the video of Jike we can see that he uses lots of forearm snap. To fit that principle, but his loops seems to have spin without a lot of pace.

The next step for me would be to analyse how much backspin i can lift with trying out the different tactics :) Going to play now, maybe i can use some of the tips you gave me!
 
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Here is Timo - I am not a fan of that ZJK video - ZJK's record against choppers is not fantastic.


Yeah. I hadn't seen that video in years and was surprised by how choppy the technique was. But what I remembered about the video is that, with the slower and slower slow motion, and the the fact that you can see the legs, it is easy to see what is going on.

But, in the video you posted, if the person can see what they are looking at, that compact arm swing from Timo with the legs, hips and core rotation and how much forward action he has despite the fact that you can see the ball is loaded: pretty good footage.


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One high level coach told me to keep your normal loop stroke and just open up the racket angle a bit (against very heavy underspin). Another said to keep your stroke moving forward (not more vertical) and just aim higher. If your stroke gets too vertical you lose all your power and throw yourself off balance. Try it in practice.
 
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To throw you all for a loop (pun intended haha), Kim Jung Hoon says that vs underspin, if you take it right off the bounce, you can go very forward with a powerful stroke and overcome the spin easier.

This might be a good skill to have with the crappy seamed plastic balls that bounce every which way but loose on a slow or weak underspin shot from opponent.
 
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both avoiding spin and looping with a horizontal stroke are quite advanced imo, if you teach someone these techniques too early they might never learn to handle spin with their own spin. you will end up with a player that plays mostly high risk shots both when needed and not imo.

regarding the question, when looping backspin the body can be applied in two ways and most of time we have a combination of the two: vertical upward motion from the legs helps lift and spin the ball. this is pretty obvious so i won't go into detail. the horizontal motion from turning the body forward is a bit more interesting: it helps add pace to your shot which in turn means you don't have to add pace with your arm, which means your arm can do more spinning. without turning the body you have to choose between spin and pace, with the horizontal body turn you can have both. successfully applying the body turn into your loop off of backspin feels like you are giving your arm a much needed rest and still achieving high quality shots.
 
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To throw you all for a loop (pun intended haha), Kim Jung Hoon says that vs underspin, if you take it right off the bounce, you can go very forward with a powerful stroke and overcome the spin easier.


Is that so? I have always heard that it was easier to loop if you wait for the ball to drop.
 
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Is that so? I have always heard that it was easier to loop if you wait for the ball to drop.
The spin will decrease as the ball spends time in the air, but it will also have caused more effect on the ball. I guess if you take it right off the bounce, it's gonna be more static compared to slowing down rapidly and starting to float or fall.
 
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The spin will decrease as the ball spends time in the air, but it will also have caused more effect on the ball. I guess if you take it right off the bounce, it's gonna be more static compared to slowing down rapidly and starting to float or fall.

The physics work like this: If you take the ball early - off the bounce it has more energy and its rising. This means you don't need to generate that much energy by yourself and most importantly don't need that much lifting. That's why you can take it with a more horizontal motion. At least that's what they taught us in the trainer seminar and makes sense to me.

When you take it later on the ball is dropping, so you need to lift it with a more upward motion.
 
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The physics work like this: If you take the ball early - off the bounce it has more energy and its rising. This means you don't need to generate that much energy by yourself and most importantly don't need that much lifting. That's why you can take it with a more horizontal motion. At least that's what they taught us in the trainer seminar and makes sense to me.

When you take it later on the ball is dropping, so you need to lift it with a more upward motion.

That's true. However you gotta remember that topspin and backspin looping off the bounce vs on the fall are a little different because the spin affects the ball oppositely. Even if you have huge racket head speed, you can't loop it exactly like you'd loop topspin or no-spin, but the pros sure do get damn close! Well, assuming that it's heavy. If it's light I think you can mostly just loop it however you want.


I think this would be common sense if people didn't watch pros play choppers and "lift" the ball so much. Everyone wants to copy that way of looping backspin without really understanding that it's a tactical decision and not the only right way. Occasionally you also do see pros put away backspin shots with the kind of shot you're describing: early off the bounce with a more normal motion.
 
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Some tips from Werner Schlager: http://www.experttabletennis.com/stroke-development-tips/



TLDR: the higher the racket speed is, the more similar two strokes (against backspin and topspin) are.

Yes.
It's simple physics really. It's easier to see if your stroke was broken up into x and y components of velocity.


Thank you! Very good post. I just started reading the blog posts on experttabletennis when you posted :)

SO the solution is to have a super loop who fits all... This will be a long therm goal!
However for amateurs i think there really are two loops.

Ehhhh half true.
I made a post about this a while back. I forget where. The key is to be able to get a looping technique that is ADJUSTABLE. In fact, the loop is meant to be this way, so that it can be used in every kind of situation. It's not like you do the same super loop no matter what kind of ball it is. But the loops will be closely similar to each other.

I remember which thread now, it is actually Boogar's thread https://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/...t-of-the-Forehand-Topspin&p=158476#post158476

Body rotation is definitely important when looping underspin; otherwise, it will be very difficult to make power shots. Beginners will usually only focus on getting the ball on the table, so they will just lift the ball enough to get it over the net.
However, this is kind of a trap, because they are now stuck in the mentality that they should only try to spin the ball upwards.

Truth be told, spinning the ball forward is the answer, although it is really hard. There pretty much isn't a way to spin the ball forward if you don't go fast enough. So NextLevel's advice on racket speed is important and relevant.

If you start spinning the ball forward, all of your loops will start to look the similar: they will all have a good forward motion.

EDIT: referring back to the original post:

Looping backspin doesn't require a more vertical stroke, it only requires a stronger vertical speed. Think about it. If you somehow made your arm go at infinite speed on any kind of loop, the ball will probably go over the net.

Also, leaning back a little bit is okay, as long as you don't lean back too far.

As for the jumping from one leg to the other, that isn't a good idea for developing your stroke, especially if you play with choppers. I know what you are talking about, and I have done it before when I have played with a chopper who chopped with a lot of spin.
If you keep going with that motion, it will slowly turn into a cartwheel :)
But with jokes aside, definitely try to find another way to get more racket speed. Forearm snap usually works.
 
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Is that so? I have always heard that it was easier to loop if you wait for the ball to drop.
The rationale is right off the bounce the spin doesn't bite the rubber and react so much as if you wait. This allows a forward stroke to overpower the spin and make a powerloop.

Personally, I like to let it drop and then I spin heavy, but it is easier to forward stroke power loop the ball if you take it off the bounce.

If you have access to a robot, set it to give underpin deep near endure and practice power looping off the bounce... you might surprise yourself.

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