Too much sidespin on forehand topspins

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You have this wrong. Your conception of this is flawed enough that I can use the term “incorrect.” I will see if I can make a video of what it is that you are conceiving of incorrectly.

The degree of straightening does not have to be what I said. But it helps. Timo Boll’s arm angle goes from bent to more bent. But he gets a ton of speed from the whip action of his forearm. Not sure most people could generate that racket speed using his technique. But he is still primarily using his forearm and wrist.

And if you start with the arm very bent and end with the arm bent at the same angle, you can get a few things happening:

1) Way less racket speed.
2) Way more tension in your stroke: you cannot keep the elbow joint stable (bent and maintaining the same angle) without A LOT of unwanted tension. That tension also slows you down.
2) A much higher risk of a shoulder injury. [emoji2]

This is just biomechanics. And it has everything to do with why, on skateboards and rollerblades, big wheels top out at a higher end speed but little wheels accelerate faster. Which is also why, for someone who skates on ramps, and all your speed comes from a very short period of time where you are accelerating on the transitions of the ramp (the curved part) you want little wheels and will get more acceleration, speed and height with those little wheels. Whereas, in speed skating you would want bigger wheels because momentary acceleration is not as important as overall top range speed over a much longer duration of time.

It is also why racing cyclists use large wheels and the guys who ride bmx bikes, whether on ramps or on dirt terrain, use much smaller wheels.

Also, in figure skating, when you see a skater spin, when the arms are reaching out there torso will spin slower. As they pull their arms in, the speed of their torso spinning, will increase dramatically.

Shorter levers accelerate faster. Larger levers top out at a higher top end speed but it takes longer to get to that top speed. From a mechanical standpoint you want to utilize all three levers to maximize racket speed:

1) shoulder,
2) elbow and
3) wrist.

Based on biomechanics:

1) The wrist can accelerate your racket fastest. But the top speed is lowest.
2) The forearm snap from the elbow joint accelerates your racket faster than your shoulder and slower than your wrist. The top speed from the elbow/forearm is faster than the wrist and slower than the shoulder.
3) The shoulder has the slowest acceleration of the three joints and the fastest top speed.

Remember, a TT ball is very light. The overall force behind the ball is not as important as with a tennis ball or a baseball. However, the general mechanics will be the same.l

In tennis you have a much longer time between shots for recovery. And in baseball you don’t need to worry about resetting at all. So, in TT, with the light ball and the need for a fast reset speed, the most important issue is getting the racket to move as fast as possible as in as short a period of time as possible.

Some things that will will produce a fast, spinny, powerful shot in TT would need a bigger movement from the body, hips, core, legs. In TT the body movement: the weight transfer and core rotation are much smaller but they are timed more precisely to pop into the ball on contact. A larger, less precise body movement like how much a baseball player uses his hips and weight transfer would throw a TT player totally off balance.

You want to use the hips and core. But the timing for them to pop into the ball is the more important part since the ball is so light. So, the body is important. But your image for that is also a little inefficient because you are thinking it should be larger than it should.


If you keep your arm all the way straight through the whole stroke, the racket will move a little faster than if you keep your elbow bent at the same angle for the whole stroke.

If you keep your upper arm from moving at all and just bend and straighten your elbow, your hand and racket will be moving faster in the time for the stroke, than with either of the previous two.

If the shoulder moves the upper arm, so the elbow moves forward and up about 1 foot, and the elbow joint goes from almost straight to that 70° angle I talked about, you will get the racket to move exponentially faster in the same amount of time. In fact, in less time.

[BTW: if you watch NextLevel’s stroke frame by frame, he is doing what I described in this last stroke description. Despite having a joint disease that prevents him using his hips and core as much as many of us, his arm mechanics are very high level.]

The general details are that, when you are closer to the table you use a more compact stroke with less upper arm because you need to reset faster. When you are a little father back, you can use more upper arm. But you would still want to use your forearm.

What often gets called a European loop is a loop that uses mostly forearm. Very good examples of this are Timo Boll and Michael Maze. If you watch in slow motion and go frame by frame, you can see how much they use the movement of the forearm from the elbow joint to get such good racket acceleration.

Anyway, I will try and make a video that breaks this stuff down in visual form.

For now, notice how NextLevel’s racket moves much faster than yours even though he is trying half as hard. Then look at the angle at his elbow on the backswing, the angle on contact and the angle at the end of the stroke.

Check what my arm does. Look for all those same details including racket speed.

Choose any pro with a decent FH and see, frame by frame, what they do.

Wang Hao is an example of a pro who often used a FH where his arm was straight and the elbow angle didn’t change so much. But it still changed some and his FH was nowhere near as good as so many other penholders. However, his BH was one of the best BHs of any kind ever and unquestionably the best RPB.



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More details.

In general, when you are closer to the table and need to reset faster, you would use less upper arm and more forearm. You would also make the hips and weight transfer pop into the ball with a more compact movement.

When you are further from the table and have more time to reset, you can use more shoulder and upper arm. And the hips and weight transfer can be a little bigger.

The top CNT players have such good training that they can use the larger arm swing and bigger body action and still reset fast enough most of the time.

However, over a lifetime this is harder on the hips, the knees, the waist and the back.

This larger technique is often called a Chinese loop. But it is just a loop with a bigger swing. If you watch the top CNT players, they adjust their stroke to the ball they are playing and how much time they will have to reset. FZD sometimes a stroke with the forearm snap and no upper arm when close to the table. And usually when he does, it is still a monster shot in spite of 95% of the arm movement coming from the elbow/forearm.

In any case, the words may be confusing. But seeing what I am talking about may be more helpful. So I will try and make a video to break down what moves and how in the mechanics of a stroke.


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Excellent mechanics, easy to see upper arm and forearm movement.


Also watch his hips, his legs, his feet.

Note, when he uses his body, his feet turn to accommodate the hip rotation. You actually need this to keep your knees safe.


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Adding sidespin subtracts power from velocity and topspin, and the sidespin component of a shot doesn't help at all to lift a heavy push; wrong axis of force for lifting. You make it harder for yourself when you add sidespin. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes not. If the only forehand you can hit is a hook, I think it's a good investment of practice time to figure out how to unhook it.

I suppose ZJK, XX and LGY and other players have to learn how to hit pure topspin then. These three, based on my observation, put sidespin on their topspin and look at their forehand topspin. It's basically how modern players hit the ball nowadays.

Here is my stroke self hitting. I think I used to use and probably still use too much arm and forearm and not enough bod on the forehand topspin. But I post it mostly to give whocares an idea of my sidespin and my contact point.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4aPh10ClZfU&feature=youtu.be&t=274

PS: the stroke should really begin in the ready position and end there. And you don't need to hit the ball hard. Just get the form right. Your drills hit the ball way too hard, whocarez.

Yup. This is how I do it. There is topspin and by hitting the side of the ball, you put sidespin to it. Pretty uch all modern players do this.
 
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I suppose ZJK, XX and LGY and other players have to learn how to hit pure topspin then. These three, based on my observation, put sidespin on their topspin and look at their forehand topspin. It's basically how modern players hit the ball nowadays.

Pros don't hit with a permanent hook. Good ones like ZJK vary the amount and direction of sidespin as needed. Maybe some more observation would be helpful.
 
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Pros don't hit with a permanent hook. Good ones like ZJK vary the amount and direction of sidespin as needed. Maybe some more observation would be helpful.


So how many loops in this video are not "hooks" of the type that ade14212 is describing?


It's language but the point again is that many "topspin loops" begin with contact on the side and are hooks with minimized sidespin. You see it most clearly in the loops that ZJK is hitting towards the camera.
 
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in my limited understanding , what Zhang Jike hits is more corkscrew ... where as a hook is where the sidespin actually around the equator the ball ...


Yes, but corkscrew is a kind of sidespin - not lateral like hook, but more deviation - but the key is terminology. That's why it is important to look at video and stop speaking past each other.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O2vrVwjqktg&feature=youtu.be&t=35

Some people still call hitting the ball on the side no matter cork or lateral "hook" and part of the reason why ZJK still gets that cork effect is that he begins with his paddle pointing a bit more downwards (the hook pattern) and wraps it around the side of the ball before finishing over and forward.
 
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So how many loops in this video are not "hooks" of the type that ade14212 is describing?


It's language but the point again is that many "topspin loops" begin with contact on the side and are hooks with minimized sidespin. You see it most clearly in the loops that ZJK is hitting towards the camera.

Good video. You're right, probably just language. I wouldn't call most of ZJK's forehand to backhand corner shots hooks, because I don't see them curving significantly in the horizontal plane. A few may even be fades, but it's hard to tell on video. Some of the forehand to forehand shots are clearly hooks, but some don't seem that way to me. One point for clarity: Contact on the side doesn't necessarily produce significant sidespin. Only brushing (tangential) contact does that. So I think the distinction I'd make between a forehand to forehand loop (that does usually have a little sidespin) and a hook is similar to the one I'd make between a loop drive and a brush loop. It's a matter of degree rather than type, but I think a useful distinction. Clearly not ideal if your sidespin dial is stuck all the way in one direction, which is the problem described by the OP.
 
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in my limited understanding , what Zhang Jike hits is more corkscrew ... where as a hook is where the sidespin actually around the equator the ball ...

Axis of rotation for corkscrew is in the direction of motion, so he'd have to be brushing over the top with most of his blade motion from right to left (perpendicular to ball motion) to impart significant corkscrew spin. I guess it's possible to do, but predominant sidespin (with axis of rotation up and down and so blade motion mostly in the direction of ball motion) seems more plausible.
 
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2) Way more tension in your stroke: you cannot keep the elbow joint stable (bent and maintaining the same angle) without A LOT of unwanted tension. That tension also slows you down.

You want to use the hips and core. But the timing for them to pop into the ball is the more important part since the ball is so light. So, the body is important. But your image for that is also a little inefficient because you are thinking it should be larger than it should.

If the shoulder moves the upper arm, so the elbow moves forward and up about 1 foot, and the elbow joint goes from almost straight to that 70° angle I talked about, you will get the racket to move exponentially faster in the same amount of time. In fact, in less time.

For now, notice how NextLevel’s racket moves much faster than yours even though he is trying half as hard. Then look at the angle at his elbow on the backswing, the angle on contact and the angle at the end of the stroke.

Check what my arm does. Look for all those same details including racket speed.
Alright Carl, I might have been wrong. I will watch the posted videos more carefully, and try to keep what you said in mind. Maybe just relaxing a bit more will let me keep a straighter starting position, got to give this a try. Of course, if you make a video that breaks this down in a visual form, it would be nice to see :)

Thanks for the excellent observations, TableTennisTom. Definitely a big part of the issue.
 
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I suppose ZJK, XX and LGY and other players have to learn how to hit pure topspin then. These three, based on my observation, put sidespin on their topspin and look at their forehand topspin. It's basically how modern players hit the ball nowadays.



Yup. This is how I do it. There is topspin and by hitting the side of the ball, you put sidespin to it. Pretty uch all modern players do this.

Trust me, they practice with pure topspin. Just in matchplay, it's a good idea to put some sidespin, as the ball will kick off the bounce sideways and increases the chances of an error. But you're right that some players like to use sidespin than other. There is a chinese player in french league who nearly always loops with sidespin.
 
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Trust me, they practice with pure topspin. Just in matchplay, it's a good idea to put some sidespin, as the ball will kick off the bounce sideways and increases the chances of an error. But you're right that some players like to use sidespin than other. There is a chinese player in french league who nearly always loops with sidespin.

The french league player is Wei Shihao, notorious sidespinner.
 
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Alright Carl....

Okay. I will do my best to post a video on the subject of the mechanics of the stroke.

I am not a high level player. I play for fun. But I am a movement analyst so there are some things that are hard for most people my level to see that I can see because of the fact that day in and day out I am analyzing functional and dysfunctional movement patterns and helping people learn to use their bodies in a more sound, mechanically efficient way.

Sorry if I went over-the-top with the response though. I can get a bit OCD on certain things. [OCDCarl in effect hahaha].

The video will be easier to understand.

And I guess, rather than saying “right” or “wrong” hopefully we will get you a better understanding of the mechanics at play in a stroke.

The interesting thing is, if your internal image of the range of things you would want in your FH stroke was more in line with what would mechanically be best for you, your technique will improve just by having the internal image becoming more accurate.

All that being said, without any of that, your form is good enough that just the reps you need would correct most of what is going on anyway.

Your actual stroke is, in fact, mechanically more sound, than your internal image of what you think the stroke should be. And that is actually rare. It is usually the other way around.

So if your understanding of the stroke clicks into place, the other stuff may actually just fall into place.


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Okay: Video:

There are a few details, in talking off the cuff, that I would correct. Most of them get corrected within the context of the video. But still. Below the video, I can post a few that I can remember. [emoji2]


1) For you to use the forearm, the arm does not have to start straight and end bent at the elbow. As long as the arm is more bent at the end than it was at the beginning, you used your forearm.

2) I do cover this, but it is worth staying anyway: although there is a context in which any of the less efficient examples could be used, like elbow stable through the whole stroke whether bent or straighter, when you are trying to groove technique to develop a good stroke, ideally there is: a) weight transfer, b) core rotation, c) some use of the shoulder but not too much, d) some use of the elbow joint, this one is safe to have as much as you want. But as long as the movement of the elbow/forearm gets the racket speed faster, it does not matter how big the range of movement in that joint is; it just should be timed well to make the racket faster during be millisecond where the ball is in contact with the rubber, e) the information I purposely left out is the use of the wrist because I feel that would complicate things unnecessarily for whocarez.

In the end, Brett Clarke does a flawless job of helping people to understand how to get the whip of the wrist into your strokes. But now may not be the time for that. [emoji2]

3) When I am talking about the joints of the shoulder and OldSchoolPenhold’s shoulder injury I mention: a) the Acromioclavicular joint, and b) the sternoclavicular joint. And then I say the movement should come from the shoulder joint. Well....the acromioclavicular joint and the sternoclavicular joint ARE BOTH joints in the shoulder girdle. But the main joint in shoulder girdle that I was referring to, where most of the upper arm movement should come from is the GLENOHUMERAL joint. Lol on me. Hahaha.

Anyway, in watching, one thing I can see is, my shoulder injury from when I was in the circus. I know, many people won’t be able to see it. But my right shoulder was dislocated several times. And I can see that it does not like to move my arm forward and up that much. [emoji2]

I guess that is okay though for a guy who is in his fifties. [emoji2]

whocarez: I hope the video helps you understand more what you want in the fundamentals of a FH stroke.

If you do shadow strokes, if you are ever able to do them while looking in a mirror, it will make seeing and auto-correcting your strokes much easier. It will happen without you even realize it. You will see what is more relaxed, effortless and efficient. And, for any good movement pattern, you want as much of those qualities as possible.


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So cool to see a new video of you Carl! Thank you. This may help me in my game LOL

Okay: Video:

There are a few details, in talking off the cuff, that I would correct. Most of them get corrected within the context of the video. But still. Below the video, I can post a few that I can remember. [emoji2]


1) For you to use the forearm, the arm does not have to start straight and end bent at the elbow. As long as the arm is more bent at the end than it was at the beginning, you used your forearm.

2) I do cover this, but it is worth staying anyway: although there is a context in which any of the less efficient examples could be used, like elbow stable through the whole stroke whether bent or straighter, when you are trying to groove technique to develop a good stroke, ideally there is: a) weight transfer, b) core rotation, c) some use of the shoulder but not too much, d) some use of the elbow joint, this one is safe to have as much as you want. But as long as the movement of the elbow/forearm gets the racket speed faster, it does not matter how big the range of movement in that joint is; it just should be timed well to make the racket faster during be millisecond where the ball is in contact with the rubber, e) the information I purposely left out is the use of the wrist because I feel that would complicate things unnecessarily for whocarez.

In the end, Brett Clarke does a flawless job of helping people to understand how to get the whip of the wrist into your strokes. But now may not be the time for that. [emoji2]

3) When I am talking about the joints of the shoulder and OldSchoolPenhold’s shoulder injury I mention: a) the Acromioclavicular joint, and b) the sternoclavicular joint. And then I say the movement should come from the shoulder joint. Well....the acromioclavicular joint and the sternoclavicular joint ARE BOTH joints in the shoulder girdle. But the main joint in shoulder girdle that I was referring to, where most of the upper arm movement should come from is the GLENOHUMERAL joint. Lol on me. Hahaha.

Anyway, in watching, one thing I can see is, my shoulder injury from when I was in the circus. I know, many people won’t be able to see it. But my right shoulder was dislocated several times. And I can see that it does not like to move my arm forward and up that much. [emoji2]

I guess that is okay though for a guy who is in his fifties. [emoji2]

whocarez: I hope the video helps you understand more what you want in the fundamentals of a FH stroke.

If you do shadow strokes, if you are ever able to do them while looking in a mirror, it will make seeing and auto-correcting your strokes much easier. It will happen without you even realize it. You will see what is more relaxed, effortless and efficient. And, for any good movement pattern, you want as much of those qualities as possible.


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whocarez,

I'm late to the thread, Carl mentioned it briefly. Don't think anyone followed up on it...

Take it from a player who loves to flat hit/smash, it is NOT easy to hit slow spinny loops. If i hit the ball early enough, I smash, but if i pick it up too late, the kick/bounce will take off away from me be it top or side or side top. I rush myself to pick up the ball earlier and sometimes due to rushing i don't smash successfully. Although, know that i'm but a low level to intermediate player.

Good luck in your TT!

~osph

p.s. thank you for sharing vids of your hitting with the forum. Not many have the courage to do that!
 
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whocarez: I hope the video helps you understand more what you want in the fundamentals of a FH stroke.

If you do shadow strokes, if you are ever able to do them while looking in a mirror, it will make seeing and auto-correcting your strokes much easier. It will happen without you even realize it. You will see what is more relaxed, effortless and efficient. And, for any good movement pattern, you want as much of those qualities as possible.

This helps. Thank you for the video :) Yes, I think doing in the front of the mirror is worthwhile.

A lot of good advice here already. As UpSideDownCarl has mentioned your shadow stroke looks good, but then you change your stroke when actually contacting the ball.

The biggest thing for me is your bat angle.

In your shadow play, your bat angle is more horizontal. When you start doing the stroke with balls, your bat angle goes more vertical. This makes it hard for you to get a good topspin contact.

So I would focus on keeping the bat angle more horizontal throughout the stroke.

Also, when making changes to my technique, I always find it easier to slow the action down to begin with. Play a safer and slower topspin and when you have reached high consistency with this, then start adding more speed.

I did the Carl drill from the BH corner many times today, and my primary focus was like this:

- slowing down as much as possible
- making sure there is some change in arm bend on contact
- keeping my bat angle more horizontal. Already from the recovery have it more parallel to the ground and finish more forward.
- ending the stroke with hips and shoulders square to the direction of the stroke

Of course, not getting the right acceleration when making a slower stroke more forward makes it hard to land the ball on the table. It easily ends up in the net :p But I will just have to keep working on this for a long time period. I have no problems with both seeing/feeling when more spin is applied and how it should sound. However, I have always been scared of ending too low in a forward position to not mess up my stroke, but quite often when I *think* it is in a forward position, it is actually quite high and horizontal (maybe because many of the players I play against are defensive).

NOTE: I do not stand completely sideways on the BH side when playing a FH topspin almost to the middle. I need some angle, but I think this is fine as long as my hips and shoulders do not overrotate, and stop square in the direction of the stroke

I also noticed that:
- watching the ball carefully and hitting it on top of the bounce helps (I do it mostly already, but it still helps)
- a more relaxed wrist, but still keeping it more horizontal from the recovery really helps with both the contact and the finish position
- when the timing of the hip rotation is right with the contact, it feels very good. Currently this happens rarely, but eventually I will get there.

Of all of this, probably slowing down matters most. I always had the same tendency when playing matches. When applying power, I often exaggerate with the technique going down the drain and mixed results. This is hard to control in a match situation, but after some time it might change.
 
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This all sounds really good.

I just want to emphasize one simple detail:

Although NextLevel is very relaxed and probably looping at less then 60% effort, his racket is still moving fast because all the mechanics I mentioned are actually happening and they are well timed to the contact of the ball. His ball has decent pace and spin even though he is not trying hard.

So trying hard and racket moving fast are not entirely connected if the technique has all the joints working for you efficiently.


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