Don't Move that Elbow and Upper Arm All Around You !!

latej · Mar 19, 2021

My 2 cents. When playing BH drive, the relative position of elbow to the hand (whether it is higher or not), makes a big difference in shoulder (whether it is strained or not).

When playing BH topspin, the hand will usually start lower than elbow. The stroke should end up with elbow down, as pointed out here:

https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/fo...nnis-Chit-Chat&p=338973&viewfull=1#post338973

BUT: even if your elbow is down and your forearm continues too much to the right (right-hander), you are no more practicing TT, but Ju-Jutsu (arm-lever, armhebel), and you feel it in shoulder again. In this sense, favor compact stroke...

P.S. Apologies if this is all too well known for you. It seems the body tells us automatically what is wrong and what is not. It feels like tautology.

Music&Ping · Mar 20, 2021

I've done that Kreanga style BH topspins for years, I mostly do the compact stroke too now though, I think it's exactly as for the FH side, mechanics don't change because you are changing side right ? mechanics will always be... mechanics.

Most of the players nowadays favor soft bouncy sponge on the BH to get a compact and tiny stroke, many guys like Kreanga could OTOH keep chinese like rubbers on their BH side, because they use the same kind of amplitude as with their FH. Is it wrong to play like this ? it has worked well for Kreanga and many other players.

The truth, as the beauty, is only is the eyes of the viewer.

I think that it's only China's tactics that brought that kind of short stroke: with many right handed players facing each others, many of them playing agressive styles, with a new ball not allowing that much speed and rotations, it was obvious that one day or another 75% of the game would be BH oriented closed to the table, for the quest of dominance in the rally.

People like Calderano have huge BH topspins, even playing it with BOTH hands as tennis players for recovery when being in defence, but away from the table, they are bringing another way to think the BH stroke.

So, all in all, I'm definitely not for ONLY 1 way to think the training: if you're coaching an individual that is more confident with huge strokes, and of course landing them where they should ! I don't see why a "kind of stroke" should be better of worst than the other.

UpSideDownCarl · Mar 20, 2021

On her BH she is elevating her whole shoulder girdle on the right side during the stroke vs backspin. KREANGA DOES NOT DO THAT. He may have a big stroke. But his mechanics are good. What she is doing when she is trying to loop backspin with the BH isn't just that it is a big stroke. Her whole shoulder girdle lifts because her arm is doing something funny. There is a difference.

I showed a screenshot photo. If she was just taking a big swing but her shoulder girdle was not lifting the way it is, the form and power would be totally different. The way she is moving the whole arm by elevating her shoulder girdle from a mecanical standpoint is inefficient and from a health standpoint, over time, that will damage the sternoclavicular and acromioclavicular joints.

If you sit with your arms by your side and lift one of your shoulders up towards your ear without changing the angle of the arm, that is part of what she is doing during those strokes. If you did a SLOW shadow BH stroke where you tried to raise your shoulder up towards your ear while doing the shadow stroke, you should be able to feel why that would be bad for you. Maybe you will even be able to tell how it would make the movement of the arm MUCH SLOWER and less efficient as well.

So, it is worth it not to confuse what she is doing with what Kreanga does. Even if the coach can't articulate what I am saying, he is seeing something important. [Of course, I can't tell what the coach is actually saying since he is speaking in Korean. But I am breaking down the movement joint by joint.]

UpSideDownCarl · Mar 20, 2021

In movement analysis, when we see replacement movements like the one I described above, where the whole shoulder girdle is elevating to move the arm instead of the upper arm (humerus) rotating and extending in the glenohumeral joint, we would use these kinds of visual cues to help assess an injury.

I don't think this woman has an injured shoulder. The pattern of tension would look a little different if that was the case. And the elevation of the shoulder would be present in the FH stroke too and it is not.

In this instance, there is some reason why the neuromuscular pattern that developed as she learned the movement is causing her arm to do a movement that is just inefficient for the action required.

But you can frequently see similar kinds of things in lower level players. She is pretty high level. And the replacement movement in question does not seem to be present when she is using the BH vs topspin. [Looking again, the BH shots they show at the beginning vs topspin are all punch shots, not a traditional stroke.] So, it is an interesting pattern that she developed. It may be harder for her to unlearn that movement pattern than the coach realizes.

I also am not sure the raising of the shoulder is fully separate from why she is having so much trouble closing the racket for BH vs backspin. You can see she wants to meet the ball flat and lift and it almost looks like she is scared of spinning over the top of the ball which might be part of why she is lifting the shoulder so much; and also why she is leaning back in the middle of the stroke instead of staying forward. On some shots she even turns the blade face open right before she contacts the ball. All these things are connected and this is why many of the balls hit the net, just clear the net or go very long and a little high with no spin and no arc. It is interesting to see someone who has such good technique vs topspin have this kind of trouble vs backspin.

It is very possible that one thing will click and all of those things will disappear at the same time.

Der_Echte · Mar 20, 2021

UpSideDownCarl said:
.... It is interesting to see someone who has such good technique vs topspin have this kind of trouble vs backspin.It is very possible that one thing will click and all of those things will disappear at the same time.

Carl, You would be REALLY surprised at how many 1800-2200 level Korean players absolutely DO NOT topspin vs underspin. Only the more recent generation of ex-pro and ex-elite TT athletes teach topspin vs underspin. The old-school teaches how to HIT and DRIVE vs that... and you gotta be careful about using the word drive in Korea as that means a topspin loop.Carl,
It would sound increadulous, but in 2009, when I step foot in Uijeongbu, a city of 500k just north of Seoul, there was prolly 1000 active TT players there, and around 100 players in the 1700-1900 range, another 100 better, mostly over 2000 level (Div 1 city). I entered Korea as a totally untrained recreatinal player with zero coaching lessons under my belt.

All I had was a 30 minute class on serving by TTD member and Nexy USA CEO Bogeyhunter and I read Lary Hodges TT book Steps to Success a few times to learn BH loop (A dude in an Iraq rec center drove me crazy with light chops).What would be hard to believe is that instantly, I had the best BH topspin vs underspin in the ENTIRE CITY from day one as a REC PLAYER, simply, because Larry's book made it easy and I got a lot of underspin balls in matches in the Iraqi camp to practive with, so I quickly developed a reliable heavy underspin loop vs underspin. I saw NO ONE, I mean NO ONE even TRY to learn that shot. Coaches never teach it back then, since they were no good at it.Since I had about ZERO footwork and did not receive serves well, but could serve/attack and BH/FH loop vs underspin,

I started at Div 4, an ave to a level above ave... I quickly made Div 3 then Div 2 regional on those strengths, despite huge weaknesses everywhere else. That is what it was like just 10 years ago.

THAT is why so many players these days still struggle with topspin vs underspin... yet these days, 1/4 or so of all the coaches in Korea clubs are topspin oriented players under 35 yrs old and actually play those shots and can teach them. The easy to learn techniques of topspin vs underspin are now being taught and adopted more widely in Korean amateur TT. Maybe in another 10 years, it will be very common to see good BH topspin vs underspin be real common even at the Div 4 city level (USATT 1500-1800)

UpSideDownCarl · Mar 20, 2021

Der_Echte said:
Carl, You would be REALLY surprised at how many 1800-2200 level Korean players absolutely DO NOT topspin vs underspin.....

This does make it make more sense that she is scared of the backspin and is simply trying to lift it over the net. But, when I went back and looked and realized that all her BH shots vs topspin in the warmup were PUNCHES with flat contact, I realized she is solid and confident against topspin but she is still not taking a stroke or looping.

But yeah, it is still interesting to see how, some of the time, when she has the racket closed as she is about to try to loop the backspin feed, she turns the blade face, right at the last second so it meets the ball flat as she pulls up with her shoulder and leans back. For people who are having trouble seeing what she is doing, isolating different things to watch would help. You could isolate these:

1) Watching just her shoulder girdle (not the arm--just the whole shoulder girdle). There is a reason her scapula is protruding out of the back of her shirt in that screenshot I posted. There is a reason her shoulder is so close to her neck.

2) Watching just the blade face, seeing the angle of the blade face on contact.

3) Watching the way the upper and lower arm are locked together for a big part of the movement (this is while she is elevating her shoulder girdle), and how that makes the arm move very slowly, which is probably at least part of why she is scared of the backspin. Slow racket speed makes it very hard to loop backspin.

For someone not used to analyzing movement and isolating different aspects of a movement (I am trained in this), you could also watch at different speeds (.75, .50 and .25, going back and forth between these and Normal, would make it easier to see things more that are specific during the normal playback speed).

Hope this helps.

But again, what she is doing has nothing to do with what Kreanga does. Kreanga's technique is safe and quite amazing even if very few people these days try to use or emulate that kind of monster stroke.

UpSideDownCarl · Mar 20, 2021

UpSideDownCarl said:
....analyzing movement (I am trained in this),

What I am saying there is: I am looking at her from the standpoint of movement analysis. I like to play TT. But I am not a TT coach. I am looking from the standpoint of movement analysis.

More efficient movement is usually safer and healthier for your joints.

More efficient movement is easier on your joints. But it also allows you to create more power with less effort.

It is interesting how, more efficient movement is frequently movement used in a sport and presented as good technique.

A good coach would be able to explain more holistically the technique of a BH loop vs backspin. And what I am doing is breaking down the functions of the different joints and where things are going wrong. I could explain some things that would need to happen on a joint by joint basis for things to go right. But a good TT coach would be better at showing and teaching information that would help the person improve their stroke and that information might not include things like:

1) the supination of the forearm to help close the racket: a coach may just show how to close the racket as the coach in the video does.
2) the external rotation of the upper arm (shoulder joint) so that the elbow could maintain a stable position during the stroke: a coach might demonstrate the more effective movement without giving anatomical terms. The coach in the video demonstrates what she should try to do several times.
3) the degree of shoulder flexion (to move the arm forward) that would be appropriate for different BH strokes while external rotation of the shoulder joint rotates the forearm: a good coach would just show how far the arm should or should not move forward to execute the particular shot. Usually further away from the table bigger strokes are more useful.
4) and how this all fits with the movements of upper and lower body: the analytical details of core rotation, using the legs, staying forward, moving into the stroke, a coach would be better able to show all that without getting bogged down by all the minutia just as the coach in the video does very well.

A good coach would not necessarily break down each separate part of the movement but might give the player a better understanding of the stroke as one action with all those separate movements happening in sequence. Of course, if a coach determined that breaking things down more might help a particular student, they would probably be able to read that based on the scenario.

So, different functions in coaching vs movement analysis. But movement analysis could play a part when someone confuses what is in Der's video with how Kreanga does his BH.

latej · Mar 21, 2021

Hi M&P,

Music&Ping;342150 said:
Most of the players nowadays favor soft bouncy sponge on the BH to get a compact and tiny stroke, many guys like Kreanga could OTOH keep chinese like rubbers on their BH side, because they use the same kind of amplitude as with their FH. Is it wrong to play like this ? it has worked well for Kreanga and many other players.

He used/uses T05 FX on the BH, afai remember.

So, all in all, I'm definitely not for ONLY 1 way to think the training: if you're coaching an individual that is more confident with huge strokes, and of course landing them where they should ! I don't see why a "kind of stroke" should be better of worst than the other.

You meant it in the sense that there are more than 1 healthy way. When I said I prefer the compact one, I meant it in the sense that I prefer the healthy one over the un-healthy one. My wording was not optimal. Let me explain.

Some time ago there was a discussion about BH topspin, about where the elbow should point at the end, and about the follow-through. The elbow points down, and even the BH side of the bat may point down at the end of the stroke, as seen on William Henzell. I didn't think about it much at the time, but later realized, that focusing on it (that the elbow and the BH side points down), is actually *contra*-productive. If you do, you run into danger of either over-rotating the forearm (clockwise as right-hander), or over-moving the forearm (to the right as RH), both of which does not do any good to the shoulder. It is a non-goal. It's better to focus on other things, one of which is positioning, as was mentioned in that thread...

P.S. Cheers. You embody the french revolution ideals for me ;-)

mcangus · Mar 22, 2021

Kreanga's huge backhand swing is a bit of a myth.He did have a good backhand block with sidespin and could even punch block down the line with inside out sidespin.It was Rosskopf who had an extreme backhand swing which Waldner mentioned as the best backhand against underspin.It was so extreme that couldn't shorten it when rushed.The whole idea of short BH swing seems to stem from Boll's much analysed game.Boll didn't seem to have a good BH block either.

zeio · Mar 22, 2021

I'd argue it's much earlier than that. The BH punch was still dominant with the one-off big wind-up BH loop mixed in back then, but transitions between BH punch and BH loop in the middle of a point(which called for a shorter stroke) started appearing probably sometime in the late 80s to early 90s. Steffen Fetzner started doing the contemporary short elbow-as-pivot BH rip at least as early as 1990. Korbel opened the point on his receive with the short elbow-as-pivot BH at WTTC 1991, that was later developed into the chiquita as Korbel said.

Fetzner
https://youtu.be/uQxdNjx3jAI?t=819
https://youtu.be/uQxdNjx3jAI?t=1176
https://youtu.be/uQxdNjx3jAI?t=1208
https://youtu.be/s8dVAueCCUc?t=423
https://youtu.be/s8dVAueCCUc?t=506
https://youtu.be/s8dVAueCCUc?t=545
https://youtu.be/s8dVAueCCUc?t=637

Korbel
https://youtu.be/iQdNdoX9rJ4?t=1876
https://youtu.be/iQdNdoX9rJ4?t=2318

Tango K · Mar 22, 2021

He used/uses T05 FX on the BH, afai remember.

Some time ago there was a discussion about BH topspin, about where the elbow should point at the end, and about the follow-through. The elbow points down, and even the BH side of the bat may point down at the end of the stroke, as seen on William Henzell. I didn't think about it much at the time, but later realized, that focusing on it (that the elbow and the BH side points down), is actually *contra*-productive. If you do, you run into danger of either over-rotating the forearm (clockwise as right-hander), or over-moving the forearm (to the right as RH), both of which does not do any good to the shoulder. It is a non-goal. It's better to focus on other things, one of which is positioning, as was mentioned in that thread...

P.S. Cheers. You embody the french revolution ideals for me ;-)

Agree with both. Regarding the end point of a stroke. It may be important to early learners to learn the form and the contact point (which is midway), but at some point, one gotta realise that it has little to do with the stroke itself. You’re supposed to fully relax after your swing, which implies that individuals will end slightly differently since when you got loose, your arm will be “waving” around a little bit.

I got this misconception years ago. When I came back to the sport, much older and calmer, and saw the world class players never end where the coach said, I gotta figure it out by watching a lot of slow-mo. That “waving” because of full relaxation is very difficult to see without slowmotion if you are not used to.

Big swing backhand needs a lot of body support. If you see elbow moving around during a big swing, you gotta watch again carefully. It’s almost certain moved by body swing (either left-right weight transfer or forward pushing), not by itself (like the lady in the video was doing) - which is by using shoulder.

It’s similar to forehand big swing. Yes, the arm swings bigger but a vast movement is actually done by body rotation. So the arm is still relatively compact.

latej · Mar 22, 2021

Tango K said:
Agree with both. Regarding the end point of a stroke. It may be important to early learners to learn the form and the contact point (which is midway), but at some point, one gotta realise that it has little to do with the stroke itself. You’re supposed to fully relax after your swing, which implies that individuals will end slightly differently since when you got loose, your arm will be “waving” around a little bit.

I got this misconception years ago. When I came back to the sport, much older and calmer, and saw the world class players never end where the coach said, I gotta figure it out by watching a lot of slow-mo. That “waving” because of full relaxation is very difficult to see without slowmotion if you are not used to.

You're right, especially on BH topspin, where the arm/hand doesn't stop-and-wait at the "end", but immediately returns a bit back like from itself. Well, it doesn't stop-and-wait in FH either, but there it doesn't feel so immediate...

Richie · Mar 22, 2021

latej said:
Hi M&P,

He used/uses T05 FX on the BH, afai remember.

You meant it in the sense that there are more than 1 healthy way. When I said I prefer the compact one, I meant it in the sense that I prefer the healthy one over the un-healthy one. My wording was not optimal. Let me explain.

Some time ago there was a discussion about BH topspin, about where the elbow should point at the end, and about the follow-through. The elbow points down, and even the BH side of the bat may point down at the end of the stroke, as seen on William Henzell. I didn't think about it much at the time, but later realized, that focusing on it (that the elbow and the BH side points down), is actually *contra*-productive. If you do, you run into danger of either over-rotating the forearm (clockwise as right-hander), or over-moving the forearm (to the right as RH), both of which does not do any good to the shoulder. It is a non-goal. It's better to focus on other things, one of which is positioning, as was mentioned in that thread...

P.S. Cheers. You embody the french revolution ideals for me ;-)

I'm unsure if it was the discussion that I brought up or if there's been some other one about that. In either case I don't think it should be a major focus.
In my case my mental model of the stroke before wasn't ideal and I was restricting the follow-through and therefore slowing down my recovery and hitting the ball slightly the wrong way. Letting my BH follow through properly made it much easier, it just so happens that in my case, letting it follow through leads to the backhandside of the racket to point down towards the floor more than when I restricted the follow-through which made it look like the racket was more side-ways.

The funny thing and why it even was a problem in the first place is because of the exact reason you just pointed out - I thought that the racket should be pointing a bit sideways because when pros hit backhands the end product often looked like that to me (not always though like in Henzell's and many other cases). So I focused on a detail which also turned out to be wrong which messed up the stroke a little bit.

Focusing only on a detail in a stroke will in my mind lead to doing the wrong thing, so I agree with you

latej · Mar 22, 2021

Richie said:
I'm unsure if it was the discussion that I brought up or if there's been some other one about that. In either case I don't think it should be a major focus.
In my case my mental model of the stroke before wasn't ideal and I was restricting the follow-through and therefore slowing down my recovery and hitting the ball slightly the wrong way. Letting my BH follow through properly made it much easier, it just so happens that in my case, letting it follow through leads to the backhandside of the racket to point down towards the floor more than when I restricted the follow-through which made it look like the racket was more side-ways.

The funny thing and why it even was a problem in the first place is because of the exact reason you just pointed out - I thought that the racket should be pointing a bit sideways because when pros hit backhands the end product often looked like that to me (not always though like in Henzell's and many other cases). So I focused on a detail which also turned out to be wrong which messed up the stroke a little bit.

Focusing only on a detail in a stroke will in my mind lead to doing the wrong thing, so I agree with you

Hi Richie,

I'm so glad you chimed in. Yes, that discussion was started by you. And what I wrote here looks like I was speaking about you - I'm sorry. As I said, at the moment of that discussion, I didn't think about it much. Only later I realized that I don't give a d... about where my bat points out at the "end", it's like these things associated together, some compacter backhands of Lee Sangsu, the relaxed and flexible joints of William Henzell, and my own thinking about similarities and dissimilarities of BH topspin and Uraken Uchi

And when I said that focusing on it (where it points) is wrong, I can honestly say I didn't speak about you.

F... it, my true reason why I posted it, is because I was a bit mad at Carl. M&P said something, Carl reacted, M&P corrected himself, and Carl somehow implied M&P again. I'm sure he has his reasons (we are no robots), or perhaps it was jokingly, but still I thought once is enough, and so I wanted to support M&P somehow... I hope we can all laugh about it...

Music&Ping · Mar 22, 2021

latej said:
P.S. Cheers. You embody the french revolution ideals for me ;-)

Please don't: it's never been a people's revolution but the bourgeois revolution hahaha

The bourgeois have, in a very subtle way, taken control of the french people, sure we vote... but it's only a representative democracy we french are living in, l'Abbée Sieyes literaly screwed us all and then betrayed those ideals !

Richie · Mar 22, 2021

latej said:
Hi Richie,

I'm so glad you chimed in. Yes, that discussion was started by you. And what I wrote here looks like I was speaking about you - I'm sorry. As I said, at the moment of that discussion, I didn't think about it much. Only later I realized that I don't give a d... about where my bat points out at the "end", it's like these things associated together, some compacter backhands of Lee Sangsu, the relaxed and flexible joints of William Henzell, and my own thinking about similarities and dissimilarities of BH topspin and Uraken Uchi And when I said that focusing on it (where it points) is wrong, I can honestly say I didn't speak about you.

F... it, my true reason why I posted it, is because I was a bit mad at Carl. M&P said something, Carl reacted, M&P corrected himself, and Carl somehow implied M&P again. I'm sure he has his reasons (we are no robots), or perhaps it was jokingly, but still I thought once is enough, and so I wanted to support M&P somehow... I hope we can all laugh about it...

No problem! I just wanted to clarify. I wouldn't have brought it up if it weren't the case that a very high rated Swedish player told and showed me what I was doing. Then I thought to myself, actually he's right, before this interaction, my mental model of the stroke was that the racket should face the side so I had copied a finishing position that wasn't really correct/ideal and I believe I was sometimes forcing my racket into this position. I was trying to get across how my mental model of it has changed so that I could get that detail out of my mind (that was wrong anyway) and therefore try to let the stroke flow more and if that happens the backhandside should point more downwards, as Carl explained much better than I did. It's not always the case of course and a finishing position shouldn't be forced, it should just happen as a result of the body/arm motion.

Most people should probably have ignored my comment, it was just an interesting reflection on my side as I'd never considered it before.

Music&Ping · Mar 22, 2021

Yeah sometimes I use sarcasm as a way to... joke and... tickle some minds here and there a lil' bit hahaha

But, yes, F... it anyway !

latej · Mar 23, 2021

Richie said:
No problem! I just wanted to clarify. I wouldn't have brought it up if it weren't the case that a very high rated Swedish player told and showed me what I was doing. Then I thought to myself, actually he's right, before this interaction, my mental model of the stroke was that the racket should face the side so I had copied a finishing position that wasn't really correct/ideal and I believe I was sometimes forcing my racket into this position. I was trying to get across how my mental model of it has changed so that I could get that detail out of my mind (that was wrong anyway) and therefore try to let the stroke flow more and if that happens the backhandside should point more downwards, as Carl explained much better than I did. It's not always the case of course and a finishing position shouldn't be forced, it should just happen as a result of the body/arm motion.

Most people should probably have ignored my comment, it was just an interesting reflection on my side as I'd never considered it before.

Thank you, Richie. What you wrote is helpful. It should not be ignored. It was important for you, and it needed to be written. Might as well be crucial for someone else. There is many things on this forum, that I read several times, from different and even the same people (like how important is whole body rotation) - and each time I think it is good those things are repeated over and over.

Sorry again, for creating the mess...

Music&Ping · Mar 23, 2021

Tango K said:
Agree with both. Regarding the end point of a stroke. It may be important to early learners to learn the form and the contact point (which is midway), but at some point, one gotta realise that it has little to do with the stroke itself. You’re supposed to fully relax after your swing, which implies that individuals will end slightly differently since when you got loose, your arm will be “waving” around a little bit.

I got this misconception years ago. When I came back to the sport, much older and calmer, and saw the world class players never end where the coach said, I gotta figure it out by watching a lot of slow-mo. That “waving” because of full relaxation is very difficult to see without slowmotion if you are not used to.

Big swing backhand needs a lot of body support. If you see elbow moving around during a big swing, you gotta watch again carefully. It’s almost certain moved by body swing (either left-right weight transfer or forward pushing), not by itself (like the lady in the video was doing) - which is by using shoulder.

It’s similar to forehand big swing. Yes, the arm swings bigger but a vast movement is actually done by body rotation. So the arm is still relatively compact.

Yes.

That's what she said

... ha...

me said

Sorry

Music&Ping · Mar 23, 2021

latej said:
It seems the body tells us automatically what is wrong and what is not. It feels like tautology.

Kreanga does not approve how you use that greek word.

Don't Move that Elbow and Upper Arm All Around You !!

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