Looking for advices on forehand

[areyep]

Hello.

I'm looking for advices on my forehand. I need to work on some points and I don't know exactly where to start:

• Lack of consistency (mainly forehand), many unforced erros on games
• Even when I am on the right position, my drive is not so fast/powerful
• If I'm not concentrated enough, my drives/loops have too much side spin

I don't know if my technique is that bad, if anyone have any tips, I would appreciate it.


I've got a video on youtube but I can't paste here the link or attach cause I'm new to the forum. I think I can send privately.
The youtube link ends with watch?v=ag07rAHxDd0.

 

[zyu81]

Embedded it for you. Honestly your stroke looks alright, definitely something that can be worked with. Though it does look like your shoulder is coming up a bit and you might be tight, are you using your shoulder to generate power your swing? You don't want to do that.

 

[areyep]

Embedded it for you. Honestly your stroke looks alright, definitely something that can be worked with. Though it does look like your shoulder is coming up a bit and you might be tight, are you using your shoulder to generate power your swing? You don't want to do that.

Thank you.

I see, should I use more of my forearm instead of the shoulder?

 

[zyu81]

Thank you.

I see, should I use more of my forearm instead of the shoulder?

Well it looks like you are already doing that to some degree, but try to identify the reason that your shoulder seems to be coming up a lot on loops - whether that is tightness or swinging from the shoulder, or something else. That's hard for me to know from here. The stroke motion comes from power generated from the lower body, hips, and forearm. A video where your lower body can be seen would help as well but it looks like you are generally doing okay from that standpoint as well.

 

[Kuba Hajto]

There was very similar case earlier. If I find it I will post link here. Your upper body looks tense. Is your left hand tensioned? I had similar problem when my left arm was so tense it affected right hand and upper body. My coach pointed this to me, and work on losing that tension helped me improve consistency and power. You seem to be jumping a it up. I think this may be causing less efficiency in stroke. Based on my coach advice on my stroke, you can also try to work on lengthening the stroke by folding arm out more.

 

[areyep]

There was very similar case earlier. If I find it I will post link here. Your upper body looks tense. Is your left hand tensioned? I had similar problem when my left arm was so tense it affected right hand and upper body. My coach pointed this to me, and work on losing that tension helped me improve consistency and power. You seem to be jumping a it up. I think this may be causing less efficiency in stroke. Based on my coach advice on my stroke, you can also try to work on lengthening the stroke by folding arm out more.

Thanks for the answer.
Yes, my left arm and hand is very tensioned. Will try to relax next time.
About the jumping, my feet is on the ground, but indeed I'm trying to going up, trying to put more arc on the ball, and my shoulder is going up too as zyu81 noted.
I think I'm trying that to compensate all the points that you and zyu81 are talking about.

 

[Kuba Hajto]

My first coach taught me that power comes with loose muscles (difficult translation). He taught me to star movement from the legs and empower it with upper body and hand muscles not the other way around. Took me a lot of time and slowing down to implement it.

 

[NextLevel]

Hello.

I'm looking for advices on my forehand. I need to work on some points and I don't know exactly where to start:

• Lack of consistency (mainly forehand), many unforced erros on games
• Even when I am on the right position, my drive is not so fast/powerful
• If I'm not concentrated enough, my drives/loops have too much side spin

I don't know if my technique is that bad, if anyone have any tips, I would appreciate it.


I've got a video on youtube but I can't paste here the link or attach cause I'm new to the forum. I think I can send privately.
The youtube link ends with watch?v=ag07rAHxDd0.

Try to get something that shows the lower body. You are overusing the upper arm on some shots but the stroke looks good.

 

[Lula]

BODY.

No safety=to much arm, to little body. Arm can make all strange thing, body can not.
No power=to much arm, to little body. Arm have no power.

Safe and powerful shot only possible if you stand correct, so good footwork is needed.

 

[IB66]

Hi,

far from my own FH being perfect, heavy feet, poor movement and more!! After viewing myself the lower body legs etc is very important. So if you can get some footage showing whole body, as everyone else has said. That would be good.
1 thing I noticed is that your right shoulder doesn’t dip down when you start the weight transfer onto your right leg at the start of your stroke.
when you are at the starting point of the forward motion, right should should be noticeably lower than left shoulder, it does come back up as the stroke progresses but to about the same level as left shoulder maybe a tad higher.
Also the turn of hips, waist and chest could be more, looks quite sort of static. Chest can turn to 80 to 90 degrees, hips 45 ish. So body is coiled.
U tube Ma Long FH slo mo, not a bad starting point!!!

 

[areyep]

Try to get something that shows the lower body. You are overusing the upper arm on some shots but the stroke looks good.

Sure, today I'm gonna record again.
Thanks you!

 

[areyep]

My first coach taught me that power comes with loose muscles (difficult translation). He taught me to star movement from the legs and empower it with upper body and hand muscles not the other way around. Took me a lot of time and slowing down to implement it.

You mean, relax my arms and then let the transfer weight from the lower body do most of the job?

 

[Kuba Hajto]

You mean, relax my arms and then let the transfer weight from the lower body do most of the job?

More or less yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtduZ5mc1bw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2JRWsTGOZw This video talks more about the concept. It's not worth exaggerating this movement too much, but if you see how Ma Long or other pros hit the ball, you can see how they transfer energy through their body. It comes from the legs, through the body, through the arm, through the wrist to the blade. They do this in a very fluid motion, but it's there if you know what to look for.

 

[Archyan]

You have your elbow pretty close to your body, try moving further away; this will make it easier to adjust and to use more rotation on body

 

[pingpongpaddy]

Hello.

I'm looking for advices on my forehand. I need to work on some points and I don't know exactly where to start:

• Lack of consistency (mainly forehand), many unforced erros on games
• Even when I am on the right position, my drive is not so fast/powerful
• If I'm not concentrated enough, my drives/loops have too much side spin

I don't know if my technique is that bad, if anyone have any tips, I would appreciate it.


I've got a video on youtube but I can't paste here the link or attach cause I'm new to the forum. I think I can send privately.
The youtube link ends with watch?v=ag07rAHxDd0.

hi areyep
i agree that your arm swing is a little exaggerated. Instead try to think of the arm as a whip with every joint - shoulder, elbow, wrist relaxed and loose and try to get the legs to give momemtum to the movement of those joints.As you begin bring your head close to the contact point with the ball. This will help coil the spring
formed by yr trunk dropping over yr knee.
Its important to realise that the racket is only in contact for a fraction of a second, so once the ball is gone the emphasis should be recovery.
practice 1 bh 1 fh from bh corner with good rhythm. This is better than copying a pro just doing fh because they are omitting the neutral readiness position which occurs in random play. An efficient stroke is never longer than it needs to be
good luck

ppp

 

[Brs]

Your wrist is not adding anything to the stroke. Otherwise to me it looks okay. Not amazing, but okay. Like everyone else said, you are very tense.

Try to let your wrist swing freely and don't hold it in that cocked-back position.

I suspect only that one small change would add a lot to your consistency (because more spin) and ball quality (also because more spin).

 

[latej]

@ppp, this is 2y old.

 

[pingpongpaddy]

More or less yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtduZ5mc1bw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2JRWsTGOZw This video talks more about the concept. It's not worth exaggerating this movement too much, but if you see how Ma Long or other pros hit the ball, you can see how they transfer energy through their body. It comes from the legs, through the body, through the arm, through the wrist to the blade. They do this in a very fluid motion, but it's there if you know what to look for.

Unfotunately the player in this is a little stiff and mechanical

 

[pingpongpaddy]

@ppp, this is 2y old.

oh well its all table tennis !
btw I am 73 yrs old which may explain something. (I was travellng home by coach at the time)

 

[latej]

oh well its all table tennis !
btw I am 73 yrs old which may explain something. (I was travellng home by coach at the time)

Sure.

Btw. in your profile, if you click on your user-name (or the user-icon) top-right, and select "General settings", and scroll down a bit, you can set the "Thread display mode" to "Linear - Newest First". Then when you click on thread, you see the newest entries. I think this should be the default setting, but isn't. You may already have it, I'm mentioning just in case.