Why are top players sometimes hitting a forehand with the left foot in the air?

[Dominikk85]

The usual recommendation is that you transfer the weight from the right foot to the left during forehand topspin and in many cases top players are doing that but you sometimes see them lifting the left knee during the hit and landing on the left foot only after contact.

For example you see it here

Or ma long here at 20 seconds in

What is that about? Is it just an emergency adjustment from the usual textbook Form, or is there something to it?

They obviously don't do it on every stroke probably more in like a third or so at at but especially at higher intensities you will see it quite regularly.

 

[z0uLess]

The principle is weight transfer from one leg to the other. At certain speeds and stresses, this will happen. Its like seeing a car driving offroad over bumps, at certain speeds the suspension will not be able to keep up. Stiffening the suspension is not always the right choice because that will remove mobility at other speeds.

 

[NextLevel]

Watching a player do something without understanding how his technique evolved leads to some of the most interesting questions in table tennis, questions which in my opinion should not be interesting at all, b but I will let tbe thread speak for itself.

You hit your the ball with your athleticism in table tennis, as long as the technique is not causing injury and the quality is good enough to either win the point or create a sequence of connected shots, details like this are simply missing the point.

 

[longle]

it's simple, when the ball is fast -> you transfer your weight from right to left fast, sometimes even in the air, before the left foot touches the ground. But the right foot ALWAYS touches the ground first to get power from

 

[latej]

@Dominikk85 it is also natural - go to park, throw something, as soon as you try to throw far, your foot will go up. Technique is beautiful if/because/when it is actually natural.

 

[blahness]

it's simple, when the ball is fast -> you transfer your weight from right to left fast, sometimes even in the air, before the left foot touches the ground. But the right foot ALWAYS touches the ground first to get power from

This is the correct answer... another thing is lifting against heavy af backspin, the lift from the right leg required is so large that you often launch the body a bit into the air before landing on your left.

But if you land on the right foot first after looping in the air, it's basically wrong - the left leg has to touch the ground first (otherwise you didn't even do the weight transfer at all)

 

[Richie]

I always found the term weight transfer misleading.
You can literally stand straight up with no rotation and move your weight from one foot to the other. Will that help with swinging the arm using the legs and body?
Just because weight moved from one foot to the other doesn't say that much. But it will most likely happen to some degree if you push with your legs to start a rotation.

 

[Bear1960]

The usual recommendation is that you transfer the weight from the right foot to the left during forehand topspin and in many cases top players are doing that but you sometimes see them lifting the left knee during the hit and landing on the left foot only after contact.

For example you see it here

Or ma long here at 20 seconds in

What is that about? Is it just an emergency adjustment from the usual textbook Form, or is there something to it?

They obviously don't do it on every stroke probably more in like a third or so at at but especially at higher intensities you will see it quite regularly.

If you look the tennis players, they play most of the strokes "on air". This is named open kinetic chain.
We in TT use most time closed kinetic chains, it means that the leg is touching and so pushing against the floor.

When you are not in condition to have the reference point of the floor you create power or force with the rotation of the back with rotation point on the pelvis/core; the leg(s) rotate in counter direction related to the shoulders.

The energy/force must come from somewhere.

 

[latej]

I always found the term weight transfer misleading.
You can literally stand straight up with no rotation and move your weight from one foot to the other. Will that help with swinging the arm using the legs and body?
Just because weight moved from one foot to the other doesn't say that much. But it will most likely happen to some degree if you push with your legs to start a rotation.

The point of the weight transfer is to induce the rotation. It sort of propagates from the bottom (foot) to the hips rotation, upper body rotation, and finally (as a total by-product ;-)) to the arm swing.

So, if the weight transfer doesn't induce rotation, it is pointless. However Richie, if I remember correctly, you also disliked the hips-rotation, no ;-)?

P.S. Sorry for being mean, Richie. We lost 0: 10 yesterday ;-)

 

[Richie]

The point of the weight transfer is to induce the rotation. It sort of propagates from the bottom (foot) to the hips rotation, upper body rotation, and finally (as a total by-product ;-)) to the arm swing.

So, if the weight transfer doesn't induce rotation, it is pointless. However Richie, if I remember correctly, you also disliked the hips-rotation, no ;-)?

P.S. Sorry for being mean, Richie. We lost 0: 10 yesterday ;-)

Yes, because you can also stand up straight and just rotate the hips/waist without using the leg muscles to push off. So isn't entirely accurate either imo.

But there's always a trade-off with how much detail you can describe. I just like to know what to aim for and how to do it in what order and then I'll let practice and intuition help with the details. But I get that most people probably don't think about it like I do.

But yeah that's my point, if the weight transfer doesn't induce rotation it is pointless. And it is possible to transfer the weight without inducing rotation. So if you tell someone that they need to focus on transferring their weight from one foot to the other, they could interpret that in several ways. Perhaps the more talented ones will get it right by accident.

 

[latej]

Yes, because you can also stand up straight and just rotate the hips/waist without using the leg muscles to push off. So isn't entirely accurate either imo.

Good point. And I agree with the rest too.

The term "kinetic chain", as @Bear1960 writes, is more useful - it evokes the idea of a sequence. So that people at least stop focusing on the arm, perhaps... Cheers.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Here: Baseball, where you don't need to do footwork, you just hit one pitch at a time, you are set for it, and you kind of know where the ball is going (withing the area of a relatively small box), so you can use a lot more power from your body, and you kind of need to because the ball is bigger and heavier than a TT ball:

The scenario is different. The sport is different. The goal of contact is different (in baseball, direct impact is usually more effective, in TT you are trying to make tangential impact [brush contact] to some extent to spin the ball). But the body mechanics of transferring weight, from the ground, through the legs, through the hips, through the torso, through the arm or arms, into the ball, those mechanics may be bigger or smaller based on the time interval between this shot and the next, but the body mechanics are the same. One stroke is just bigger and all out. The other needs to be contained so you are ready for the next shot.

In TT if you can take a shot that is a little more all out and you have decent confidence that it will end the point, you can swing bigger. If you swing bigger after moving to the spot for the shot, it would give you more mechanical advantage if what the baseball players do every time, is done even if it is only done to a smaller extent.

 

[z0uLess]

This is the correct answer... another thing is lifting against heavy af backspin, the lift from the right leg required is so large that you often launch the body a bit into the air before landing on your left.

But if you land on the right foot first after looping in the air, it's basically wrong - the left leg has to touch the ground first (otherwise you didn't even do the weight transfer at all)

Idk. I thought my answer was the correct answer.

 

[turbozed]

WCQ is pretty easy to understand since he's selling out to get maximum power by pivoting to get his lead foot far forward. His FH is hit while he's literally jumping forward. This is going to sacrifice recoverability since he's now in a terrible stance for lateral movement should his opponent return the ball. If we always knew where the ball was going to be, had enough time to pivot, and didn't care about being ready for the ball coming back, then this form would be the optimal form for a powerful shot. It's the equivalent to throwing a haymaker in boxing/mma. It's going to be a powerful punch but you need to load up for it which gives your opponent more time to dodge it while at the same time leaving you off-balanced and susceptible to a counter afterwards.

For ML, he's looping a backspin ball which requires getting really heavy on the right leg. Of course it would be optimal for stability to for him to have both feet on the ground when that happens, but he didn't have time to get the left foot down so he chose to perform the stroke on just one leg. This is fine here since he's directing the force more upwards than a normal FH topsin. The directional transfer of power still has a right to left copmonent, but it's minimal such that he can complete the stroke without his left foot even touching the ground. In this case, his left leg is not involved in the stroke at all save for being a counterweight to keep him balanced while hitting on his right leg.

These two examples suggest that the pros aren't focused in weight transfer from one foot to the other, but just focused on making sure they're getting the power and contact that they want from their rackethand side (from their pivot leg), and then trusting that their bodies will know what to do to stay in balance after contact.

 

[latej]

Here: Baseball

Mike Trout - pure beauty.

I better stop now. Expressions like this could make my wife jealous, if she read TTD.

 

[longle]

I always found the term weight transfer misleading.
You can literally stand straight up with no rotation and move your weight from one foot to the other. Will that help with swinging the arm using the legs and body?
Just because weight moved from one foot to the other doesn't say that much. But it will most likely happen to some degree if you push with your legs to start a rotation.

no, the movement of weight transfer is not like a rotation.

Instead it's a combination of right to left, from below to above

Imagine your body like a Spring - you get power by compressing your body then unleash it. The source of power is from the Earth.

 

[IB66]

During the movement sequence, a specific part of the movement can be delayed slightly, by fractions of a second, this causes additional stretch, and the result is recoil, some additional energy is gained as the body ‘snaps‘ back.

 

[pingpongpaddy]

The usual recommendation is that you transfer the weight from the right foot to the left during forehand topspin and in many cases top players are doing that but you sometimes see them lifting the left knee during the hit and landing on the left foot only after contact.

For example you see it here

Or ma long here at 20 seconds in

What is that about? Is it just an emergency adjustment from the usual textbook Form, or is there something to it?

They obviously don't do it on every stroke probably more in like a third or so at at but especially at higher intensities you will see it quite regularly.

Hi Dominik
its completely normal for top players to show less than perfect form when playing other top players in competition. After all both sides are trying to put the opposing player in a bad situation.
This is something that amateurs should bear in mind, when after playing many perfect f
hs in practice they find in matches they are rarely perfect.
Perfect strokes should be regarded as 'reference templates' which help us to successfully play and win while standing on one leg for instance. In fact if you get to play many strokes 'perfectly' your opponents are definitely not making the best of their opportunities.
I always say to my pupils doing a drill "play correct technique if you can but when you are forced to play with less than perfect technique its vital to still find a way to get the ball on the table" That is what champions are best at.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

First video is weight transfer and transferring it forward, not just to left.
you will do that when you need to drive the ball forward.

Second video, it is unbalanced

With proper high level play, there will be many scenes where the footwork or body can't keep up, and the player will just rely on out of textbook methods to get the ball in. I just call in natural reaction, and it still holds the foundation of weight transfer.

 

[blahness]

One theory that I had for the FH is that the left leg landing position after the FH stroke allows for a great deal of flexibility after you have put weight on your right foot.

For eg you can perform a big crossover step by placing the left foot significantly beyond your right foot.

Or you can place your left foot a lot more to the left for a "last minute pivot" if the ball turns out to be a lot more towards your BH side.

You can also adjust to shorter balls and/or produce more forward power if you place your left foot towards the front.

Even against balls longer than what you expected, the left foot can even go backwards to allow you to still loop while being jammed bad.

Of course it's important to set your right foot properly in the ideal position for the loop, but in actual matches the flexibility allowed by the left leg landing position is key because the opponent will always be aiming to make you uncomfortable. This way you can produce a good quality FH loop even when you set your right foot in a wrong position. But, every time you compromise with your right foot positioning makes it harder to recover for the next shot - this is the tradeoff.

Obviously during training you want to always set your right foot in the correct position to avoid bad habits but knowing how to use all these levers of adjustment is quite important imo.