Do You Lift Or Swing The Racquet To The Contact Point?
Hi Tomaz! I just ordered your videos today.
I have one question for you: do you lift or swing your racquet to the contact point?
Many thanks!
If I understand you correctly, then I would say that I swing to the contact point.
You would need to lift the racquet to the contact point if you started the forward swing below the ball.
The problem with that is that the racquet has no speed when it starts to move upwards. You start from zero speed.
But when you prepare with the racquet head up, then you just let go and the gravity pulls the racquet down and eventually it has to go up because that’s natural for your arm.
It will swing upwards.
Note that the feeling of moving racquet forward is similar to pulling since you initiate this movement with your legs, hips and whole body and you arm is the last segment of this kinetic chain.
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May 12th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Hi Tomaz
This is from you response to a question re lift or swing to FH contact
“But when you prepare with the racquet head up, then you just let go and the gravity pulls the racquet down and eventually it has to go up because that’s natural for your arm.
It will swing upwards.
Note that the feeling of moving racquet forward is similar to pulling since you initiate this movement with your legs, hips and whole body and you arm is the last segment of this kinetic chain”.
My question is how do you get players to learn the feeling of letting the racket go and having gravity pull the racket down vs. doing this with the arm……..it does not seem to make sense literary although it is no doubt what should happen. As a coach, I suspect many players do not let gravity drop the racket and make their arm do this…………what do you think and what is a good way train the proper feeling/mechanics of letting the racket get below the ball using gravity to then swing up and through?
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Tomaz Reply:
May 12th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Hi Poida,
A good way to get the FEEL for this is to practice without the ball and actually feel the gravity pull the racquet down once you hold it up. I also like to do the “pendulum” exercise, where the player lets the racquet swing near his body forward and backward like a pendulum so that he / she can feel the weight of the racquet and how it moves by itself.
Then you need to progress to easy feeds and the played needs to focus on feeling the racquet falling down almost by itself. It also helps if the racquet is heavier – perhaps choose a heavy racquet for a few drills…
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