On Court with USPTA- Improved Forehand Technique with Rick Macci.

In this episode, USPTA Master Professional Rick Macy will show you how to hit an improved forehand by going over seven key technical aspects of the shot. Learn to hit the Federer forehand. Hi there, I'm Rick Macy, USPTA Master Professional. You want more pop on your forehand? You want to hit the true heavy ball and get a lot of explosiveness? Well, I can get you that forehand, plus I can do it reducing the range of motion. Let's get started. The game has gotten so much faster and the players are constantly having to make adaptations in their swings. Through the years, Brian Gordon has really studied exactly what is going on out there on the pro tour and from his findings, doing all this with the 3D technology where cameras are set up and you actually take an MRI, an MRI of someone's stroke like an x-ray. Through all this research, Brian and I have put together a methodology pretty much on the forehand and backhand and the serve, the three real big ticket items in tennis where it centers around reducing the range of motion. That means how big someone's stroke is, but you've got to replace it with faster, quicker muscle mechanics. It's really programming the muscles to make these movements so players can evolve into this technique that we're teaching. What's probably the biggest problem on your forehand? Because I've never seen you hit a ball, so what would you say the biggest problem be on your forehand? I tend to have a pretty big back swing and I take it back too much. Bingo! First off, I'll take the temperature and I want to see exactly what's going on. All right, so just do your thing. You're going to hit your forehand and I'm going to start putting your elbow and your racket in a certain position and we'll see if we can get that forehand cleaned up. So hustle back there and let's tee it up. What I'm talking about is pure stroke mechanics. A more efficient way to hit the tennis ball to produce more racket head speed. Good. I like your wheels. I like your feet. Attaboy. A few more. Not bad. That's it. I like your feet. Keep popping the popcorn. That's all right. A few more, Drew. Hustle up. Your unit turn is pretty good. What I mean by that, you turn the shoulders and you get the racket back, you know, right away. So I really like that. Take the racket back as one piece. Racket head, the tip's going to be up, but we want to have that elbow elevated. Almost like you're nudging someone. We don't want that elbow tucked in. So one piece, racket head up, elbow back. That's the preparation. But here's where you're getting into trouble. Come on up here a little bit. Go ahead and turn sideways. Now, when you take the racket back, you have your elbow way too close to the body. And what happens is, when the elbow is that close to the body, almost every single time, when you go into this looping action, when your elbow is close, you have a tendency to take the racket back into this position. And if you notice where your elbow is, see how far it is behind your body? Okay. Now, here's going to be the game changer. When you take the racket back, okay, you're going to take the racket back, but I want your elbow to be elevated. You want to make sure there's some type of elevation away from the body. You want that left elbow up a little bit. You don't want that joint angle down here. You want that right elbow elevated. Elevated a little bit in the angle at this position. Forearm would be parallel to the ground. Okay. That angle would be straight down. The elbow would be straight back to the fence. When the elbow is elevated and away from the body, that's the first thing that's going to set these joint angles in the right position. Now, from this position, you're going to go into this movement here, where the racket, you see where it just went? Once that elbow is elevated, when you go into the back loop, we want elbow extension. Elbows up, elbow extension. This stroke's really simple. It might sound complicated, but it's really this. Elbow up, elbow extension. Elbow up, elbow extension. Now, am I saying make your arm stiff? No. Am I saying try to straighten it out? Absolutely. This is the key, because most people, when they take it back, they go here, okay, and then they open this up and the elbow comes back in. When that happens, the elbow goes much further back in the stroke. Now, you get to circular movement, and it's not going to be efficient. It's not going to hit the ball consistently that you can extend through the contact point. Elbow up, elbow extension. As you start to go in to tap the dog, then you're going to start your swing. After elbow extension, the racket goes into a position where the palm is somewhat down. The racket head is to the outside. The wrist is up. You want to get that elbow extension like you're tapping the dog on the head. Pretend there's a dog back at a diagonal. The hand would be in this position. You wouldn't take the hand and the racket and have it too much on the edge or have it open. You definitely want to be in a position where you tap the dog on the head. Now, you can say palm down. That's effective, but one of the best teaching cues that we've learned is when I tell them after elbow extension, tap the dog, it really sinks in. What happens then, it causes the racket. When you drive your legs and hips, the racket's going to go down. As you keep driving, the racket will go back, and it's okay to have the racket there. We want the racket to get in that position, but here's the big ticket, the elbow. It's going to be able to pass through the trunk. When you hit the ball, because the racket's to the outside and the racket head is above the hand, when you pull the hand and you drive the leg and the hip, the racket goes down and back on its own, and it goes very quickly. That's what we call the flip. When you pull that hand from the outside and the racket flips, it goes down on its own and it goes back on its own. It finds this position where the butt cap is towards the ball a lot quicker. There's a lot more momentum, which is going to create a lot more racket head speed. You're going to find the slot, that dynamic slot, a lot faster when you go and tap the dog, you pull on the hand, and that finds the dynamic slot, and that's creating a lot more racket speed, and you're going to hit a heavier ball and a much bigger ball. All I want you to do is make a swing. Don't go back. You went back just a little bit. Don't worry about the power. You can have your hand down just a little bit more. There you go. Just make a forward swing. That's all I want to see. Attaboy. Again, just start from that position right there. Right now, play a little more open stance. Just keep it there. Don't move it. That's a good try. Attaboy. That's okay. Again. Right there. Just keep it there. Keep it there. Attaboy. Again. Everything cross court. You're doing a good job. That was healthy. That was very healthy. I like that one. Again. Good. Now, just so you feel a little more comfortable and the relationship between you and the ball is better, try to work the feet a little bit more up and a little bit more back. I like on the rise. I want on the rise, and you got to hit the ball on the rise, but never hit the ball on the rise because you're lazy. Never hit the ball on the rise because you don't want to move. Not that I'm saying that's going on, but you'll time the ball a little better if you adjust the feet, then push down. The main thing we're working on with this forehand for right now, this progression, you already got elbow extension and your racket's to the outside. Doing great. Doing great. Now, very seldom have you ever heard you're doing great when you hit it in the bottom of the net like that, but the stroke, the way you did the mechanics, that was healthy. I like it. I like it. Again. Nice one, Drew. Again. Good. Again. Set the racket. See where you put your left arm across? Now, keep the elbow right there. Keep it on that side. Better. So, you're not going to take it back. The back's going to occur on its own. Attaboy. The racket's flipping too. Again. Slow down just a little bit. Take your time. Take your time. Again. All right. Come on up here. Hustle. Hustle. Coming up, learn the key to reducing the range of motion to hit that heavy ball. The elbow is the key element to me in this whole thing because that's the first thing that breaks down in the kinetic chain. If you don't have the elbow somewhat to A, and then when you go into your backswing, and here's the key, when you go back, you got to keep that elbow up. Elbow up, elbow extension. Now, after the flip, that elbow, if everything was right, that elbow is pretty much on the hitting side of the body, and what that does, that enables you to engage the shoulder more. That means more juice. You're pretty much hitting the ball on a straight line, low to high. If you want to go more topspin, you just swing more low to high, and you see this. You see that extension with the best four hands in the world. Then you got options galore. If the elbow goes back or comes in, then what happens is the path of the racket's coming more circular. You can still hit a pretty good shot, but it's not going to be the true heavy ball. It's not going to be dynamic. Did you feel like you lost that much power just from that position? No. Okay, and see, that's where this is going to go, because as long as I can set these joint angles, you're actually going to get more power simply because I'm going to be able to make the racket go more linear, and it's going to be able to go more. You can maneuver the racket up to get more topspin. Now, what I want you to do, it's going to get a little tougher. What I want you to do is wait in this position. Okay, so from this position, come on up here. Grab your racket with your left hand. So, the elbow is elevated. So, this is going to be your new preparation. Elbow up, elbow extension. As you start to go in to tap the dog, then you're going to start your swing, and what happens then, it causes the racket, when you drive your legs and hips, the racket's going to go down. Okay, as you keep driving, the racket will go back. Okay, and it's okay to have the racket there. We want the racket to get in that position, but here's the big ticket, the elbow. It's going to be able to pass through the trunk. Okay, where before, when you did your stroke, the elbow came from way around this way, and that's what caused you to be late a lot and a lot of mishits. We go into our forward swing after the racket flips. We want to make sure it's almost like you're pulling a rope here. We want the elbow, everything moving in a straight line. There's going to be more of a linear type movement that's made here. If the elbow goes back behind the body, everything's going to be a little more circular, and the elbow is going to tuck in. So, we've already got turn. The elbow's a little elevated. Excellent. Better. Great, buddy. Again, keep it up. Keep the elbow up. Again. Keep that elbow up. Keep it up. Okay, two things. Now, mentally, I need you to scale it down a little bit. Don't try to hit it so hard, and the reason why I'm saying that, because when you try really hard to hit the ball, what you feel like you need to do is you need to take it back a little bit. You know, a lot of times when people have confidence, it's a good thing, but also, they can start overcooking the ball. So, what I want you to do, you can stay aggressive, but you elbow extension. Boom. Give it a shot, Drew. Keep it up there. That was great. Great miss, buddy. Great miss. Better. Better. Again. So, in the game, totally different. The radius of your swing, much different. Again. Good. Again. Go ahead and set it. Get the shoulders turned all the way now. Already have it all the way turned, your shoulder. A little more. A little more. Now, from that position, I want you to go to the elbow extension. Awesome. You're doing great. You're picking this up. Drew, with the new forehand. Again. Doing better. You're doing better. Got to give it up on that one. Okay, question. You can say whatever you want. Does it feel different than your old forehand? Yes, definitely. Yes, definitely. I like when the kids say that. When they say yes or yes, definitely, that means something good's cooking. So, what did you feel different? Well, it kind of feels weird when you keep the elbow so much forward when you go through with the swing, but other than that, it's pretty good for the most part. Do you feel your stroke was bigger or shorter? Shorter. Did you feel the racket going faster or slower? Faster. And that's what this is all about. We're decreasing the range of motion and we're making the racket go faster. Remember what we're trying to accomplish. We're reducing the radius of your backswing and replacing it with quicker, faster muscle mechanics. On the finish, once this elbow passes by the trunk, you want to make sure you get some type of rolling action on your forearm here. You want to feel this. This is how you're going to induce topspin on the ball, this rolling action. You don't want to manufacture the wrist at the end. You get extension, turn the doorknob for a great finish. Let's hit a few more. You're doing great. You're doing great. From that position, show me what's going to happen next. Okay, elbow elevated. Again, so good. How'd that feel? Good. Good or great? Great. I like that better. Here we go. Elbow up, elbow extension. See, one of the things, I like what's going on. One of the things you're feeling, and that's why we got to do repetition, repetition, repetition on your stroke mechanics here. You're feeling and you're convincing yourself, I don't need to take it back as far. I'm still getting good power. I'm actually getting more topspin. And notice, you haven't mishit the ball. Now, go from ready position. This is where it's going to get a little slippery. Here we go. Show time from the ready position. You're doing a great job, buddy. Good try. Again. Not bad. Again. Atta boy. Good effort. Keep adjusting your feet. Hustle. I like that. I like that. You feel a difference? Yeah. Okay. You surprised me, because this is not easy. I'm talking thousands of balls. You got to hit a lot of repetitions in a controlled environment before you're going to get this. Does it feel different than your old stroke? Yes. Okay. Fill me in. What do you feel is going on? I don't have to take it back behind me. I can just keep it on the same side. So I guess that makes it easier as far as the timing goes, because I don't have to worry about how far I'm taking it back. So I can make sure I get it in front of me and continue with my finish. Remember, you did thousands and thousands the other way, and your brain's telling your muscles, I want to go here. So you can just build up the confidence in your muscle memory from the ready position. You're going to go boom, boom, opposed to boom, boom. Does that make sense? You did a great job. Let me frame this up for you. Remember the concept. What we're trying to do is reduce the range of motion, the radius of your swing, and develop quicker, faster, shorter muscle mechanics. Here comes the ball. I turn the shoulders. The great preparation. You want that left elbow up a little bit. You don't want that joint angle down here. You want that right elbow elevated. Remember what I said. You don't want it too high. That's going to take too long to get this accomplished. We're reducing the range of motion and we're replacing it with quicker, faster muscle mechanics. So it's imperative. Elbow up, elbow extension. After elbow extension, the racket goes into a position where the palm is somewhat down. The racket head is to the outside. The wrist is up. You want to get that elbow extension like you're tapping the dog on the head. You want to drive the leg and hip. That's going to cause the racket to flip. Power starts from the ground up. We always drive the legs, the hips turn. But because of where my racket's set, it causes the racket to flip. The name of the game is getting more racket head speed and being more efficient. When you start your forward swing, the elbow then passes by the trunk and this is how you're going to get that all-important topspin. You're going to turn the doorknob or you're going to wax on, wax off. Good luck. What I'm talking about is pure stroke mechanics. A more efficient way to hit the tennis ball to produce more racket head speed. Because let's face it, at the end of the day that's what the game's all about. Can I get as much racket speed as possible and still be effective and efficient in keeping the ball on the court? Anybody can keep the ball on the court going like that, but can you get it in there with some juice on it 10, 15, 20 times in a row? That's the key. I'm not talking about footwork. I'm not talking about the mental part. Purely stroke mechanics. But if we can give people maybe, I'm not saying a new toolbox, but maybe a little different way to look at the ground strokes. Especially as this game's getting bigger and faster. I think all coaches and players should really give this a good shot because even if you're close to getting it, it's better than what you're doing before. For more help with your game, find a USPTA teaching pro at USPTAfindapro.com.