Tennis Forehand WRIST - Lag and Snap Explained

What is the role of the wrist? How do I achieve the wrist lag position? How relaxed should my wrist be? My goal in this video is to uncover what your wrist is doing in the modern forehand from an analytical and objective standpoint. To start off, the wrist is a gliding joint which allow the bones to glide past one another in any direction. The four main motions in the wrist are flexion, extension, radial deviation, and ulnar deviation. Then, there are two main motions in the forearm, pronation, and supination. If you guys want, I'll make a video in the future explaining the main body functions of each joint. Just let me know in the comments. I'll be using these terminologies throughout the video to explain the motions of the wrist and forearm. But I want to note that when you're on the court, you shouldn't focus on the wrist movements per se. Your focus should be on how to get the racket in the optimal position to perform a motion that achieves your desired effect on the ball. When it comes to the wrist, the backswing is usually ignored and all the focus is on the lag and snap, or the windshield wiper motion. We're going to explain the wrist in the forward swing and the follow through too, but first, I feel like it's necessary to go over the right preparation. In the backswing phase of the forehand, there are two vital things to keep in mind for the wrist. Number one, the wrist is relaxed. This means that you have just enough grip tension required for you to keep your racket in your hand without actively manipulating the racket with your forearm muscles. If the wrist isn't relaxed at the start of the backswing, it most likely won't be relaxed in the later stages of the forehand. This will hinder your ability to achieve proper positions later in the swing and hitting with a tense forearm over time can lead to overuse injury. Trust me, I've been there. Number two, the wrist must be in proper position. In the start of the forward swing, the wrist is supposed to act as a hinge and rotate backward as a result of the racket's centrifugal force combining with the hip and trunk rotation and the hand pulling forward. To do this, the wrist must be in proper position. Some coaches like to tell players to keep their racket tip above the hand as a checkpoint, but I feel that this might be too broad of a statement since on lower balls, the racket head and hand can reach the same level. So I prefer to focus on the positioning of the wrist instead. The wrist positioning at the end of your backswing should be the same position that it was in when you completed your uniturn. One key here is to use your non-hitting arm to keep the hitting arm wrist stable until it releases off the racket. During the start of the forward swing, the wrist will rotate and extend backward into the glorified wrist lag position. Again, the primary role of the wrist and forearm in the acceleration phase is to stay relaxed. Except here, the wrist will not remain static and there will be more or less extension, ulnar deviation, and supination in this phase. If the forearm is tense here, you will hinder your racket head acceleration and you might injure your forearm and wrist. Here is the step-by-step process of what gets the wrist and forearm to extend and rotate back passively. The forward swing is initiated by the hip and trunk rotation forward. Depending on the player, there can be some external shoulder rotation occurring in the hitting arm and for most elite forehands, there will be horizontal adduction. Rick Macy refers to this motion as the hand pulling forward and to a degree away from the body. If your wrist is in proper position and you performed a proper ATP backswing where your hitting arm stays on the hitting arm side of your body and your forearm muscles are relaxed, the wrist should naturally rotate back due to the weight of your racket head. Just because the role of the forearm here is to simply relax, doesn't make it easy. If you hit a traditional forehand with a firm wrist and are looking to switch, having a loose grip before contact will take work to retrain. If you have a problem like I did, I recommend that you start with an exaggeratedly loose arm without the ball and gradually increase in arm stability. Try not to let go of the racket though. Bad things can happen. Pretty bad things. The wrist lag varies among different players according to their backswing shape, whether they have a bent arm or straight arm, their grip, and how much force is being put behind the shot. Generally speaking, the more eastern your grip is, the more wrist extension or lag you'll have in your forehand. If you're using some sort of semi-western grip, the angle of your maximum extension will get smaller and smaller. This is most logically because your palm will no longer be directly behind the racket. If you have a full western grip like jacksock or anything past that, your palm will be directly under the handle, so you will have no extension in the wrist. But the lag position is still attained with this grip because of the forearm supination. Also, depending on the shot and how much force you need to put behind the shot, you'll have more or less wrist extension. If the ball is short or you have little time, you'll probably not be producing as much force as you would if the ball was above your shoulder. By the time you reach the contact zone, the hand and arm have accelerated to the point where you can't observe it with the naked eye. Combine that with the extreme variety of forehands on the tour and you have a recipe for what is probably the most misunderstood and debated subject in the tennis forehand. This phase of the forward swing is what Brian Gordon coined the transition point. It's where the wrist is in the full lag position and the racket switches from the linear forward trajectory to a rotational trajectory. There are a lot of players and coaches who believe that deliberately snapping or flexing the wrist and pronating the forearm is one of the keys to power. This claim is based on the fact that elite forehanders like Federer will sometimes go from their 90 degree full extension to about 45 degrees in the extension on contact. There is also the apparent pronation occurring at the wrist. For players with a semi-western grip, it's even more visible because the release tends to happen earlier and to a greater extent. The problem with the idea of deliberately making this happen though is that the moment from where you should be starting this release to the moment that you make contact, there are only a few milliseconds that should pass. And if you're trying to time the flexion in this small time frame, your forehand will definitely be inconsistent. So instead of this, the wrist should be relaxed and released by the force of the racket head. The racket is turned over by something called centrifugal force. Remember how in the start of the forward swing the hand moves slightly away from the body? This is because the arm is rotating around the shoulder joint. Right before contact, the hand This causes the racket's momentum to pronate the forearm. This pronation is undoubtedly a major source of racket head speed and topspin, but the way to tap into this power source isn't to actively pronate the wrist. Along with this, you'll still have some degree of forward momentum. The racket's forward momentum should be responsible for causing any flexion in the wrist. That said, there are circumstances where elite players will resist the forward wrist flexion, more specifically when they'll actively resist the racket's forward momentum in order to angle the racket face toward their desired target. This is more research according to Brian Gordon. What his findings means is that the role of the wrist, or at least the flexion and extension movement, is not essential in building racket head speed, but instead is used to control the direction of the ball. Now I want to talk about the role of the ulnar and radial deviation in the forehand forward swing. The ulnar and radial deviation of the wrist is usually not talked about, and it's probably because the players don't usually have problems if their wrist is relaxed. Usually, there is some degree of ulnar deviation in the wrist in the lag position, and then it will straighten out to a neutral position in the follow-through. But there are two circumstances where the wrist will actively do a radial deviation in order to get more spin on the ball. The first scenario is when you're on the run, the ball is at waist height or lower, and you're trying to get side spin on the ball. Nadal is famous for this shot, and it's commonly called the banana shot. In this shot, Nadal will actively and viciously brush up the side and back of the ball, and in order to do this, he must change up his forward swing by adding the wrist radial deviation. This is why the shot is considered advanced. You have to be able to execute your regular stroke, but add a completely new element into the wrist while hitting on the run. The second scenario is less glamorous, but is for getting out of bad situations when the ball is at your feet. If the ball is too close to you, you'll be forced to make contact in a zone where you can't utilize the internal shoulder rotation as much for topspin. So in order to pick the ball up, they'll use the wrist radial deviation to brush up the back of the ball. Here's an exercise by John Craig from Performance Plus Tennis that could help you find the optimal grip tension. First, hold your racket upright in your hitting hand. Now try to feel the weight of your racket head. If you can't feel it, this means you're gripping too tightly. Gradually loosen your grip until you find the medium where you can feel the weight of the racket, but also keep your racket upright. I want to note that different circumstances will call for different grip and forearm tension levels, so the purpose of this exercise is just to get an understanding of what it means to be relaxed. For the next one, here's a more modified drill to an existing exercise. To start, hold your racket out from your body with just your fingers. Rotate your hips and trunk lightly from side to front. If you're doing this properly, your racket should be performing a figure eight motion like this. After a few repetitions, hold the racket in your forehand grip and do the same motion. Now I want you to focus on the relaxed and free motion that you're allowing your wrist joint to move. This is how the motion should be in the actual stroke. Once you really feel comfortable with this, it's time for the last progression. Step into a neutral stance and hit a closed stance forehand doing the motion you just ingrained. Once you follow through, pivot back into a closed stance like this and repeat the motion. This is basically incorporating the final elements of the including the legs, off-arm, and etc. So that's it guys. Thanks so much for watching. If you like the video, please give it a like and if you're new to the channel, be sure to subscribe. 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