Most Players Use Their Arm... Here's What the Pros Do Instead

Hi guys and welcome to OneMinuteTennis.com. In today's session I want to talk to you about how to generate more power from your forehand even if you seem to have great technique. Many of the players that are watching this video will seem to have very good technique on the forehand, applying attention to the finest of details and yet they still don't hit with the power and speed and effortless speed that they really want. I want to show you how the loading phase of the stroke really works and how the acceleration phase of the stroke works and when the racket lag should initiate in the forehand. When you apply the correct forces to your forehand you should hit harder, faster and bigger today. So the stroke is broken down into the loading phase and the acceleration phase but when I load I need to be engaging the large muscles, the gross motor skills of the body but most players will actually be engaging the fine motor skills, the weak muscles of the body and then that loading phase, the inefficiency of the loading phase means that the acceleration phase is really a push. I'm going to work with Vlad now and who's in the last few days of his visit from America and show him how to complete the loading phase correctly and then how to initiate the acceleration phase so that it hits with true effortless power. So he's using the major muscle groups instead of the minor muscle groups. So we know that there's the loading phase of the stroke where we take the racket back and prepare to swing with power and force into the ball. Can you show me the loading phase of the stroke, the take back? So when you took the racket back there, do you think that you used the large muscles of the body to place the racket back and engage them or do you think that the arms simply put this very light object into position? The second one, the arms. Everybody does the same, it's just natural. The racket weighs 300 grams, it's almost nothing and so I've placed the racket there with my tricep and that means that all of the large muscle groups of the body are doing virtually nothing but what I'd like to do in a moment like you to try this is I'm going to take a short resistance band, it's not very strong but it's strong enough and now I'm going to go into the loading phase of the stroke and I'm going to separate the band and now I can feel my deltoids, my pectoral muscles and various other muscles engaging. The arm's engaged as well but the body is actually stretching to hold this band apart. Can you feel the same thing? So go into the loading phase, separate the hands a little more and can you feel the whole body is now making the stroke? Yes, this is hard to hold. Okay, so now just relax and can you make the second movement with the racket, this time engaging the chest, the deltoids, the pectoral muscles, even the rhomboid muscles in the back and it's different? Yeah, it's different. So now this is a true loading phase, this way I'm loading all of the big muscles ready to explode into the ball and yet when I make this movement then there's just only the arm involved. Now when I make, when I do it the first way with just the arm, I'd like you to do that now and swing forwards and you'll feel that the tendency here is to push, it may be a very fast push against a resistance in front of you. So we now need to change that because that means the acceleration phase of the stroke is also less than efficient and this brings us to the acceleration phase of the stroke and the acceleration phase of the forehand and the racket lag cannot be separated, they are blended. One of the most common questions I get asked is in the racket lag what is first, the drop of the racket or the forward movement of the arm and the answer is that if you know the answer to that, you're doing it wrong. The racket lag will be a by-product of the arm pulling forwards, very important if the arm pushes forwards you have to create the lag but if the arm is pulling forwards with the resistance from behind creating a natural throwing action then the lag is a by-product as long as the wrist is relaxed and relatively loose. So here we're going to use a resistance band again and have Vlad pull against the resistance band with a relaxed wrist and he'll then find the looseness, then we're going to combine the loading phase with stress tension and muscular force with the relaxed acceleration phase of the stroke where the lag is simply a by-product. So now Vlad has the resistance band around the racket and all he needs to do is relax the wrist and pull forwards and lag occurs, he's not lagging the racket, the racket is lagging behind because of the force and resistance from the band. So now find the big muscles, the loading phase of the stroke and then release the band with the left hand and swing, no all in one motion. So hold and now release and swing and now we have the loading phase of the stroke and the acceleration phase of the stroke both blended and one more and now from here can we now release the racket from the band and try and reproduce the same movement without the band and the racket speed is massively increased as he's using the whole body to load and then firing the racket forward by pulling from behind and lag is a by-product and now the natural thing to do is to hit live balls and see whether we can reproduce this correct loading phase using the large muscle groups of the body and then explode into the ball pulling from behind with a loose grip, loose wrist creating a natural racket lag and you can see here even the sound of the stroke has changed as he's hitting bigger and faster with less effort. The loading phase is correct, the acceleration phase is correct and actually the forehand is correct. Does that feel different? Yeah it does, I can feel a lot more back muscles engaged. Make sure the pull is there, that's better. Using the resistance band in this way is a great way of getting the feel of what the body should actually be doing. Many of the players watching this, you'll already have the shape, lad already had the shape but now he's got the shape, the feel and he's using the correct muscles in the correct way. He's using the big muscles to actually load and then he's using the whole body to attack the ball, accelerate and hit huge forehands. So use the resistance band to find the feel of the forehand, to find the loading phase and the acceleration phase and then put them together and load and attack and you'll have a bigger and better forehand. Thanks for watching and see you next time for more unique tennis lessons that really work.