February 3, 2011, 12:50 am - (2 years ago) Hello all,
I think this is my first post on this forum although I've been reading all the interesting stuff all you students of the game have been thinking of. Special thanks to Tricky - appreciate all your insights into the biomechanics of the strokes, especially on the Federer forehand!
I've been studying his forehand a lot and tried to emulate it, for some reason there was something that was impeding me from putting it all together. I've got a K90 racquet which as you all know it's very head light. The one thing that didn't quite work was the swing forward and the wrist snap back once the pull begins. This is not easily achievable unless it's done on purpose because of the head light balance of the racquet. Until yesterday, when I had a revelation :) when I went to a pro shop in my lunch break and picked up a few racquets and did a few shadow swings. One of them was head heavy and when I did my normal forehand stroke (imagine something a la federer) and when I reached the lowest point of the take back , just before starting the foreward swing, the racquet continued to go back because of the head heavy balance and forced my arm to supinate (open) and position perfectly for hitting the ball!!!!! It was amazing!!!!
then I went home and in the evening I wrapped up a shirt around the K90 head (don't laugh, I know I'm crazy) to make it head heavy and did a few swings with it. It worked great, and I didn't have to think about anything as the racquet took care of itself and moved around my wrist, all I had to do was load up from my legs and core and unload . Then I thought, if this works let's try with the serve. then another revelation! Because of the head heavy the racquet dropped like a rock from the trophy position and then when I started my upward swing I noticed my elbow was higher then normally is, because I had to put more effort into lifting the racquet.
Now my question is, to all of you smart people here, is this possible? I know that all the pros have head light or balanced racquets (men) so are they training like I did , or in a similar way - I're read that Sampras used to do this, or Landsorp put a set of keys in the racquet case to make it heavier and made him swing like that) so that they develop that reflex?
I've noticed that after taking the shirt off the racquet I could swing it like a toothpick and the SSC was there , didn't have to think about it!
I'm going to buy some lead tape and put some on the K90 and take it for a spin as soon as I can.
Cheers to you all, Dan Click here to read full article
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