in executing some of these technical elements. Well today's video I'm going to

show you the most common problems with a modern forehand at the recreational level.

So what you see from some professional players it's a unit turn that's quite large.

So some players for example Djokovic they will turn and the non-dominant hand will

stay on the racket past the middle of the body. It will go towards the back

shoulder. Now if you're a recreational player and you try to adapt this type of

turn, what I've found is that most recreational players will not be able to

come out of a turn that's this large and they'll end up making contact with the

ball with the dominant shoulder behind.

Now the professional players use this extra big turn to their advantage. Even

though they're turning this much they still sync the stroke properly and end

up making contact with their dominant shoulder in front. But what I recommend

to the recreational level players is not to allow the non-dominant hand to go

past the middle of the body. So we take this baseline as the middle of the body.

Do not allow your non-dominant hand to go past this point. If it does go past

this point as you're turning you might not be able to come out of this turn. So

this is where you should stop when the non-dominant hand reaches the middle of

the body, this is where you separate the non heading hand from the hitting hand.

And what will happen as a result of that you will be able to quite easily come

out of this turn and make contact with the dominant shoulder in front.

Now some professional players like Nadal and Federer will straighten their arm

once the racket starts to drop and this is called a straight arm forehand. And

recreational players try to copy this and the only problem with trying to copy

a straight arm forehand is that the vast majority of tennis players worldwide

plays the forehand with a bent arm. And this is true at the recreational level,

at the junior level, or even at the professional level. And what happens to

players that play with a bent arm forehand at contact is that no matter

how hard they try to straighten the arm back here they will go into a bend

once they make contact anyway.

And you have to realize that when the ball meets the strings that part of the

stroke is over in milliseconds so players are actually not aware how

they're making contact whether they're bent at contact or straight at contact.

Now they might be able to feel the straightening of the arm back here and

they might be even able to feel the straightening on the arm in the finish

here. But in this area of the stroke that's happening super fast you are not going

to be able to feel whether you're completely straight or bent at the

moment of contact. So whether you play your forehand with a bent arm or a

straight arm it really doesn't matter and this part comes down to genetic

predispositions. Very few players will have a straight arm from day one. So they

don't think about it they might even not be aware that they play of the forehand

with a straight arm and they perform this naturally. And now most other

players will play the forehand with a bent arm. This is also true because of

genetic predispositions. So if you play with the forehand with a bent arm

there's absolutely no reason for you to try to straighten the arm because what's

going to happen most likely no matter how hard you try to straighten the arm

in the preparation phase it will go back into a bend anyway.

Every forehand has a wrist lag. Now this is true for forehands even with wooden

rackets. So players back in those days will still have the wrist lag behind the

rest of the body. Now on the modern forehand the wrist lag is more prominent

because most ATP players will close the strings as they drop the racket and now

once the wrist lag is initiated the racket will flip into this position right here.

So some players see this movement and now they try to recreate it. The big

problem with this is that high-level players are not consciously executing

this action. This is simply a result of the torso rotation of the body and swing

acceleration. So if you are consciously trying to make a wrist lag you're gonna

do what I call a fake wrist lag and you will only be able to do so by slowing

your stroke down. So what's going to happen you're gonna have to come into

this position and then freeze the racket like this and then as you go forward you

consciously have to flip the racquet back. Now if somebody tries to do a fake

wrist lag this is very easy to see and you will see you're slowing down the

stroke in this crucial phase and it looks like that person has a hitch in

their strokes. However, if you watch high level players you will not be able to

see the wrist lag because it's inside the stroke. It's beautifully flowing in

and out of that movement and it's happening at such a speed that it looks natural.

So do not try to consciously execute the wrist lag forget about it and let it

happen naturally. A wrist lag is a result of the proper rotation of the

torso and stroke acceleration. So if you accelerate your stroke correctly you

will end up with a wrist lag and you will never be conscious that it's taking place.

And finally the vast majority of ATP players will have a vertical swing path

at contact. So in other words the tip of the racket will point towards the

side and it will vertically go over the ball this way. And this is often

interpreted as a movement of the wrist. So some recreational players will try to

roll the wrist in this fashion. They will simply roll over the ball this way and

what happens if you do an isolated movement of the wrist at contact you

will only be able to do so by slowing your stroke down and you will therefore

lose power and you will also lose control. What you have to realize is that

all professional players and this includes Nadal have a passive wrist at

contact. In other words when Nadal hits his forehand you can check this out

in super slow motion footage the wrist is passive in this moment. So he will hit

the ball here and then as the racket is going up the wrist is not moving. Now it

gets activated around here when he hits this spot around the shoulder then he

starts flicking the wrist and start going like this but the crucial moment

of contact the wrist is passive.

And the reason why the wrist is not actively rolling over the ball is

because we would not be able to generate a lot of power with a small fragile

piece of the human body such as the wrist. In addition to that if you make an

isolated movement of the wrist at contact you will also lose control and

many recreational players who do this type of flicking of the wrist start

spraying the ball they also start framing the ball. They start hitting the

edges of the frame. And also what happens if you're consciously thinking about

using the wrist at contact you will start slowing the stroke down way prior

to contact and the stroke will abruptly be shortened. So it looks something like

this if I try to use my wrist I will roll it here and the stroke will end

somewhere around here.

So what you have to do instead is not think about the wrist at all. Usually

what happens if you don't think of the wrist at all the body will not allow you

to hurt it. So if you think of the finish instead, you think about finishing really

strong. Naturally the wrist will be in place as you finish across the body like this.

Now I have another video that's titled how to perform the kinetic chain on the

forehand and this video is great because it discusses the two ubiquitous

technical elements on the forehand. In other words, two things that every single

high-level player does. So it's crucial that you learn these two technical

elements if you want to have a high level forehand.