*Clarification on how the wrist breaks through contact:* if the wrist extends 10-30 degrees through the hitting zone, that's fine (just like how it's fine on the forehand), and that will typically occur at high swing speeds. The common issue is that, on the backhand, without intentional effort, the wrist will typically completely break through the contact zone, rather than merely extend 10-30 degrees like it does on the forehand.
Though I agree with the comment below, I wish to add that the presentation needs to be backed by actual ball hitting, whether with a machine or with someone on the other side to demonstrate truly how the one-handed backhand works. Demonstration with shadow swing is well and good but hitting an actual ball coming at you at various height spin and speed is completely another matter and would be more beneficial for thew viewer.
@@GeneralRock114 Awesome, I hope it goes well, and pain free! I might make a follow-up at some point, and if I do, I'll include full-court hitting. Check out our pull-slot video analyzing the pros as well if you're interested. Same concept, but with 4 different strokes for reference.
I have watched quite a few tennis coaching videos, but I am learning an awful from your recent teaching. It really is very good, if not excellent. I am improving, slowly but surely. Thank you !
The observation of needing a good zone to pull from is the gold in this video. Also the high ball in front tip was excellent. Thanks for the free info!
Agreed. After letting this one marinate for a few days, I've decided to do a follow-up clarifying the pull slot idea specifically, talking about variation and style in it, and discussing how to apply it to the high one-hander with more examples.
I thought I was the only one who pulls and contracts the back muscles for a Backhand! When I demonstrate this technique method for beginners , I bring the elbows together in front of the body ( form an X with the arms) and then - pull and throw both elbows back behind me together with ferocity . Imagine the left and right elbows coming together behind you ! I also do this “ pulling the back muscles “ with my Forehand ; but only for the right back side muscles. This creates an extreme whipping action of the arm .
Awesome, that sounds like a great technique to help beginners learn the motion. The back muscles play a stabilizing role on the forehand, but contracting them pulls the arm backwards, so it can't participate in force generation for your forward swing. The chest, which pushes the arm forward through contact, plays the role on the forehand that the upper back does on the backhand.
You are so good at this! The detail and attention to the physicality of the motion is amazing. Though I am not, by any means, a good tennis player, I could see how this video, and the others, can be an excellent addition to a player's training.
Nice video. Great explanations on the "pull slot" and using the correct upper back muscles through the properly spaced contact zone. Also like your focus on the wrist tension/angle required for a fault tolerant shot. I really need to work on these tips (as you might see from the practice vids on my channel) because I love hitting a one hander and really need alot% more fault tolerance on all my shots.😂 Look forward to more videos.
Thanks, I just checked out your video. Your forehand mechanics look great - if you hit 10,000 more, I think you'll make steady improvement towards a really awesome shot. Glad the video helped on the backhand. I skimmed through the footage and you actually only attempted 5-10 topspin backhands in 25 minutes. Practice, practice, practice! Add dedicated cross-court backhand sessions to your practice, because without reps, no shot can be meaningfully improved (unless I missed it).
@@FaultTolerantTennis Hey, Thanks a mil for the feedback and for skimming my vids. You hit the nail on the head about me not actually hitting topspin backhands and don't get me started about my psychologically chickening out and slicing everything during matches, especially returns. I will definitely take your advice about reps reps and more reps...and work on more BH to BH drills. Thanks again!
Very nice videos on the fundamentals, including this one. Regarding the grip, I have a small quibble. The racquet does not have to be completely perpendicular to the hand, especially if one uses a more extreme backhand grip. There could be some spacing between the index finger and the middle finger and some angle between it and the rest of the knuckles. But perhaps you’re right that for beginners it’s best to simplify until the correct forearm rotation and passive wrist movement are well understood
I may have been a bit too dogmatic in that section. If it works for you, don't stop. I just want players to understand that the wrist behaves differently with the same upstream mechanics based on grip, and you need to use a grip that allows you to control the string angle through contact.
Great video. Which I like the most is the contact point part. In my experience is that the specific which comes and goes more easily (some times too late and other too early) and makes that complex to master this shot. One question in that regard: is there a constant speed from the take back or should the shot be rapidly accelerated as we approach that contact point as it happens with the forehand?
It's just like the forehand where acceleration should continue through contact, so the racket should go faster and faster and faster throughout the swing, going its fastest right before the strike. Pulling from your comfortable pull slot is how you get that final bit of acceleration.
From talking to Alexa, who imo had one of the best backhands on tour, the essential contact on the two-hander is a combination of pressing with the left hand and pulling with the right shoulder. Players vary in how much they use each. Use the wall drill to find the contact point, just like for every shot, and, just like with the one-hander, start with the racket horizontal in preparation, and then cock it more and more as you get comfortable. I'm probably going to tackle the serve/overhead next, and then go back to the forehand, so it'll likely be a while before I do a dedicated 2-handed video.
This is a great video. Thank you! I wonder if you could explain (or do a video) on how the legs/feet should be oriented on the 1 hander. People speak about using a heel-to-toe step on the front foot, moving the back leg backwards as a countermovement, and pushing the hips forward. Since the arm is the last part in the kinetic chain, how should one start the movement?
Thanks, I'm glad you found it helpful. I've always found that working backwards from contact works better as a coaching/teaching tool than working forwards from the ground, even though the kinetic chain obviously starts from the ground and finishes through contact. In order to figure out the proper leg counter-balancing, swing the heaviest weight with which you can still take a full swing, instead of the racket. I recommend 2.5 lbs if you're a typical adult, 5 lbs for a very trained adult, and 1.25 lbs if you're young. Visualize a ball in space, and then the vector you want to pull through the ball, and then perform the early part of your swing in order to make pulling through that vector happen. Your lower body will naturally coordinate itself in different ways depending on what you choose. The reason I like this approach is that I don't have to teach you 10 different footwork patterns for 10 different situations. To answer your exact question - yes, the back leg does often kick back as a counter-weight. The better answer, though, is that said movement is a *result* of attempting to pull along a certain vector (it happens more down-the-line than cross-court, for example), rather than a volitional movement that should be practiced in isolation. As for forward weight transfer, I've written about this in general - google "fault tolerant tennis positive negative neutral balance" - and these same principles apply on the one-hander. The shot can be played moving forward, staying neutral, or falling backwards, depending on the situation, and just like every other shot, ideally it's played moving forward. This turned into a very long reply, but I hope it helps answer your question. I may release a video explanation of some of the balance drills we use, and if I do I'll make sure some of the demos are for 1-handers.
Great question - yes, but the beauty of the slice is that you're not nearly as punished for improvising with the smaller, weaker muscles of the arm in an emergency. If you're trying to really cut it, you want to find a slot you can pull from, just like with the drive backhand, but for defense, and even for keeping rallies neutral when you're hit at with pace, it's often fine for the back to play mostly a stabilizing role.
Quite a few misunderstandings here. Surprised this has not been pointed out. 1) The upper back muscles could never power a stroke like the one handed backhand. Try hitting a one-hander without any shoulder rotation and see if you can even get the ball to the baseline. A simple band-pull apart exercise would also confirm that there is not a lot of power or leverage in that movement. 2) The main misunderstanding here is that the force comes from the upper back and that the left arm pulls back before contact. What actually happens is that the left hand separates from the racket after the racket drop to stop the shoulder rotation by acting as a counter balance. This helps transfer the rotational energy of the shoulders to forward momentum of the arm and prevents over-rotation (The same exact same effect on the forehand when the off-hand is pulled to the chest to stop the shoulder rotation) 3) The slight movement of the left hand you’re focusing on in the video is not the result of an active backwards pull of the left arm. This is easily confirmed by looking at the angle between the upper left arm and the torso which would increase if the arm was pulled back. Instead the hand drifts slightly away from the body due to rotation and a gradual straightening of the arm in Federes case. After contact the left arm may or may not go all the way back as it counterbalances the right. If you look a the position of the left hand at contact for any pro you’ll see that it is mostly in front of the body. Only after contact does it go back. 4) The "pull slot" you’re referring in this video is much later than the normally accepted pull slot which is just after the racket drop. Essentially you’re trying to time a pull milliseconds before contact, which is a recipe for inconsistency. The fact that this is not happening in the video with any of the pros is easily confirmed by looking at the acceleration of the right hand. If a pull happened just before contact, and any power came from this, you’d see the hand suddenly accelerate from this “pull slot”. Instead what you see is that acceleration starts at the end of the racket drop and progresses smoothly through contact. It is generated primarily by the kinetic chain that starts with hip and shoulder rotation. Many great videos on this out there. I noticed that you don't show any examples of yourself hitting a backhand on your channel (except some stuff at the net). Would be interested to see how you make this concept work.
Sorry I had a longer comment typed out but TH-cam’s interface doesn’t save drafts and I lost it. Here are the highlights: 1) The upper back engages elastically, via a stretch response. When you wind your shoulder back and then fire forward, that creates the initial stretch. You’re correct that using the upper back just by itself wouldn’t work very well, but it only takes a small initial rotation to engage this initial stretch. 2) Yes, it’s counter-rotational balance. The left arm’s movement is backwards relative to its initial forward rotation, not in an absolute sense. 3) Same as 2. 4) I like your point about timing. The point isn’t to consciously pull a few ms before contact. It’s to set up your swing in a way where that pull will engage at the right time. Track and probe the ball with the intention of pulling through a specific contact point in space, on a specific trajectory. Most of this video is trying to get people who have never felt the upper-back engage to feel that, and then also to feel how they can use it to control the late part of the swing. When returning a kick serve that bounces differently than you expect, for example, you do have enough time to consciously use the upper back to adjust your contact point post-bounce. Obviously, you lose significant velocity when doing so. I agree that my demo is exaggerated. I’ve occasionally seen players in that position at contact, Almagro comes to mind, but usually the left hand pull is much more muted. When I make a follow-up, I’ll include extended live-ball hitting. Alexa actually has a pretty good one-hander too, even though she played 2 on tour, so it’ll have both of us.
*Clarification on how the wrist breaks through contact:* if the wrist extends 10-30 degrees through the hitting zone, that's fine (just like how it's fine on the forehand), and that will typically occur at high swing speeds. The common issue is that, on the backhand, without intentional effort, the wrist will typically completely break through the contact zone, rather than merely extend 10-30 degrees like it does on the forehand.
Though I agree with the comment below, I wish to add that the presentation needs to be backed by actual ball hitting, whether with a machine or with someone on the other side to demonstrate truly how the one-handed backhand works. Demonstration with shadow swing is well and good but hitting an actual ball coming at you at various height spin and speed is completely another matter and would be more beneficial for thew viewer.
@@raidraid6672 That makes sense. I'll film a follow-up soon with live footage, and go over the concepts again with reference to the live shots.
@@FaultTolerantTennis 👍🏻thank you
@@GeneralRock114 Awesome, I hope it goes well, and pain free! I might make a follow-up at some point, and if I do, I'll include full-court hitting. Check out our pull-slot video analyzing the pros as well if you're interested. Same concept, but with 4 different strokes for reference.
I have watched quite a few tennis coaching videos, but I am learning an awful from your recent teaching. It really is very good, if not excellent. I am improving, slowly but surely. Thank you !
The observation of needing a good zone to pull from is the gold in this video. Also the high ball in front tip was excellent. Thanks for the free info!
Agreed. After letting this one marinate for a few days, I've decided to do a follow-up clarifying the pull slot idea specifically, talking about variation and style in it, and discussing how to apply it to the high one-hander with more examples.
You really know what you are doing.
I thought I was the only one who pulls and contracts the back muscles for a Backhand!
When I demonstrate this technique method for beginners , I bring the elbows together in front of the body ( form an X with the arms) and then - pull and throw both elbows back behind me together with ferocity . Imagine the left and right elbows coming together behind you !
I also do this “ pulling the back muscles “ with my Forehand ; but only for the right back side muscles. This creates an extreme whipping action of the arm .
Awesome, that sounds like a great technique to help beginners learn the motion.
The back muscles play a stabilizing role on the forehand, but contracting them pulls the arm backwards, so it can't participate in force generation for your forward swing. The chest, which pushes the arm forward through contact, plays the role on the forehand that the upper back does on the backhand.
You are so good at this! The detail and attention to the physicality of the motion is amazing. Though I am not, by any means, a good tennis player, I could see how this video, and the others, can be an excellent addition to a player's training.
Thanks :)
Very educational! Thanks a lot coach! 👍👌
Very convinsing explanation.
Nice video. Great explanations on the "pull slot" and using the correct upper back muscles through the properly spaced contact zone. Also like your focus on the wrist tension/angle required for a fault tolerant shot. I really need to work on these tips (as you might see from the practice vids on my channel) because I love hitting a one hander and really need alot% more fault tolerance on all my shots.😂 Look forward to more videos.
Thanks, I just checked out your video. Your forehand mechanics look great - if you hit 10,000 more, I think you'll make steady improvement towards a really awesome shot.
Glad the video helped on the backhand. I skimmed through the footage and you actually only attempted 5-10 topspin backhands in 25 minutes. Practice, practice, practice! Add dedicated cross-court backhand sessions to your practice, because without reps, no shot can be meaningfully improved (unless I missed it).
@@FaultTolerantTennis Hey, Thanks a mil for the feedback and for skimming my vids. You hit the nail on the head about me not actually hitting topspin backhands and don't get me started about my psychologically chickening out and slicing everything during matches, especially returns. I will definitely take your advice about reps reps and more reps...and work on more BH to BH drills. Thanks again!
Very nice videos on the fundamentals, including this one. Regarding the grip, I have a small quibble. The racquet does not have to be completely perpendicular to the hand, especially if one uses a more extreme backhand grip. There could be some spacing between the index finger and the middle finger and some angle between it and the rest of the knuckles. But perhaps you’re right that for beginners it’s best to simplify until the correct forearm rotation and passive wrist movement are well understood
I may have been a bit too dogmatic in that section. If it works for you, don't stop. I just want players to understand that the wrist behaves differently with the same upstream mechanics based on grip, and you need to use a grip that allows you to control the string angle through contact.
Great video. Which I like the most is the contact point part. In my experience is that the specific which comes and goes more easily (some times too late and other too early) and makes that complex to master this shot. One question in that regard: is there a constant speed from the take back or should the shot be rapidly accelerated as we approach that contact point as it happens with the forehand?
It's just like the forehand where acceleration should continue through contact, so the racket should go faster and faster and faster throughout the swing, going its fastest right before the strike. Pulling from your comfortable pull slot is how you get that final bit of acceleration.
Can you please do a video on double handed backhand as well would be so helpful …. Thanks
From talking to Alexa, who imo had one of the best backhands on tour, the essential contact on the two-hander is a combination of pressing with the left hand and pulling with the right shoulder. Players vary in how much they use each.
Use the wall drill to find the contact point, just like for every shot, and, just like with the one-hander, start with the racket horizontal in preparation, and then cock it more and more as you get comfortable. I'm probably going to tackle the serve/overhead next, and then go back to the forehand, so it'll likely be a while before I do a dedicated 2-handed video.
@@FaultTolerantTennis ok great I’ll try that thanks for reply
This is a great video. Thank you! I wonder if you could explain (or do a video) on how the legs/feet should be oriented on the 1 hander. People speak about using a heel-to-toe step on the front foot, moving the back leg backwards as a countermovement, and pushing the hips forward. Since the arm is the last part in the kinetic chain, how should one start the movement?
Thanks, I'm glad you found it helpful. I've always found that working backwards from contact works better as a coaching/teaching tool than working forwards from the ground, even though the kinetic chain obviously starts from the ground and finishes through contact.
In order to figure out the proper leg counter-balancing, swing the heaviest weight with which you can still take a full swing, instead of the racket. I recommend 2.5 lbs if you're a typical adult, 5 lbs for a very trained adult, and 1.25 lbs if you're young. Visualize a ball in space, and then the vector you want to pull through the ball, and then perform the early part of your swing in order to make pulling through that vector happen. Your lower body will naturally coordinate itself in different ways depending on what you choose.
The reason I like this approach is that I don't have to teach you 10 different footwork patterns for 10 different situations. To answer your exact question - yes, the back leg does often kick back as a counter-weight. The better answer, though, is that said movement is a *result* of attempting to pull along a certain vector (it happens more down-the-line than cross-court, for example), rather than a volitional movement that should be practiced in isolation.
As for forward weight transfer, I've written about this in general - google "fault tolerant tennis positive negative neutral balance" - and these same principles apply on the one-hander. The shot can be played moving forward, staying neutral, or falling backwards, depending on the situation, and just like every other shot, ideally it's played moving forward.
This turned into a very long reply, but I hope it helps answer your question. I may release a video explanation of some of the balance drills we use, and if I do I'll make sure some of the demos are for 1-handers.
Thanks for the great video! Is that backhand slice is using the upper back as the power source as well?
Great question - yes, but the beauty of the slice is that you're not nearly as punished for improvising with the smaller, weaker muscles of the arm in an emergency. If you're trying to really cut it, you want to find a slot you can pull from, just like with the drive backhand, but for defense, and even for keeping rallies neutral when you're hit at with pace, it's often fine for the back to play mostly a stabilizing role.
is the 90 degree continental grip also used for the back hand slice? And I guess same question with respect to shoulder pull apart
No actually, that one works both ways. 90 degrees works fine, but the 135 volley-style grip also works. Just depends what feels best to you.
Quite a few misunderstandings here. Surprised this has not been pointed out.
1) The upper back muscles could never power a stroke like the one handed backhand. Try hitting a one-hander without any shoulder rotation and see if you can even get the ball to the baseline. A simple band-pull apart exercise would also confirm that there is not a lot of power or leverage in that movement.
2) The main misunderstanding here is that the force comes from the upper back and that the left arm pulls back before contact. What actually happens is that the left hand separates from the racket after the racket drop to stop the shoulder rotation by acting as a counter balance. This helps transfer the rotational energy of the shoulders to forward momentum of the arm and prevents over-rotation (The same exact same effect on the forehand when the off-hand is pulled to the chest to stop the shoulder rotation)
3) The slight movement of the left hand you’re focusing on in the video is not the result of an active backwards pull of the left arm. This is easily confirmed by looking at the angle between the upper left arm and the torso which would increase if the arm was pulled back. Instead the hand drifts slightly away from the body due to rotation and a gradual straightening of the arm in Federes case. After contact the left arm may or may not go all the way back as it counterbalances the right. If you look a the position of the left hand at contact for any pro you’ll see that it is mostly in front of the body. Only after contact does it go back.
4) The "pull slot" you’re referring in this video is much later than the normally accepted pull slot which is just after the racket drop. Essentially you’re trying to time a pull milliseconds before contact, which is a recipe for inconsistency. The fact that this is not happening in the video with any of the pros is easily confirmed by looking at the acceleration of the right hand. If a pull happened just before contact, and any power came from this, you’d see the hand suddenly accelerate from this “pull slot”. Instead what you see is that acceleration starts at the end of the racket drop and progresses smoothly through contact. It is generated primarily by the kinetic chain that starts with hip and shoulder rotation. Many great videos on this out there.
I noticed that you don't show any examples of yourself hitting a backhand on your channel (except some stuff at the net). Would be interested to see how you make this concept work.
Sorry I had a longer comment typed out but TH-cam’s interface doesn’t save drafts and I lost it. Here are the highlights:
1) The upper back engages elastically, via a stretch response. When you wind your shoulder back and then fire forward, that creates the initial stretch. You’re correct that using the upper back just by itself wouldn’t work very well, but it only takes a small initial rotation to engage this initial stretch.
2) Yes, it’s counter-rotational balance. The left arm’s movement is backwards relative to its initial forward rotation, not in an absolute sense.
3) Same as 2.
4) I like your point about timing. The point isn’t to consciously pull a few ms before contact. It’s to set up your swing in a way where that pull will engage at the right time. Track and probe the ball with the intention of pulling through a specific contact point in space, on a specific trajectory.
Most of this video is trying to get people who have never felt the upper-back engage to feel that, and then also to feel how they can use it to control the late part of the swing. When returning a kick serve that bounces differently than you expect, for example, you do have enough time to consciously use the upper back to adjust your contact point post-bounce. Obviously, you lose significant velocity when doing so.
I agree that my demo is exaggerated. I’ve occasionally seen players in that position at contact, Almagro comes to mind, but usually the left hand pull is much more muted. When I make a follow-up, I’ll include extended live-ball hitting. Alexa actually has a pretty good one-hander too, even though she played 2 on tour, so it’ll have both of us.