Back and Forth and Back Again

This is an essential trigger or mantra designed to prevent blocking or swinging on short strokes, particularly the volleys and two-handed backhand.

In the context of short stroking; swinging (moving the racket to and through the ball), and blocking (just sticking your racket out and letting the ball hit it) each results in the same disastrous outcome; a complete lack of control over the ball. Taking the volley as a specific example, when you block the ball, you are basically presenting a wall to the ball. How the ball comes off of that wall is determined as much by the incoming direction, spin and speed of the ball as it is by how the wall is oriented. You can't just point the face of the racket at a target and expect the ball to find its way there. To override the effects of the ball's incoming direction and spin one must introduce an impulse force into the ball in the direction of the intended target. Just sticking the racket out in front of the ball does introduce an impulse via the inertia of the racket itself, but the direction of that impulse is determined by the incoming ball, not your intention. Not to say that sticking out the racket never works. Of course, if you stick your racket out in front of a ball that happens, by chance, to be directed level or slightly up with no spin on it and you happen to be standing pretty close to the net, you have a fair chance that the ball will bounce off your racket and fall into your opponent's court. Is that what you are looking for? The opportunity to be a passive observer of the game, at the mercy of a hundred variables that are beyond your control?

Or do you want to rule the ball, bend it to your indomitable will, and cast it at your opponent with lethal pace, placement, and spin? I will guess the latter, so here is the trick. To achieve hegemony over the ball, you must first pull the racket back off the ball, then pull it forward into the ball and finally haul back on the racket handle just before contact. First back, then forth, then back again. The first 'back' part is the lock. It throws the racket in the direction opposite to the flight path of the oncoming ball. This starts the process of stretch-shortening the muscles of the forearm. You then pull forth into the ball. The 'pull' part is key. To push the racket head into the ball, you have to recruit the very muscles of the forearm that you just prepared for stretch shortening. They have to contract, or 'un-stretch,' to move the racket into the ball. The tendency to want to push is almost irresistible. It makes perfect sense to our feeble brains: Get the racket head moving forward along the ball's intended flight path. Brilliant! Then the racket head will push the ball towards our target. Eureka! Why didn't we think of this before? This technique has been taught for centuries and is still taught to beginners with the admonition to "Swing low to high and follow through the ball in the direction of the target." Again, the problem with this black pearl is that it sometimes works, and always makes the player feel a measure of confident control over the ball. But what about spin? To hit spin, you have to keep the racket face pointing in one direction and move the racket in another. It is impossible to hit with spin and push the racket head along the ball's intended flight path.

What if the ball is higher or lower than you expect when you finish your backswing? To address the ball, you have to move the racket head along a path that extends from the position of the racket in the backswing to the point of contact. What if that line does not happen to coincide with the ball's intended flight path? Well, then you are toast.

The solution to this problem is never to push the ball and never try to hit any ball flat. You must always hit with what I call spindirection. Basically that means pulling the racket across the ball. Now the flight path of the racket head has nothing to to do with the intended flight path of the ball. Instead, you can freely guide the racket head to the point of contact with the ball without worrying about the direction you want the ball to go. You can even add spin by ending the backswing a bit higher or lower than the expected point of contact. Great, but what about controlling the balls flight path? And how do you pull the racket head into the ball?

Stored Forces

Directional control comes from impulse delivered by forces stored in the forearm by stretch shortening. The storage of those forces results from pulling the racket back away from the ball, the lock, followed by a pulling it towards the ball, the load, then releasing those forces by stopping the load abruptly, the explode. The lock prepares the muscles of the forearm to participate in stretch-shortening.

The lock should begin with complete relaxation of all of the forearm muscle followed by pulling the racket head away from the ball. In the final seconds of the lock phase a subtle but vital counter rotation of the shoulders and-or hips throws the racket head back slightly stretching the agonist muscles of the forearm which reflexively contract to 'catch' the racket, a process I call setting the tone of the forearm muscles. When the foreward rotation starts force is 'loaded' into those slighly tensed agonist muscles. Tone setting is mission-critical and is thus a fine opportunity for you to completely mess up the stroke. If you don't set exactly the right tone, neither too much nor too little, no control or spin forces will be stored.

If all goes well in the lock, the load that follows pits the agonist muscles trying to pull of the wrist forward against the inertia of the racket head tending to keep the racket head where it is. The stubborn racket head causes laying back of the wrist, stretching the toned forearm agonist muscles untill the total tension in those muscles equals the inertia of the racket head. It is like a bunch of springs in your forearm tugging on the racket and trying in vain to catch the racket head up with the wrist. What happens at this point depends on whether you are hitting a short stroke (like the volley or two-handed backhand), or a long stroke (like the forehand topspin groundstroke or serve). To deliver control to the ball, the acceleration of the wrist must end just before the moment of contact. In a short stroke that happens immediately, while in a longer stroke there is a lag phase during which you build racket head speed for pace. Either way, the forearm forces stored during the back and forth must be released before contact with the ball, and that means stopping all acceleration (pulling) of the racket which why a 'crisp' volley appears so truncated.