CASE STUDY CLASS - HOW I BECAME A 4.5 PLAYER WITH MY LEFT HAND www.tennishacker.net/Tennis-improvement-system-optin

@stratguitarman7831

18 күн бұрын

ARE U RIGHT OR LEFT EYE dominant? I too did what you did natural righty to lefty but still trying to improve more good info!

I saw this video at Macci's channel few days ago. Doing the unit turn he coils between hips and shoulders, so shoulders turn much further than hips. I didn't even realize that my body can coil this way. It took some time to get it going, but this coil gives you massive power. Same as back bend when serving.

I was in a really bad car accident that completely ruined my right shoulder and stopped me from playing tennis. I gradually changed my game and now hit with 2 hands on both sides and am finally able to serve and play competitive again

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

I’m sorry to hear that, but well done for pushing through. It’s relearning to play after something like that so 🙏🙏

Amazing! Natural right hander learning leftie tennis! Great stroke!

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

Thank you. Much appreceated.

I’ve learned so much from you. Bummed you got hurt, but it’s been wonderful to see you self diagnose (which is the most fundamental skill)

@TennisHacker

18 күн бұрын

Thanks. It sucked having to change hands, but it's taught me so much about the strokes. Hopefully it helps other people too.

If I might, looking at this video clip, I would focus on releasing the racquet and beginning the swing slightly earlier, so you have more time to be relaxed during the stroke.

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

There are always things that can be improved 😀 as always it’s easier said than done though. This was massive breakthrough and for the first time i feel like i can hit a real forehand with my left hand. But obviously i’ll continue to work on improving my timing.

This is absolutely brilliant and paradigm shifting for me. Thanks also to the interesting comments from the audience!

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the video.

Richard, thank you for this video. It made a lot of difference in my forehand stroke. Looking forward to your other videos.

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

You are welcome. Glad you feel it helped.

You are such a inspiration thank you

Thanks for sharing your story-transitioning from a right-handed player to a left-handed player. It’s truly inspiring. 💪🏾 I also love your channel. Cheers!!! What’s the name of your racket strings? I really love the color

I think the first part as you describe it, inadvertently gave you a better stroke. Instead think, turn your shoulders more than your hips and just release your shoulders/upper body during the swing. If you use the current mindset, you may sometimes turn too much. (I tried this mindset) Also, when you play a match, you won't be able to turn much or set your outside leg on many tough shots, but you will be able to turn your shoulders more than your hips. This is an easy source of power with minimal effort. Once you feel it...the release..you'll wonder how you could ever go back. If you use this mindset, you won't need the second point you mentioned. It will be a natural flip. Lastly, loading the outside leg is not as critical using my mindset and this forehand can be effective from any leg position which is extremely useful in a match when you cannot get your legs under you. Federer and Nadal are masters of this. Watch how they can rock the ball with minimal effort and relatively little shoulder turn relative to the court. I have found this "turn the shoulders more than the hips" mindset works on the topspin backhand and forehand volley, too. I'm trying to figuring out how to do it on the serve, but not much success, yet. Good luck!

@at1838

17 күн бұрын

Brilliant explanation. But I think that Pt 2 is an important element on its own.

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

Thanks for your comment. All strokes have to be adaptable, so I modify it when dealing aggressive shots from my opponent. But i don’t find that hard. The thing i’d been lacking up until now is the ability to create real pace. I agree that it’s the extra upper body coil that’s helped with the power. If i hit flatter i don’t need the false racket lag. What I’ve found though is the it lets me create an insane amount of, so i’m definitely going to play around with it because it will be a nightmare for people to deal with on their backhand 🤣

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

Thanks. Yes, it surprised me how much additional spin i got. The reaction of the court was pretty exciting to see. So i’m looking forward to playing around with it

@gabrielteo3636

16 күн бұрын

@@TennisHacker I was just surprised to see how easy it is a solid fast forehand with minimal effort even on the rise or high balls. I'm now working on shoulder internal rotation along with turning my shoulders more than the hips. It's a little hit or miss right now but it is coming along.

I’m a lefty, and now I’m gonna follow you.

@TennisHacker

13 күн бұрын

Thanks 🙏😊

What you describe with the elbow is the elbow move in the golf swing, if you have your mind in the elbow driving the swing organizes it self around it. Do you work on a left arm throwing motion/? Baseball pitching training really helps with this movement, swinging a heavy but short rope does the same thing as you feel the inertia of the rope in the backswing to act against as the rear hip moves in the opposite direction, the fact the rope is not stiff like a racket makes the brain do the right movements because it is the only way to generate power.

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

Yes, I’ve worked on throwing. It’s still surprising hard compared to hitting strokes. I’m hoping that as my throw improves it will add to my ability to create power more easily.

@johnhue8933

16 күн бұрын

@@TennisHacker Richard it will do, the brain wants to do the minimum it can get away with when forced into an uncomfortable places such as a technique change. Once a bit of adaptation has taken place it wants to switch off, the throwing training is challenging similar movements but the brain won't see it that way and you will get adaptation and that extra new nervous system development is then used in existing patterns. Another area to look into to get lag is working on the standing discus throw training , it trains an extreme form of separation with a big demand on the real leg. The throwing will improve your forehand and service because of the extra brain development which the brain will then use in tennis.

I think this is brilliant but so many "coaches" insist that it happen naturally and yes I suppose among very high-level players that is the case but like you I find if I consciously supinate my arm the result is so much better.

Always pleasure to watch and listen you Richard, I personally learnt from you a lot.

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

Thank you, i really appreceate that.

Love it. To improve, learn and teach yourself.

I had a similar breakthrough on my forehand a few months ago, I think the term "racket lag" is a bit misleading, it's more of an "forearm and shoulder loading" I think (and possibly biceps if you load with a straight arm). It can be done naturally as you said, as a result of the upper body rotation, looseness of the arm and weight of the racket, but it makes sense that, for amateurs, the explosiveness of the leg push and torso rotation is not sufficient to get a full shoulder and wrist stretch, and "giving" the order to accentuate the so-called lag is quite beneficial. Unfortunately, from my experience, it's very hard to convert specific "commands" like this into muscle memory, and thus improving the strike when it matters the most. Commands in match would be "be precise, avoid mistakes" or "this ball is shot, it's an oportunity, strike it hard and find an angle" rather than "activate this muscle - now this muscle" or "I've trained 50 forehands in a row focusing on X, now let's try focusing on Y" which is my mind while training. Also the risk with adding some conscious commands to your technique is loosing some of the natural power your "body" knows how to generate by himself and can alter your timing. My best strokes are usually those where I feel I'm just "watching myself", meaning it's mostly non-conscious parts of my brain, various coordination neural networks, that have been trained since childhood, that are working using all the informations my senses gives at a pace that goes way beyond what I can actually process consciously. I feel conscious commands sometimes makes the move less fluid, less energy efficient in terms of biomechanics, and less adaptable to the slight variations your brain is capable of processing "on the go". Anyway, I had other similar breakthrough moments I couldn't really transfer to my game yet. Those are : exponential acceleration on the strike (start the stroke with a relative low intensity and increase muscle effort so that it's maximum at impact, increases whip effect). And wrist action on contact (intentionaly increase wrist lag and then consciously activate wrist just before contact, to get more control upon the spin and trajectory and increasing speed). I feed when I'm trying to add those in game, I loose something else (footwork, body transfer, distance to the ball, centering...) because I cannot focus on everything at once. I've seen coaches teaching that you get the best lag with a "dead arm", or "loose arm", but I think it's quite wrong, of course you should avoid being tense but, even though there are downsides to giving commands that target specific muscles during strike, there's no way you can be precise and consistent with a nuddle arm... I think the best analogy is hitting a nail with a hammer. Just like with a hammer, you need muscle energy from your arm to get the hammer into motion, and a mobile wrist to transfer some of that energy to have a faster angular speed, but with a completely loose wrist you're likely to hit your fingers or have the hammer move in your hand. You still need some control at the contact and additionnal "slapping" power. I'm looking forward how you'll manage to make your improvements a solid and reliable addition to your game :D Keep up the good work I love your channel !

@at1838

17 күн бұрын

Very interesting reply. You’re definitely on to something there, and it harkens back to The Inner Game.

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

Thank you for your insightful comment. I’m reading on my phone, but will reply properly when i get back to my laptop.

@TennisHacker

14 күн бұрын

Why players can't make things stick in matches (when it matters most), is because they haven't done enough reps focusing on the specific command. That's not a criticism, its hard because people only have so much time to play around work etc. Depending on which motor learning theory you look at, it can take up to 100,000 repetitions to full automate / habituate it (develop "muscle memory"). That's a lot of reps 😀 When you make any major adjustment to a technique, you have to think about it consciously and as you said, this can take away from the relaxation component. Try not to look at that as a problem, it's part of the learning process. As you continue to do more reps, it requires less and less conscious thought over time, which then enables more relaxation. It's great that you've made a break though. Now it's just a case of doing as many focused reps as you can until it sticks.

@MeanYellowBall

13 күн бұрын

@@TennisHacker It makes a lot of sense. It's doing the same itinerary every day to go to work for years, you can go on auto-pilot, and some day you discover that there is a shortcut you haven't noticed before. You'll have to take this shortcut a lot of time before it is included in the "auto-pilot" mode. My guesss is that, Neurologically, the base network "do a forehand" and the command "increase shoulder rotation at the end of the loading" have to be activated together enough that they become connected enough, including myelination process, so that next time the command "do a forehand" is called - the entry point is the same - the network with the modification also activates. With that paradigm, it makes sense that, especially on a 40y old brain or more that has lost some of its plasticity, it's really time-consuming to make permanent improvements. Its probably a lot better if you can use a network that's already "rooted" and take it as a gateway for improvement : for instance I know how to handle a hammer, and by using hammering as a parallel with hitting the ball it helped me a lot of understanding how to generate more power and control.

Gracias Richard 👏👏🏼👍🇪🇸

Sorry Brice I I have to laugh when I hear your explanation of how you got more power and spin on your forehand. Why, because I have been trying out exactly what describe from you, the intentional supination of the forearm to create more racket lag. The success is impressive, for the first time I fell that I am really achieving this vibe effect , getting significant more spin and power on my forehand. I have to thank Steve from "one minute Tennis" for this. I am looking tennis videos for years and he was the first how talked about this concept. ALL other videos and trainers on you tube talking about hip drive etc. to initiate racket lag but this never happened to my forehand.

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

It’s an interesting process of experimentation. Great to hear you’ve found something thats working for you. My belief is that the timing of the hip drive is still the key. Especially for the way that most people hit the forehand. I’m happy to be wrong though if it lets me rip the ball like the kids these days 😂

@karimalami4149

14 күн бұрын

mind telling me which video steve talks about this ?

Impressive stroke!

Nice video!! Congrats on the improvements Richard!

@TennisHacker

18 күн бұрын

Thank you. Much appreciated.

@topspin1715

18 күн бұрын

@@TennisHacker I am trying to copy you now with shadow swings. When do you switch from your deliberate external rotation of shoulder and supination of forearm to then firing the hips? I assume it happens roughly around the time the racket tip passes 12 o’clock and is on its way to fall with gravity toward slot position? Does that sound right to you?

Richard, I'm a BIG fan (and I'm not just talking about my waist size here), so please - PLEASE - don't take offence from what I'm about to say about your **amazeballs** left-handed forehand, _BUUUUT..._ You'd do SO MUCH BETTER IF you just kept your HEAD DOWN, a la Roger Federer, with your brain-packed, British head CEMENTED to the contact point WELL AFTER contact. I'm definitely no measure of tennis success, certainly compared to you, but it has certainly seemed to me to work LIKE MAGIC as far as the quality of contact EVERY TIME I'VE USED IT, and the effect it has on EVERY STROKE you ever hit, IS OUTSTANDING. So please, Sir Richard, KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN, and reap the rewards that The Tennis Gods bestow upon us mere mortals. Please? Thank you.

@TennisHacker

14 күн бұрын

This is where we are going to disagree! Keeping your head down is an extremely important piece of the puzzle, that I heavily recommend people do to optimize consistency. BUT, it is entirely possible to hit amazing shots with the head not down a la Djokovic and the greatest player of all time ANDY MURRAY (did I get that the right way around? 😇). So we have to concede that other factors must be at play that are extremely important. At the stage I'm at, if I were to focus on keeping my head still, it would prevent me from focusing on fixing the underlying issues in my stroke, which come first. So I'd be trying to apply a bandaid solutiuon. Instead I'm focusing on fixing the route cause of my issues. Once I've done enough reps to fix the underlying issues, then I can shift my focus towards keeping my head still. I'll then focus on that for 10 to 100 thousand reps. At which point I'll be a left handed forehand hitting machine (hopefully 😂).

I have a machine too and I tried to learn a lefty forehand too. The main problem is the footwork. A real human does not play the ball at your likings.

@TennisHacker

14 күн бұрын

Real humans can be very frustrating 🤣 Footwork is the hardest part in my opinion. My approach is: - Train vision, so you can read the flight of the ball. - Train coordination, so you have the coordination to do the footwork. - Program specific footwork patterns without the ball first. - Practice the patterns using the ball machine. - Prioritize focusing on spacing / movement when practicing with nasty humans.

4.5. Amazing, Richard! Is that self rating or based on match results?

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

Self rated in the I haven’t started playing tournaments yet. I was hoping to this summer, but i had a set back with covid, so it’s delayed my plan by a few months. I train and play practice matches with a lot of players that do well in the 4.5 tournaments here. So I think it’s a fair assessment. But of course, there is always the potential for me to massively bottle it under tournament pressure 🤣

@watcher687

16 күн бұрын

@@TennisHacker Good job, Richard. Your overall game, movement, strokes are very promising for match play. My only concern was the serve but I saw your lefty serve only once and that surprised me, too.

What do you tell yourself to create the extension on your forehand?

@TennisHacker

18 күн бұрын

When you say extension do you mean keeping my arm straight or extending through the contact point? Either way the answer is no, I normally focus on the set up and driving through the hip. Here I also focused on the racket lag tweak I mentioned.

@rkotnana

18 күн бұрын

@@TennisHacker keeping arm straight

@rkotnana

10 күн бұрын

@@TennisHackerwatching your other videos, I think your timing and visual also play a big part, which allow you enough time to create enough space to hit the extension forehand, like Alcaraz/fed/nadal

@rkotnana

10 күн бұрын

5:30 as well

similar/same as leading the stroke with elbow?

@TennisHacker

16 күн бұрын

I’m not sure what you mean?

You need to try it in an match . What works in practice may not work in match against a human . Everyone is a pro against a machine

@TennisHacker

14 күн бұрын

Of course I need to try it in a match. As explained in the video, now I need to do thousands of reps before it will stick in a match. Learning happens in stages.