The forehand backswing
Pflaumenmus asked 3 years ago
Hello,
I’ve got a few questions regarding the forehand backswing.
- Is active movement of the arm used, or does the backswing mainly come from turning your body?
- Is it helpful to pull your arm closer to the body while backswinging, because it would require less energy if the radius from the point of rotation (body) is shorter, or is it to complex?
- Which angle should be between upper and lower arm at the end of backswing?
Pflaumenmus answered 3 years ago
4. Or is the the backswing just achieved by a) turning your body and b) relaxing shoulder and biceps?
Tom Academy Coach answered 3 years ago
Hey! I think firstly the relaxation on the backswing is very important, using the body turn and being relaxed will naturally give you more backswing. But I would also try to bring the arm back and open out the angle between the upper and lower arm like you mentioned, everyone does this slightly differently but I would say you can open it put almost fully and then snap through during the shot to finish about 90 degrees.
With your arm distance to the body it’s important to keep this consistent a good guide is the space the size of an orange between your arm and body, this leaves enough space so it’s not too much effort but also not cramped and becomes difficult to backswing freely. Hope this helps and let me know if you have any questions on that 🙂
PflaumenmusThanks, your answer definitely brought me a little closer. I think I figured out my problem yesterday, while I was thinking about backswing a little more. Actually I am relaxed with my arm and shoulders and I turn my body. But because I am relaxed and the angular momentum of turning my body is transferred to my relaxed arm, it swings through way past the imaginary line of my shoulders. As a result my backswing takes far to long and I struggle with backspin because the horizontal distance that needs to be overcome to hit a ball is way bigger then my vertical. Additionally my forward swings takes a long time too! Does my explanation make sense to you and how would you overcome my problem? I think here my above questions come into play again, when and if to relax etcetera.
