Why Your Forehand Timing Is WRONG (Fix It Now)

There's a common misconception that your footwork is what controls the timing on your forehand, but there's something even more important. If you feel like you're off in your timing on your forehand, randomly hitting out, or it just doesn't feel right, the fix here is to pull with your off arm instead of pushing with your hitting arm. And so in this video, I'm going to explain how this is done, common mistakes that you might be making, and exactly how to turn your forehand into a weapon by focusing on the upper body, and specifically the biomechanics and the synchronization that's needed between your left arm and your right arm to hit a really powerful forehand and develop a weapon just like this. So the mistake I see with a lot of players is that they have great footwork, they're able to get to the ball well, but they lack the synchronization needed with the upper body. That really is the key to timing on the forehand. You'll see with a lot of professional players, they might be completely out of position on a shot because their opponent just hit a really tough one to them, but they're still able to hit a really good forehand because the synchronization between their left arm and their up arm and their right arm and their upper body are in sync, they're working together, therefore their timing is good, and also their balance is good. I'm going to go over balance in a different video, but synchronization is absolutely key. A really good player that has a good forehand will be able to hit a good forehand sitting or without even moving their legs. Like here, I can hit a fine forehand without even moving my legs at all. So it's not the footwork that is essential, it's the synchronization of the upper body, and we'll get to this in this video, exactly how to do it and the right progressions that's needed as well. And the second mistake I see is that players think that they need to focus all of their attention on their hitting arm and coming out to contact here and hitting the ball without any regard for their left arm, what their left arm's doing. So what that ends up causing is it causes them to press when they're hitting the ball. It causes them to press forward instead of pull, and this causes them to be inconsistent, be late, and lose a lot of power. And what you might have noticed with professional players is that even if they're hitting a really bad shot out of position, they're still somehow able to find that balance, even in an unbalanced position, and still hit a really good shot with good timing, even if they're completely in the wrong position, falling back, falling to the side, it doesn't matter, and that's because their synchronization with their upper body is optimal and they know how to find balance with not just both legs, but only one leg. And I'll go over balance in another video, but the synchronization is essentially key because it helps you get the consistency you need to hit a consistent spot on your contact point and also to get enough rotation so you get enough spin and power on your shot. Okay, so how do you rotate correctly? Well, it's very simple and it's more of a cue than anything else. This is a mental cue that I want you to remember. So instead of thinking with your hitting arm, your right arm, coming forward to hit, instead what I want you to think about is pulling with your off arm to initiate your swing. This is a complete mental shift, completely different than you might be used to, but this is what's going to get your timing right and your consistency and power are going to skyrocket once you get this right. This is going to take practice. You're going to need to get reps on this, get enough volume on this, and that's okay. But essentially, when the ball comes, you want to start your swing with your pulling motion, pulling this arm as you come forwards with your hitting arm. And they need to work together. They need to work together. This needs to be a pulling motion. This is your pulling to get your power and to get your timing right, but they need to work together. You can think of them working like this almost, like if you hold your racket here with both hands, this is how they should be working. They should be working together in unison. You can think of it like this. So imagine you're spinning on your front foot, left foot, that's the front foot, and we're just spinning, right? So how do you think you would get more power? Do you think you would get more power by pressing forward with this arm, with your off arm, using the muscles in the front by pressing? Or do you think you would get more rotation by pulling with this arm, your non-hitting arm, on that leg? You'd most likely notice that you'll get more rotation by pulling with these bigger, stronger back muscles rather than pressing forward. So that's what I want you to think about with the rotation on the forehand. Yes, everything needs to work together. Yes, footwork's important, but if you don't get the synchronization of these two arms, the right and the left, if they're not in sync, everything's going to be thrown off. Doesn't matter if you have perfect footwork. If these two arms aren't in sync, if they're slightly off, if you feel like you're pressing the ball and not getting this hand out of the way correctly or you're getting it out of the way too early or too late, it's going to throw everything off. And the second key I want you to focus on with this rotational pulling method on the forehand is tucking the elbow. So you bring your arm out usually. How far depends on the player, but you bring it out. And then as you pull with this arm, with your off arm and your hitting arm comes forward, you generally want to tuck the elbow close to your torso. So as you pull, boom, you want to tuck it close to the torso. Most players are not bringing their elbow out like this. So that's a mistake I do see a lot is that when players bring their off arm back, it'll be too high. So what you want to do is you do want to tuck the elbow, have it close to your torso here on your follow through, and that'll give you the most amount of stability. And you'll be able to rotate quicker because it's closer to your center of mass. So when you're rotating, like if you see figure skaters, generally they want to do a lot of spins in a row. They won't rotate like this because they won't spin as fast. They'll generally pull their arms close and then they'll spin a lot faster. So that's what you want to do as well. You want to pull your arm in and this is consistent with what the pros do as well. Of course, I'm going to throw professional proof videos here as well to show you them doing it. But basically you want to pull in here as hard as you can, but with it synced with both arms together. Okay. So to practice this, there's a certain progression that we need to do. That's going to help you out a lot. So first we want to do shadow strokes. So we're going to practice stepping towards the ball. Imagine that there's a ball coming towards your right. So stepping towards the ball. And then you're going to practice sinking both arms. First, you can practice like this, just pulling with your left arm. And this is, this looks weird. It's not a real stroke. What we're doing here is we're practicing pulling with the left arm to initiate the stroke. Okay. So here, boom, pull with the arm. Don't press with your hitting arm, pull with your off arm here, boom, pull. Okay. You want to do this several times. Okay. At least five, pull and pull. I might've done four or five, do at least five. You really get used to pulling with this arm. This is what's going to initiate the whole stroke is pulling with that off arm, that left arm. Next, we can try with some balls here. I have a few and you're going to feed it to yourself. So here and pull, pull with that off arm here, pull. Okay. And you'll notice a lot of power with this. When you're actually pulling with your off arm, instead of just, just pressing with your hitting arm, you'll notice a lot of effortless power. So here, boom, right here, boom. Okay. And next let's do it with some balls, with some live practice balls. You can do this with a partner or a ball machine. I only have a ball machine here, so that's what I'm going to do. So first we're going to start off with just forehand cross court, and you're really going to focus on pulling with that off arm. And what you can do here that can help you with synchronizing the two hands is this is something Roger Federer does a lot or did a lot. I mean, he still did play in the U.S. Open, is catch the racket here. I've talked about follow-throughs before, any follow-through over the arm or over the shoulder or a little lower right here. Any of that is fine. So what we're practicing here is a follow-through over the upper arm. And you want to catch the racket anywhere around the throat and around the upper arm. And that's going to make sure you're getting your left arm out of the way at the correct time. And that the two arms are in sync. You still need to think about pulling, of course, pull, but catching it here is going to make sure you're getting that left arm out of the way. One more. Okay, pause. The next drill you need to practice is forehand down the line. This is because the timing is different on the forehand down the line shot. And again, you want to catch the racket here with your off arm. So pull, catch, pull, catch. Okay, and we're going down the line. And for each of these, I'm going to pause it. I want you to do at least a hundred, at least a hundred of these live, live balls. So forehand cross court, at least a hundred, you can do several hundred. Forehand down the line, at least a hundred there as well. I've said this in other videos. It takes me hitting the same shot over and over. So for example, the same shot would be forehand cross court. It takes me on average, 400 balls until I feel like I've learned something in that session and gotten a little bit better. So if I'm trying a new tip, if I'm trying something out, like for example, what if the tip for me was pull with this arm, right? And then catch it here. Like we're going over in this session, it would probably take me about 400 shots during the tennis practice until I'm like, okay, I kind of get it. I got that little bit better. So that gives you a bit of reference as well. Make sure you're getting enough reps and make sure you're getting enough volume while you're practicing this. And it might take several sessions. Some people grasp things a bit quicker. Some people a bit slower. That's fine. It really doesn't matter how long it takes. Just make sure you're getting enough reps and enough volume. The third drill that we want to practice is again, another match drill, because all the drills we want to do are drills that actually are played in matches and actually work in matches. So forehand inside out is one of them. And so you want to do at least a hundred of these. Again, you're going to focus on, on pulling, pulling with this arm and catching, catching the racket with your off arm. Okay. You don't have to catch the racket. So this is something I do. Sometimes I catch the racket. Sometimes most of the time I won't, I'll just finish over my arm. So if you feel like you're comfortable with the pulling motion and you've got it down, you don't have to catch the racket every time. That's just something that helps you rotate. It helps you rotate. And I will say catching the racket does stop you from generating a bit of power. So once you feel like you've got it down and you no longer need the extra help of rotating by catching it with your left arm, then by all means, you know, don't, don't catch it because it will make you lose a little bit of power. Okay. Next we want to go forehand inside in. This is a match shot and you want to practice. You want to practice moving this way, moving towards your ad side, and then hitting the forehand inside in. Move there. Okay. Move. Redirect body weight forwards. Move. Redirect. Okay. All right. And you want to do at least a hundred of these. I'm not going to do a hundred here. This is just for demonstration purposes. Last one. All right. Well, still can't touch the net, but still went in. So guys practice this, really practice this rotation, practice pulling. This is the biggest cue. The biggest cue in this video is as you're going to hit the ball, remember you want to pull to hit the ball. Don't press to hit the ball. Pull, don't press. Guys, I hope this video helps you. I know it will. It's going to take some practice though. It's going to take some practice and getting used to some reps. So don't shy away from the reps and the volume that's needed in tennis. Go out on the court, practice. Remember pull, don't press. It's going to help you out so much. Remember earlier on in the video, when I said that pros can be in the worst kind of situations, off balance, hitting weird shots, but somehow they still can produce really good shots from those positions. So how do they do it? Well, I made a video on how pros can produce really good shots when they're being pulled far out wide to their forehand side. I explained in the video exactly what they do and exactly how you can do it as well as quickly as today during your league match. So head over to that video and I'll see you there.