The Pros Transfer Weight Differently Than You (With REAL Examples)

Most people think that pros hit their forehand so hard because of how well they rotate, but that's not true. It's actually only half the answer. The other half is the correct weight transfer. So in this video, I'm going to explain why the weight transfer works so well, common mistakes you're probably making, and we'll go over exactly how you can implement this technique into your forehand right away. The first mistake I see is that players will stay stationary while hitting, meaning they'll hit the ball and they basically won't move much from where they're at currently. They might do something like this or they might move their feet slightly, but as they hit the ball, they basically stay in the exact same place, and this makes them lose a lot of control and power. We can use this example. So imagine you're trying to throw a ball and you're trying to throw it as far as possible. So if you're trying to throw a ball, do you think you would throw a ball further if you stand and barely move or if you ran up and moves forward as you threw it? If you were trying to throw a ball as far as you could, you would probably get a bit of forward momentum. If you've ever tried this, that's likely what you would do because you would notice you'd be able to throw further with that forward momentum. The second mistake that I see is that players think that rotating is enough and that they don't need any forward momentum because they're going to rotate so well, but this is a mistake because it makes the players lean too far to the left. It makes them get off balance. They don't have any sense of balance if they're not thinking of moving towards the ball, head focused on the ball, and moving in the position they want the ball to go. So they'll just rotate as much as they can like this. So ball comes, rotate. They might even move backwards a little bit, but rotate really well. And then they'll wonder why their ball doesn't have that penetration into the court. They'll wonder why they're hitting what seems like really hard balls. Like the balls seem like they have a lot of spin. They seem like they have a lot of power, but when they fly over the net, they don't have that aggressive penetration into the angles of the court that's needed to take control of points. And I used to have this same problem. I would rotate really well, rotate as best I could, hit clean shots. They would feel great off the strings. It would seem like there's a lot of power in the shot, but it would have no oomph. And I only started getting actual oomph on the ball, actual penetration into the court, hitting shots that actually damaged the opponent. When I started focusing on my body weight and focus on moving my body weight forwards. And the third mistake I see is probably the worst one. And that's where players will hit the ball and they'll fall backwards as they hit the ball. So their body weight not is not only not going forward, it's not even neutral, but it's, it's going backwards. So your body weight's going in the opposite direction of where you want the ball to go. This is going to cause you to lose so much power and so much consistency. And if you're wondering why you're always late to the ball, your timing is off, or you feel like your balls are always inconsistent or lacking power. If you're falling back, it needs to be fixed. And we'll go over that next. So the fix here for all three of these is to move forwards while hitting the ball and not only move forwards, there's a very specific cue I want you to focus on. So as you're hitting the ball, I want you to focus on your chest. So this is what I mean by chest, your chest moving in the direction that you want the ball to go. So for example, if I want the ball to go cross court, I would focus on my chest going in that direction, cross court. If I want the ball to go down the line, I would focus on my chest moving in that direction down the line. It's very important, this mental cue, this specific mental cue, it's important that you focus on the chest. Doesn't matter what the feet are doing, doesn't matter what your arms or anything is doing. If you focus on this one cue, the chest moving in the direction you want the ball to go, not just forwards, in the direction you want the ball to go, that's the key to getting the correct weight transfer and getting that power and penetration into the court. And there's a few reasons that this works so well. The first one is you get more power into the shot because you're better transferring the power that you get from pushing off the ground into the ball. So you're getting the power from your legs properly. If you are pushing off the ground with your legs into the direction you want ball to go, because that weight gets transferred into the ball. And secondly, it helps extend your arm in the direction you want the ball to go. If your torso is going somewhere, everything else is going to follow. So when you go for your forehand, if you think chest, torso in the direction I want the ball to go, you're going to naturally extend forward in that direction more instead of pulling to the side, which was one of the common mistakes. And third, it gives you better balance. When your trunk is moving in the direction you want the ball to go, suddenly everything's in line. You're hitting the ball, you want it to go down the line, your head is focused where the ball is, your head is focused in the right direction, that's where your balance center is, and your chest and everything is moving in that same direction. So instead of your balance being off, your head being on the opposite side, or your head falling back, now your head's in the correct position and your balance is correct, which is really important in tennis. If you don't have balance on your shots, everything's going to feel off, your timing is going to feel off, and you're going to lack a significant amount of power and consistency. And lastly, it takes time away from the opponent. So imagine you're hitting a ball and you're falling back, or imagine hitting a ball and you're barely moving. Now imagine you're hitting the ball and you're moving in the direction you want the ball to go. This is automatically going to cause you to shift your frame of how you want to hit the ball. Now you're going to be taking the ball earlier. Now you're going to be stepping forward slightly. Every bit you get inside the court, every bit you get forwards towards your opponent, takes away time from them. This is just simple physics. If you're further away, the ball has more distance to travel, so your opponent has more time to react. If you're further in on the court, the ball has less distance to travel, so your opponent has less time to react. So it takes away time. And you can think of it like this. So think of hitting a punching bag, right? So if you're hitting a punching bag, do you think you would get more power if you hit it falling back, not moving, not moving forwards or backwards, or if you're moving forwards trying to hit the bag? You would most likely notice, and you've probably seen this as well on videos, that you get more power if you move forwards while hitting. So it's the same concept here, same concept with throwing, same concept in tennis. We want to move forward while hitting the ball, if you're able to. This is going to give you the most penetration. Next, let's go into some progressions on how to learn this and exactly the drills to do in order. By the way, I really hope this tip helps you, but since this video isn't personalized to you, it may not be the limiting factor in your forehand. And that's why I created the Forehand Weapon Academy, which is a community where you get one-on-one personalized coaching by me, weekly Q&A sessions, and workshops to help you develop a forehand weapon you can trust to actually win you matches. So click the link in the description or the pinned comments if you're interested. There's only a few spots left at the founding member rate, and once those spots are gone, the price will increase. I hope to see you inside, now back to the video. So now we're going to go over the exact drills to do and the exact progressions in order to do them to learn this. So the first one we want to do is shadow strokes, and we want to pretend like we're hitting the forehand cross court. So we're going to move this way to the right, and then think about moving our chest in the direction you want the ball to go, which is cross court. So I recommend doing this at least five times. I'm going to do it three for demonstration purposes. Okay, now we want to go down the line. So again, shadow stroke, and we want the body weight to move in the direction we want the ball to go. This is down the line now. Okay, do this at least five times. Okay, I'm going to do it twice. Next, we want to go to the ad side here, and we want to practice forehand inside out. So we're going to come here, move body weight in the direction you want the ball to go. Okay, we're doing pivot step. I haven't gone over the footwork yet, but basically pivot step, back pedal, then in the direction you want the ball to go. Okay, I'm going to do three. I want you to do five of these. Next, we're going to go forehand inside in. Again, we're still moving this way because we're running around the backhand. So move this way, forehand inside in. Okay, I'm going to do two. I want you to do five. Here, forehand inside in. Body weight goes towards that deuce side there because we're hitting a forehand inside in. Next, we want to get the balls. So we're going to do the same thing, and I need you to do at least five. Here, I'm just going to do a few. I only have so many balls. So first, we're going forehand cross court, and we're going to feed it to ourselves. You can have someone feed it to you, or you can feed it to yourself. The key here is we don't want any spin. We don't want any speed on the ball. Okay, so it's forehand cross court. Okay, let's do two. Forehand cross court. Okay, body weight moving cross court. Next, let's go down the line. Forehand down the line. Do that five times. Next, we're going to move over here. We're going to go forehand inside out. Again, feed it to yourself. Okay, do one more of those. Forehand inside out. Okay, that one's a little wide. Again, do that five times. Last one, forehand inside in. Toss it to yourself. Okay, move the body weight in the direction you want the ball to go. Next, we're going to do it with a live feed. Okay, so what we're going to do now is the same thing as before, but now with a live feed. So forehand cross court, and here, I don't want you just to do five. I want you to do at least 100. If you want to do more, you can, but do at least 100. Okay, and I've talked about this before. It takes me about 400 shots until I've gotten something, and that's me hitting the exact same shot. So I might sit here and do forehand cross court for 400 times until I feel like, okay, I've gotten a little better during this practice. Okay, so do at least 100. If you want to do the whole practice, just this, just this shot, forehand cross court, do that. Anyway, if it's your next session, or if you feel like you've got it down, move on to forehand down the line. Again, we're moving the body weight in the direction we want the ball to go. Body weight, torso is going down the line. I'm going to hit one more. Again, do at least 100. Okay, that one went out. Let me do one more. Okay. All right, next, this is with a ball machine, again, or with a partner. You want to move around the ball. Sorry, I went inside in. We're supposed to go inside out here. Move around the ball, inside out. Move around the ball. Okay, and you got to get there a little early to do this. It teaches you to get there early because you need to transfer your weight into the ball. Okay, do 100. Now, I'm going to go forehand inside in. You do 100 of those, then switch, or you can do a full practice of those. Doesn't matter. Again, getting a little winded here. Again, move around, then forehand, or sorry, body weight moving forwards. Here, you got to move around quickly. I was late there. Quickly. Okay, I'm going to do a few more because I'm pretty gassed. One more. So, you see that one there? I went up. That was a mistake. My body weight went up instead of forwards, so I missed it long. That was a good teaching moment there. Again, there, that my contact was off. Let me do one more. I really want to get this one in for y'all. Okay, so the body weight moved better there. Now, what you'll notice is it's going to take you some time to get used to this, but if you do it incorrectly, you'll notice this like I did. I was too late to the ball, so I didn't get my feet prepared in time to transfer the weight forward. So, what did I do? I hit the ball and just hopped straight up, and this caused my ball to go long, go out. So, you'll notice this as well. If your forework's late and you're doing something you're not supposed to, like hopping up, moving back, falling to the side, it'll mess with the trajectory of where your ball goes. You won't get as much power and you won't get as much control. It'll go out. Guys, give this a try. I really hope it helps you. I know it will, but I also know it's going to take some practice. Make sure you're getting enough reps. Make sure you're getting enough volume. Guys, if you want me to personally look at your forehand, analyze it, and fix it so you develop a weapon that can actually win matches, join the Forehand Weapon Academy. I'll put a link in the description. I'll put a link pinned in the comments. It's a community of people that want to improve their forehands and develop an actual weapon that actually wins matches. So, this is what I do all day long is help improve people's forehands, get them that weapon that's going to actually take them to the next level. But anyway, sometimes in tennis, it's not possible to move forward while hitting the ball. What if you're running for dear life trying to catch a ball that your opponent just hit into the corner? Well, luckily, I made a video going over exactly that on how to manage a ball that's going super fast to your forehand side out wide. What's the correct technique then or what's the correct trick or tactic? I go over everything in this video here. I'll put it on screen. Be sure to check that out. It's exactly what to do when you're being pulled out wide, and it'll help you win so many free points. I learned it from a number one club tennis player in Germany. He did it against me. Now, I'm teaching it to you. I'll see you in that video.