Why most older players shouldn't use a racket lag on their forehand

when you watch the best players in the world play when you watch a high level junior or a college player play they all have a racket lag on their forehand so it's a specific position they get into just before contact and it's one of the big things that allows them to create so much power on their shots but if you're a slightly older tennis player there's a very high likelihood that focusing on a ret lag is actually preventing you from developing a better forehand and I'm explain why that is in this video hopefully you find

the video helpful if you do be great if you give me a thumbs up and if you haven't subscribed to my channel before it's much appreciated if you could do that as well so the racket lag is something that a lot of coaches are teaching these days there is a ton of YouTube videos on it and it's a specific position that players get into just before contact so they've prepared for their shots that looks slightly different some players have got the racket more pointing up next gen style the racket tip is pointing down the court

a little bit more doesn't matter exactly where it is but there's some kind of preparation and then from there the swing is going to be initiated by driving through the back or outside hip so the hip drives forwards then the Torso kicks in and around the same time that that's happening that's going to pull on the arm and the racket is going to drop back into this position here this is the racket leg position so you start your swing you end up in the racket leg position and you'll see a lot of professional tennis players

get in into a position that looks like this and then they'll swing through from there and make contact with the ball out there and then follow through so this use of the kinetic chain and the creation of the racket lag is one of the big things that allows people to create massive amounts of power but it's not necessarily the best thing to do for a lot of players because in order to be able to use racket lag in the way that it gets taught you have to have fantastic timing you have to have a good

contact point and meet the ball out in front when you watch high level players play the majority of the time they're going to meet the ball out in front sure sometimes they can't sometimes their opponent will just hit a great shot and they've got to do whatever they' got to do but most of the time they're going to be meeting the ball way out in front of the body and you have to do that in order to be able to use the racket lag the difficulty here is the vast majority of adult players and I

mean the vast majority even up to the 4.5 level they're hitting the ball late so they're hitting the ball too far back relative to their body and as you go down through the levels it tends to get later and later and later and especially for older players they tend to contact the ball much later and later as well and you cannot use a racket lag properly if the ball is back here when you're trying to make contact with it this is why a lot of players they feel like they're trying to do the right thing

and then they they're kind of using their wrist or they're opening the angle of the racket face just before contact it's because you're late on your shot you have to start your swing at the right time relative to the Flight of the ball and it's so much earlier than most people think and if you do that then yes you can efficiently use your kinetic chain you can create the racket lag and then meet the ball out in front and it's going to work but if you don't start your swing soon enough relative to the Flight

of the ball and the speed that you're going to be swinging at the racket lag simply doesn't work so if you really want to be able to hit a modern style forehand using a racket lag then it's the timing component that you've got to fix you got to find a way to start your swing sooner so that you can effectively and efficiently use your kinetic chain and get into the right position and get that contact out in front of your body so within your practice that's what you want to be thinking about but unfortunately it's

easier said than done because every single shot in tennis is different and in order to have good timing to start your swing at the right time you have to have a visual system that's capable of quickly and accurately reading the Flight of the ball reading the speed and how far it is away and unfortunately most players don't have that and the other thing that you require is the coordination to be able to time the ball really well on every shot you have to make adjustments and it requires tremendous coordination and again the reality is that

most adult tennis players they don't have the level of coordination required to do this especially older tennis players the good news though is that you can actually train and improve your visual function and your coordination using brain-based training and when you do that it makes you more skillful and it will enable you to develop better timing so if you'd like to learn how to do that I've created a free class that's going to teach you all about it and I'll place a link to it down in the description the other option that you've got is

potentially simplifying your stroke because you can hit an amazing quality forehand without using a racket lag or you know you can kind of use a faux racket lag so there's there's kind of two options there really so instead of starting with your racket up or in one of these positions like modern players tend to do you can just start in this position so you can lay your wrist back as if you're in a racket like position because this is the position that they get into but now instead of complicating things and having to start your

swing sooner to be able to make that happen now if you just take your racket back to there so as part of your unit tune turn just simplify things now there's much less involved there's less time involved and if you start your swing at the same time as you previously did you can just hit through the ball get a good clean contact with your arm and your body behind the ball and it's going to make you much more likely to be able to get that contact point out in front but if that's still too challenging

in terms of your timing then you can just use a slightly more classical Style and what that means is instead of using some of the grips that modern players use you know definitely wouldn't be considering a western grip maybe even a semi-western grip might be a little bit too much for some players you can go to something like an Eastern grip and then that's going to allow you to contact the ball just little bit further back and you can combine the two so you can simplify your stroke and have more of an Eastern grip and

again just get that contact Point more towards the side of the body and then over time hopefully gradually try and inch it forwards and forwards but they're the options that you've got just because a YouTube video says that you should be using a racket lag to hit a great forehand that's simply not the case you can hit a fantastic forehand with a continental grip if you're able to control the angle of the racket face so you've got to find what works for you and just kind of understand how it all fits together so hopefully that

will makes sense if you found the video helpful be much appreciated if you could give me a thumbs up and uh if you have any questions leave them down below and I'll catch you next time