Hi guys, need some help with overhead technique. I've been playing for about 4 years, received coaching for 2, however I've come to believe my previous coach wasn't that great as parts of my technique are woefully behind others. I've started with a new coach who has already started breaking some of my bad habits but some stuff gets lost in translation. From the video I think my stroke begins well and ends ok but the middle is messy. I think the contact point looks too low and forearm doesn't extend out enough from the elbow, perhaps these things are interlinked? Beyond that I'm missing some body rotation maybe. During this drill I kept telling myself to reach for a higher contact point... and I thought I was. But the video proves otherwise. Is there something I'm missing in the prep or my positioning?
Contact point low. arms not straight enough. Also, video is easier to analyze if you shoot it from your right, directly from the side, instead of from left diagonally from the front court.
Thanks for taking the time to watch. I'm aware of this as I said in my post and was telling myself to reach higher, the arm did not want to though. Anything I can do to get the arm to listen?
There's a difference to waiting for the shuttle to come to you and reaching upwards to the shuttle as it comes down. Practice reaching up onto your tiptoes to meet the shuttle as it comes down just before hitting it. You might even have to hop up into the air a little. Probably what you did when you were learning before was waiting until the shuttle comes into your hitting zone and then started to swing the racquet. In that short space of time, the shuttle has dropped even more. What you have to get used to is the shuttle being just out of your hitting zone and at that point start your swing reaching higher. In the 0.1 second or so, the shuttle comes down and your racquet head is going up to meet it and you get a nice contact in the high area of your hitting zone. Also practice dry swings next to a wall or something where there's a high target (e.g. basketball net) and practice reaching up on an overhead swing. Depending on how often you are practicing and swinging, it would take 4-6 weeks or more to make changes.
Coach is saying the problem is I need to use more wrist. Any thoughts? I was under the impression that the wrist has a fairly passive role in overhead strokes.
Probably fix the contact point as a priority, take a video from a better angle then work out the rest of the minor details.
he probably means forearm rotation - as the idea of rotating the wrist seems more intuitive. he is right, more forearm rotation and less unneccesary shoulder movement which we can see in your follow through.
Not sure about that myself. One thing I forgot to mention is that when you hit the shuttle, your left arm stays quite high. It's better to pull the left elbow down just before you swing the right arm. That would also help you reach upwards a bit better.
It's not totally wrong. Looking at the angle between racket and your arm, it should be more straight (between 150-180 deg). It'll help you to reach higher. Although your hitting point is relatively close to the body, because of the racket/arm angle, your elbow is also bent as well to accommodate for this.
Sometimes coaches don't use proper anatomical terms.. When the arm rotates, the wrist as it's connected to the arm, will look in some sense to have rotated, like if we say turn your palms over but you do that by turning your arm. So for example here, you've rotated your arm, You could say to your coach, look your racket is pointing down and that's from really rotating your arm. So your wrist has "rotated".. And i'm sure wrist "rotation"(technically forearm rotation), is what he's talking about. (not wrist bending) And it doesn't look to me like you bent the wrist down.. and that's generally good.. You wouldn't really get power from doing that and it's generally recommended not to bend the wrist. Some people use too much forwards or downwards or forward and down force from their arm I don't know if your coach thinks you are doing that. You could ask them.. As for your contact point, i'm no expert and it's complex(moreso than some people realise or like to admit).. It can help to point your elbow up more.. so as to get a higher contact point.. Looking at those two pics from 0:12, maybe it looks like your elbow might have dropped a bit, before contact? Maybe your elbow came forward too much before contact? The elbow would drop if it comes forwards and maybe shouldn't come that far forwards before contact? The second pic is fractionally later than the first one. And it looks to me like the elbow is lower and further forward. Your eyes might be better than mine there, not sure how it looks to you? Things perhaps to think about!
Badminton or even sports people often like to pretend it's that simple, that if they just rush it less it's all perfect, and sometimes it is but it's better to know exactly what's going on.. Try doing without a shuttle, off court, doing the swing in front of your camera.. like a demonstration swing, and on video. Does it look the same as what you do on court? If so, you can study that demo, that looks at different angles.. And where you can pause it in the middle and look at where your elbow is, where is your elbow positioned and pointing. And if it looks better than the one you do on court, then you can think about how you can adjust the court one to make it look more like the one you demonstrate. If you don't rush your swing, is it going to turn into this( badminton smash (man) smash compilation" below)? probably not! It's true you shouldn't rush a swing, but fixing swings is going to be more complex than just don't rush it.. And requires a good eye.. and maybe some people on the forum have good eyes, who knows! Sometimes improving a swing can require discussion and figuring things out and seeing what makes sense. . I'm no expert Of course, you don't need to jump especially for a clear.. and i'm not suggesting you entirely try to imitate pros.. we could probably do with a compilation of some good regional level swings on video! (as opposed to top international level!)
