May 8, 2023 - Five Tips to Increase Forehand Looping Power
If you are the type of player who has trouble generating power when forehand looping, try out these five tips - call it the "Fearsome Fivesome" - and you'll be surprised at the improvement. (If you have natural power, then here’s the most important tip – don’t worry about power, just let the shots happen naturally – don’t try to muscle the ball - and instead focus on consistency and placement. See #4 and #5 below.)
- Use a wider stance, with your legs farther apart. This leads to a greater weight transfer and thereby more power.
- As you backswing, bring your wrist back as well, so that it can naturally snap through the ball during contact. You should especially use wrist against a slower incoming ball, such as a push.
- Contact the ball more from your side as your body is rotating. Many players contact the ball too much in front, with their arm going forward after the body has already rotated, and so end up swinging mostly with their arm, with contact in front.
- Focus on "easy power," where you let the muscles smoothly contract in rough order from bottom to top (from legs to forearm & wrist), rather than try to spastically "muscle" the ball.
- Almost remember that consistency and placement is more important than raw power. Instead of trying to rip it through their waiting forehands or backhands, try a relatively fast but consistent loop that goes to a wide corner, to the opponent's middle (midpoint between their forehand and backhand), or done deceptively where you aim for one corner, and as your opponent to reacts to that, change directions to the other corner.
