Unconventional forehand clear techniques

word of caution, i am only showing the clip to demonstrate that her strokes do not lack pronation. for context, she seems to be slightly behind in that moment so she ends up reaching for the shuttle - not the best moment to emulate if you are learning the basic stroke.

re: pronation, simple search on youtube alone, even better if you speak and can type in multiple languages, turn up a ton of material. pbsi has a series, bwf with badminton england used to have a series, chen jin has a series, kenichi tago (tagoken), thomas laybourne from badminton family, more recently badminton insight channel. here is one fom josechannel (ホセチャンネル), upper body isolated, turn on caption for english subtitles:

 

I just looked up on a tennis forum about roddick's serve, and some posts mentioned that his swing was shorter which might mean it could use the shoulder more.. I can imagine tennis players practising loads of serves in training, and then they could end up doing the training error of too much. (or too much when combined with the playing they're doing). What some say in weightlifting or bodybuilding communities (where they listen to the body more than badminton players do!), is that it's often more an issue of underrecovery than overtraining. If one were to list the issues, I think one could say underrecovery, overtraining.. before the technique itself being an issue. Hyperfocussing on technique with one feed and another feed and another etc.. (or self feed with the tennis serve) can be a recipe for muscular overuse injury..

With more listening to the body then injury would be avoided so it's not so much the technique in itself..

And often when players work to change their technique then they might do all sorts of things that are a bit problematic, besides that good technique puts wear on the body too.. What technique/movement(s) is being done is a factor, but for injruy to occur or at least long term injury, it's got to be those other basic factors of not taking time off sufficiently early, focussing on other movements and variety, etc

 

It's pretty easy and natural if you try it in the scenario where you chasse to the FH corner so are a bit sideways on and you have FH grip. You almost can't not do it. That's where the racket points where you are hitting it..

It's potentially a bit less natural and intuitive to do forearm pronation when the shuttle is in front of you and often people intuitively go a bit panhandle or panhandle and have to practise to use forearm pronation and forehand grip there.

I learnt a full swing before any short swing , that's the traditional way, and also intuitive.

But my short swing was good technique very quick and helped correct my big swing. It's so much easier to understand the technique when there is less going on.

Also even if you think you are doing "just forearm pronation" there is still probably upper arm rotation going on. The concept of a kinetic chain isn't start A finish A, start B, finish B, all in isolated movements. You have overlap , so things happen at the same time.

It is possible(but not recommended), to hit full court clear with panhandle and good "body rotation", and no proper forearm pronation going on, many players do at beginner level, so you can't really blame lack of forearm pronation...but a proper grip, forehand grip will help with power.. and don't use good or bad "body rotation" as an excuse to not learn how to include forearm pronation!

 

A lot of people overlook the importance of the last 3 fingers and wrist in generating power effortlessly. It’s hard to quantify percentages but only using forearm pronation for generating power will only give you part of the energy needed for a powerful shot.

Sit down and rest your elbow on a table whilst holding your racket in the forehand grip. The frame and not string bed will be facing forward. A bit like holding a small ready to throw at a target.

Without moving any other part of your arm, relax the last 3 fingers and allow the racket head to pivot backward until you have the gap in your palm. Squeeze the 3 fingers quickly to close the gap and tighten grip at the point of when gap is fully closed. The sound created allows you to hear racket head speed. Repeat again but allow the wrist to relax so that it cocks back, you’ll notice that the racket head will be further back now. Repeat process of closing the gap in your palm ending with the tight grip and allow the wrist to move freely back to its original neutral position. You should hear a noticeable increase in the sound of the racket head speed.

Obviously this exercise alone isn’t going to allow you to hit a shuttle, unless you’re so accurate that you can hit the shuttle with the frame it’s purpose is to show that space in the palm and relaxed wrist can be used to create some racket head speed.

Lastly, hold the racket in its original starting position again and raise the elbow off the table. Relax fingers and wrist as in previous step and then repeat process of closing gap and tightening grip but add forearm pronation. If done correctly, you’ll notice the string bed will be facing forward at the point of tightening grip.

You’ll notice that the sound of the racket head moving has further increased and your shoulder has done nothing apart from pivoting upwards to move the elbow off the table.

As you know already, there’s a lot more to it for a fully complete effortless clear as you need to add footwork, overhead racket preparation and then the rest of the kinetic chain. This shows the one particular stroke is a sum of many parts, just take your time to improve individual parts and it’ll all come together eventually.

 

Hitting baseline to baseline isn't hard at all. I can do it without body turn at all and just arm snap. Perhaps OP has been using slow shuttles where it would indeed be quite hard and I do need the body turn to generate baseline to baseline shots when playing with such shuttles.

 

If the lower arm rotates then it's supinating if rotating one way, and pronating if it's rotating the other way. Both happen in a swing. You could look up what forearm(lower arm) pronation is anatomically and then consider how it applies in a swing.

Some have mentioned use of fingers. That's worth doing. When you do that you might find you are naturally also doing other things too, like rotation of upper and lower arm.

 

i will have to agree with ssnt. i can even do that with completely wrong grip like a panhandle.

 

Maybe I should add (among intermediate players) disclaimer.