Shoulders in smash and reaching upwards

K

kukkojas

Regular Member
Hi guys, i've been having a hard time lately with my overhead strokes as i had an injury and had to take some time off. Now when i have started playing again i've found that i have lost all my power and my strokes seem to be quite off. So to find cues what i might be doing wrong i've looked at slomo videos of pros smashing and i have found out that my posture when smashing is quite different from the pros. The pros seem to reach out with their racket shoulder a lot, in other words their racket shoulder is way higher than the other shoulder at contact point and it seems that their racketarm is almost horizontal compared to the shoulder i.e. they are not reaching up only with their arm but effectively with their whole body. Is this something that is essential and i've just been missing this my whole life or can you have good power with a more upright posture?

Have a look at this video of FHF smashing and notice how his posture and shoulder work through the shot.
 
kukkojas said:
Hi guys, i've been having a hard time lately with my overhead strokes as i had an injury and had to take some time off. Now when i have started playing again i've found that i have lost all my power and my strokes seem to be quite off. So to find cues what i might be doing wrong i've looked at slomo videos of pros smashing and i have found out that my posture when smashing is quite different from the pros. The pros seem to reach out with their racket shoulder a lot, in other words their racket shoulder is way higher than the other shoulder at contact point and it seems that their racketarm is almost horizontal compared to the shoulder i.e. they are not reaching up only with their arm but effectively with their whole body. Is this something that is essential and i've just been missing this my whole life or can you have good power with a more upright posture?

Have a look at this video of FHF smashing and notice how his posture and shoulder work through the shot.
Click to expand...


It is fairly normal to do what you have seen Fu Haifeng do in this video. It allows you to reach up high whilst keeping the shoulder in a more neutral position rather than at an extreme. Most people find reaching up high in this method more comfortable, and indeed most people already hit like this from the round the head corner.

It is not a detail you need to worry about or do consciously: just reach up as high as you can for the shuttle and hit the shuttle as soon as possible! Then practice! If something feels off or awkward, you are probably not reaching up as much as you can.

Good luck!
 
Hi there, I would slightly disagree with hitting the shuttle "as soon as possible" as that is how you ruin your shoulder. The mechanics on your arm will over strain if you reach to much into the shuttle. The thing you will need to do is hit it at the best time to suit you, which means hit it at the highest point without your shoulder reaching up to the shuttle. I have been doing this dynamic hit with my players like the 10 ten players in the world do. Hope you like my videos! :)

 
Yes that is true, but the action of the hit is not "stretching" the shoulder into it as you don't want to the shoulder to engage into the movement as it freezes the arm movement.
 
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