Pronation and supination is basically about rotating your forearm. Hold your hand out in front of you, as if getting ready for a handshake. Now, rotate your hand (well, forearm really) so that the palm of your hand faces the floor. This is pronation. Now, rotate your hand so that your palm faces upwards. This is supination. It's as simple as that. Pronation is the movement for forehand strokes (including the smash) and supination is for backhand strokes. If you want to know more, search for "pronation" using the search function above.
I now understand what pronation is, but am struggling to see how it will affect the power of my smash. When I finish my backswing the front of my forearm basically faces the back of the court. As I strike the shuttle the front of my forearm is facing the ceiling at an angle -Is that it?
Well I don't know exactly what you're saying but i'll try to explain it how it was explained to me. I have been playing badminton for about ten years and never come across this term, then i had a break for five years and then recently started playing again. This time I thought i'll fulfill one my ambitions and get some coaching, everything I knew had to go out the window I felt like a complete beginner and extremely agitated at this new technique (well to me it was new). Basically I was told to hold the racket as though I was holding a tray of drinks, which means you always have your wrist cocked backed hence 'pronation'. I was also told that you must have your wrist pronated for every shot which is where you get the disguise and belive me if you can master this technique it is well worth the hassle, the amount of times that you can just hold the shuttle and wait for your opponent to move and then just play a simple overhead clear shot to catch him out is quite unbelievable, especially if you're playing someone of a lesser ability than yourself. Hope info wa useful, if not just ignore.
I believe what you described is wrist cocking and uncocking, and is different from pronation. The former is a movement at the wrist, the forearm doesn't rotate at all. Pronation, on the other hand, refers to the rotation of the forearm.
what do you consider the front of your forearm? in order to hit with any forehand with pronation you must first partially supinate your forearm. your forearm, in many cases, on the forehand backswing may actually be facing toward the side of the court rather than the front or back of the court. for backhand supination, the forearm is intially pronated on the preparation phase of the stroke. when you prepare to accelerate the racket head toward the contact point, the racket intially approaches the shuttle on edge (as if cutting it with a knife). however, as the racket approaches that contact point, the forearm is rotated so that you contact the shuttle squarely (unless you intend to slice the bird for more spin). becuz the racket head is (aggressively) accelerated into the shuttle, the forearm continues some forearm rotation even after the shuttle has been struck. does this all make sense?
Thanks for that explanation - it does make sense. I think that when I play a smash there is no (very limited) forearm pronation involved. How much of an impact would this have on the power of my smash?
JJ, you should read the "Smash" forum. It explains everything, and check out the japenese study on smashes, it scientifically shows you the kind of power you can get from using forearm rotation. You can't argue with scientific studies, they've got their Ph.D's.
got the opportunity to try this forearm pronation technique last night . Complete disaster, seemed to result in a reduction in power. Keep practising I suppose.
Sorry to hear it didn't turn out well. I have been practicing my swing in my appartment, and keeping forearm rotation in mind while swinging seems to produce a faster swing for me. Maybe you should try swinging different styles, and when you can hear the head of your raquet ripping through the air faster, you know you've got a stronger swing. The amount your forearm should rotate depends on many other factors, as reported in the Japenese study of the smash. http://idaten.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/JSPE/PEabstract/38/38-4.htm You should read about smashing here, it'll answer many of your questions. The angle 147 degrees between your forewarm and raquet is the key to success. Any less than this and your forearm applies too little power to maximize raquet speed, more than this and your forearm's rotation vs raquet rotation is too great. It's hard to explain the technique using words, and I haven't found any good instructional videos on it. @!#$ Ng only teaches the basics. Mag or Chan Huang, do you guys have PC cameras? Maybe you guys could make some instructional videos and post them on a webpage?
Hmmm. I tried to say D.ick Ng, and the forum's filter thought I was trying to swear. Haha, now that's funny. That just sucked like h.ell, stupid f.ucking programmers, can't get it right. Sorry, just testing out the forum, we're all mature here anyways. We can all endure a little profanity can't we?
the link : http://idaten.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/JSPE/PEabstract/38/38-4.htm is not working, anyone have another link for the studies of "smahing or pronation" thanks
pronation and suprination was a technique introduced in the 70s i think, to get more power rather than the straight swing style. at high levels, every professional player uses it. in fact, it is the only taught style of stroke production. if you want to know the power, then check out Fu Haifeng, world record smash holder, 332km/h. at first, it does seem a great loss in power. this is probably because you've been used to swinging the heel out of the racquet to generate speed, which is using your shoulder and less forearm muscle so your forearms are not used to playing. once your forearm muscles develope to accept this new technique, it's worth it. it took me at least 2 months to clear properly, but now, i can clear with barely any movement other than a snap from my forearm.
I find pronation pretty natural, the combination of pronation + wrist cocking provides the majority of the power. This is used to generate power in all the racket sports and even in golf, and if you know how to throw a ball properly it should come naturally. Once you get used to it, you should find that cocking the wrist naturally leads to pronation, which is why the term itself isn't used that much.
I always thought this was one of our most interesting posts on pronation: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11173
that analogy really helped me understand what to do to pronate, im not sure if i naturaly pronate or not. but can anybody confirm that doing the above quote would be pronation?
that is essentially it. however, it's a preference of how you set up. it's different style for everyone, but make sure you use the same setup for drop, smash, clear to make it more deceptive