No power in my shots.

You should probably work on your timing and technique so that you can get that "whip" sound that you usually hear when skilled people play. To do that, just get someone to constantly feed the birdie to you while you hit it. This will allow you to find the perfect striking area so that you can get a better shot as well as improve your overall technique. Also, I take an old birdie and hit it agianst the wall, this develops my shot strength to quite a large degree

 

are you using your forearm to play the shot or the straight swing? straight swing i mean by holding it pan handled and just swinging with your shoulder.

 

Mind telling us what racket/string/string tension you're using?

 

shouldn't be a problem. have you had coaching before? when did you start?

 

a good smash is 60% technique, 30% strength and 10% racquet. i'm quite skinny, in fact, skinniest in my class, but i can hammer away quite well, better than people who can bench 4 times more than me it's really about pronation and suprination. there's a really good Coach Zhao Jianhua video somewhere, ask the others to dig it up for you, it is on youtube. find the one where he teaches a student how to point smash(with out any movement other than forearm rotation). that's the basic technique, after which, you can add body rotation etc. definately work on technique first, after that, work on strength.

at first, you may not get the desired speed. DON'T GET ANXIOUS. it takes time. relax and focus on hitting in with a crisp action.

 

by the way, this is the perfect forum for your post

 

Kinetic chain

This is a pretty good assessment of the smash. The power in a smash is much more about technique & timing than brute strength. Power can start with the legs, if possible. The next link would be body rotation -- first hip rotation, followed by torso (upper body) rotation.

The next link in the (kinetic) chain is shoulder rotation followed by pronation (forearm rotation). The wrist action is performed in conjunction with the pronation. Some ppl add another (optional) link after this -- finger power or squeezing the grip as the racket head is accelerated.

Altho' I presented the various links sequentially, there is quite a bit of overlap from one link to the next to tranfer the power (from the lower links to the latter links). Quite often, you will not have time to perform the lower links of the kinetic chain. You might have to start with a torso rotation (or partial body rotation) and sequence thru the rest of the chain from there.

Hope I didn't overwhelm you with technical details. Watch some videos or get some instruction, then this explanation should make more sense.


(Note: supination provides power for many backhand strokes. pronation provides power for forehand strokes such as the smash. however. in order to pronate your forearm for a forehand, you would usually supinate it on the setup or backswing phase)

 

while all that is good, it might confuse people so they should learn about just pronating first, but also have them getting into the habit of doing all the above

 

Do not forget about the elbow, and the importance of getting the power from it. It was like a night and day revelation to me. I could suddenly produce backcourt to backcourt clears without using any great amount of force. Try to make full use of all the joints in your arm.

And, don't expect to learn it in two weeks. It takes a long time to get a decent stroke, and even longer to get a really good stroke. Be patient and have fun

 

1. Get a towel on the side to clean up ur hand in between rallies.

2. Get a good towel grip or overgrip to absorb the sweat.

 

The problem is that, without seeing this person execute a smash, it is very difficult to say how his technique might be flawed. He may very well already be using pronation and may have some other element lacking. There is not really enough details in his post to make make that determination -- we don't even know if he is using a panhandle grip or if he is using a more suitable smashing grip.

I realize that the my description might have overwhelmed him. If so, that should be an impetus to motivate him to ask more questions, seek instruction or watch some videos as I suggested at the conclusion of my post.

 

yup, agree. maybe we should ask kwun to sticky those Coach Zhao Jianhua vids, cos in one, it's got a perfect shot of pronation technique. it really helps ya learn.

 

Besides proper technique, I think another important factor that's commonly overlooked is positioning. Many doubles players tend to focus on hitting the shuttle hard even when they're not in position. They should focused on optimal shuttle contact (most try to contact the shuttle directly on top of them when it should be slightly more front of them).

When you're in the right place at the right time, your shot will be so much stronger because you're hitting the shuttle in front of you while you're moving forward. Practice makes perfect form and perfect timing (theoratically speaking, of course)!

 

good call. positioning is definately something which is important, and is something which melds into technique(good position leads to good contact).