You should know that the most important concept of eccentric contraction and it's effectiveness is that it preloads ie stretches the muscle fibres just before it needs to concentrically contract. Just as in the slight drop in wt just before the lift in weight lifting, and as in the split step in badminton, you also can't preload the supinators too early. In order for it to be effective, it has to occur a fraction of a second before, not 2-5 seconds before. I'm sorry but not by any stretch of my imagination did I see a backhand clear or smash in that video from beginning to end. In that case, the video title is misleading and clear and smash should be removed from the title.
To add on to an earlier point, it's true that you don't actively pronate your arm as you raise your elbow. I mentioned it in the video simply to illustrate that, as with the forehand stroke, by leading with your elbow you will automatically pronate (eccentrically pronate, if you will) so long as you are relaxed. This will result in a whip-like motion which is the goal of your power strokes. It's for this reason that you don't actually do the stroke in 4 separate parts as I explained, but rather you start to merge the parts together as the stroke gets faster. I just find it easier for most people to understand it if it is broken down into parts. Visor, since I made this video I do know that I WAS clearing and smashing at some parts in the video. It's very easy to distinguish a clear from a drop simply from the trajectory that the shuttle makes upon leaving your racket. Given my height (5'9"), a clear will travel upwards while a drop will travel pretty much parallel to the floor. The first clear I do in the video is in the very first second in the intro, and the next one is at the 2:00 mark. This one is pretty clear because the shuttle doesn't even remotely look like it's going low over the net. As for the smashes, I did not record them at the best angle. I knew I wanted to record a smash headed straight for the camera, so I positioned the camera in front of the net. However, this angle makes it hard to distinguish a drop from a smash since it's not so easy to determine the shuttle's speed. At 4:03, you can see a pretty distinct smash. It was not fast-forwarded so the speed is real time. Also, to give you a reference of distance, the blue line you see in the back is NOT part of the badminton court. The cluster of 3 shuttles you see at 4:03 is outside the badminton court by about a foot, so in that particular video the shuttle had traveled to the rear doubles service line. Maybe after another viewing with what I've pointed out, you can see the different shots that I've performed based on how the shuttle left the racket. If you focus only on my stroke and can't tell a drop from a clear or smash, then to me that's great news. To be harder to read, you want your strokes to look the same whether you are doing a clear, drop, or smash right?
Try this at home: Hold a racket in your hand, then go from step 1 (tucked in position) to step 2 (elbow raised). If your racket is pointed almost vertically downwards, then your forearm should be fully pronated. To pronate any further after this point would feel very strenuous. A neutral position, on the other hand, would result in a racket that is pointed roughly 45 degrees from the normal axis. If you rewatch 1:58 again, you will see that the racket does indeed point almost vertically downwards before it makes the upward swing (supination). Therefore, it means the arm must have pronated (eccentrically) almost fully before the supination begins. I find it easier to focus on the racket head movement to see whether a person's technique is correct or not. Since the racket head is about two feet from your hand, it means that any motion in your wrist/arm becomes exaggerated. If everyone starts off with the correct grip, it is my belief that you should be able to develop the right technique if you think about imitating a proper racket movement (e.g. Taufik) in three dimensional space. As evidence, go look at Lin Dan's forehand smash in slow motion (I have a video on Youtube of this). His pronation finishes when the racket is pointed nearly vertically downwards, with the racket face parallel to an imaginary wall. The same can be seen from kwun's slow motion video of Tony Gunawan smashing. Therefore, you can verify whether your forehand smashing technique is correct by looking at a video of yourself and seeing whether your racket also follows the same 3D path. But I'm sure there is still a way you can deviate from the correct technique and finish with the same racket position, so you also need to analyze all other parts of the stroke and compare it.
thejym: unfortunately it was fairly obvious to me which were clears and which were drops but not from the preparation so thats ok I look forwards to seeing some more videos - they provide an excellent reference point to discuss the basic strokes, and it always interests me to see the stroke taught in different ways than I have seen before - some, like your "lick the elbow" comment from the forehand clear tutorial, I have shamelessly stolen for use when I explain the stroke to a beginner whilst others provide me with an alternative should my regular explanations not have the desired effect! Thanks for taking the time to put the videos together. My only wish was that I had court time to practice my strokes (and a willing feeder!)(and money to buy shuttles!)(and three cameras to record myself from different angles for later analysis)(etc ).
Thank you , thats was exactly what I thought .....To be honest it was not hard to distinguish which were drops , clear or smash from observing the contact points and the speed and angle of the racket head (it is not going to be as deceptive as forehands); thus the video did the job and thank you. But the one that would fool me on court (in singles) would be those reverse drop which I would try to read your racket's head and wrist try to cover the cross-court drop, realize it was too late.shifted the balance on to the wrong side and point lost virtually
That can be sorted , where about in England are you ? I got tonnes of feather shuttles and have a camera ....I get a few junior players to feed us the shuttles and we can both demonstrate the forehand smash (is best I be the feeder for this one, we dont want any juniors to get stunt !) and high backhand + late backhands I would also demonstrate a few backhand smashs and clear in super slow-mo , full court view + camera above court especially for our friend Visor here , x
Hehe, no need to... already know how to clear baseline to baseline and smash with a steep angle with my backhand. With due respect, it's just that I didn't see any birds clear to the baseline nor smashed with steep angles in thejym's video. But we muchly appreciate his explanation and breaking down the technique into its parts. Now, this guy has steep angles but not enough power. The difficulty in getting power into the backhand smash is two-fold: the footwork has to be fast enough to get behind the bird, and by doing this, allows the player to lean into the bird at strike. This last part is critical for power. [video=youtube;xNpmihzMC3g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNpmihzMC3g[/video]
ok, we wont dedicate the video to you but you are paying for the production since you requested it .hehe. His smash had a fair steepness to them , he did say he is only 5'9 , powerwise is ok since placement and steepness are most important. His clear looks like that they will reach within one feet to the baseline,thats only an assumption base on the impact
I think both of you should borrow a speed gun, record and post a video of you backhand smashing to see who has the fastest backhand smash. Winner gets to break all of the other person's rackets in front of them. Sound good? Taking bets now.. anyone?
Now I have another question for you guys. You know that backswing stores energy into your muscle eccentrically. The more you accelerate into pronation, the more your muscle contracts, hence more energy stores. Does that means that you should supinate first? Then backswing would be more accelerated (meaning more energy) and the fore swing would be more powerful? Although it sounds confusing, it seems somewhat logical, right?
the double action sounds too complex to be used consistently... plus there is no point in exceeding the stretch limit of the muscle fibres in storing the energy just imagine the split step (which causes an eccentric contraction when you land). there is not much to gain from jumping higher to do the split step
Such a good and logical question to ask. You will find that your muscles only start storing elastic energy after a certain point, any position before and the energy put in to move to that point is effectively wasted. In other words supinating first would not store as much energy as starting from a relaxed state. Oh, one could in turn ask whether starting from a pronated position would be more helpful. In theory yes, however in practice, starting from a relaxed state will enable the weight of the racket to pronate for you, removing the need. However if you don't have a racket in your hand, you will find that it does actually help. You can try this out for yourself.
I can get the same angles if I smash from half-court As you can see, he's taking about a step back from where he serves when he smashes... you don't even see where the rear doubles service line is in the back because the furthest line is slightly curved (probably a basketball 3pt line or something), so he's really mid-court. Next time I'll know to point the camera from a better angle... I didn't want you guys to see the crappy net that we use in that gym. Or I'll record it when I'm in a better gym. Any ideas for the next video? What does everyone want to see?
Requests? Hmmm... drives? Defense? Or shall we tire you out more... footwork And speed guns on the backhand smash is a great idea kenzo - harsh consequences, but infinitely funny.
