Grip Tightness?

L

LCVBadminton

New Member
Hey everyone, I'm a fairly new player and have been working on getting my overhead forehand form right. I've just added the pronation part and can now do a decent clear when my timing's right, but I'm finding that the stroke is really hard on my hand. The force of the swing causes the racket to want to rotate, and this combined with the tightening of my grip at the moment of impact is causing the skin to rub off at the base of my index finger and tip of my pinky finger.

Do I need to grip the racket tighter throughout the stroke to ensure that it's unable to shift in my hand at all? All the grip resources I've found online just show the position of the grip and say to hold it loose, but I've not found any detailed explanation of exactly how things should work during the stroke.
 
You need to stay relax untill the moment you almost impact the shuttle then tighten it up at the very last moment to generate the snapping and transferring the whole energy into the shuttle. With the correct gripping, I've never found a situation where my racket moving around easily on my hand.
 
You play badminton & each player on the court (you, your partner, & your opponent) bring their own racket to play. Its not like anyone would take your racket when you playing. Just a joke:p

But seriously, you dont need to hold you racket very tight. Relax your gripping & hold it strong at the moment on impact so your racket wont run at wrong direction or you end up throwing your racket.

Btw what racket stiffness do you use? Do you change to different racket recently? Stiffer shaft vibrate more than flex one. It might that the frame shock that what you are feeling the racket rotating.
 
Could be that your grip is old and worn out and therefore "slides" which causes friction. If it's a fairly new grip, you should consider your technique. Your grip should be loose yes, but it could be you hold it too lose and use your wrist too much.
Here is a youtube video that focuses on the wrist and how to grip:
 
LCVBadminton said:
Hey everyone, I'm a fairly new player and have been working on getting my overhead forehand form right. I've just added the pronation part and can now do a decent clear when my timing's right, but I'm finding that the stroke is really hard on my hand. The force of the swing causes the racket to want to rotate, and this combined with the tightening of my grip at the moment of impact is causing the skin to rub off at the base of my index finger and tip of my pinky finger.

Do I need to grip the racket tighter throughout the stroke to ensure that it's unable to shift in my hand at all? All the grip resources I've found online just show the position of the grip and say to hold it loose, but I've not found any detailed explanation of exactly how things should work during the stroke.
Click to expand...

A video would be quite useful, otherwise we are just guessing.

You may be doing literally nothing wrong, but if you have never used the pronation method before, you are effectively like a novice player with soft hands, suddenly hitting power clears/smashes. Those parts of your hands have never been exposed to any significant friction before and will blister/rub raw until you grow thicker skin/calluses.

Another example: I went to the gym yesterday and rowed 2000m for fun in less than 8 mins, having not touched a rowing machine in 5 years. My legs are quite beefy from badminton, and the weakest link towards the end was grip strength! The next day, I had a lovely 1cm blister on my left hand (non-racquet hand) where I gripped the rowing bar. My technique is probably not perfect, but even with that, i'm sure if I built up power gently over time, i'd gradually develop thicker skin on my left hand and it wouldn't blister like it did.
 
Thanks for your input everyone! I don't think the issue is holding too loose, as it moves around less and causes less damage when I grip tighter - but then I can't get as much power. I use both medium and high flex rackets, and both feel similar.

The grip and movement from the video looks like what I'm doing, though at 2:55 where he does the overhead stroke he has much less follow through. My arm tends to keep swinging through the motion, bringing my arm from upper right through the hit down to lower left, rather than his more compact movement which is upper right down to middle right. Maybe I should try to cut the follow through short?

I'll see about getting a video once my skin grows back. Maybe it is just overuse, I was doing more clear drills than usual and have also been using grip strengtheners which wear at the skin a bit. I'm guessing that there are also plenty of technique issues though.
 
Sigurds said:
Could be that your grip is old and worn out and therefore "slides" which causes friction. If it's a fairly new grip, you should consider your technique. Your grip should be loose yes, but it could be you hold it too lose and use your wrist too much.
Here is a youtube video that focuses on the wrist and how to grip:
Click to expand...


Excellent video. 12-15 years ago on these forum pages, I maintained that role of the wrist for power generation had still been greatly exaggerated for decades (even after Dr James Poole had enlightened us about forearm pronation back in the late 1960s). More than a decade ago, many BC posters were still insisting that the wrist was the primary power generator rather than rotations of the arm -- pronation and supination of the forearm (to name two).

How about rotations of the shoulder -- ESR and ISR? Any videos or discussions of these rotations? Much of what has been attributed to forearm rotations is actually forearm rotations + shoulder rotations.
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
How about rotations of the shoulder -- ESR and ISR? Any videos or discussions of these rotations? Much of what has been attributed to forearm rotations is actually forearm rotations + shoulder rotations.
Click to expand...

Yes, That video was focussed on correcting people that kept saying 'wrist' when they meant forearm. though clearly some people aren't getting the point.. And they should've titled it better to make it more idiot proof. But that's why it didn't mention the upper arm rotation.

Here he talks about the whole movement including upper arm rotation



I think it has been mentioned on the forum before that there's three things going on.. at the same time. Forearm pronation, arm extension, and upper arm rotation.

I suppose in the 'wind up' it'd be external upper arm rotation and forearm supination.. And then once the elbow comes forward and up, then it's internal upper arm rotation, and forearm pronation and arm extension. (and of course not to the point where the arm is completely locked straight otherwise elbow damage)
 
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