I was teaching the Skills and Drills class recently and one of my students had trouble hitting her serves hard enough.
She kept her wrist immobile and was not allowing a wrist's normal action to help produce paddle and ball speed. Let's discuss the anatomy of the wrist.
We will start with some vocabulary...
Flexion is bending the wrist so that the palm moves toward the inner forearm.
Extension is bending the wrist backward, moving the back of the hand toward the outer forearm.
Radial deviation is moving the wrist toward the thumb side (radius).
Ulnar deviation is moving the wrist toward the pinky side (ulna).
So we have extension and flexion. We are very interested in extension for this post. Flexion will show up as needed and in a lot of swing type things will happen automatically -- we usually don't want to try and help it move (heed this, all you golfers!).
The total movement of the wrist in the extension and flexion movement is close to 145 degrees, with a touch more movement on the flexion side than the extension direction.
The total movement available to deviation is about 55 degrees with five degrees more available in the ulnar deviation, i.e., moving towards that pinky finger. We will revisit this later.
The important concept here is that the wrist can do a lot more movement via extension - flexion than the deviation movement. And with more movement we can create more speed.
My favorite physical therapist (FPT) also remarked that the wrist/hand has the most strength when the hand is extended about 20 degrees, so just a little wrist break.
So how are these wrist positions used in pickleball? In dinking, we don't want any wrist movement as any wrist flipping or flopping is going to create a timing issue and lead to less consistency and thus accuracy.
Hitting volleys is a lot like dinking, less wrist movement is a good thing.
That leaves us with ground strokes, overheads, and serves where we want to get more power out of our anatomy. Serves and ground strokes are pretty much the same and let's look more closely there.
Drop serves need to be hit with an upward stroke with the entire paddle below your wrist. A common beginner error is to swing more sideways than down to up and when doing so allow the edge of the paddle to get above the wrist. The solution to this is to add some ulnar deviation, i.e., down cock your wrist. The deviation will put your thumb in line with your forearm and ensure that your paddle is below the wrist.
The most common problem of beginners in the 101 class is that they will not hit the serves hard enough. This is a learned skill and it's hard for a lot of beginners. And we want to hit the serve as hard as possible as long as it will stay in.
Hitting the ball can be done many ways, not all of them efficient. In a good efficient serve the whole body is going to be involved and we are talking from an initial weight shift and forward body movement to the feet to the torso to the shoulders to arms and finally to the paddle. It's rare to see the full body serve in the rec area. And it's not needed much at DUPR levels below 4 something. (Having a serve that no one can return leads to really boring points and should be avoided as a common courtesy to all the other players.)
Let's look at a reasonable serve. Maybe there is a forward step with the foot closest to the net, then some body rotation and then the arm will swing in a circular motion impacting the ball as the swing path is on its upward path.
And what is the wrist doing? Well to make the most of this energy you want to place your wrist in extension before you start the circular swing path. There is no need to try and help the wrist get from extension to flexion as that may happen due to the physics of the swing. I will return to this in a moment as the wrist position at impact is important for spin generation.
You'd like to swing the arm fairly quickly. A fast serve is a happy serve. But we are most concerned with hitting the ball in the court. I had this nightmare recently where I served out in a game with the score 10 to 11. I woke up in a cold sweat on that one.
Let's talk service misses. How about long? One variable is how hard you hit the ball, the next is what trajectory the ball has, and finally what spin is on the ball.
For every speed of the service ball there is an ideal trajectory. The serve is one of two shots where the height above the net is not important. The proper height when crossing the net should be a couple of feet above net height - leave some room for error. So basically about head high at the net for a short player. On the circular swing path there is an area where you will hit the ball on this trajectory without having to make hand or arm compensations. You want to find this area. Most of the time you'll find it by trial and error. It's fairly close to your forward knee -- so a bit in front of you, but not much and fairly low.
Lastly let's talk spin. The path of the paddle and the face angle of the paddle determine spin. If the paddle face is 90 degrees to the path there will be no additional spin created on the ball. Note that if you're returning a shot, there may be some residual spin from the shot you are returning.
The most useful spin when hitting a serve or a deep ground stroke is top spin. The spin is clockwise if you were observing the ball from a net post as it crossed the net. This spin is best as it will cause the ball to curve downwards as it slows, thus keeping it in the court. The more spin you can create, the harder you can hit the ball and keep it in. Also with the ball curving downwards, you can use a trajectory that is well above the net for fewer service and service return errors.
Wonderfully, there is an easy way to create top spin. You put your wrist into extension and then keep it there as you hit the serve. The paddle is no longer 90 degrees to the path, but maybe 45 or so. That change in angle creates a brushing of the ball and so some of the energy of the swing goes into producing spin rather than propelling the ball forward. Just set your wrist and hit your normal serve. You may have to adjust the impact area of the ball and you might have to hit the ball harder. This is an important tool in playing PB, you must get serves in and this is an easy way to increase consistency and safety with the benefit of more speed.
My FPT also mentioned that tennis elbow is due to too much flexion when hitting a backhand. In the flexed position the impact forces will strain the flexed muscular system and eventually create some aches and pains near the elbow. I suffer from this on occasion and it comes and goes with little explanation as to why. Well, the flexion information is new to me and when I hit my famous backhand roll, I put my wrist into full flexion always. See the video below for how the pros hit backhands. They use more body and arm motion than I do and while there is usually some flexion, it's not a lot.
Here is a link to a YouTube video of pros hitting shots in slow motion. Note that their wrists are in extension for almost all shots. Also they use ulnar deviation for most shots -- their thumbs are straight down the arm path. Finally, you might notice how frequently the pros are not hitting the center of the paddle -- there are a lot of balls coming off the edges -- I found this quite unexpected.
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