The Forehand Volley Variations

The magic element: the U hitting arm shape.

In the last article we looked at the core elements on the forehand volley. We did this through a close examination of high speed footage of pro volleys developed by Advanced Tennis Research, filmed at 250 frames a second. (Click Here.) This footage allowed us to examine the lightening volley fast swing patterns in a detailed way not impossible with the human eye, or even with conventional 30 frame per second video.

In this analysis, we saw the role of the feet and the shoulders in the unit turn and preparation. We also saw the critical role of the hitting arm shape, what we called the Open U. This shape can be described as follows. The forearm forms the base of the U. The upper arm and the racket form the legs. The legs are open to the base at an angle of about 45 degrees.

We saw that this hitting arm position is what allows the player to drive the motion forward with the shoulder. To see how this worked, we looked at examples of players hitting basic shoulder high volleys. (Click Here.) If you’ve felt this effect you now how…