Weight transfer on forehand topspin

Konstantin Goldobin Asked 12 years ago

Hello masters,

I have recently realized that I often make one particular mistake when I try to do a forehand topspin (and sometimes even a forehand counterhit or a smash): instead of transferring my body weight from my right leg to the left one when I hit the ball I'm pivoting backwards on my right leg. It's kind of difficult to describe but I hope you understand what I mean. I was wondering if you have come across such an error in your students and if you could suggest ways of correcting it.

Thank you for all you do for table tennis lovers!

Best regards,

Konstantin

Alois Rosario Answered 12 years ago

Hi Konstantin,

I think I know the picture you are describing.

What I get players to do in this situation is to focus on the balance in their feet while they are hitting the ball, slowly at first. Firstly you need to feel more pressure on the left foot during the stroke. It sounds like you know the feeling of what you are trying to do. Start with the weight 70% on your right leg and 30% on the left leg. At the point of contact the weight should be 50-50. Then on the follow through it can be 30-70. If you focus on this for a while at a slow pace and get that feeling, then start to play faster and more powerful strokes maintaining these ratios.

Let me know if it helps.

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Konstantin Goldobin Posted 12 years ago

Hello Alois,

Thank you for the answer! The thing is, when I imitate the strokes away from the table I do transfer the body weight (I think) correctly, but as soon as I'm at the table everything seems to fall apart and I again start doing these awkward pivoting movements. I'm afraid I don't know how I can connect these two experiences...

Best regards,

Konstantin

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 12 years ago
This is a common experience. Keep doing the stroke away from the table as part of practice. Then when you get to the table do the stroke really, really slowly working on the weight transfer. As you get the feel of it you can speed it up but still focus on the transfer. The other thing to ficus on is the tension in your shoulder. If you can keep the shoulder relaxed through the stroke you will find that your body wont need to turn around to complete the stroke. Tension is a big inhibitor of playing correct strokes and I think the main place we develop tension is in the shoulder.

Keep working on it all. It is a progressive improvement you are looking for. It won't change straight away.

Soham Kulkarni Posted 11 years ago

even i have the problem of proper weight transfer.

while shadow play and while doing drills with training partner all things are fine and i even pull off decent amount of topspin with correct feet but as i play matches i seem to forget everything , it ends up with me playing half strokes.

i specially have problem when my opponent plays one long push which i attack, he manages the return with a block which is quite low and half long . This ball has troubled me for a quite long time . So i resort to sidespin pushes which are often flicked if a bit too bouncy .

some pointers please ?

Hendrik S Posted 9 years ago

So would that mean for the backhand drive drive theres no weight transfer at all and what about the hip rotation? Somehow i got it clear for the bh topspin, taking it from the left and with weight transfer for much power if i got the time, otherwise just 50/50% and in front. But im really confused with the drive atm, as i found out that i seem to have even more weight on my right leg(as a righthander). Was quite surprising and now it would make sense that my bh is now worse compared to fh, which really improved, actually my bh was a bit stronger earlier(myb this weighting on bh is a new error).

So someone said jeff also looks like he has more weight on the right leg during bh stroke and idk, it feels comfortable sometimes, especially with the drive. What weight transfer and distribution on the legs would u recommend for the backhand drive and the backhand topspin again? Should it be really avoided to have more weight on the right foot during these strokes? Was it just an illusion with "jeffs weight distribution"? And also what about the weight during the bh flick? Sry, thats alot of questions :O I hope u can help, cause i am really a bit unsure about the weight distribution with the drive/flick on bh atm and google somehow didnt come up with some solid explanation.

Thx :)

P.S. About the topspin i found sth. at least. An interesting article about the possible future of an immense strong bh(like fh), with reversed weight transfer and linked video of practice from ma long, watch him :P

Ma Long doing multiball with head coach Liu Guoliang

Waist and weight transfer during bh loop

Johan B Posted 9 years ago

He does twist a bit and seems to use a lot of muscle strength in his torso to start the whip though :)

Ilia Minkin Posted 9 years ago

Hi Alois,

1) Is weight transfer "proportion" you described above the same for the stroke against block and the stroke against backspin?
2) Do you know any technical drills that may help to integrate the weight transfer in the stroke and focus on that specific component?

martinand bernard Posted 9 years ago

shadow practice, I think is good, you can focus only on weight transfer if you want.

Dieter Verhofstadt Posted 9 years ago

In the end what matters is the stroke's consistency, at increasing levels of spin and speed. If you are reasonably satisfied with that, you can continue on the muscle memory built up. Most likely your execution will never match Ma Long's but that would be an unreasonable expectation. Film yourself: does it look like a decent stroke?

Once you got a decent foundation, you can apply what I call "rotating focus". During drills focus on the legs for a few strokes, then shift the attention to the waist, then to the stroke mechanics itself, like the start position, end position, contact point, timing ... and over and over. This will allow to zoom in on what might be problematic areas (for me it is contact point for example) while the other aspects remain stable.

I find this a useful device for breaking a stroke down in a "holistic" way. Similarly looking at yourself filmed will give a holistic view of whether your stroke looks natural or not.

Marcin Lonak Posted 9 years ago

For me, ZJK does clearly on this video makes the weight shift. I think because he does many not too harmful topspins( May be consistency or technical focus) he doesn't add too much of the weight shift. With his monstrous leg muscles, he is able to make a devastating topspin wich probably wouldn't help in training for consistency. So he keeps his weight shift presend but smooth.

thats what I see