Overhead Smash

Intro – Like A Whip

“Keep your arm loose like a whip”

If you are like me and come from table tennis where we don’t smash like this, an overhead smash is a foreign concept to us.

First understand how the whip works:

Whip effect, goes supersonic:

More analogies in other sports.

In baseball when a pitcher is pitching, the form relaxed all the way through. Like a whip.

When baseball pitchers have the “yips” and choke, it’s because they get too tense. https://www.thepitchingacademy.com/stay-relaxed-and-throw-faster/

BTW: “keep arm loose” applies to serves as well. Pickleball serves are basically softball underhand pitches.

Technique: How To Overhead Smash

Strategy: Angles and Accuracy

Use Your Off Hand

Footwork: Turn To The Side First

• Turn your hip sideways first. And then move.
  • Common mistake here: people get to the ball, and then turn sideways right before they hit. It’s too much to do in too little time thus they miss.

Amrik Donkena Teaches The Overhead

• Hips turn
  • Key is the hips, that’s where you get most of your muscle. Body muscle to put all your weight into it. Like pitching a baseball.
  • Common mistake non-tennis/non-baseball players make: They use mostly their wrist instead of their body weight.
  • As you turn your hips quick, almost like dancing. Your arm and body will be pulled and follow fast with it. Explode with the hips.
    • If you have bad hips and mobility issues though, don’t explode too quickly though, just rotate. Don’t want to risk injury especially on a motion you haven’t done before.
      • Do some core/back/hip weight training with medicine ball to slowly work your way up.
    • Arm and grip loose as possible. Grip strength at a 2 out of 10. And you just use your hip
• Drop back shoulder
• Racket back behind your head, in trophy stance
• Pointer hand pointing at ball and keeping the hand up. (Equally as important as the other hand).
  • Common mistake here: people drop their hand down. The longer you keep your hand up, the more likely you hit the sweet spot of the paddle.
• Hit the ball between your head and right (dominant) shoulder.
  • 
    • If you hit the ball too much to your left or right, you won’t be able to hit it as hard.
• Pronation: In follow through, you wrist should point outwards out of your body/downwards, instead of forwards. Arm fully extended and elbow straight out.
  • It feels awkward if you haven’t done it before.
• If you are going full power, your weight is going to finish all on your front leg. If you want to finish

Mindset

• A lot of people are like “oh this is an easy shot, I don’t want to miss this” and they don’t hit or angle it hard enough.
  • A common beginner mistake is they are too passive when they need to be aggressive and too aggressive when they need to be passive.
    • For overheads, don’t be too passive when you need to be aggressive. If you are too passive, they’ll easily be able to get back into the kitchen and you loose your advantageous state. It’s okay to miss some overheads .

Priority Checklist

Must-have

• Turn sideways into Trophy Stance
  • Non-paddle hand up pointing the ball so you can catch the ball if you wanted to.
• Push off front foot and shuffle to location.
  • Keep moving and adjusting foot to get in right position, don’t stop.
• Follow through finish all the way down instead of stopping mid stroke at shoulder height
• If you hit the ball into net
  • you are likely dropping your head or dropping your left hand prematurely after smashing.
• If you hit the ball long:
  • you are likely not snapping your wrist and bringing your arm down.

Advanced

• Add side spin or underspin to the shot
• How to angle:

Strategy

1. Aim for sides of the court first first if lob is low enough that you can see the court and the ball in your vision.
   1. If the lob is too good and too far behind, and you can’t get a good hit on it, aim for middle to be safe. If lob is not good, aim for the side in the kitchen like JW and Ben Johns does. Doesn’t need to be super hard, more angled and slower is much better.

Progression Drill

Self-drills:

• Against the wall with line drawn where net height is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-XaNjRPcnI&t=237s
  • Progression #1: First hit a ball against the wall so it bounces up high. Get in trophy stance. Catch it with your non-dominant hand.
    • This isolates and works on your footwork and stance first.
  • Progression #2: Now smash it down.
  • Progression #3: Add angles.
    • Hit to the left
    • Hit to the right.
    • And do the same with your backhand overhead smash.
• Solo in open tennis court
  • Practice the same thing. Toss the ball up like a tennis overhead serve and hit it down.

Advanced Techniques:

Backhand Overhead Smash