This week’s featured video content is focused on some of the common issues amateur players have on the forehand side of the court. SquashSkills founder and former Welsh international player Jethro Binns was joined on-court by friend of the site Paul Miles, for a much requested follow up to their previous playlist where they worked on the backhand side.
The purpose of this blog is to give you some suggestions of sessions you can incorporate into your training, to help allow you to start putting into practice some of the insights that Jethro discusses with Paul during their lesson together.
While the backhand is more often the side where amateur players have their greater issues, there are still a number of common faults on the forehand side that if ironed out, can really help bring on your game leaps and bounds.
One of Paul’s main desired outcomes from the work on his forehand was the ability to be able to hit a clean dying length that didn’t ‘sit up’ too much. Much of Jethro’s work with the affable Canadian was therefore spent with this goal in mind – introducing the parallels of ‘skimming a stone’ to an effective forehand swing, along with the crucial concept of linking movement to the shot. As Jethro explains, the ability to hit a consistent forehand shot is heavily intertwined with movement to the ball in respect to spacing, body position, and weight transfer.
We’ve included a mix of solo and partner sessions below for you to try, to help you start exploring some of these ideas in a controlled environment. Take your time to watch the full series of videos, and then get on court to start your process of putting it into practice!
Put it into practice
This solo session is designed to get you started off with some of the forehand fundamentals, thinking about racket preparation, contact point, and hitting through the line of the ball.
This pairs session works through a series of drill progressions, to allow you to hit forehand shots of different types from different areas of the court, and begin to push yourself to more of a ‘live’ environment, before testing your technique in the heat of battle of a match!
Taking the ball out of the equation can be a useful way to focus more on the movement and footwork aspects of your forehand, so give this ghosting session a try to help zero in on those elements.
Having a good base of strength and stability will help you when you’re working on developing the technical side of your game, as you’ll be hitting from a firmer and more balanced position. Give this strength/stability session a go, working a variety of lunge variants and bodyweight exercises
Related content
Master the backhand with Jethro & Paul
The same style of playlist focusing on the backhand side.
Forehand technique with Peter Nicol
Peter offers up some excellent advice in this playlist focused exclusively on forehand technique.
Creating flow within your shot with Lee Drew
It’s imperative that you are able to link your movement to your shot when hitting the ball. If there is a disconnect you find that inconsistencies will creep in and affect your accuracy. This great playlist explains how to create ‘flow’ and get everything working together properly.
Let us know how you get on with the sessions, we’d love to hear your feedback!
Improve your forehand technique with Jethro
Jethro focuses in on a number of core components of the forehand swing and watches Paul make adjustments over the course of the session. The result of the work done sees Paul hitting with a much greater degree of accuracy, power and consistency.
Watch the playlist in full