Having T-Rex Technique Is Not Wrong

One phrase that often gets thrown around by coaches as one of the worst things that you can do in a tennis court is to have T-Rex arms. What coaches mean by T-Rex arms is to have a bent arm when you hit a forehand or a backhand. As a result, they tweak your shots endlessly, trying to get your arm straight when hitting the ball. However, this is not possible because your arm’s extension at contact has nothing to do with fundamentals, but instead style.

Furthermore, another big question that gets thrown out there is which shots should have an extended arm and when is it okay to have bent arms. Thus, in this article, we will go through various strokes and explain whether or not it is fine to hit certain shots with T-Rex technique.

Elbow Positioning For Volleys

In actuality, if you extend your arm on the volley you're going to have several disadvantages. You want to have the elbow as close to your body as possible, but not behind your body. Having your elbow behind will cause you to contact way further back and most likely have your racket face open. Instead, the closer the elbow is to your torso, the more strength you are going to have, as well as more feel.

Now, there's going to be emergency situations on the volley where you will have to stretch out. In other words, popping the ball back into play will be the only way to stay in the point. However, when you are not in an emergency situation, you should actually try to have the arm more bent on the volley.

Please also keep in mind that your arm will be more straight on the backhand volley, due to the fact that you are using the weaker muscles of your arm to hit it.

Serve & Overhead

The two shots where you don't want to have a T-Rex arm are going to be the overhead and serve. When hitting these two shots, the ball is experiencing a downward trajectory, meaning it is to our advantage to hit it as high as possible. Doing so allows us to place the ball with more angles to work with and hit down on the ball since it is above net level.

Specialty Shots

If you don’t already know, specialty shots are the shots that are more crafty, use more feel, and we don’t use from a point to point basis. These include drop shots, squash shots, little short angled topspin shots, and topspin lobs. The correct answer for how extended your arm should be when hitting these shots is the same as for the volley.

Simply take a look at the professional tour, when the vast majority of players attempt a drop shot, you will see a bent arm. The closer the elbows are to the body, the more feel you're going to have. I am extremely confident Alcaraz would give you the same explanation I just did.

One Handed Backhand & Slice

It will be a huge advantage to have a more extended arm on both of these two shots. The reason behind this is that we are using the weak side of our arm when hitting these shots. In other words, having a bent position will reduce our range of motion. Since we are already working on the weak side of our body, having a longer lever will help us utilize the natural ways of gaining momentum.

Now, the same thing goes for the backhand slice. The only exception would be if your intention is to hit a feel slice or a touch slice. However, if you are looking to hit your slice with more penetration and more pace, you want to be as extended as you can.

In addition, I am aware that some players like Federer will have a mini bend at times when hitting the slice. There is no problem with that, and I want all players to find their comfort level, so they don’t experience any pain.

Two-Handed Backhand

While the two-handed backhand looks simple, it is actually one of the most complex shots in tennis because the structures of the arms will change throughout the stroke. The most common arm structure on the professional tour is the one where both arms are actually bent. Consequently, the majority of players that have an elite level two handed backhand have both arms bent at the moment of contact.

Take a look at one of the greatest two-handed backhands on tour right now, Alexander Zverev. He hits the vast majority of his two-handed backhands with a bent bent structure. Additionally, the greatest two-handed backhand player in the history of the game Novak Djokovic will not always, but also often hit the backhand with both arms bent.

Hence, it makes absolutely no sense to categorize a T-Rex two-handed backhand where both arms are bent as wrong. When we're talking about the recreational level, it gets a little bit more complex because the two-handed backhand is very difficult for recreational adult tennis players.

Usually, players make contact too far behind, meaning that both of their elbows are too tucked in. It is key to clarify that making proper contact is independent from having bent arms at contact point. Perhaps your coach is looking right through the fundamentals and instead modifying your style.

FOREHANDS

To end all of the controversy around the forehand’s arm extension at contact, it is perfectly okay to have a T-Rex forehand. It is possible to have a bent arm at contact and still have an elite level forehand.

Think about this logically, the player that's dominating the WTA tour, Iga Swiatek, hits her forehand with an extreme T-Rex position. Does this mean she has a bad forehand? Only someone with very limited mental capacity would make such a conclusion. It is actually the complete opposite. Swiatek has one of the best forehands in the history of women's tennis.

Players need to understand that there's a natural position at contact that's based on a player's genetic predispositions. Therefore, what would happen if you forced these players to straighten their arm and have a non-t-rex forehand? This could quite possibly ruin their forehand because this position at the moment of content is not achievable. The part of the forehand where contact takes place takes literally milliseconds and players are not actually aware of how their arm is positioned.

I’ve actually done some research where I studied the amount of straight arm forehands in the ATP top 100, as well as in the WTA top 100. In the end, only two or three players on the WTA had a straight arm forehand, while almost twenty players experienced an extended position on the ATP.

Of these twenty, only six or seven had a true straight arm forehand like Nadal, meaning the other 13 had a slight bend in their arm like del Potro. In other words, the vast majority of elite level tennis players use a bent arm forehand, which means there is nothing wrong with having T-Rex arms.

Final Thoughts

Having T-Rex arms is something that is usually disapproved of in the tennis community, especially at the recreational level. Players feel like they must have extended arms at contact in all of their shots. Now this is true for your serve and overhead. For the rest of your shots, having a bent arm at contact is actually better for your game.

I am sure coaches will keep nagging at their students to maintain a straight arm at contact, so tell them to read this article. Personally, I prefer the T-Rex technique, for this dinosaur is usually recognized as the coolest animal to ever live.