Video analysis

In search of the cause of my golfers elbow I borrowed a camcorder and made a video/DVD of myself hitting groundstrokes against a practise wall. Boy what an eye opener!

Played at normal speed it's easy to spot problems with footwork, racket preparation, follow through, contact point, weight transfer and so on. Really valuable, and lots to work on I think.

The golfers elbow problem is as I surmised in a previous post most probably caused by poor technique on the forehand since moving my grip round to the semi-western. On many shots my forehand swing leads with the forearm and the wrist cocked back, and contact is often made with the wrist still back as I try to generate topspin by brushing over the ball with the wrist rather than using the stroke low to high with a closed racket face. So the inside of my forearm, already stretched with the wrist back, takes the full force of the ball impact stretching it even further.

That's my theory. So I need to try and fix that by keeping the wrist straighter whilst ensuring the racket face is closed on contact and improving the swing action low to high.It's probably going to take time now that I have this bad habit engrained.

That still leaves all the other problems to analyse and work on.