What's Good About A Good Stroke?
- Thread starter Patrick Johnson
- Start date
You know you are correct about the implement extending the 'lever' of the arm but that is not ideally how either a golf club or baseball bat is used. They are used in a flailing manner & the wrist is the key, since it is not an inanimate object but is a body part, the timing of its' release is extremely important to maximize the effort.
Food for thought,
Last edited:
That's just silly. You are asking a relatively weak but quick acting joint to overcome the resting inertia of the cue. That's the purpose of the larger muscles. It's all about timing. Look at a slo-mo video of a typical fastball. The wrist trails behind the throwing motion until the very end. Try throwing a fastball with a splint on your wrist and see how fast it goes.
I could cite dozens of examples throughout the animal kingdom where anatomy is arranged so that great speed is made possible by the configuration of the extremities, but what use would that be? As always, your mind is already made up.
On a bar box lengthwise, just got 4 rails and back to the head string where I started. Just the wrist and the fingers, no arm movement. I'd call that a considerable amount.
edit: had my wife hold my forearm to make sure it didn't move at all.
Last edited:
now I'm curious
So now I'm curious, what prevents someone from doing this (allow the cue to travel in a straight line) with a firm wrist and grip?
So now I'm curious, what prevents someone from doing this (allow the cue to travel in a straight line) with a firm wrist and grip?
CJ,
If I may be so bold as to interject. I believe slasher's grip & stroke is more similar to mine than yours & he may not be familiar with you mechanics of a firm tennis type grip & a 'forward' in front of you type stroke.
They are different strokes requiring different intricacies.
Last edited:
I just got over three lengths on my 8 1/2' table. I had my wife hold my arm to make sure I wasn't inadvertently cheating. With practice I'll bet I could get 4 lengths. Kinda surprising actually.
That's funny, Neil, I really didn't notice that you posted that edit about having your wife hold your arm. Mine's mad at me because her Cards were in the middle of trying to end a multi-run third inning, and here I am yelling for her to come help me at the table. I could feel the fury in her hands.
BTW I experienced no feeling of tension in my wrist at all stroking that way, but I found it hard to hit center ball with only a 4" stoke guiding the cue.
BTW I experienced no feeling of tension in my wrist at all stroking that way, but I found it hard to hit center ball with only a 4" stoke guiding the cue.
This is where the hidden power source is located
This is where the hidden power source is located. By pre setting the wrist to store energy you can do some amazing things with just a "flick of the wrist".
.
This is where the hidden power source is located. By pre setting the wrist to store energy you can do some amazing things with just a "flick of the wrist".
.
the wrists are held back until the last second to transfer the maximum speed
It seems that way, but what's happening in the golf stroke is the wrists cock , the arms raise, the shoulders turn and the hips allow the weight to shift to the right side.
On the downswing everything reverses and the wrists are held back until the last second to transfer the maximum speed to the club head. There'a a lot of similarities between what happens in the golf swing and the pool stroke, just on a more minute level so it's more difficult to detect, and of course there's no weight transfer and the shoulders don't turn.
It seems that way, but what's happening in the golf stroke is the wrists cock , the arms raise, the shoulders turn and the hips allow the weight to shift to the right side.
On the downswing everything reverses and the wrists are held back until the last second to transfer the maximum speed to the club head. There'a a lot of similarities between what happens in the golf swing and the pool stroke, just on a more minute level so it's more difficult to detect, and of course there's no weight transfer and the shoulders don't turn.
No use preaching to the choir, I've always been big on a judicious use of the wrist. Look at Hoppe's stroke. All shoulder with a very loose wrist, then an incredible spiraling snap of the wrist, turning a sidearm stroke into a linear stroke at the very end, a stroke that could send that heavy ball nine rails around the table.
In my flycasting stroke, my wrist is brought into play at precisely the right time neat the very end of the stroke. Yes, I'm using a 9' lever to accelerate the fly line, but the motion employs mostly large muscle groups. If they are solely effective at providing the acceleration, why are there no elite casters who use a locked wrist?
I never won at the casting platform, but I have turned quite a few heads in the parking lot, tossing over 80' of line into a head wind. The lack of proper timing of that "flick o' the wrist" is why other guys that are present rarely dare to show off in front of me.
No, you got that backwards. The wrist's relatively small speed and power is magnified by the racquet and club - but not by the pool cue.
pj
chgo
What about delivering a dart to the dart board?
Increasing the speed of a moving cue takes exactly as much force as moving it from a state of rest - maybe you're thinking of overcoming "resting" (static) friction.
pj
chgo
Are you able to lock your wrist without tensing any other muscles in your arm?
Hand stength is important in producing speed and power. There's a lot of Champion players that agree, however......
No, that's not at all what I am thinking about. As usual, you are correctly stating facts while missing out on the significance of what others are saying. It's about the final contribution of the wrist, which is not at all apparent when going from 0 MPH to maybe 4 MPH. The wrist also has to overcome the inertia of the hand itself when starting from 0 MPH, but when the larger muscle groups set it into motion it carries it's own momentum into the stroke.
As well, during a full power stroke the wrist will trail behind farther than it will when just standing still at the head rail. That allows a much longer travel to accelerate the cue with. Look at Massey's power draw and see how far back his wrist goes, and stays there until he releases all the stored energy at the end of the stroke with a pronounced forward snap of the wrist. He must get a good 8" of essential extra travel stroking this way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59amcNEN0Tg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
His wrist doesn't seem to move at all, so I don't know what you think is shown. I did notice that his elbow moves up and down a little, which would tend to flatten the cue's path.
For the wrist to flatten the cue's path it would have to do the opposite of the wrist "snap" we're discussing in this thread - the hand would have to be pulled back and down as the stroke finishes. Snapping foreward accentuates the pendulum motion.
pj
chgo
The same principle applies to the hand's speed as to the cue's - it takes as much force to increase its speed while moving as it does to give it speed from a resting state.
The momentum of the arm doesn't assist the wrist snap unless you decelerate the arm to snap the wrist forward - which, of course, would work against adding to the arm's speed.
pj
chgo