Kick serve article - arched back

[uspta2331024484]

Vic Braden has warned pros to never teach the arched back because eventually a tennis instructor is going to get sued. The back should never arch on the way down only as you drive up into cartwheel motion which is part of every serve. If you watch players like Sampras and Federer in slow motion you will see that they either, 1) take a big shoulder turn 2) bend sideways 3) lean back but there back is aligned with there legs they are not bending at the waist and/or any combination of the above which enables them to get over and under the ball without bending the back whatsoever. A matter of fact if you watch Sampras frame by frame you will notice that many times not only is he not arching his back backwards he is actually leaning a little forward at his lowest postion. There is not arching the back in the tennis serve just as there is not crying in baseball. If you look at this vidoe of Sampras you will see at the bottom of this knee bend that there is no arched back. You will notice on all his serves his sits hit butt out and into the court to where it is out farther than his shoulders which is the opposite of someone who arches.

[uspta9311799]

Back Arch

Hello,

Thanks for your post.

I believe we have demonstrated--and John has confirmed--contrary to what you assert, that many players, including Sampras, do demonstrate some degree of back arch on the kick serve (the second serve). So I'm not sure what video you are studying. Perhaps your video is of a Sampras flat serve or slice first serve? In those cases, there would be minimal if any back arch during the service motion.

Also, sometimes Sampras would hit second serves that were basically first serves with a little extra slice, such as during the Wimbledon and on faster surfaces. On this type of serve, there would be little if any back arch. But I'm sure if you look carefully at footage of Sampras hitting a big kick at the French, for example, he would fade his toss to the left a bit and arch some degree.

I'm sure it is true that some pros do not demonstrate much back arch on the kick, but I think there is enough video and objective evidence out there to conclude that many pros are arching the back, which poses some serious questions to us as teachers. That was one of the points of my article.

If many pros are using a back arch in their kick serve, we must ask ourselves as teachers whether we should be teaching this important serve this way, not at all, or in some modified way to students who aspire to play world-class tennis on the professional level. Are we doing a disservice to students who aspire to play tennis at the highest level by not teaching them technique that is clearly being used at the highest level by many professionals on the tour?

Instead of making teaching decisions about the kick serve out of fear (of injury, lawsuit, etc), I would like to see the tennis teaching community operating based on lucid fact and evidence about whether this serve is truly dangerous, or whether it can be taught safely and effectively with some degree of back arch in most player candidates for high level tennis.

Sincerely,
Chris Lewit

[uspta146749877]

A video of Sampras

Vic Braden has warned pros to never teach the arched back because eventually a tennis instructor is going to get sued. The back should never arch on the way down only as you drive up into cartwheel motion which is part of every serve. If you watch players like Sampras and Federer in slow motion you will see that they either, 1) take a big shoulder turn 2) bend sideways 3) lean back but there back is aligned with there legs they are not bending at the waist and/or any combination of the above which enables them to get over and under the ball without bending the back whatsoever. A matter of fact if you watch Sampras frame by frame you will notice that many times not only is he not arching his back backwards he is actually leaning a little forward at his lowest postion. There is not arching the back in the tennis serve just as there is not crying in baseball. If you look at this vidoe of Sampras you will see at the bottom of this knee bend that there is no arched back. You will notice on all his serves his sits hit butt out and into the court to where it is out farther than his shoulders which is the opposite of someone who arches.

Could u provide a link 2 a video?
Do u think there is an arched back in
http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...tationSide.mov ?

julian mielniczuk
usptapro 27873
Courtside Tennis Club,Bedford,NA

https://www.julianmielniczuk.usptapro.com

juliantennis@comcast.net

[bottle]

How to Arch the Back

Chris, thanks for your specific instruction about thrusting out the chest while lifting the rib cage. I'm sure many players already knew that and a larger number including me didn't, and I'm finding it useful.

[uspta990770809]

The spine is a great machine

Could u provide a link 2 a video?
Do u think there is an arched back in
http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...tationSide.mov ?

julian mielniczuk
usptapro 27873
Courtside Tennis Club,Bedford,NA

https://www.julianmielniczuk.usptapro.com

juliantennis@comcast.net

t might be better to look at Flipper's serve on a rear view. Stop it and you can clearly see an arch in "the back", but where.

Here's the rear view:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/mark_philippoussis/MP_serve/MP_body_rotation/MP_body_rotation.html?MP2ndSDeuceBodyRotationRear.mov

Normally, we have 24 vertebrae from cervical through lumbar spine and most people are looking at the arch from the bottom of the coccyx to the top of the head when they "visualize" an arched back. Almost impossible to hit a serve without some amount of arch. I fear this may be an opening for Bottle to take us on a retrospective view of the history and advantages of arches through history! But the important thing to remember about arching the back is that the back is a fabulous mechanism with tremendous springlike shock absorbing and power generating capacity. However, you have to recognize that it does have limits. When you move the kyphotic (forward concave) arch of the thoracic spine back to straight, you are actually "arching the back". But when you further extend the naturally lordotic (backward concave) arch of the lumbar spine, you "hyperextend" the spine and can possibly compress critical mechanisms like facet joints, lumbar spinous processes, and lumbar discs. These structures are very strong and take amazing amounts of abuse, but there are limits.

You are not going to be able to hit the serve effectively without some level of extension and arching of the back, but that doesn't mean you have to hyperextend the lumbar spine. The spine naturally flexes and extends. When your body generates forces it has to pull against something. The right side may flex or extend against a stable/static left side to create tension and pull the muscles to a point where the "rubber band/slingshot" power is created in the kinetic chain we are always talking about.

The idea that arching the body should be controlled in hitting a serve, especially a 2nd serve is correct. But the idea that there is no arching of the back is simply incorrect. To get a serve to kick, you have to create a swing across the path of the ball and that takes some arching of the spine. I use an extreme toss behind the body to get the player the feel of what it is like to brush up and across the ball. I think they have to do this for a while to get the wrist action down. I don't want them to do this even a little bit, until they have embarked on a significant back stabilization program consisting of lots of "plank" exercises, but they have to learn the feel of hitting up somehow. By the time they start to go at it at full speed, I want the toss more forward and directly over the head. This ball will not have as obvious a kick, but it will have a more effective one that will drive through the court.

I use a different drill to get the feel of the wrist action. Similar to Chris Lewit's drill over the fence, but a little different. Stand on the doubles sideline and face the fence. The task is to toss the ball gently up above your head as you hold the racket in a position just above your head with the handle of the racket basically horizontal and spin the ball over the fence so that it clears the fence and lands on the adjacent courts before the next doubles sideline. You are approx. 12 feet from a 10 foot fence and you have 12 feet to get the ball back down. Additionally, you should finish the motion with the racket handle now vertical. (So it actually moved 90 degrees).

I thought Chris's articles were terrific. I'm not sure I agree with everything that is in there. It takes a lot to read those 3 articles and digest it all, but overall, I thought it was a terrific series of articles. I look forward to seeing the final article. But to attack the article on the idea that players have to protect their back and therefore don't arch their back is simply incorrect. You want to limit the amount of extension you create in the lumbar spine, but the spine is a wonderful mechanism and goes through a tremendous range of motion very well.

A couple of others that are kind of obvious including one who grew up with a brace on his back for a number of years.


Rusedski Serve and Volley
2ndS Deuce FHV Front1

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/greg_rusedski/gr_serve_and_volley/gr_2nd_serve_deuce/gr_2nd_serve_deuce.html?GR2ndSDeuceFHVFront1.mov

Blake Serve Body Rotation
2ndS Deuce BodyRotation CourtLevel Front

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/james_blake/jb_serve/jb_body_rotation/jb_body_rotation.html?JB2ndSDeuceBodyRotationCourtLevelFront.mov

I know about extreme arch of the back. I had it in my serve till I was about 25 and partly as a result have little more than a wafer as a disc between my L4/L5 and L5/S1 vertebrae and can't play competitive tennis anymore. I wish I had video of it. I used to almost double over before I went up to hit the ball, but who knew. Now we know better.

don brosseau d.c.

[carrerakent]

i learned to hit a kick serve at age 35...via an old school player/tennis pro that had a wicked kick (twist). since then started studying the modern guys from different angles around the court. i think back arch is a carry over of from old school...mostly because of where they "used" to toss the ball for a kick.

what i learned was that the old school kick and the modern day kick are two different animals. the old school kick was going about 25 mph when it reached the opponent; the modern kick is doing what? say, almost twice that? so how do you get almost double the pace and still have the spin if you toss the ball behind your head and arch your back like the old school guys...i asked myself. made no sense, so i copied more modern players...

1. i took out the back arch
2. i quit tossing the ball back behind my head so that i could do #1
3. i learned to hit all serves from the same toss and just contact the ball in a different location. (those guys don't get a head start on the run around then)
4. i emphasized a forearm action more like sampras to get pace with the spin and less of the just brush up the back and the spin will eventually get that wounded duck to fall into the box.
5. i increased torso torque
6. i increased shoulder angle ...at top of toss and at contact

[uspta146749877]

For carrerakent-back arch

Your quote
---->
i think back arch is a carry over of from old school...mostly because of where they "used" to toss the ball for a kick.
--->
I disagrre with you completely.See a post by Don above
and videos provided by me and him.

julian mielniczuk
usptapro 27873
Courtside Tennis Club,Bedford,MA

https://www.julianmielniczuk.usptapro.com

juliantennis@comcast.com

[uspta146749877]

Please specify

t might be better to look at Flipper's serve on a rear view. Stop it and you can clearly see an arch in "the back", but where.

Here's the rear view:

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/mark_philippoussis/MP_serve/MP_body_rotation/MP_body_rotation.html?MP2ndSDeuceBodyRotationRear.mov

Normally, we have 24 vertebrae from cervical through lumbar spine and most people are looking at the arch from the bottom of the coccyx to the top of the head when they "visualize" an arched back. Almost impossible to hit a serve without some amount of arch. I fear this may be an opening for Bottle to take us on a retrospective view of the history and advantages of arches through history! But the important thing to remember about arching the back is that the back is a fabulous mechanism with tremendous springlike shock absorbing and power generating capacity. However, you have to recognize that it does have limits. When you move the kyphotic (forward concave) arch of the thoracic spine back to straight, you are actually "arching the back". But when you further extend the naturally lordotic (backward concave) arch of the lumbar spine, you "hyperextend" the spine and can possibly compress critical mechanisms like facet joints, lumbar spinous processes, and lumbar discs. These structures are very strong and take amazing amounts of abuse, but there are limits.

You are not going to be able to hit the serve effectively without some level of extension and arching of the back, but that doesn't mean you have to hyperextend the lumbar spine. The spine naturally flexes and extends. When your body generates forces it has to pull against something. The right side may flex or extend against a stable/static left side to create tension and pull the muscles to a point where the "rubber band/slingshot" power is created in the kinetic chain we are always talking about.

The idea that arching the body should be controlled in hitting a serve, especially a 2nd serve is correct. But the idea that there is no arching of the back is simply incorrect. To get a serve to kick, you have to create a swing across the path of the ball and that takes some arching of the spine. I use an extreme toss behind the body to get the player the feel of what it is like to brush up and across the ball. I think they have to do this for a while to get the wrist action down. I don't want them to do this even a little bit, until they have embarked on a significant back stabilization program consisting of lots of "plank" exercises, but they have to learn the feel of hitting up somehow. By the time they start to go at it at full speed, I want the toss more forward and directly over the head. This ball will not have as obvious a kick, but it will have a more effective one that will drive through the court.

I use a different drill to get the feel of the wrist action. Similar to Chris Lewit's drill over the fence, but a little different. Stand on the doubles sideline and face the fence. The task is to toss the ball gently up above your head as you hold the racket in a position just above your head with the handle of the racket basically horizontal and spin the ball over the fence so that it clears the fence and lands on the adjacent courts before the next doubles sideline. You are approx. 12 feet from a 10 foot fence and you have 12 feet to get the ball back down. Additionally, you should finish the motion with the racket handle now vertical. (So it actually moved 90 degrees).

I thought Chris's articles were terrific. I'm not sure I agree with everything that is in there. It takes a lot to read those 3 articles and digest it all, but overall, I thought it was a terrific series of articles. I look forward to seeing the final article. But to attack the article on the idea that players have to protect their back and therefore don't arch their back is simply incorrect. You want to limit the amount of extension you create in the lumbar spine, but the spine is a wonderful mechanism and goes through a tremendous range of motion very well.

A couple of others that are kind of obvious including one who grew up with a brace on his back for a number of years.


Rusedski Serve and Volley
2ndS Deuce FHV Front1

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/greg_rusedski/gr_serve_and_volley/gr_2nd_serve_deuce/gr_2nd_serve_deuce.html?GR2ndSDeuceFHVFront1.mov

Blake Serve Body Rotation
2ndS Deuce BodyRotation CourtLevel Front

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/james_blake/jb_serve/jb_body_rotation/jb_body_rotation.html?JB2ndSDeuceBodyRotationCourtLevelFront.mov

I know about extreme arch of the back. I had it in my serve till I was about 25 and partly as a result have little more than a wafer as a disc between my L4/L5 and L5/S1 vertebrae and can't play competitive tennis anymore. I wish I had video of it. I used to almost double over before I went up to hit the ball, but who knew. Now we know better.

don brosseau d.c.

Don,
to be exact the link provided by you has THREE rear videos.
ARE ALL THREE good to demonstrate points of your posts?

[uspta990770809]

Don,
to be exact the link provided by you has THREE rear videos.
ARE ALL THREE good to demonstrate points of your posts?

I thought the one marked

2ndS Deuce BodyRotation Rear

(which is the 2nd in that group of 2nd Serves to the Deuce side)

gave the best view of the arck of Phillipousis's back. Go through frame by frame.

A good one to look at that demonstrates what is probably too much arch of the lower back is the following view of Rafter

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/pro_men/patrafter/pr_serve/pr_2nd_serve/pr_2nd_serve.html?PR2ndSAdCourtLevelRear.mov

This is Pat's 2nd serve and if you stop it as the racket reaches his right hip, you'll see his upper back is almost horizontal and his chest nearly faces straight up at the ball. At the same time his legs are driving up and compressing his lumbar spine. Pat had a great kicker. I got to play against him in one of my events and he put me in the fence with one of those 2nd serves. He had various problems with shoulder and wrist. I don't remember if the back was a problem as well, but with that back extension, he was definitely headed for problems. He was one of the best, if not the best, athletes on tour according to the players themselves and he made this work. But for as good an athlete as he was, his first serve wasn't that devastating.

In any case, that would be my example for too much back arch.
don

[carrerakent]

Your quote
---->
i think back arch is a carry over of from old school...mostly because of where they "used" to toss the ball for a kick.
--->
I disagrre with you completely.See a post by Don above
and videos provided by me and him.

what part do you disagree with?

balls were not tossed behind the player and landing behind the baseline?

or players of old didn't use extreme arch vs the torso torque and slight arch of today?

there is spinal movement forward and back in everything we do in life. i'm referring to the rafter type back arch that uncoiled as an upper torso whip back up.