Help Kindly Requested on Junior Player

[GeoffWilliams]

And watch the Bryant brothers: snap back on their fh volleys, and their over heads. You snap back against your own wrist, hand, backwards with volley, and snap the oh backwards, hand towards the rear fence.

[tennis_chiro]

Awesome!!!

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

Quoting Patrick Swayze in what I thought was a great movie, "Ditto!"

don

[stroke]

The short answer is, sure i think it will help. After all, this is not a case of flipping the forearm (waiter position), which will immediately angle the humerus down and drop the elbow. What i'm seeing is just a case of stalling out the right arm...it can happen when the delivery is staggered..


Want you to look at Sampras's serve, because it was quite staggered. Indeed, Pete had one of the fullest, deepest, lowest, windups in the game, and his left arm was well ahead of his right arm. And yet, if you isolate his right hand...it ALWAYS kept moving, kept progressing. And so at the point of maximum knee flexion (the reference point by which we judge the trophy position) his arm was perfectly position (abducted/90 degrees to the torso)

Now, look at the young man's position at knee flexion...because his arm has stalled, the upper arm is angled down. His right arm has to keep moving!!! As i mentioned, this is an incredibly difficult position to overcome. Try and have your left arm extended and have your right hand down by your thigh at knee flex..brutal.

It's also almost impossible to time the leg drive when the arm has to cover this much distance in such a short amount of time. In fact, notice how long he is in in knee flexion? Think there's a connection? I do.

I really like these thoughts by 10splayer on knee flexion and the serve. When you watch players like Fed and Sampras, to me they spend more time in knee flexion position on the serve than players like Roddick or Dogopolov(extreme example), both of who have very fast twtich, quickly in and out of the knee flexion motions. I think it may be physically more demanding, take more effort, to spend more time in the knee flexion position before the leg extension/drive into the serve.

[GeoffWilliams]

As Sampras began his leg drive, the frame was always angled back a bit, not 90 degrees. He also held his chest sideways, while shoving his left hip out over the baseline, longer than anyone else in history, and lagged the frame from reaching vertical.

[10splayer]

As Sampras began his leg drive, the frame was always angled back a bit, not 90 degrees. He also held his chest sideways, while shoving his left hip out over the baseline, longer than anyone else in history, and lagged the frame from reaching vertical.

Huh? Please explain further, not quite understanding.

[hockeyscout]

Hi

For hockeyscout:

For some reason, my physician doesn't have my blood type on record.

A daily diet might consist of:
Bagel/pancakes, chocolate milk, fruit
Pasta with tomato sauce, soy milk/coconut water, ice cream
Risotto, bread, soymilk, ice cream”

That's a big step forward. You're coach is allowing you to think for yourself. That's what you need. Hey, Junior player, would you mind if I suggested a diet plan for you, and some foods that will help you breathe a lot better, relax, sweat properly and perhaps put you in a bit better balance?

As for the drills etc, I have been super busy, however, I will put something together for you to suit all the needs you have identified, and I will watch that video a bit more as well.

[EdWeiss]

To hockeyscout

from the junior student to hockeyscout- yes please that would be great. I have been doing the drill where the coach feeds and the player moves to the ball without a racket and that has helped

[hockeyscout]

Factors

Also, Ed, this may sound like a stupid question, however, it is not.

1.

What kind of a commitment can he make to proper eating? To often parents are willing to make a commitment to coaches and tennis academies, however, they miss the big picture and that is FOOD. It takes a lot of time, money and resources to manage this end of a developmental program, and I believe it's number one for maximizing a young person's potential (sports, school and socially). The crap kids eat these days makes me shake my head, and I believe it's a form of child abuse in the worst way.

2.

The kid has access to a blender? Is he lazy? Are the mom and dad involved? Would they mind spending 30 minutes prepping proper food in the way it needs to be done?

3.

Very important, does he LOVE to eat?

4.

What food does he HATE eating the most?

5.

I think I can feed him for cheaper than he eats now, however, it's a bit more labor intensive for mom and dad. Of course, I won't ask him to go to the farm, find the chicken, chop off his head and pluck it like I do for my own daughter because that would be crazy.

[hockeyscout]

from the junior student to hockeyscout- yes please that would be great. I have been doing the drill where the coach feeds and the player moves to the ball without a racket and that has helped

It's great you are doing the drill. Now, make sure you change it, use a racket one day, use a oven mit the next day, but please, change it! Make it different every time you do it. You will NEVER get better if you do a drill the same way. Always change and enhance. Confuse the brain and body.

I am glad you're honest with me about what you eat.

Most athletes lie through their teeth.

You've made a good first step here taking on a pro-active approach.

With all due respect to everyone we are moving much to fast here.

We've reached step one, player has asked for help.

However, we really need to be a bit more patient here in the developmental process and address some other important elements so we are able to (a) maintain these skill sets, (b) enhance the skill sets and (c) use them in a game scenario.

We often see a kid get better, then boom, he loses it all. Their is a reason for this, and it is no accident. The area I will help a lot in with this athlete is (a) keeping it, (b) establishing repeatable athletic rituals to enhance it when all of us coaches are not around and (c) adding into the nutrition, cross sport, recovery, change, creativity etc are added into the program to ensure the athlete never flat lines.

So, it will work like this:

(1) You're second step will need to be the food (it'll take about 2 weeks for your system to adjust as you are addicted to some foods, and you'll need to wean off them or your system will just crash. So, your new diet will have ice cream in it, and you will likely say what the hell, however, their is a purpose to it. I don't want your body to rebel on me.

Then from their we will go into ...

(2) Recovery - I put a recovery program right into the training (it is called opening and closing exercises, we will discuss that one a bit later).

(3) Sleep

(4) Corrective breathing ... I have watched the video more, and I see this is an issue for you like most athletes who have not played full contact sports like hockey, MMA or Football.

(5) Focusing on training the inside first (I will explain that to you when you come to it, has to do with you're major organs), not psychological

(6) You will need to re-set deep neurology circuits. I thought up the perfect storm for you in this regard.

(7) Then I will assigning you specific drill sets that will address a few athletic foundations I see as important to your development.

(8) You need to be capable of handling the loads and requirements everyone here is requesting of you. Also, you need to understand what the real cause is of the issue you are facing. For example, low elbow, their is a neurological pathway reason reason why athletes do it for a while, and then don't do it. It's called cause, and the cause is not a mental one, it has to do with foundations, warm-up, restarting, opening and closing. I see coaches always saying to kids lift your elbow up. This is obvious. My question is, why is the kid not lifting the elbow up. What is the reason. Hint, it's not mental. The young kid does it for a bit, then he doesn't do it, the coach reminds him, and it goes on and on, or he does lift it, compensates the wrong way to lift the elbow, creates another issue, and now it two problems when the dust settles. We can get into this a bit later, as I'd like to settle other issues first.

I will put in a diet plan over the weekend here, and that will be the right start, then we can move through some long term plans (I'd say 8-12 weeks).

[GeoffWilliams]

Nearly every technical error in form is caused by blockage and muscle memory, given the player knows about the errors and cannot stop doing them. If they believe the errors are just helping their opponents, deep down, that is the only way they will make the change and clear the blocks, which are often neuro memorized/mental blocks to physical improvement. Or they never look at video.


The truth is, for most top players, there is only one way to hit the ball right, and the upcoming guns, like Mac, Nadal, or borg, or fed, all did it their way, not the way they were told to! Tennis is not just survival of the fittest, it's survival of which new form destroys/jams/rips up/causes errors. Every new generation ups the ante by improving the technical landscape, not by devolving it. As Db suggests, the technical advances are negative, but only to certain styles on slower surfaces. A preference for a style is just that, and the real battlefields decide the truth about who prefers what.

When fed beat sampras at 2000 wimby, he came into net 139 times and won in five sets. Sampras said, "He will be #1.", and fed was 19! Did fed decide to come in less, or did his opponents decide? And only now has he changed to 98 sq. in, the average. Both decided the same thing, dictated by advances in resulting form, not equipment.

[hockeyscout]

Nearly every technical error in form is caused by blockage and muscle memory, given the player knows about the errors and cannot stop doing them. If they believe the errors are just helping their opponents, deep down, that is the only way they will make the change and clear the blocks, which are often neuro memorized/mental blocks to physical improvement. Or they never look at video.

Well, if you have certain muscle groups that don't fire all the video, coaching, self realization, mental work in the world will not get the improvement you need. It may, for a time being, however, you will lose it, and then the coach will be "reminding you" and likely creating "new problems. It goes in circles.

In this specific players case, areas that need to improve, and they will with the right plan.

I am seeing so some pelvic dysfunction in this players case and it's completely debilitated his mobility.

Self-myofascial release (SMR) is needed to locate his hot spots, and make the necessary corrections, however, if he is not eating properly the proper technical workouts he will soon be doing will just kill the kid physically as they are very taxing to the body (by the way, they look easy, however, they are not), and he won't be even able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

I am getting ahead of myself here but what needs to happen here first is the player needs do what I mentioned above, get rid his adhesion's first in the various layers of fascia, de-stress his muscle groups, increase flow, get his muscles working the way they are supposed to work and then, and only then will we see the potential this young man has for natural flow. I can perhaps make him a layman's guide to doing it on his own and he may be okay as he sounds like kind of a resourceful kid.

I am not quite sure how you can proceed with technical work without addressing these areas of athletic setup in a progressive manner

Cause, cause, cause and cause! You need to get to it, and sort it out before that racket is even in the players hand. You can't go from M to Z to A to L. Slow and steady gets it right.

[hockeyscout]

The truth is, for most top players, there is only one way to hit the ball right, and the upcoming guns, like Mac, Nadal, or borg, or fed, all did it their way, not the way they were told to! Tennis is not just survival of the fittest, it's survival of which new form destroys/jams/rips up/causes errors. Every new generation ups the ante by improving the technical landscape, not by devolving it. As Db suggests, the technical advances are negative, but only to certain styles on slower surfaces. A preference for a style is just that, and the real battlefields decide the truth about who prefers what.

Interesting as usual Geoff.

[EdWeiss]

hockeyscout - to answer your question re the parents, yes they are committed to helping. The junior player has three brothers, all good serious tennis players, one older and two younger. The parents are good at being encouraging and do not get down on the kids regardless of the tournament results .

I find all of your focus on underlying athletic issues very interesting. As a tennis coach I have focused on:

1) Teaching good foundational technique since without a good technique you are limited in where you can go in this game;
2) trying to foster a player's love of the game;
3) emphasizing good sportsmanship and always calling the lines fairly - not easy when your students will sometimes lose close matches when their opponents' do not call the lines fairly but I tell my students in the long run they will be better players, and of course, persons, for it;
4) encourage the student to always give their best and to be honest with themselves about their commitment - tennis is tough game with a lot of lows and highs along the way and, unlike team sports, no teammates to share the lows with. Throw in the pressure of matches and rankings and parents these days watching every match and you have a game, at the truly competitive level, that is certainly for everyone. As a player you need to ultimately decide what your commitment is. In the case of the student at hand, I think the commitment level is developing but the losses can be tough for him; and
5) school work comes first (but if you use your time wisely you can find time for both tennis and school).

While I certainly make sure to have kids do coordination and quickness type drills in our sessions, I do not have the expertise to work on underlying fundamental athletic issues so am quite interested in receiving help and learning about it. Presumably working on those issues will help them with other sports as well which is a good thing!

[EdWeiss]

I started this thread in 2014. An update on the player: while he has had some tennis ups and downs, he has had some real accomplishments including winning the 2016 Connecticut High School State Open Singles Championships. He currently plays college tennis (as a freshman) at a university in Connecticut on a tennis scholarship (not Yale - they just happen to be playing the match In the video below at the beautiful Yale indoor courts). He is very much enjoying the college tennis experience and is a really good kid . I have set forth below a link to a video of the second set of a recent match he played. He played no. 1 for his school that day. He lost the set 6-3 after being up 3-1. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. The suggestions you made in the thread from 2014 were absolutely of help. He is the player in the white shirt with the one-handed backhand.


Thanks in advance for your help! Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdkc...ature=youtu.be

[stotty]

Great to see Seiji again. He's looking taller and stronger.

I don't remember his pause at the trophy position being as long as it is right now? It looks like the rhythm gets a little broken because of it. Was it like this in his younger years? I don't remember it being so. It's amazing how technique can morph around.

I think most of Seiji's errors lie in his footwork. He's casual and doesn't always get in position as well as he might. His forehand stance is a little too open at times. Sometimes he sets up a little too early on his backhand and finds himself slightly too near or too far away when it comes to striking the ball.

Do you feel he really has his head in match? Or is his natural demeanour disguising things? He doesn't look passionately involved to me.

I will watch the clip a few times more and glean more if I can. But at first glance it's footwork, footwork, footwork for me.

I went on a course delivered by Sergio Casal. It was amazing how he could get junior players to move better in literally minutes and the difference it made to their game. The Spanish are monsters at training footwork.

Seiji is a talented player and a joy to watch when he is in position and striking the ball well.

Back soon....