Racket Head Speed

[gzhpcu]

Agassi's dad had it right, "Young Andre, beat the shit out of the ball."

Bollettieri said the same thing, here is an old training video with Andre...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PF1kfJSia4

[EdWeiss]

I think there are a few different issues:

1) Is constancy of racket head speed helpful to playing better?
2) What is the best way to achieve constancy of racket head speed? Is it swinging your fastest each time and just varying the spin?

It does seem pretty amazing that there are no real studies of racket head speed given how much talk there is of racket head speed. Steve's point regarding golf being ahead of tennis sounds true and sad at the same time.

3) How do you achieve racket head speed? Here I think it is important to distinguish between speed and how hard one tries. The great track sprint coach Bud Winter (coach of those great San Jose State track teams which included Olympic gold medalists) emphasized putting your "effort level" at 80% or 90% to obtain maximum sprinting speed; if you try at 100% you tighten up too much and your speed actually decreases. I think that is what Steve (Don_Budge) was also getting at in his post. Winter had a series of exercises he had his pupils do on the track to help them learn the sensation of relaxation. I read awhile ago in the New York Times that Usain Bolt's coach is a disciple of the teachings of Winter (who is deceased) and that he had his pupils do the exercises. I hunted down Winter's book on Relaxation (Relax and Win) which has been recently reprinted but have not yet had a chance yet to test out the ideas. Presumably, they could potentially be very helpful in tennis - if they could help our students learn better relaxation skills that would obviously be very beneficial esp. in competition.

[GeoffWilliams]

It's relax and win. It's also project: "I'm more relaxed than you are. I am more confident than you are. I'm not trying as hard as you are. I'm beating you anyway. I produce easy power without desperation. My shots are more accurate than yours are."

[hockeyscout]

What that has to do with racquet head speed, I have no freakin' clue. If a student is going to be playing tennis than they are playing tennis. I'm not pushing them to another sport because they don't fit "the mold". I don't care if their naval is on their forehand, I'm happy they are on a court with me. So lets get back to it, it's about racquet head speed. Sure, genetics and physical location of a belly button have a role, but so does technique and being able to find the best way to increase this while at the same time, make sure the student is relaxed and in their comfort zone.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

It is of major importance in proper athletic setup. MAJOR! You need to properly set balance points in your athlete to ensure consistency in their base movements.

[klacr]

It is of major importance in proper athletic setup. MAJOR! You need to properly set balance points in your athlete to ensure consistency in their base movements.

I get that part. That comment was me trying to correct myself and reset the course for the post I made after my talk on swimming. No doubt you need to have balance as an athlete and a better understanding of your physical attributes. But everyone can create can create racquet head speed, short or tall, skinny or rotund, no matter where the umbilicus is.

Racquet head speed is helpful to playing better...assuming its the right racquet head speed for the right shot. How do you achieve racquet head speed...relaxation in the body and the grip, that way you can feel the weight of the racquet head is a great fundamental start. Looseness and flexibility is speed.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[GeoffWilliams]

Umbillicus aside, who cares about belly buttons? Thinking too much will kill you in a match. That is the whole goal: head speed, automatic, unthinking head speed, on ground and on serves, everywhere, and foot speed to go with it, no matter the incoming shot.

[klacr]

Thanks Geoff. We agree on this.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[lobndropshot]

Great post Ed!

You're sure working hard and thinking out of the box!

Hit it hard. Then harder!

However, breathing and the belly button are major factors which must not be overlooked.

Forget about the racket head speed. It's the end of the chain. It's the icing on the cake.

Great athletes know how to breathe, and superior athletes are able to play sports with their belly button. This probably sounds wild to you doesn't it? Well, it's your center, and if it's quick, rythmatic and set up correctly it will lead to a fast, and powerful racket head.

By the way, I am travelling this week in Czech, and studying the Reflex Locomotion science which was pioneered right here in Prague sixty years ago. It's all tied into this subject. I'm trying to figure out how the belly button position on an athlete will effect my outcomes in training, and it's quite interesting.

100 meter sprinters and Olympic swimming pool understand this science well, and how it relates to speed.

Again, nice bit of information Ed.

Do you have a source for this type of information? I would like to learn more.

Thanks,

[hockeyscout]

Ed:

This is what I have been reading in the past week.

http://3dahm2014.epfl.ch/files/content/sites/3dahm2014/files/3DAHM-Proceedings%20v2.pdf

I have to get to this conference in 2015, as it looks perfect for our training methodology, and I really like some of the abstract submissions as they are flipping brilliant.

I can recommend a few other conferences to you Ed, I try and do something three to four times a year as one can quickly get behind the times.

Being in the USA I would recommend you start with these certifications:

USA Track & Field

Pose Running

Newton Running

ChiRunning

I am sure when you have done all four, you will be qualified to figure out what will work, and what won't.

[bottle]

Sounds a bit like the Tennis Grips Association meeting in Antarctica.

For more racket head speed, I recommend a forward slanted hitting drop (slap-shot?) to replace the rearward dog pat of Roger Federer.

[hockeyscout]

Sounds a bit like the Tennis Grips Association meeting in Antarctica.

For more racket head speed, I recommend a forward slanted hitting drop (slap-shot?) to replace the rearward dog pat of Roger Federer.

This ATP 3 is so antiquated.

It's the end icing on the cake or window dressing to a set up of proper athletic foundation from the ground up.

Everyone is so focused on the hands it stuns me.

[bottle]

It's shocking, to use the one word ever extirpated from the English language and appropriated by Andy Borowitz.

[GeoffWilliams]

Sometimes I like to extirpate. They call me, "The extirpator."

[10splayer]

I know a very successful and knowledgeable tennis coach who is a strong believer in the racket head speed theory that I will delineate below. I would be very interested in everyone's view of this including John with any input from a research point of view.

By way of background, the coach was an excellent player in the mid-70s. He came from a quite cold part of the country where tennis was not a popular sport but yet was top 25 in the U.S. in the 18 and under and then played No. 1 for a major SEC university. He played on the satellite tour for awhile and then began a tennis teaching career and eventually wound up back where he grew up and has produced a number of very good players. He reads all of the tennis literature but is also very much an independent thinker.


In short, he believes that on groundstrokes (1) advanced players should strive for the same racket head speed on each shot (excluding drop shots and the like), (2) that the racket head speed should be the fastest the player can produce while still staying relaxed and smooth and (3) given the constancy of racket head speed and that the player is maxing out on racket head speed, control comes through spin, i.e., if you want to be steadier hit more spin or move your aim targets more inside the lines. He believes that this is a key factor in why the groundstrokes are so good today (yes there are other factors too such as greater athlete pool, better overall understanding of technique, new racket and string technology, etc.): the players are swinging out on each ball and using spin as the major way of controlling the ball. A player just needs to worry about how much spin he is putting on the ball as the swing speed is constant.

Why does he believe in this? Several basic related reasons:

(i) if you swing the same speed each time it is much easier to establish your timing. If you take one swing at 40 mph and then one at 50 mph and then one at 60 mph (just making up speeds here), that is too much for your brain to adjust to. Much easier to figure out your timing (he believes) if you swing at the same speed each time
(ii) If you buy the argument in (i), then the question becomes how do I best get a constant racket head speed? His answer (and he points to some research on the so-called "ceiling effect") is that finding your maximum speed and replicating it each time is much easier than trying to replicate, say, 60% of your maximum. In other words, if you tell a person to swing as fast as he or she can (again while not tensing up to do it) for 10 swings, he or she will find much more of a constancy of racket head speed among the 10 swings then if you ask him or her to do 10 swings at 60% of maximum. Your muscles (and brain) just can feel maximum much more than say 50% or 60%.
(iii) The faster you swing, the more time you can wait to see the exact bounce of the ball, etc.
(iv) Obviously, if you buy into (i), (ii) and (iii), having max racket head speed has the obvious advantage that your shots will have more on them.
(v) this is all consistent with the ATP Type III forehand which emphasizes a shorter backswing but more explosive power - the coach would say what you are trying to achieve is maximum racket head speed with the shorter backswing.

He notes that when you see pros warming up in the short court they mis-hit the ball much more than you would think - his theory is that when they warm-up in the short court they are not swinging at maximum speeds and have more timing issues as a result.

I would be very interested in everyone's thoughts on this. Thanks.

I tend to agree with much of what this guy says....For the reasons he states..However, (with lessons) I try to establish a few other things, before I give them a license to "press the envelope" in terms of maxing out RHS.

One is what I call "shaping" swings. That is, learning to change the path and the amount of hand and arm rotation to add, or subtract, topspin. There's basically an inverse relationship between spin and velocity, and without a working knowledge as to how to manipulate these two elements, I'm not sure max RHS is a great idea..With the power of modern day racquets, if a player does not know how to direct the RHS to spin sufficiently...they actually become much more inconsistent.

I also spend alot of time teaching people "when" to accelerate or release the racquet ( lag) to achieve RHS. What I've seen over the years (with students) when asked for more RHS, is a process that starts too early (often times in the backswing) and too labor intensive. (in a muscular sense) The reason great players look so relaxed is because they are NOT trying to accelerate the racquet (much) until very close to contact. I think if you look at RHS profiles, the bulk of acceleration will occur very late in the swing. By doing so a player can be relaxed, rhythmic, and can "line" up the ball much better, thus improving the contact quality.

http://tennis.about.com/od/forehandbackhand/ss/federerforehand_3.htm

In the above picture, the racquet head will only now really begin to pick up speed. Just my 02 cents.

[johnyandell]

10splayer,

Correct. For example on the serve the racket head speed triples in the last 1/10th of a second before contact. Don't have the numbers but I am sure it's similar on the other strokes. You don't "build" speed gradually. You set yourself up to explode.