Internal Shoulder Rotation: Key to Serving Power

[gzhpcu]

I realise this, Phil, but my point was that an overwhelming percentage of power seems to come from internal shoulder rotation and, the way I understand it, the upper arm.

Ah yes, I misread your post. The internal shoulder rotation is a commonality of all the good servers from Budge/Gonzales forwards...

[tennis_chiro]

I realise this, Phil, but my point was that an overwhelming percentage of power seems to come from internal shoulder rotation and, the way I understand it, the upper arm.

No question a lot of power comes from the legs, but not through flexion/extension of the knees. The legs rotate the pelvis and the torque is what gets transferred to the shoulder and then the arm. The great example is 2002 US Open semifinalist Sheng Schalken, almost no knee bend whatsoever. Could he have served bigger with a little knee flexion/extension? Certainly, but he was able to serve consistently in the mid-teens without it. Flexion/extension of his knees was not going to get him more than 5 or 10% (which certainly would have been substantial for him). But he had to be already getting significant power from his legs to be able to serve as well as he did.

All this emphasis on getting more leg drive is missing the point that you have to be able to get the ball in and to a target. It becomes more difficult the more you move the base around with extreme knee bend.

Then we have the whole question of driving off the ground vs jumping like a volleyball server.

These extreme efforts to get players a couple of more mph on their first serves is destroying their ability to execute correct snap of the kinetic chain in a repeatable manner that gets them a high first serve percentage and eliminates double faults.

I want to see a kid perfect his kinetic chain action standing on the ground with no steps whatsoever before he starts even swinging the back leg into the court (yes, that means the front foot never leaves the ground in the service action).

Then I want him to start driving off the ground so the followthrough of his hit has his front foot actually leave the ground and land inside the baseline (first , just on it).

If we get all that perfected (haven't seen it yet), then I want to see him start to drive up and toss the ball so it takes him into a landing as much as a foot inside the baseline like a Krajicek. But that might actually be a negative if he is not going to the net because his momentum is going to take him fully into no man's land by the time the return is being struck.

If you can hit alternate corners consistently at 120mph with good disguise, you can hit aces against anyone. Some of Sampras's best serves were at about 100 mph slicing out wide.

When you start trying to extract every ounce of power from every joint in the body, as Phil accurately points out just above here, you are going to sacrifice the actual result. Consistency and accuracy are not measured in lbs/sq. in., but they definitely are measured on the scoreboard.

don

[gzhpcu]

Reread the article. Well written and easily understandable. I understand now the importance of the internal shoulder rotation in winding up the arm\'s swing, ending up in forearm pronation. Vic Braden used to say you should not think of scratching your back on the racket takeback, but of scratching a friend\'s back. Now I understand why.

[stotty]

Reread the article. Well written and easily understandable. I understand now the importance of the internal shoulder rotation in winding up the arm\\\\\\\'s swing, ending up in forearm pronation. Vic Braden used to say you should not think of scratching your back on the racket takeback, but of scratching a friend\\\\\\\'s back. Now I understand why.

Oddly enough I reread the article recently also. Posts by 10splayer and tennis_chiro made me curious about internal rotation. And yes its a great article. Dead easy to understand and a must for all coaches to read.

[johnyandell]

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[gzhpcu]

Reread the article. Well written and easily understandable. I understand now the importance of the internal shoulder rotation in winding up the arm\\\'s swing, ending up in forearm pronation. Vic Braden used to say you should not think of scratching your back on the racket takeback, but of scratching a friend\\\'s back. Now I understand why.

What I also meant to say is that the role of the external shoulder rotation on the takeback setting up a stretch/shorten cycle to have a better internal shoulder rotation/pronation also made a click in my head. This leads to the drop of the racket to the side of the body and not behind the back. I have tried it out, and get more zip on my serve.