Interactive Forum: March 2015: The Racket Edge and Internal Shoulder Rotation

[stroke]

I spent a lot of time struggling with my serve. I started in late 2010 and then kept at it for about two years. But I didn't stop there. It still felt like something was not quite right.

I tried all kinds of things including:

Serving from the drop
Serving from the trophy
Throwing and serving in succession
Serving really slow
Serving with only three fingers (loosening the pink and ring finger)
Serving with the edge

After a long journey I finally realized that I did not really understand how to throw.

What I didn't understand was the role of shoulder rotation.

The problem is that most people pair a motor program with a particular object in the world.

The racket itself almost grafts itself onto a certain limb movement.

The racket also becomes an extension of peoples bodies.

If I tell someone to serve with edge of the racket it is really easy to misinterpret it as serving with my hand sideways as if I am trying to karate chop the ball.

Note that I could do this and not rotate my hand at all or even minimally.

So what has helped me recently has been two things.

Throw balls and exaggerate the role of the shoulder by finishing with my palm facing away from my body.

The other is to imagine that I am cutting over the top of the ball rather than trying to hit the ball with my racket or the strings.

By teaching my body to exaggerate the finish and then imaging that I am hitting the top suddenly the serve began to feel different.

My nine-year-old daughter told me the other day that her serve felt very weird. She felt like she was hitting the ball wrong.

I had asked her to use a mild eastern backhand grip (or strong continental). I can't really say exactly what because the small rackets have really small grips.

And her serve was spinning nicely. It was not flat and not at all pancake like.

I have also done a lot of follow through exaggeration when we play catch so that she sees me flipping my hand out.

I never mentioned the edge and I see this more as a result of trying to turn the hand outwards which of course starts at the shoulder.

But I think that most people don't know an advanced throwing motion.

So I wonder if the best way to improve the serve is to not use the racket at all.

Why not try to mimic an advanced throw and then use that to build better serve mechanics.

Of course, this is not necessary for those who have good throwing mechanics naturally or by early instruction.

But I think if you ask people to throw footballs or baseballs they will not have the fundamentals of throwing which are clearly shown in the videos below.

Just form imitation. I am not expecting anyone to throw as a fast as a pro.

But we can try to imitate them much more easily because we are manipulating our bodies directly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw48vUo8hGk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf5UPnQx9Rw

I agree with Phil, great post. I too have struggled with my serve and tried many of the things you mentioned. One thing I might add to this internal shoulder rotation(ISR) is I think it helps to really emphasize the external shoulder rotation(ESR) in the trophy position, prior to the ISR. I think this is why you see a lot of pro's kind of curl their wrist in when preparing to serve. It may be useful to almost think back of the hand to ball in place of edge of racquet to ball.

[jschaff1954]

Focusing on the timing of the elbow extension in relation to the internal rotation of the arm, in my opinion, is putting the "emphasis on the wrong syll-a-ble".

Because the arm in attached to the body at the shoulder, and it's natural preloaded position puts the racket behind the trunk as it is, there HAS to be internal rotation to get the racket head back to square up to the ball for a flat serve. And in order to reach this position with the racket at it's highest spot of contact, the elbow HAS to be in extension.

If you look at Nadal, he actually has his elbow in extension way earlier than almost anyone else. And because of this, it takes much more strength to get the racket/arm up into position to hit the serve. And because of this his serve is more inconsistent. I think I read where someone got with him last year and improved his motion, but he went back to the old one.

The later the elbow goes into extension, the lower the moment of intertia is for the racket/arm complex in both internal rotation AND positional rotation around the body from back to front. Lower moment of inertia means less effort to achieve the same objective, which is a consistent, quick, accurate, disguised service motion.

And as usual, Federer is the master at this motion. Compact, efficient, accurate, not particularly speedy, but the pinnacle of concealment.

[johnyandell]

js,
Great post. It's hard to argue with Roger!