Question for the tennis, basketball, golf and baseball guru don_budge!

[hockeyscout]

don_budge - You're expertise in a wide variety of sports would help here - especially the fact you know baseball well.

“Serve Smart Guidelines” and “Hitting Reps.”

NOTHING IN TENNIS.

MLB (baseball) has established some very strict standards, guidelines and risk factors.

http://m.mlb.com/pitchsmart/

I am basically right now listening to what Major League (MLB) baseball coaches are telling me, as no one in tennis has spent the millions of dollars to research this area out like baseball.

Anthony Molina or Maria Shinskina and Monica Veil - talented kids with incredible promise at 9 to 15, who are out of the game due to injuries.

http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/03/28/book-excerpt-the-arm-jeff-passan-tommy-john-surgery

Thoughts?

I'd love to hear ideas from 10splayer, klacr, John, Geoff, Bottle, Don, tennis_chiro and others on this important topic.

[klacr]

Good technique, good strength training and taking care of your body early on helps. And fair or unfair, genetics plays a role.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

Kyle, you work for the USTA.

What ball counts limits (example, serves) are allowed in tournament play, academies and national training sessions?

In the USA now when a baseball pitcher attends a tournament, he's under set control limits or the coaches are in big time trouble (lose sanctioning, insurance, coaching licenses, ect).

I see a lot of tennis tournament schedules, and for me I worry about kids playing two or three matches a day.

I got a 10 year old girl who is 5'11, so, probably my circumstances are are real unique as we need to back off quite a bit due to the fact you have a young body trying to move in woman's frame.

But, if she was 5'4 tall and a midget, I would still be concerned with the ball count especially at this stage of the game.

What are your ball count specs? What are you trying to hold you athlete down to?

don_budge would be real helpful here as he understands baseball pitching - and how a numbers count system could relate well over to tennis.

We have a program we are using now, but, the extra input would be real interesting to see if we are on the right track.

[don_budge]

The Perfect Motion...and the Throwing Stick

Kyle, you work for the USTA.
What ball counts limits (example, serves) are allowed in tournament play, academies and national training sessions?

In the USA now when a baseball pitcher attends a tournament, he's under set control limits or the coaches are in big time trouble (lose sanctioning, insurance, coaching licenses, ect).

I see a lot of tennis tournament schedules, and for me I worry about kids playing two or three matches a day.

I got a 10 year old girl who is 5'11, so, probably my circumstances are are real unique as we need to back off quite a bit due to the fact you have a young body trying to move in woman's frame.

But, if she was 5'4 tall and a midget, I would still be concerned with the ball count especially at this stage of the game.

What are your ball count specs? What are you trying to hold you athlete down to?

don_budge would be real helpful here as he understands baseball pitching - and how a numbers count system could relate well over to tennis.

We have a program we are using now, but, the extra input would be real interesting to see if we are on the right track.

Now I see what you are getting at. It's a good thing to think about these things before something happens. Counts? I'm not so sure if counts apply the same for all tennis players and it might be left up to the individual. I can tell you this...there is a huge difference between throwing "the rock" as opposed to swinging a racquet...or a golf club.

But at ten years old I can tell you one thing...it may be way to early to be overly focused on serve. Except this interesting specimen is 5' !!" at ten years old. If there would be one piece of advice I would give you it would be this...it isn't the quantity at this point but the quality that counts. Speaking of counts. What counts? Fluidity counts.

What you want to do at this point hockeyscout is lay the foundation for the "perfect" service motion. If the player has fundamentally set the foundation for the perfect motion you can serve all day and all night without risk of injury. If everything is working without any friction or hitches in the motion...the motion is accomplished with minimum effort (effortless power) and the player finds that by trying "less" they get "more". This is the same sort of axiom that you can apply to a golf swing.

Throwing "the rock" can absolutely be hazardous to the arm and shoulder so the baseball world didn't take too long to figure that out. You can throw your arm out with one throw and then you are ruined for life. I actually threw my racquet (for the last time) and threw my arm out. Fortunately for me it was my right arm that I threw out...I serve left handed and throw right handed. I had to switch hands to give the racquet a heave...if only I had taken that split second to think things over. But that is how injuries occur sometimes. Without thinking. I remember once that the great Detroit Tiger right fielder Al Kaline once broke his hand punching the water cooler after striking out. Or maybe he was jamming his bat into the bat rack...that might have been it. He wasn't the kind of guy to normally do that sort of thing but the one time that he did cost him...and his team.

The tennis racquet is actually a tool and if used correctly it prevents injuries like those common to baseball pitchers. That being said I don't see too many perfect service motions these days and many would appear to over time wear out certain parts of a persons body. Even so...with all of the bad swings it doesn't appear that the serving motion does a lot of damage in the short run. I wonder after the players career is over.

A perfect service motion has no friction. It has no hitches or abbreviations that will cause anything other than perfectly lubricated effortless motion. If the player is "teeing it up" in the right spot every time...nothing can go wrong. Nothing can go wrong if the motion is perfect.

Throw in some strength and flexibility conditioning and there you have it...a recipe for a lifetime of injury free serving. I like the approach you are taking. Prehabilitation. Preventative as well as rehabilative. You speak of conditioning hips and legs and so forth. This is so important to having the whole entire body engaged in the motion. Much as a baseball pitcher prepares for the foundation of his delivery.

I am going to attach a couple of posts that I have written on the service motion in the past that might be of interest to you. In fact...I don't believe that I have ever read anyone write about the serve as I do. A little background on my service history. When I first started to play tennis...screwing around on the court with my parents and so forth...I would switch hands to hit forehands on either side. But when the man who eventually would be my coach took me aside to introduce me to the serve for some reason I chose to serve left handed. He was quite surprised. I was surprised too. The funny thing was that up until that point I had played a lot baseball and threw right handed...I did do some pitching. I played all of the positions as a matter of fact...even catching. Up until that point I was a predominately right handed basketball player although I was pretty good going to my left. But interesting enough...I move better to my right to hit a backhand. Most people move better to one side or the other.

My serve motion was pretty much instantly very, very good. It didn't hurt being left handed either. I got a lot of spin on the ball which made it doubly effective. The real turning point in my serving came when I was about 18 years old and I went to the Don Budge Tennis Camp and Mr. Budge took the time over the course of a couple of summers to really help me with my motion and my tactics. He taught me the "perfect" motion and his tutelage on tactics fit right in with my pitching experience. Once I had the ball in my service game I was "pitching" to my opponent. Down and away...up and in. That sort of thing. Blazing down the middle. Nipping at the corners. Subtle changes in spin and speed. Placement.

It isn't so much what the ten year old is doing now with the serve...it is when she is eighteen or nineteen that will be the acid test. But now is the time to lay the foundation and to begin to progressively build towards the perfect motion. Once she has the perfect motion she can serve all day and all night if she cares to. Multiple matches? It will just get better and better.

Three rules for injury serving...perfect motion...perfect motion...perfect motion. Once you are using the perfect friction free motion it is like throwing with a throwing stick...know what I mean?

[hockeyscout]

Great post don-budge. It will be interesting to read your attachments.

[klacr]

Kyle, you work for the USTA.

What ball counts limits (example, serves) are allowed in tournament play, academies and national training sessions?

In the USA now when a baseball pitcher attends a tournament, he's under set control limits or the coaches are in big time trouble (lose sanctioning, insurance, coaching licenses, ect).

I see a lot of tennis tournament schedules, and for me I worry about kids playing two or three matches a day.

I got a 10 year old girl who is 5'11, so, probably my circumstances are are real unique as we need to back off quite a bit due to the fact you have a young body trying to move in woman's frame.

But, if she was 5'4 tall and a midget, I would still be concerned with the ball count especially at this stage of the game.

What are your ball count specs? What are you trying to hold you athlete down to?

don_budge would be real helpful here as he understands baseball pitching - and how a numbers count system could relate well over to tennis.

We have a program we are using now, but, the extra input would be real interesting to see if we are on the right track.

hockeyscout,

I do not work for the USTA. But for future's sake, never say never as there are some unique opportunities and collaborations that may come to fruition down the road, but thats for another thread, post or article.

You bring up an interesting question about limits and how much is too much. There is no specific number or amount, but when it comes to tournaments and matches, below is a chart.

RECOVERY RULE

After all singles matches in Junior, Adult, Senior, NTRP and Wheelchair Divisions in which the match format is two out of three standard tiebreak sets or more, the Referee shall offer a rest of two hours before the player’s next singles match. This rule does not apply to short set matches, matches that play a tiebreak in lieu of a final third set, nor to any match played indoors where the duration of the match is less than 120 minutes.

For any other format (including matches played with a 10-Point Match Tiebreak in lieu of a third set), the rest is at least 30 minutes. Scheduling:

• All players should be given at least 12 hours of rest between the completion of their last match of any day and the start of play of their first match of the following day;
• In the 12s and 14s divisions, no match should start nor should a suspended match resume after 8 p.m.; and
• In the 16s and 18s divisions no match should start nor should a suspended match resume after 10 p.m. NOTE: The USTA Southern Section has adopted the following: Singles matches consisting of at least two full sets (short scoring) count for Southern ranking and standing. In lieu of a third set, a match tie-break may be played to determine the winner of the match. In doubles, regular scoring, short scoring and 8 game pro sets will also count for ranking and standing purposes.

I hope this helps.
don_budge makes a great post above as well.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

Sorry, I just saw it was USPTA.

Kyle, what is your serve timed at in KM and MPH just out of curiousity.

You serve like Roscoe Tanner, yes?

[klacr]

hockeyscout,

yes, I've been told my serve is Tanner-esque but I never consciously copied a motion per se, I just tossed the ball up and hit it.

As for my speeds, I've never sought out a speed gun or tried to measure it. Last year I was in Switzerland and met with Phil (gzhpcu), he attached a sensor to my racquet and it gave me this read out Kyle serve Sui 2015 PDF.pdf (sorry for configuration) . Make of this what you will.

I've always been told my serve was good and I knew it had some heat on it as well as some spin but was always more concerned with hitting my spots and a high first serve percentage, although I'm just as comfortable winning with my 2nd serve. To each their own.

I would not recommend anyone copying my serve or style. Its just something that happened. For others that try it, not sure how effective and comfortable it will be for them.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

klacr, my 10 years olds motion is close to your's and Roscoe's - except the grip is a Boris Becker eastern. Totally opposite of what is taught in the USA. I think she will be an okay player in 10-15 years with her motion, and I can't see it changing much.

I dont care for these high ball tosses, dramatic knee bend, jumping thirty feet in the air, exagerated trophy positions, attention to grips and all of this American style stuff.

The motions of Gonzalez, Budge, Tanner and Becker - perfect (in my opinion). No need for all these bells and whistles.

Everyone talks about the great service motions of todays players - and, I don't see it.

20 to 30 years ago pro's were hitting the ball much, much, much better (and cleaner) on the serve with some very bad equipment I might add.

We forget maybe the best server of all-time, Federer turned pro 18 years ago!

Guys could rock the ball back when Roger turned pro like Sampras, Goran, Medvedev, Roddick, Becker - ect, but no one could place the ball like Roger on a line, or do it effortlessly at 70%.

Roger's 70% is everyone else's 90%, and I am not kidding, thats how good I think he is.

The game is losing Roger's impeccable timing and rhythm, and we're seeing players putting a hell of a lot of effort into getting secondary type results that don't reflect real quality.

I once trained an Olympic soocer player back in Canada for three months in the winter, and he came to camp with his pro team bigger, stronger, faster and killing everyone in the drills. The two of us played on the same semi-pro senior mens indoor team, and we would practice every night from 10 pm to 2 am. I thought he looked great, and I believed a world class job was done in preparing him for a big season.

But, one big issue - he had all these tools now in his bag and guess what, he was a worse player when he returned to the big fields, and the real pro game. In fact, he was awful. He told me, "Fuck, I am so fast I arrive a quarter of a second to early, and my timing is shit, and I am the worst player on the field."

That sure taught me a valuable lesson about how to train athletes!

[klacr]

I wish your daughter luck. Look forward to seeing her serve one of these days.
Interesting you mention serving styles. Take a look at the American Serving Style Thread and article I posted.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[hockeyscout]

I did - it was interesting.

[don_budge]

Injury Free Serving...the efficient transfer of energy through the conduit of the wrists

It will be interesting to read your attachments.

With all of the attention than you are paying to laying the foundation in training of the hips, the gait, the feet etc. ...the ultimate goal is the transfer of energy of the sum of the forces through the wrist into the "throwing stick" to make contact with the ball. It's a swing...which has similarities to a throwing motion but not entirely. Here is how I interpret the role of the wrist in tennis or wrists when it comes to golf. Absence of tension through the throwing arm or swinging arm is absolutely a key. Any tension inhibits full transfer of potential energy that the body parts are producing. The wrist is a hinge.

I wrote the post below in March of 2011...

Pronation and Use of the Wrist When Serving...

I wrote this in March in response to "erbr" and deleted it after posting it for some time...not nearly as sophisticated as Rod Cross, but I understand the math. Normally I operate on the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle with my students and myself as well.

The Wrist is a Hinge

Am I the only person who considers pronation as a natural biomechanical occurrence?-erbr

Knowledgable tennis players and golfers all over the world agree with you. When teaching the serve I sometimes make a bit of an oblique reference to the serve being similar to an upside down golf swing. Instead of teeing it up on the ground, we attempt to tee it up in the air. To begin with some of the similarities are the take away, the backswing, the transition between backswing to forward motion and the "release" of the wrist(s) which deliver the racquet or club to the ball...it even helps to "waggle" the racquet a bit in the preserve routine. The action of the wrist(s) is perhaps the most fundamentally important aspect of swinging a tennis racquet or a golf club (Ben Hogan certainly agrees with you)...or to swing anything else for that matter. This goes for all shots...long or short, fast or slow...not just the serve. It is also perhaps the most difficult aspect of swinging to convince a tennis or golf student of...it is a matter of swinging, not hitting. Getting too "wristy" even with short putts is the kiss of death, but that being said...you still must swing the putter.

I describe the function of the wrist as that of the hinge on a door. One never has to consciously think about applying the wrist in the swing of the racquet or the club, but you must let it do what it most naturally wants to do...and that is to swing smoothly with all of the centrifugal energy that the mind/head (the idea behind the shot intended to play), the feet and legs, the hips and body, the shoulders and finally the arm have created. The action of the wrist is a product of all of this and it's job is to transfer all of that action into the face of the racquet. It's really such a simple thing...ha ha. But it's best not to talk too much about it...or to think too much about it either, for that matter. Better to concentrate on footwork and getting into position and just letting "the thing" happen.

Once the wrist(s) take over...delivering the payload feels a bit like "slamming the door".

Everyone always talks about the thumb being such an important digit for homo sapiens. But the wrist for tennis players...and for golfers, is the joint that makes it all possible.

[hockeyscout]

The wrist for golf, hockey, MMA, tennis ... its huge. Agreed. Roger, tremendous wrist, smart hands.

Movement and speed can be taught.

A magical rotator cuff and a grip of steel wrist ... it can't be taught.

Some people like klacr, my daughter, from what you have said on the site - you, and me have this inherant trait. Grip and wrist strength

The MMA fighter I had reached a peak. He got to MMA champion of Russia (its watered down now), but, I do not see him having success on the North American side of the site game as he does not have natural grip strength, or a durable rotator cuff (in my opinion).

I did everything I could maximize this guys hand strength, grip and make him more mobile in the shoulder area - for instance you put towels on weights to make the grip bigger, you practice a lot of hanging from ropes, take a wet stick and fight over it with one hand, hand speed excercises in water, my isokonetic training machine, tetherball, bouncing balls and I even invented new machines (I will show these in the armageddon thread). He just didn't have Boris Becker's powerful wrist, or Sampras' double joints or Roger's combination of all the above. No matter what tricks of the trade I did I just could not get it to the level I needed to because he did not have a smart wrist, solid rotator cuff or a real propensity for developing power.

But, the rest, it can all be developed.

I will say this - there are very few tennis players with klacr's rotator cuff. His feet are huge, but, he'd be exactly the type of project I would have loved to work with because you can't teach hand strength and a gifted rotator cuff. I remember writing that once in a thread here.

[klacr]

Thanks for the kind words hockeyscout. I appreciate it. You wrote about my rotator cuff in a thread about the serve when I posted my strokes. Although my physical gifts are admirable, my greatest and most fortunate one is my lack of getting injured. I've been very lucky in that regard.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[don_budge]

The Three Rules for Injury Free Serving...Perfect Motion...Perfect Motion...Perfect Motion

This is honestly one of my favorite posts of all time. I had a lot of fun trying to express this idea. The Gravitational Pull on the Racquet Head. It's a car on a RollerCoaster ride that stays on track.

Love Rollercoaster...The Ohio Players 1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBkVV9xxCHE

The Roller Coaster of Love...Part 1

Then I wrote this in April for Phil's "frustrating" thread...I deleted this one as well. Stupid me, I didn't realize that this was somehow related to Rod Cross's physics lesson on...what is it he is talking about anyways? I remember talking to my college roommate and doubles partner and backcourt mate on the basketball court, many years ago, 1076 I believe it was...he was a Chemical Engineering major, I said to him..."you know Jim, a tennis match is really one big physics problem and equation, I wonder if you could take an entire tennis match and express it as an equation in terms of force, vectors, with specific quantification." He looked up at me from his studies and said, "That's an interesting thought." I never did follow up on my thought. He went on studying and I went out to practice.


Roller Coaster of Love...remember that tune?


Phil...I have been studying your video over the last couple of weeks and gleaned everything I can from it. The one view has its limitations and the still sequence of your serve adds some insight as well. The only sure way to do this thing is in person...care to fly over to Sweden for a couple of lessons. Just kidding.


The service motion is a bit complex and it involves quite a bit of motion from all of the different parts of the body...so we try to simplify things by creating a model we can relate it to in simple terms. The model that I use is the “berg och dallbana” which translates literally into English from Swedish as the “mountain and valley course”...but it means “roller coaster”. A roller coaster is an amusement park ride that is perfectly designed using the law of gravity. The design is so perfect that the ride feels that it is wildly out of control and traveling at incredible speed...but is so amazingly in control that the owners of such rides are betting everything they have that the ride will not spin out of control and kill a bunch of innocent people on a Saturday afternoon. This is the safe and secure principle we shall attempt to modify your backswing to in order to get you going forward into the “hit” with perfect and effortless energy. We are going to be using gravity as our main source of energy...to create a perfect, yet simple motion...a roller coaster of a serve.


Here’s the thing, Phil...about the set up and backswing. This is a real challenge without having you in front of me to study for a while. To set you up to begin your motion I would like you to create a line directly at your target with the toes of your two feet which are approximately shoulder width apart. Imagine this line going forwards towards your target and all the way back of you to the fence. This line will serve as our “track” for the backswing. I would like to see you bent slightly at the waist so that your arm can “swing” from your shoulder without your body getting in the way. Finally, I would like you to line your racquet up to your target as well, on the same line as the line that your feet created. Point your racquet at the target and hold it about waist high supported by your left hand. Weight distributed from between 60/40 to 70/30 from the front foot to the back. Great...now we have you lined up, and taking aim.

Here we go...hold on to your hat! One thing that we must clarify before we go into any kind of explanation about the motion is the pressure of your grip. Sam Snead referred to the grip on his golf club as holding it with only so much pressure as you would hold a live bird. We only hold on with our hand tight enough to not let go of the racquet. We maintain only enough pressure in the entire arm, forearm and wrist to swing the arm and racquet back into position in one piece without disturbing the exact position that it is in at the setup position. We must eliminate all sources of tension and resistance when we are attempting to use pure gravity to dictate our motion. From this relaxed and confident position at setup we need only to release the racquet with our left hand that is supporting it, and allow the weight of the racquet head to merely fall upon the line of the track all the way back to the fence until it reaches a position at the top of the hill. From the starting position, the roller coaster car begins its decent down the first hill until it reaches the bottom where it will begin its assent slowly up the second hill all the way to the top. Remember the track is along the line that we created with our feet towards our target and it extends all the way back. Keep the racquet on this track. By allowing gravity to dictate the direction and speed of our backswing we will create the position back in our swing where the laws of gravity make the most sense and the least number of things can go wrong. In fact nothing can go wrong...just like the roller coaster. By dropping the racquet head and allowing the weight of it to travel smoothly in front of you and only using the energy of your weight transferring to the back foot by slowly turning your shoulders and allowing your arm to freely swing back into position, we create a position where the racquet will naturally drop behind us at free fall speed into what you are referring to the “pro drop” position.

Now this is where things get a bit interesting...and exciting. Thinking about this point of the motion where the racquet makes a loop starting at free fall speed, behind our backs and how it relates to a roller coaster, we can imagine where the cars of the ride go into a loop and the riders are actually upside down on the track with only gravity to keep them glued to the track. This is where the riders of the roller coaster are screaming at the top of their lungs and their faces are contorted with the g-force that is plastering the tissue of their faces to their skulls. It’s in the loop, baby! This is where the drive of the legs, the turning back of the shoulders and the thrusting or throwing motion of the racquet combine to exponentially create an incredible amount of speed with very little effort. You can imagine that the line a piece of pencil would draw if it was attached to the tip of the racquet...this is your track for the roller coaster of your serve.

The backswing is where I observe the source of your issues. It looks to me that if we can get you into position you can make the move forward if you can maintain a loose grip on the racquet and the relaxation in your arm to create a whip like sensation. (insert post #32 at this point for the action of the wrist)


Just one more thing...it looks to me in frame #3 you have tossed the ball right out of the picture and in frame #4 it is returning to earth. I think your toss is a bit high...which would lead us to the next lesson, how and where to toss the ball.


A description of the Pancho Gonzales serve…

The Gonzales service is a natural action that epitomizes grace, power, control and placement. The top players sigh when they see the smooth, easy action. There is no trace of a hitch and no unnecessary movements. I have never seen a serve so beautifully executed. The toss is no higher than it has to be and it is timed so that he is fully stretched when he hits it. The backswing is continuous and the motion of the backswing blends into the hit and continues into the follow-through without a pause..

Like you...I am a huge admirer of the Gonzales serve...and he obviously knew his "metaphysics".

Ironically...I wrote this for gzhcpu. I am on his "ignore" list. Pity. Life goes on.