The Serve: Probation!

[seano]

Brian -

Once again, Maria Sharapova has withdrawn from a tournament (Indian Wells) because of shoulder issues. 2 questions:

1) To what would you attribute her history of shoulder problems to? I'm assuming it's her serve but in your view what bio-mechanically is she doing wrong to create all of her problems? Is it her high ball toss? Lack of synchronization between lower & upper body? Lack of true balance when fully loaded with her legs (knees seem to be touching instead of each knee directly above the appropriate foot)? Lack of a external/internal shoulder rotation? Combination of all or something completely different?

2) If you were her coach when she was a youngster, could you give me a progression of steps you would take to maximize her serve talent? Start with "Probation" to synchronize lower/upper body, then what...? Control swing path? Develop more of a "sweeping" motion in external rotation? I feel it's very useful to hear your thoughts. Thank you again.

SeanO

[johnyandell]

Seano,
If you don't mind me jumping in, there are a couple of questionable assumptions here. One that you can draw a straight line between technique and injury. You can find plenty of players with all the same serve elements as Maria that aren't injured. It's like when Vic Braden claimed open stance was the source of Kuerten's hip injuries. Second with Sharapova maybe it's not the serve at all. Lansdorp always said the late contact on her forehand. My point is bodies are different and you can't clone Maria and train her different ways to see if the result is the same. Brian correct me please.

[seano]

John -
Definite food for thought, thank you.

[don_budge]

2) If you were her coach when she was a youngster, could you give me a progression of steps you would take to maximize her serve talent? Start with "Probation" to synchronize lower/upper body, then what...? Control swing path? Develop more of a "sweeping" motion in external rotation? I feel it's very useful to hear your thoughts. Thank you again.

SeanO

Start with the "Probation" and then move to a setup position that is designed to initiate by inertia the perfect backswing that gets her to the probation point with a minimum amount of speed before the racquet descends behind her back. Brian says it doesn't matter how you get there but he prefers the platform stance. I would eliminate that part of the "youngster Sharapova's" motion right off the bat. The pinpoint. A lot of extra movement for no apparent reason.

Probation-setup-backswing. Then work on the toss. If you have all systems go and the ball is in the right vicinity the rest will take care of itself...with a tinker here and there. Then I would have her serve and volley to exaggerate the upward motion and the initial thrust into the court. In the past service motions were designed to propel towards the net. Today they are designed with a braking mechanism. The serve and volley being a teaching mechanism with the obvious additional benefits in the future.

Excellent question...I couldn't resist.

[gzhpcu]

John, I had a friend who was a tennis pro years ago, and he said for a tennis player a biomechanical profile should be established to determine the optimal technique to avoid injuries. He wanted to write a book, but never got around to it.

[bottle]

John -
Definite food for thought, thank you.

I love your observations but hate the cliche "food for thought." I could have not said that but reconsidered. Maybe I'm just reminding myself never to use the three words "food for thought" in my own discourse while giving my enemies, who always need help, a proven way to irritate me.

[seano]

John -
I appreciate you thoughts, thank you. ))

[johnyandell]

Phil,
There could be such thing--although I doubt it...many many factors....Better technique should equal less injury...but...Let's see what Brian says.

[stotty]

John, Phil:

There has to be some connection between technique and injury although genetics doubtless plays its part. I use lateral pinpoint. I have arthritis in the left knee but nothing in the right. I am perilously close to bone on bone. With my type of serve all the load is borne by the left leg, the right leg, certainly in my case, merely acts as a stabiliser. I just have to believe that if I had shared the load with both legs over the last 40 odd years my left knee might not be in such poor shape today. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4joc07

[gzhpcu]

Very nice looking serve stotty.

[johnyandell]

Stotty,
I thought you had changed to a platform!

[BrianGordon]

Sorry for the delay folks - decided to try to lose the beer belly by spending extra time on the court putting the kids on probation - a lot of extra time - didn't work.

don_budge - we agree completely on the pendulum windup. My experience has been though that a bad pendulum is like eating a bad clam - messy and painful. Many of my players simply can't hit the hesitation point out of that windup no matter how hard they try. Rather than fit a square peg into a round hole and since I've found the critical actions start at the hesitation point I let them figure out how to get there in a way that ensures the integrity of the position and my sanity. The serve and volley emphasis is a great tool!

Seano - I don't know anything about her injury so can not speculate what caused it. I would have built her serve the same way I do all my players - use probation to build the backswing plane and lower-upper body synchronization - then build in a windup with a hesitation - then focus on the upper body body rotations and sequencing. That is the template I use for every player I work with.

Injury Discussion -

The most we can say is that there is a link between mechanics and the POTENTIAL for injury. I could cite (but won't) numerous mechanical flaws that could cause acute and chronic injury. These could be identified as part of a biomechanical profile but that would require intense analysis with very sophisticated technology and a lot of expertise. Even with decent mechanics the repetitive nature and physical demands of the sport open the door for a myriad of chronic problems from serious to annoying.

Whether the mechanical problems (or simply the demands of high level tennis) WILL cause debilitating injury depends on several individual factors (some pointed out) including genetics (particularly muscle fiber type distribution), lifestyle (sleep, nutrition, hydration), and training (physical preparation). Gender also plays a role as it has been shown that females are more susceptible to musculo-skeletal injury when estrogen levels increase as part of their monthly cycle.

[stotty]

Stotty,
I thought you had changed to a platform!

I have. I just changed too late. The damage is done. That clip was 8 years ago. I like my serve but deeply regret not being platform from birth. I blame Nastase because it was he I tried to copy all those years ago.

[johnyandell]

He is worthy of blame on several fronts

[don_budge]

Fedinand Celine...the three little dots

Your thoughts on Brian Gordon's "The Serve: Probation!"?

Thanks for the comments and words of encouragement. Glad some found the video (and series) at least entertaining and interesting if not informative. I suppose the man in black analogy should be amended to the man in black that needs to get his weight challenged ass in the gym - one would think that 10-14 hours a day on the court in Florida heat would keep one in better shape - one would be mistaken lol.

The "Probation" segment is an excellent place to begin in correcting any improprieties in motions that not totally free of friction. I worked with my protege, Gustaf, several times in the past couple of weeks and today I sent him a message that said..."We should try to complete the installation of the perfect frictionless motion and introduce the idea of supreme confidence in the motion. Serve and volley." So much progress was made in ironing out the little kinks and points of friction by referring to this "Probation" point and then trying to get the backswing right to get the student in this position with the right timing going forwards. So I have to hand it to you in this regard...an excellent teaching tool and thanks for sharing.

Secondly the idea of what you refer to as "forward rotation" as opposed to "twist rotation". A very important distinction as well that makes it easier to explain to the student as to what exactly it is that we are trying to accomplish with our body rotation.

I'm so glad that I transcribed this particular segment of your serving lesson. There are several pearls in this that deserve to be mentioned and repeated over and over.

Good stuff Doctor Brian. Some really substantial food for thought. For the student and the teacher.

Synchronizing the Legs…Dr. Brian Gordon

Transcribed from the video below:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...zing_the_legs/

But for the most part the whole thing is set up to produce a forward rotation and not a twisting rotation.

Again to be very, very clear, whether she comes into this continuously or whether she stops her racquet in a hesitation point, the leg drive should commence exactly as the racquet breaks into the backswing and conclude exactly as the racquet exits the backswing. That would indicate perfect timing. It’s very, very important that timing is correct because you may have noticed that in Kayla when I take her into this position of external rotation I’m basically having to crank her shoulder right out of her body.

That’s because you cannot really do that in a static situation. The only way that this can be done in a real way is if her shoulder is incredibly relaxed.The only way she can relax her shoulder is if this external rotation is being caused by something other than a muscular activity doing this. The action that will do it is if she pushes with her legs up a force will be applied to her arm here and because of the orientation that force to the racquet it will make the racquet essentially go down her back as a function of inertia.

Brian -

2) If you were her coach when she was a youngster, could you give me a progression of steps you would take to maximize her serve talent? Start with "Probation" to synchronize lower/upper body, then what...? Control swing path? Develop more of a "sweeping" motion in external rotation? I feel it's very useful to hear your thoughts. Thank you again.

SeanO

Sorry for the delay folks - decided to try to lose the beer belly by spending extra time on the court putting the kids on probation - a lot of extra time - didn't work.

don_budge - we agree completely on the pendulum windup. My experience has been though that a bad pendulum is like eating a bad clam - messy and painful. Many of my players simply can't hit the hesitation point out of that windup no matter how hard they try. Rather than fit a square peg into a round hole and since I've found the critical actions start at the hesitation point I let them figure out how to get there in a way that ensures the integrity of the position and my sanity. The serve and volley emphasis is a great tool!

Seano - I don't know anything about her injury so can not speculate what caused it. I would have built her serve the same way I do all my players - use probation to build the backswing plane and lower-upper body synchronization - then build in a windup with a hesitation - then focus on the upper body body rotations and sequencing. That is the template I use for every player I work with.

Injury Discussion -

The most we can say is that there is a link between mechanics and the POTENTIAL for injury. I could site (but won't) numerous mechanical flaws that could cause acute and chronic injury. These could be identified as part of a biomechanical profile but that would require intense analysis with very sophisticated technology and a lot of expertise. Even with decent mechanics the repetitive nature and physical demands of the sport open the door for a myriad of chronic problems from serious to annoying.

Whether the mechanical problems (or simply the demands of high level tennis) WILL cause debilitating injury depends on several individual factors (some pointed out) including genetics (particularly muscle fiber type distribution), lifestyle (sleep, nutrition, hydration), and training (physical preparation). Gender also plays a role as it has been shown that females are more susceptible to musculo-skeletal injury when estrogen levels increase as part of their monthly cycle.

Just connecting some dots. Thinking out loud. I'm obsessed with those dots...the three little dots. Ever since I read Ferdinand Celine. I've never been the same. I inherited that whirring sound in his head. Only it is more of a "swoosh". Like the sound of the racquet head or club head passing through the path of the shot. Come to think of it...the shot is like a sequence of dots. We could say 365 dots in a row. Just for instance. Something that we can all relate to. The number of days in a year. Think of the earth as a shot...going around the sun. It does go around the sun, doesn't it? I heard it did.

I threw all of these comments up in a row...in a sequence. John and Brian...I really loved this series. Brian...the beer belly just gives us more of you to love. Thanks for sharing in your hard work. It really paid off. Probation...takes on a whole different meaning.

I'm speaking of my protege. Gustaf Adolfsson. I've been working with him for going on ten years here in Sweden. His game is built on fundamentals right out of the book of Bill Tilden. But one does not live on Tilden alone. So we branch out. Searching here and there. Until...you arrive at the "Holy Grail". Let's just call it the hesitation point. Keep it simple. So as not to lose anybody.

Gustaf has always had a "decent" service motion but to my coaching eye there has always been a perceptible bit of friction in his swing. As Brian notes it is a little crazy trying to iron out these little friction points. If only I were an acupuncturist with the infintisimal knowledge of "chi". That twelve meridians of energy that flows like the eternal spring through the course of the human body. With just a needle inserted in the correct place you can smooth out the flow. A pain in the foot is corrected with a needle in the nose. Go figure. So it goes with service swings. A little anomaly in the backswing turns into some sort of compensatory move in the action at the ball. It gets complicated.

But amazingly enough it was starting in the middle that helped us to solve this riddle. I was on to it when I replied to seano's post addressed to Brian. It was already manifesting itself like white light between me and the student. I had him hit balls out of the "Probation" position. We took our time but we were persistent. I kept him at it until he had a reasonable feel for whatever it was that Brian was looking for out of this abbreviated motion. Start in the middle. At the transition point. That point between the backswing and the forwards swing. Like twilight...that magical and mystical point where it is no longer day and not yet the night. Or halftime in a man's life...where you transition from young to "not young". Halftime...just imagine.

Then it was as seano guessed..."control the swing path". Interesting comment to be sure. Love the comments seano...it is food for thought. It sure got me thinking as if I wasn't already. So with Gustaf "controlling his swing path" became the second piece of the puzzle. We went back to the beginning at the setup position...to set the "track" of the backswing. See my rollercoaster of serving if you care to. But the track...it is only an imaginary meridian of energy from the setup to the "Hesitation Point". How to get there with the proper speed so that the racquet head just spills over the edge...that was the name of the game. A tinker here...a tinker there. Voila!!! Ten years of collaboration and we arrive at perfection. Frictionless serving.

I get a little carried away here. Just glimpses of the potential final product. I saw it. Yesterday. We'll tinker with it and put in play for a couple of hours before he leaves for Berlin. Thanks Brian. You too seano. John...this was a super lesson on the serve. Thank you...Sirs.