role of hip snap in the serve?

[nytennisaddict]

Thanks NYtennisaddict (this forum is more sympathetic than my wife!!). I would hit 100-150 once or twice a week. Definitely not more than that. But the injury happened on about number 20 after a long warm up, so bit disappointing.

sucks man. here you are fighting the good fight, spending time, putting in the boring reps,... and an injury bites you out of nowhere.

[don_budge]

I've enjoyed reading this thread.

One thing I'd like to add is that in my opinion, contributors like Dr Gordon who explain the precise biomechanics of the serve make it clear that they are not trying to explain how to teach the serve.

And for a laugh, here is a video of me trying to remember my old serve, and yes, I know the leg drive is pathetic! But I'm not kidding, this is the first time I've ever seen my serve, and I'm rotating that shoulder, even though when I learnt to do that we didn't even have the vocabularly to describe the motion.

How would you describe your service grip...glacierguy?

[glacierguy]

How would you describe your service grip...glacierguy?

Continental, or chopper, the V between my thumb and forefinger is on the left hand edge of bevel 1 (the top bevel). Edit: and I'm right-handed.

[don_budge]

Continental, or chopper, the V between my thumb and forefinger is on the left hand edge of bevel 1 (the top bevel). Edit: and I'm right-handed.

http://www.hudl.com/technique/video/view/jp6nJody

I suspected as much. My recommendation is to slide that grip back towards the backhand grip. Trust me...there are a lot of really good things going on in that motion. But the grip is an inhibiting factor that cancels out a lot of that nice potential energy you have coming into the ball. The wrist acts as a conduit to transfer energy from the motion as a payload. That continental grip restricts the flow that is required of the wrist to deliver that payload.

The giveaway to the grip from looking at the motion itself was the lack of spin on the ball. You are flirting with the net cord and the service line. A slight miscalculation or deviance at all is going to have you serving a fault. One of the most important elements of good serving is spinning the ball. Speed alone is not enough to get it done. Percentage tennis intellect advocates a high percentage of first serves in. Then you go to work on your opponents relative strengths and weaknesses with a wide variety of serves that you can replicate with the same motion with only a bit of manipulation in the wrist you are applying spin, placement and thirdly speed to the ball. Don't get me wrong...speed kills. But it must be done intelligently.

You need to develop a serve that bends. In more that one way. This is only possible with the aforementioned grip. I believe that your motion appears to be one that muscles the ball instead of one that explodes at impact. I wrote this a while back...ironically I called my post "Injury Free Serving..."


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.

[glacierguy]

Thanks very much don_budge. I can confirm that my first serve is too flat - my margin for error is very small, and sometimes I can have a bad run of faults. I am itching to get back on court and experiment with your suggestion of a slightly more backhand grip on serve. I am also going to read your "Injury Free Serving " thread (better late than never). As I've mentioned, I'm feeling my way back to tennis after 30 years off, and have only just started to try what I remember as my old serve. Once or twice I've felt that I've hammered it in with heavy spin, but proving elusive. I've had some funny conversations though with fellow players at my club about serving. My focus is on shoulder, but lots of people are talking about forearm pronation. I get blank looks when I say that if I've rotated the shoulder properly, everything afterwards "just happens". Having looked at that video myself a few times (!) I was thinking I need the toss a little more to the left so that my elbow is a bit more bent during shoulder rotation - what do you think? Plus I'm going to try the "hoppity hop" drill, to correct a tendency to be falling left. And more leg drive. But seriously, thanks for your advice.

[don_budge]

It's an "old" post. But what should one focus on in the serve motion? The weight of the racquet head. The flow of the head and all of the body parts following approximately the sternum...the centre of all things. But I talk about the perfect motion and friction free motions. Like a rollercoaster gliding along the track. The track serves as the path of the racquet head throughout the motion...the racquet head is the car on the track. Accelerating and decelerating solely due to inertia. The less you try the harder you "hit it". But it's a swing. Much like the golf swing...as I mentioned. It's food for thought. An idea. A darned good one I might add.


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".

[nytennisaddict]

http://www.hudl.com/technique/video/view/jp6nJody

I suspected as much. My recommendation is to slide that grip back towards the backhand grip. Trust me...there are a lot of really good things going on in that motion. But the grip is an inhibiting factor that cancels out a lot of that nice potential energy you have coming into the ball. The wrist acts as a conduit to transfer energy from the motion as a payload. That continental grip restricts the flow that is required of the wrist to deliver that payload.

The giveaway to the grip from looking at the motion itself was the lack of spin on the ball. You are flirting with the net cord and the service line. A slight miscalculation or deviance at all is going to have you serving a fault. One of the most important elements of good serving is spinning the ball. Speed alone is not enough to get it done. Percentage tennis intellect advocates a high percentage of first serves in. Then you go to work on your opponents relative strengths and weaknesses with a wide variety of serves that you can replicate with the same motion with only a bit of manipulation in the wrist you are applying spin, placement and thirdly speed to the ball. Don't get me wrong...speed kills. But it must be done intelligently.

You need to develop a serve that bends. In more that one way. This is only possible with the aforementioned grip. I believe that your motion appears to be one that muscles the ball instead of one that explodes at impact. I wrote this a while back...ironically I called my post "Injury Free Serving..."


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



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...

interesting... i had in the last couple years switched from a more ebh grip to conti.... i felt my serve was overly spinny. at 4.5 my serve is ok, but at 5.0, my serve was getting eaten up. i guess it depends on how much raw rhs you have to work with... i felt that while the spin was good, and more consistent, it slowed down the serve overall too much, so i was searching for more mph. as mentioned before, i'm only 5'4", so that (and less than perfect technique contributes to that).