Upward Swing on the Serve: Most Complex Motion in Sports?

[doctorhl]

Good stuff. In order for the bullwhip to come into play, I think one needs to be able to feel the weight of the racquet head as one prepares for the start towards the ball on the 2 count. Certainly any kind of tension in the service motion is the enemy of feeling the weight of the racquet head as the racquet is held in hand.

Surprisingly, I have been hitting better serves and smoother groundless since being placed on beta blockers( an illegal drug in the Olympics- don’t know about the tour). Many of the great juniors somehow have conquered the mind/ body tension war at an early age. I often have wondered if the “racket changing”phenomenon” seen at he club level is a desperate attempt to feel that racket head weight in different conditions.

[don_budge]

Truly...a moment of truth. The "Twilight Moment"...there exists a point between the night and day. In Hawaii when the sun dips into the ocean, there is once in a great while a very distinct flash of green when atmospheric conditions are perfect to that effect.

In order for the bullwhip to come into play, I think one needs to be able to feel the weight of the racquet head as one prepares for the start towards the ball on the 2 count. Certainly any kind of tension in the service motion is the enemy of feeling the weight of the racquet head as the racquet is held in hand.

Cue "green flash". Brilliant...which is not to say I agree with you. I don't have too. Perfectly said.

By the way...regarding that "green flash" moment. It occurs at precisely the point and moment where and when the sun disappears against the ocean horizon. Poof!

[stroke]

My dear old tennis coach spoke of the "Bullwhip Effect". That barely perceptible degree of separation that separates the backswing and the forwards swing. Truly...a moment of truth. The "Twilight Moment"...there exists a point between the night and day. In Hawaii when the sun dips into the ocean, there is once in a great while a very distinct flash of green when atmospheric conditions are perfect to that effect. I have seen that a couple of times. It is mostly local knowledge. Do we count to two when we reach that moment in the backswing and start towards the ball on two?

Good stuff. In order for the bullwhip to come into play, I think one needs to be able to feel the weight of the racquet head as one prepares for the start towards the ball on the 2 count. Certainly any kind of tension in the service motion is the enemy of feeling the weight of the racquet head as the racquet is held in hand.

[don_budge]

Frictionless change of direction in a golf swing or tennis serve......an experience that kind of reminds me of the first time as a child when I was able to make a bullwhip "pop". I wonder if a piece of rope tied to a pros racket head or golf club head would pop at change of direction? (Ha!).

My dear old tennis coach spoke of the "Bullwhip Effect". That barely perceptible degree of separation that separates the backswing and the forwards swing. Truly...a moment of truth. The "Twilight Moment"...there exists a point between the night and day. In Hawaii when the sun dips into the ocean, there is once in a great while a very distinct flash of green when atmospheric conditions are perfect to that effect. I have seen that a couple of times. It is mostly local knowledge. Do we count to two when we reach that moment in the backswing and start towards the ball on two?

[doctorhl]

Upward Swing on the Serve: Most Complex Motion in Sports? This is deep stuff Doc. I believe that it is one of the most complicated and this is why I believe so. For reasons unknown to everyone except myself...apparently...I have often compared the service motion to an upside down golf swing. Instead of teeing the ball on the ground we tee it up above us. Your question leads me to believe that I am closer to the truth of someone that anyone cares to suspect. It is the down swing in the golf swing that is one of the most mysterious and difficult manoeuvres to perform in the universe of sports. It is the transition from the backswing to the forwards swing...sort of like twilight. Where the night divides the day...or the other way around. It is certainly the moment of truth in both swings.

Excellent that you divide the entire entity into the four parts. Coincidentally the golf swing can also conveniently be divided similarly. This is where the real tempo of the swings is created and both are predicated on the patience for the thing to happen that allows the performer to perform a very complex motion with "frictionless motion". If performed correctly, the motion creates an "effortless power" that is one of the most beautiful physical sensations known to man. Almost on a par with you know what. Both the upward swing in the serve and the downward swing in golf culminate in a synergistic climactic ending. If performed correctly...I reiterate. Known as the happy ending in some circles.

Excellent video. Excellent explanation. Thank you!

Frictionless change of direction in a golf swing or tennis serve......an experience that kind of reminds me of the first time as a child when I was able to make a bullwhip "pop". I wonder if a piece of rope tied to a pros racket head or golf club head would pop at change of direction? (Ha!).

[averymia]

Coincidentally the golf swing can also conveniently be divided similarly. This is where the real tempo of the swings is created and both are predicated on the patience for the thing to happen that allows the performer to perform a very complex motion with "frictionless motion". If performed correctly, the motion creates an "effortless power" that is one of the most beautiful physical sensations known to man.source: https://tennishunters.com/

[BrianGordon]

Hi don_budge - your explicit and implicit analogies continue to be second to none. Thanks for considering the presentation and the encouraging words. BG

[don_budge]

Let's discuss Brian Gordon's latest article, "Upward Swing on the Serve: Most Complex Motion in Sports?"

Upward Swing on the Serve: Most Complex Motion in Sports? This is deep stuff Doc. I believe that it is one of the most complicated and this is why I believe so. For reasons unknown to everyone except myself...apparently...I have often compared the service motion to an upside down golf swing. Instead of teeing the ball on the ground we tee it up above us. Your question leads me to believe that I am closer to the truth of someone that anyone cares to suspect. It is the down swing in the golf swing that is one of the most mysterious and difficult manoeuvres to perform in the universe of sports. It is the transition from the backswing to the forwards swing...sort of like twilight. Where the night divides the day...or the other way around. It is certainly the moment of truth in both swings.

Excellent that you divide the entire entity into the four parts. Coincidentally the golf swing can also conveniently be divided similarly. This is where the real tempo of the swings is created and both are predicated on the patience for the thing to happen that allows the performer to perform a very complex motion with "frictionless motion". If performed correctly, the motion creates an "effortless power" that is one of the most beautiful physical sensations known to man. Almost on a par with you know what. Both the upward swing in the serve and the downward swing in golf culminate in a synergistic climactic ending. If performed correctly...I reiterate. Known as the happy ending in some circles.

Excellent video. Excellent explanation. Thank you!

[carollewise]

The thing that annoys me the most about the articles on the site is they are pre-cursor to sales, advertising based promoting a book/coach, anecdotal in nature and there are zero references, documentation and studies.

So Brian - clearly you are a high end coach - but, do you have published scientific papers?

Here is an example of the type of thing we are looking for here - Mark Kovacs - references are listed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445225/ ...

Is this site just not letting you post white papers with references and more in depth information just due to editorial reasons?

[stroke]

I have even practiced serving with a badminton shuttlecock. You have to really let go of tension to hit that thing and get it to spring off the strings.

[arturohernandez]

Arturo, Perhaps there is some value in shooting a little video to let a person see their natural throwing action. I was told( by my Dad) at a very young age that my baseball throwing action looked peculiar. In addition, my career as a quarterback ended in middle school because of a poor throwing action and slow release( though accurate). To this day, even with practice and an advanced knowledge base, I still don’t have a comfortable throwing action in my serve and certainly didn’t sequence it correctly with the legs. Any tournament success with tennis in high school and collegiate tennis was due to countless hours of practice of ”muscleing” the throwing action in the serve.

Interesting, I am sure I have similar flaws. I used to muscle my serve all the time. In fact, I pretty much muscled every shot.

About ten years ago, I worked a lot on really serving slow and loose. This is usually how I warm up and as soon as I feel that my serve goes out of whack I go back to slow and smooth. I have even practiced serving just over the net.

I find that if I serve a lot, I begin to muscle it. So as soon as I feel tension, I try really hard to relax my arm. It is a constant battle to remind myself that I have to be really loose with my serve. That I cannot control all the little tiny movements that makeup a serve.

The feeling I get is that I have no idea where my serve is going or if it will be in. I have no control over the shot itself. When I serve this way, the ball just spins more and it seems to really bother people.

I am not sure I could pull this off as a young adult or teenager. It literally means having to let go and trust that my body knows better than my mind.

[doctorhl]

Arturo, Perhaps there is some value in shooting a little video to let a person see their natural throwing action. I was told( by my Dad) at a very young age that my baseball throwing action looked peculiar. In addition, my career as a quarterback ended in middle school because of a poor throwing action and slow release( though accurate). To this day, even with practice and an advanced knowledge base, I still don’t have a comfortable throwing action in my serve and certainly didn’t sequence it correctly with the legs. Any tournament success with tennis in high school and collegiate tennis was due to countless hours of practice of ”muscleing” the throwing action in the serve.

[arturohernandez]

Arturo: My unsolicited two cents: I like to use the throwing actions like you mentioned to help players get the feel of muscle sequencing in the hitting arm. Some actions of a football throw cross over to the serve. However not all of a football or racket throwing action will duplicate the tennis serve throwing action and you have the added timing of the toss and leg actions. Jumping to throw a football or racket is different from a non-jumping throw. The question is whether it is worthwhile to practice a crossover movement that just duplicates part of a larger movement. I once had a baseball player tell me that mimicing a screwball pitch motion helped him with the natural ISR part of the serve. But he had no concept of jumping upward and how an upward release of the racket could direct the ball downward.

Good points! Eventually, the whole motion has to be put together. And judging from my own experience, that is much harder to do. For about six months, I served from the trophy. They were probably the best first serving days of my adult life. But my second serve was not as good and I was limited in what I could do.

So, yes, it is really hard to break up into pieces. However, I feel that kind of stepping out of the court in a way helps. So I tend to think alternating one thing with another helps.

One of the biggest problems for me is to transition from hand/foot sports to instrument sports.

Maybe that is where I think practicing physical movements and then trying to transfer them to tennis might help.

But as you noted it all has to be put together eventually.

[doctorhl]

One more question for you Brian. What do you think about the usual teaching pro tricks? Things like throw/serve drills, throwing footballs, throwing the racket as high as possible in a grassy field. There is a group of people out there (including me) that think breaking down a stroke into its parts is great for explanation but hard for us to capture. it's not that we cannot practice little parts of a stroke. It's just that if we create other exercises outside of tennis serving, that it then might be easier to put them together. We can also incorporate the feel of these exercises.

To me the easiest way to address Khachanov's issues would be to have him throw an American Football and then serve. Serena says her dad made her do it a lot. It's hard to throw a spiral with a stiff arm which is what I get when I see him try to muscle the serve and thus get less rotation.

Just wondering if your videos are for us to understand what is going on.

And, just to finish here, even though I tend to not like to reduce a stroke to its parts. I do it all the time myself.

Thanks for all your explanations!

So my question is:

Do you use other sport movements to help a stroke outside of tennis?

Arturo: My unsolicited two cents: I like to use the throwing actions like you mentioned to help players get the feel of muscle sequencing in the hitting arm. Some actions of a football throw cross over to the serve. However not all of a football or racket throwing action will duplicate the tennis serve throwing action and you have the added timing of the toss and leg actions. Jumping to throw a football or racket is different from a non-jumping throw. The question is whether it is worthwhile to practice a crossover movement that just duplicates part of a larger movement. I once had a baseball player tell me that mimicing a screwball pitch motion helped him with the natural ISR part of the serve. But he had no concept of jumping upward and how an upward release of the racket could direct the ball downward.

[tenniscoach1]

TC if you read the article Brian distinguished between pure bio mechanical understanding and teaching practice. The answers to most of your questions are in his other articles in the biomechanics section.

Brian provided me the missing components I wanted to know in a message later ...