Developing an ATP Forehand
Part 1: The Dynamic Slot
Brian Gordon, PhD
In this exclusive series of articles for Tennisplayer, I am presenting a new approach to understanding, learning and teaching tennis. The initial articles will cover the forehand, specifically our forehand model which is similar to what you see on the ATP tour. But then they will progress to the two-handed backhand and the serve as well.
This approach is different than previous teaching systems in a fundamental way. This is because it is based on years of quantitative biomechanical research, research that is also combined with extensive on court work with elite players and coaches.
The on court work has been conducted over the past two years at the Rick Macci Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida. This on court development, guided by the quantitative research and analysis, has led to the development of a teaching system Rick and I call Biomechanically Engineered Stroke Technique, or the BEST system for short.
This initial series of articles will be an overview, based on coaching presentations I have done that attempt to simplify and make the BEST concepts accessible in the wider world of teaching and playing. John Yandell and I have worked back and forth on this article many times to present the information in a fashion he feels will be the most beneficial to Tennisplayer subscribers.
I do this with some reservation, however, because these initial articles will deal more with broad concepts, the conclusions themselves, and the BEST teaching implications without going into the full biomechanical research that provides their scientific basis.
That research basis is really the heart of the BEST System and very important to fully understanding how and why our system works. In a subsequent series of more technical articles I will be presenting the research in much greater detail for those who want to delve into science of biomechanics and understand the mechanical concepts that underlie the teaching concepts.
In addition to my work, Tennisplayer will also be publishing a series of articles from Rick himself, so subscribers will have the opportunity to see the approach through the eyes of one of the world's best known developmental coaches.
The BEST System
Development of the BEST system has been a true collaboration with Rick Macci. Together Rick and I have worked to develop and implement it, primarily with sectional and nationally ranked juniors, but also with some pro players at various levels.
My primary role has had two aspects. The first is a definition of a working model of optimal strokes from the perspective of the neuromuscular-skeletal system. The second is systematic assessment of player's development in the system using quantitative 3D analysis. Rick's contribution has been to use his unparalleled experience as a developmental coach to transform this information in to on court teaching progressions.
The Difference
It is important to emphasize that the BEST System was developed based on objective quantitative analysis of hundreds of players over many years. Specific stroke attributes have been assessed based on their neuromuscular-skeletal pros and cons in the production of racquet head velocity. This assessment was conducted without regard to individual players, but rather through the creation of a massive database.
Although I am not presenting many of the details of the mechanical concepts in this first series, I do want to stress that assessing the effectiveness of the BEST system on court is not a matter of theory or opinion. It is based on quantified data that allows us to track a player's development and progression toward the model through regular 3D measurements.
If we tell a student that following our interventions will increase their forehand racquet speed, we are able to demonstrate that this actually occurs. We know this because we have measured the actual speed of his racquet before, during, and after the changes.
Optimizing the Muscular System
I don't believe that developing advanced technique is entirely a question of age, or of strength, or even of natural ability. It's a question of teaching players to optimize the performance of their muscular systems.
My years of research combined with my current work with Rick have convinced me that it is possible to teach the BEST System forehand to everyone we work with. I mean that without exception, including even boys and girls as young as four years old.
It applies to competitive players at all levels and club players as well. Using this approach allows any player to literally turbocharge his forehand, by building a technical foundation skipping many of the typical developmental steps.
Too Good to Be True?
How is this possible? The process involves showing players how to use their muscles more effectively. This means utilizing neuromuscular optimization techniques such as elements of the stretch-shorten cycle, the same elements used by elite players.
The stretch-shorten cycle is a known mechanism in sport science and training. Generally it means that a muscle used in a given movement is first forcibly stretched in the opposite direction before it contracts.
Using elements of the stretch-shorten cycle significantly increases the muscles ability to deliver force. In tennis, that force can be systematically elicited through technique adaptation.
By establishing certain positions in the forehand motion, players can trigger stretch-shorten mechanisms automatically. This is why players at all levels of ability can develop ATP level forehand technique.
More Compact, More Power
One of the most fascinating aspects of the research is that this use of elements of the stretch-shorten cycle means that our forehand involves less motion not more. The forehand in our system is more compact than other options and therefore simpler to execute.
This is important given the increasing speed of the sport. As the levels go up, this more compact motion has a huge advantage—time. In the supersonic world of the pro game the players with the most power are also the players who are able to get to the contact most quickly. It may be a necessity at the highest levels of the pro game, but this combination of power and timing has incredible advantages for players at any level.
This is also why we monitor players every 3 months taking 3D measurements to make sure that when they decrease their range of motion or size of swing that the positioning of the hitting arm and the sequencing is correct and hasn't cost players racquet speed, and that in fact it has caused them to gain.
To say that less motion equals more racquet speed may seem counter intuitive. But in fact many observers have noted how the top players with the greatest forehands, especially on the men's side, often have the most compact motions. Roger Federer is a classic example.
To repeat: what we have discovered is that when the table is set correctly, less motion actually can equal significantly more racquet head speed. We consider the ability to teach this to be a significant coaching breakthrough.
In our forehand, players use elements of the stretch-shorten cycle to allow key muscle groups to perform more efficiently in the forehand, simply by adhering to specific positions of the body, hitting arm and racquet late backswing and early in the forward swing.
These positions and motions also allow players to increase the amount of independent arm motion in the forward swing, generating significant additional racket speed.
Background
Before we go into detail on how to make all this happen, let's provide some background on how these concepts were developed. For more than 15 years, I have dedicated myself to researching the biomechanics of tennis strokes. My goal has been to define optimal stroke patterns.
That statement is based on an underlying assumption—that is there such a thing as an optimum stroke. And I believe this to be true. Although I am still in the process of refining the concepts, I think the picture is becoming increasingly clear.
Over the last decade I have measured hundreds of tennis players with 3D measurement technology. This has included elite Division 1 college players, elite juniors of all ages, and pro players at various levels.
How does this technology work? Through a scientific grade system of 10 infrared cameras each filming at 400 frames per second. The cameras track 60 reflective markers attached to the players using a suit and a series of elastic bands.
The measurement system is non-invasive, meaning it allows the players to move around the court unimpaired by cords or wires and produce their strokes naturally. This is the scientific version of the systems used in making animated movies and video games.
That's how we capture and compute the 3D real-time data describing the movement of the human body hitting tennis strokes. Once we capture this data we then analyze it using custom designed computer software.
The software allows us to calculate the actual 3D position of the racquet and body at every instant in the stroke. These results in turn allow us to study the physics of the motion, what is called biomechanics.
These data allow us to accurately measure the 3D joint angles, the velocity of the racquet and the body parts, rotational speeds, accelerations, and even calculate some forces and torques.
In essence it allows us to quantify everything that has an impact on the production or the quality of the stroke. And again, more about the research and the data to come.
The ATP Forehand
So what has all this research shown us about optimal forehand technique? It looks similar to what we see in men's pro tennis, what I call the ATP style forehand.
It was no surprise to me that one critical factor in executing an ATP style forehand is perfect synchronization of leg drive, trunk rotation, and hitting arm movement. The surprise was in the details of the sequencing and positioning.
Entering the forward swing the hitting arm and racquet must be in exactly the correct position when the trunk rotation starts in order to gain muscular optimization. If done correctly players will create what I call the "dynamic slot."
The dynamic slot is a specific, characteristic rotation of the hitting arm and racket in the early forward swing, in which the racket literally rotates down and backwards or "flips" over. But this happens automatically as a characteristic of the previous positions and movements. This is why we think of it as dynamic.
The idea of "finding the slot" in the forehand is not new. It's common for players and teaching pros to talk about the racquet finding the slot with the butt of the racquet pointing at the ball.
But the "dynamic" slot is something entirely different because it results automatically from a particular series of positions and motions late in the backswing and in the early part of the forward swing.
What our research shows about the dynamic slot corresponds visually with what we see in the forehands on the ATP tour. As the high speed video on Tennisplayer demonstrates, the dynamic slot is a core commonality of the forehands of players including Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal. On court, Rick and I have proven that it is also something that virtually any player can develop for themselves.
To create the dynamic slot and achieve this precise synchronization requires a very precise understanding of the forward swing. I define the start of the forward swing as the exact instant the hitting hand has BOTH forward and lateral speed, meaning the first instant it is moving both forward but also sideways along the baseline.
Three Types
Let's see how all this works by studying the prevalent forehand models in competitive tennis. Without oversimplifying too much it's fair to say that there are 3 distinct types.
Type 1
The Type 1 swing is prominent among junior level players, especially for younger players and at lower levels. Type 2 is common on the WTA tour. The Type 3 swing is what you see on the ATP tour and corresponds most closely to the principles discovered by research that we see in the BEST system.
At the end of the turns, the positions in all three swings are relatively similar, although the pro players tend to have better preparation of the legs with more knee bend, and sometimes better body turns as well. But when we look at the backswings, and in particular, the descending portions of the loop (when the hand is moving vertically downward), we start to see bigger differences between the types.
Junior players using the Type 1 forehand tend to have what we call the helicopter forehand swing, with a large (and sometimes extremely large) backswing. In these backswings the racquet typically goes back well behind the plane of the body defined by the shoulder joints and mid-hip joint location.
By that I mean that the tip of the racquet, rather than pointing at the rear fence is actually pointing behind the player toward the side fence. In the extreme case, the racquet can be parallel to the baseline and pointing directly at the sideline.
The elbow also tends to be lower and in close proximity to the torso during the backswing. The result is that the Type 1 forward swing tends to be more of a unitary and circular motion, with the trunk and the arm moving forward together, so that there is little independent motion of the hitting arm.
This Type 1 racquet positioning is common in junior players, and especially girls. And this is not a random event. There's a reason the players do it.
Developing juniors often use as much range of motion (as big a swing) as they possibly can in an effort to generate racquet speed. So they take their racquets as far back in the backswing as they possibly can.
This strategy may succeed to some extent in generating racquet speed. However, as players progress through the higher levels there is an obvious downside.
This is in terms of the timing. Starting the forward swing from further away behind the body means traveling a greater distance to reach the contact point. That simply takes longer.
