The Passive Leg Drive | How to Correctly Use Your Legs on the Serve?
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
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Do not jump on your serve! If you actively drive your legs off the ground you will experience various problems on your serve. Your timing will suffer, you will not be able to load the back foot and also, tiredness will set in when playing long matches if you depend on the legs for power. The complex body actions performed on a tennis serve will propel the feet off the ground passively. We can see this in the way the feet leave the ground. They are not violently springing off the ground but rather slowly rolling upwards and then passively dangling in the air. This is a clear indicator that there are other actions of the body responsible for the lift-off. Learn the passive leg drive by executing the correct fundamentals and applying all the power sources. If you correctly use the legs on the serve you will experience a lift-off without ever being conscious of it.
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Learn the CORKSCREW serve:
bit.ly/tcs1977
Great reinforcement of what you taught in the previous video on leg drive. Really enjoyed the analyses of the great Croatian serves, too!
Thank you Eric 🙏
My man actually went to the BASKETBALL (not tennis) court with an actual BASKET(not tennis)BALL for the explanation with demonstration!
Very informative Nick I remember I used to jump high while serving and it didn't work. I got tired quick and then I changed back to my usual comfortable passive jump. Great coaching. Thanks for all your help.
ur a genius thinking of it not as a jump really helps
Thank you(!), Nick, for setting the record straight on this constantly misunderstood issue. I think a consequence of the correct understanding of the leg action is that only a small part of the power of the serve is due to the leg action.
You're the best online tennis coach... so much detail in the technical and mechanical aspect of everything in the game. Thank you, thank you, thank you
🙏
Absolute gold here.
Thanks Sean
Another sharp, 'intuwative' observation Nik, as always well explained. Thank you, Gordon.
Excellent video 🌸✌️😎 I would just suggest adding more slow-mo on the demonstrations so we can see the movement better.
Great lesson. Thank you for sharing.
I think the adage that 'the real power is in the legs' or '90% of serve power comes from the legs' is a gross exaggeration. People love to say it but it's been shown you can take the legs out of it altogether by serving on your knees and still get about 90% of your max serve speed with good upper body and arm movement. This is a good video b/c it dispels the other myth about actively jumping up.
That's questionable theory though ( Not saying it is right or wrong, just merely exploring and exchanging ideas) If we look at the forehand alone for this, sure we can just play with our arms like back in the early days, then came the wrist (wiper blade , a la Bjorn Borg) then the unit turn for the modern game ( I maybe missing something in between) If we just use an open stance and using the unit turn to swing out, it works but with little power, compare to an forward motion with the leg drive of the neutral stance with unit turn (like the Ferderer's whipping in the air inside out forehand). There is a huge difference. I would say it goes with all tennis strokes, the leg drives the beginning of the motion. It is an intial support for all the later stage of a motion. The stronger the support intially, the more power can be generated for the whole kinetic chain. Just like if we just standing still to play tennis and keeping the legs moving as a rhythm to hit every strokes, it's not merely just moving our feet for nothing. Hence our legs must be the driving force for every consequence motions. I guess this is true for every human motion. It is how I see it but then I could be wrong!
@Joe Golla you are quoting a guy named Florian Meyer who is trying to sell his serve program and uses this hypothesis as a catcher. But being able to serve at 90% of the speed when staying on your knees is not equivalent to saying that legs are only responsible of 10% of the power generated. It is like concluding that your right kidney is only responsible for 5% of the clearance because when you remove it, the left kidney will do 95% of the job.
How hard to a ball hard is not the point though. Players can hit forehand, backhand, serves with any kind of way they like. I'm sure there are pancake serves that can be hit over 100 mph around, I'm sure there are arm swinging only players around that can hit a good hard forehand. But there are also reasons why the Pro players can consistently hit any strokes throwing their whole body weight at it and still makes it in the court. It is the bio mechanic they learned to hit with consistency and effortless power that we need to learn. When Roddick said the power of his serve mainly come from his leg drive, who am I to argue and there is no reason he would lie, cause other pro players know that too.
@@beyondim794 That is a good extension of the point I was trying to make! :)
Passive jump, this is the first time I heard this. But very exactly described what happened during the serve. Very helpful.
💯
Yes, thank you
Huge help
Great video Nik!
This is so incredible good stuff. Amazing analyses.
I always thought that the back leg gives me all the power, but you are right - the back leg was there for the preparation phrase, and it has already "lifted somehow" when we are in the actual serve motion. I have also just discovered from this lesson that the point about "standing on your toes" rather than being flatfooted is very important, otherwise you feel stuck you cannot turn your body properly.
On the toes is crucial Xiao 💪
Great lesson Nick!
Thank you!
Thank you Coach 😃 👍🏻
Thanks, Nick, that was a great video. There are a lot of opinions out there so it is good to listen to yours. I have been playing the game for a long time and have worked with quite a few coaches. You have a gift for teaching. Where was this video shot?
I am a big fan of this video. So many good points made here! 👍👍
However, and that is a big however, I would love to see a person “leave the ground without using the legs”. You yourself say, “bend the knees” meaning the legs are an active part of the serve leading to the feet leaving the ground.
Here is a short proposal. Perhaps the reason a person leaves the ground on the serve is much like you say, and people intuitively learn to bend the knees and get on the toes in order the increase the ground action necessary to drive the rotation that swings the racquet above the head. The natural consequence is that the server is airborne at contact, not because the legs are “passive” but because the it is a natural consequence of good technique.
Also, you talk about back extension, but not lateral flexion. The serve has roughly equal parts of both, and they will also contribute to a “launch” into the ball.
I think the idea that the feet at “passive” is not bad, but unfortunately can mislead people to think the energy comes from the upper body instead and will lead to injury. I prefer to demonstrate the arm as passive and driven by the body. This is why, as coaches we need to be precise with our words, and I appreciate that among us you are one of the best!
Well not if they actually watch the instruction.
Awesome Video Nick!
Natachi 🙏🙏
Hi from IRAN
Your channel and videos are great here we don't have much qualify tennis coachs , me and my 13 years old son going through training session with your great instructions and we approach great level in our game . Appreciate your work . Keep it up . Thanks
Glad to hear that Majid. Wishing you guys good luck 💪💪
Thanks for the great video!
My pleasure Shanna
Revisiting this lesson. Just recorded myself serving and i see some mistakes. I will NOT jump (or even focus in jumping). I will focus on upper body (toss, take back, drop, and pronation). Then passive feet with correct roll of feet. Thanks again
🙌🙌
Interesting
This is outstanding teaching. I have been purposefully trying to push off my back foot to start follow-thru for too long with poor results. I have utilized Victor’s technique for the last two weeks and the improvement is exponential. Thanks !
Oops, I meant Nick…sorry
What a great video and explanation! Thanks!!!
🙌🙏
Finally, one of these guys make sense.
Nickthis really makes a difference. Can you suggest even more ways or perhaps suggest a small progression on how to practice this legg drive in further depth? Thank you
I will do a video lesson with student on this topic...
@@IntuitiveTennis thanks for your reply so quickly,I think that would be awesome. Your explanations are great!!!!
Hey Nick. Just dropping in here after two weeks of trying this. Serve speed has gone up by 5 mph on average (based on my babolat sensor) and is generally more consistent. I still sometimes get into a squat position rather than leaning back and bending knees and getting on my toes. Hope I can tune that out with time. Thanks for the great video again!
Glad to hear that Kabir, keep going 💪💪
Brilliant video, Nick! As always, your in depth analysis and demonstration is priceless. No better teacher to illustrate these critical fine points! Thanks for sharing your wisdom...
Thanks Don
I remember roddick once said that power for serve should come from legs, but if legs are passive it contradicts his statement. Instead of getting power from both foot why not press front foot on ground and will get equal opposite reaction and racket will automatically sling shot towards the ball without any arm effort.
I think what Roddick meant was the serve motion starts from the leg drive up to the ball. from the leg bend, to the hips and shoulders, and to the arms and elbows, and to the wrist onto the racket to the ball. The passive part is the whole motion from shifting weight backwards then forwards onto the jump, the lift off is not a purposely jump by itself. I'm sure you know that but maybe just misunderstood what he meant. Or maybe I am wrong!
I think Roddick was wrong about his serve power coming from his legs. If you watch these serves ruclips.net/video/A1g5VIO80uw/видео.html you can see clearly that his leg drive is passive, just like Nik says. Roddick doesn’t get very high off the ground, and isn’t jumping. The knee bend is merely one part of the body coil. The straightening of the leg is a passive part of the uncoiling.
@@beyondim794 sometimes players of what ever level are just great at executing serves but don't really know the physics behind it. True for every sport .
Great video and a lot of useful information... Everybody is teaching now to serve and land on left foot just like all the top players do. But Boris Becker , Jana Nobotna and Sabatini they were always landing on right foot. I also have that kind of motion. I was trying to correct it but then I thought that if Becker had one of the best serves in the world why I need to change it. What is your opinion?? All the best.
It’s ok if it comes naturally
I seem to generate a lot more top spin if i jump into the contact point.
Excellent - that's why the toe of my right shoe always develops a hole in it!
How do i know if my deep knee bend is helping or hurting me? I feel like i have a deeper knee bend than most players but i am wondering if that is actually making it harder to hit the ball with more pace. Any suggestions?
Try bending less and see if serve improves
I keep landing on both feet when I serve, rather than on my non-dominant foot. Why does it happen and is that a problem?
I watched another channel talking about the platform stance and the pin point stance, i myself have been using pin point all my life. They were talking about the benefits of the platform stance can use the back leg to drive up to the ball ( well the pin point stance also do that with ease but mostly on the front foot) and out of curiosity I gave it a try, I couldn't really get the back leg to drive much at all. Like you said, once the the racket is going up to the ball, all the body weight has to be shifting to the front, using the back foot to drive up? I tried but I couldn't get my body into a forward motion. I am not saying there is anything wrong with the platform stance of course, but talking about drive up with the back foot when your body weight is already shift to the front? I don't get it. Maybe I didn't spent much time trying it out.
What he is not explaining, is that you have to lean back(not squat) and use the abdominals and torso to trust the body up and forward. When you lean back you will move on your toes naturally. Also you cannot squat and lean back at the same time. Look a Marin Cilic serve, hope this helps.
@@bugynites09 I think he was trying to tell people not to misunderstood the jumping part of the serve, not teaching service action in this clip. And I do have a pretty ok service action and serve, but thanks for the help anyway. peace
Federer almost does like a leg raise because the abs contract so forcefully their pull the quads up and with them the legs
I have been doing calf extension with weight in gym. Is that not going to help me lift off ground?
Work your core
Looks like levitating.
Can you dunk?
Yes
Wow Coach Nick has hops 💯💯 all around athlete
I like a lot of your videos but I feel this one needs some clarification. First of all, Federer and others could never get a foot off the ground using the passive mechanism you describe. The physics just don't work. Second, not all jumping is vertical. The standing broad jump record is 12', and it is mostly horizontal. In tennis and basketball clinics, practicing jumping side to side is common, as it aids lateral movement. Search for "sideways jumping" on youtube. You will find plenty of examples. It's still jumping. And Roddick definitely JUMPED. Federer definitely JUMPs.
I think where people go wrong is when they try to learn to jump before they understand the REST of the serve. I didn't start teaching my son (4'9" tall, 11 years old) to jump on his serve until he had absolutely everything else pretty well nailed down, especially the shoulder over shoulder roll. In my son's case, it probably took a year and a half of coaching to reach the point where I felt comfortable teaching him to jump. The service motion is a very complicated sequence of weight shifts and limb movements, and if you do any of them wrong, it can fall apart quickly.
The role of the feet is to aid and enhance the shoulder over shoulder action. As you note, without consciously jumping, a player can pull down the tossing shoulder and drive up the back (racket) shoulder, just using his torso and a mild (probably unconscious) push off the back foot. The contraction down of the lead side of the torso puts more force into the ground, the ground pushes back. The lead foot is being compressed but the back foot is free because you are letting the back shoulder rise, so you get a mild "sideways liftoff" as described.
Using this technique, yes, you can get an inch or two off the ground and land on your front foot. But if you want to get 8,10, or12 inches off the ground, and the increased power and spin that results, you HAVE to jump. But what is very important is that it has to be at the Right Time (around the time the racket starts to flop) and you still have to do all the things you were doing without jumping. If you allow jumping to get in the way of your non-jumping motion, you are just going to screw everything up, especially the shoulder-over-shoulder action that you are trying to improve.
So I would say, yes, recreational players should learn to serve the way you seem to be advocating, with what you call a passive leg drive. Make sure you are landing on your lead foot, which you usually will if you are doing shoulder-over-shoulder correctly. For a lot of recreational players, this may be as far as you ever want to go, or can go. But if you really want to rip your serve and generate ridiculous spin, you have to add a strong leg drive that pushes the back shoulder up, accelerates the racket flop, which pulls the elbow up faster, and allows the racket arm to whip. Just as with a forehand, where we want the racket arm to whip horizontally, on a serve we want the racket arm to whip vertically. If someone tries to "arm" their serve, they will be just as limited on their serve as someone who tries to "arm" their forehand. To hit with effortless power, your arm needs to be relaxed.
Finally, as for getting too tired to jump on serve, I think this is overstated. I used to play 6-7 hours of basketball a day. I'd lose a little height on my vertical after a couple of hours, but if you practice anything enough, you can learn to compensate. And jumping even a foot up in the air on a tennis serve is nothing compared to what some people can do jumping vertically from a standing start, for example:
ruclips.net/video/oHK_wzA3jzA/видео.html&feature=emb_logo
Roger Federer has a standing vertical jump of 44 inches.
www.tacticaltennis.com/serving-mechanics-the-jump/#:~:text=But%20for%20our%20purposes%2C%20he,ankles%2C%20knees%2C%20and%20hips.
So yes, jumping from a trophy position is pretty weird, but a great athlete like Federer can and does get 12 inches off the ground on his serve.
that last link was bogus, it wasn't roger who was jumping 44 inches. that's what I get for trying to do a quick search. Here, however, is Alexander Zverev doing an impressive standing jump: instagram.com/p/B-8Sy6FFu8d/?
the point being, pro tennis players can get way higher on a normal standing jump than they can from trophy position.
If you loaded the back foot so that the front foot leaves the ground first you would have much more power. Anyone who throws a ball will tell you that.
@@pd1323 Throwing a ball and hitting a tennis serve have similar, but not the exact same mechanics. In throwing a ball you land the front foot in the tennis serve off the back foot (as I recommend for power) both feet are in the air when you hit the ball. Ta-da. Hopefully, this does not give you a cryogenic brain freeze.
@@pd1323 Are you asking me if I have a consistent 140 mph serve? I'll be happy to set-up the radar gun and out-hit you if that's something you are willing to do. I did it at the Billie Jean King Center in 2018 for the NY Times article about my work. In the meantime, I can alleviate some of your ignorance, but only if you learn some physics in connection with human biomechanics. There was a pro tennis player who had the fastest serve in the game for a short time and he served with power off the back foot. See for yourself: ruclips.net/video/2CNfzfNqfDY/видео.html