Ground breaking for the gaps in my serve and thanks a million for saving my back! You are the real deal. Your videos are long and I used to get frustrated but I now realise the detail you go into requires lengthy explanations and that's the only way your audience will understand.
As a past college player and now a physician, your technique on shoulder is excellent. If your service swing without taking the elbow back, and just hit with the elbow/wrist, you will cause the head of the humerus to actually sublux, rotate to edge of rotator cuff, and cause damage and potential rotator cuff muscle and rim tear. Great stuff. God knew what He was doing!! Serve like you point out!
Coach, your explanations are so detailed and very helpful. I love how you explain things to us with different sports motions and what each muscle, joint, limb is supposed to be doing. I will go practice ASAP, thank you!
I was doing Novak take back like you are doing, got away from it and my takeback progressively got worse, glad I saw the video as a reminder. This takeback helps keep you loose and fluid throughout motion so racket will drop and get some good power when executed correctly.
Excellent break down of the serve, and like the reference to the kinetic chain and 'position of strength'. Very sensible and easy to follow instructions, and I find the information will help correct and improve my serve. Well done.
Steven, in order to maintain a straight spine on the tilt-back, I try to thrust my pelvis forward and upward, so as to move the hinge point from the waist (top of the pelvis) down to the ball and socket joints of the legs/pelvis, thus shifting the load of the upper body from the lower back muscles down to the obviously much stronger quadriceps. Try it in a stationary position, and you will see how much further back you can tilt before you begin to feel any stress in the spine. Great tips. Thanks for all you do.
This is excellent.. TY... I’ve been having trouble with the tilt back - getting the pelvis is the right position instead of my ribs popping up... hopefully I’ll get this fixed at some point.. great insight
great video. I learned real essential info about loading and joint position in the coiling/uncoiling action to release power. thank you. your teaching method is the most helpful among those in youtube. keep it up coach.
I am a recent subscriber. A fan of yours. Just came across this great video from last year. Just a minor point to add from someone with relatively less flexible shoulder. I fully agree with your point about fully pre-stretching out the shoulder prior to flipping the racquet. It works great if you have the necessary flexibility to go from fully stretched to the flip position. I find that pre-stretching the shoulder makes it harder for my to flip the racquet. Instead I stop a fraction short of fully stretched and let my torso rotation complete the stretch as well a do the flip at the same time. It makes the whole thing more fluid for me.
I seldom write comments. I must do. what a talented instructor! excellence in scientific analysis and explanations/delivery. one of the best tennis serves instruction. phenomenal! so helpful....
Again, we are in sync. Just recently I have been re-evaluating my serve because I got into bad habits of over-reaching and arching my back on my 1st serve. This came about because I began to work on my kicker and topspin serves. I noticed my first serve got very weak and so I had to de-compose my serve mechanics. Everything you said on the video on bad upper body alignment I was guilty of but I found this out from shortening my tossing motion so I didn't have the time to over-reach or arch my back. I also changed my grip to have all my fingers on the handle which made it harder to over-reach. Before I had used just two or three fingers. Since doing this, my 1st velocity came back. Still working on my take back, trying to decide on whether to pull the arm back or to swing out to get to trophy. Thanks for expanding my understanding. BTW, I noticed that you have gotten less verbose in your videos. Are you doing more planning for them now?
Sounds like ur doing some good work! Yes, compared to a year ago I make bullets I want to hit.. esp the vids are getting longer and I don’t want to go off on tangents.
@@15PointsOfTennis I thought some of your meanderings were interesting but it did take time to get through. I enjoyed both approaches regardless. Thanks for making the videos.
I just finished watching your 3 part grip series video and I'm in the middle of making a big decision. I am thinking of changing my grip from my "extreme eastern" (I naturally hold my grip in between eastern and semi western) to an extreme semi-western or full western. The reason being is quite recently I have reached the level of tennis where my shots have become huge and problematic for opponents when it actually goes in. And while footwork is a big reason another persistent reason for my shots going long is that my shots carry little to no spin. Because of this I had done research on big hitters that use a eastern style and only Del Po manages to swing huge with eastern and keep it in, his height helps too. Most big hitters like Roddick, Kyrgios, Sock, Gonzales use a semi-western or western style grip which adds a lot of spin on their shots. Now I tried brushing the ball swinging low to high with my extreme eastern grip but it's too hard to generate spin and only happens when I focus. I need advice, is the decision to change my grip or semi-western or full western a good thing or should I stay at my extreme eastern. If it is a good thing which out of semi-western or fully western should I change it to. If it's not a good idea could you explain why?. Just additional info I do use a heavy racket as 300g rackets are too light for me now and slightly hurt my shoulder, my grip size is 3, I do use a full bed of poly for strings, I am an aggressive baseliner with a big serve and I am just about 6 foot. Look forward to hearing back, thanks.
You sound like a semi-western forehand grip type of a player, an aggressive baseliner with a moderate/medium height. I myself prefer Federer kind extreme eastern forehand grip (which is the best as far s I can tell!) but you need to have a loose/relaxed arm and lots of effortless racquet head speed plus adequate footwork to make a living with that grip in higher competition and in terms of the required topspin.
Footwork I think will always be something I have to work on. But in terms of forehand grip, if you could choose which grip I should use based the description which would you recommend I use? I right now am gravitating towards extreme semi western but still need advice.
Racket head speed is nowhere near problem it's the fact even though my swing path is low to high for aid in spin generation and my arm is loose/relaxed it's still a lot more flat making it launch longer than it should.
@luffy-senpai I’m sure you’ll get other good advice on this... I’m typically opposed to changing grips unless absolutely necessary. IMO you should first ask yourself whether balls sail long bc of ur technique or whether ur having trouble bc balls are bouncing above your strike zone. If it’s consistently the latter I’d consider making a ever so slight change to the grip. Never extreme. Otherwise, I would look to see if there’s any sort of destabilization at contact or do a bunch of drills working on “air targets” by sticking a racquet in the net so your eyes get used to hitting low. Idk how often you miss in the net.. but I’d also ask whether it’s specific shots that sail long or certain scenarios.
Best way to explain the full serve motion, is to think of the "whipping" motion. Using all the joints ( shoulder, elbow & wrist ) - also can imagine it like the old Chinese wuchu weapon - 3-sections rods - this whipping arm motion plus the racket's hammering momentum will propel the tennis ball to its max possible force.
Great about keeping up the elbow. You mention a video where you discuss the "bend and snap" concept. Can't find it, what is the title of it? Don't get much speed on my first serve but used to have a very hard overhead by just letting the racket dangle behind my back with the elbow pointing up at the ball and then rise up slowly and just dunk it with all the weight into the ball and finishing with the racket way out to the right. Never could transfer that technique to my serve though but I suspect it is all about the high elbow... The problem is to get into that position with the serve. I think I hit the ball pretty much straight above the head then and not at all so far forward as many advocate. That is why I managed to come over the ball.
It appears as if your grip is not a true continental but leans slightly towards an eastern forehand so that you don't get as much pronation and you swing more sidearm. It is supposed to be more like a cartwheel where at contact your body is in a straight line more above the right shoulder and not to the right of the right shoulder. In baseball your target is lower between the ankles and the chest of the hitter. It would be better to swing like you were throwing a football long with the football rolling off the fingers in a natural pronation or a javelin where you're throwing it more above your head.
@@15PointsOfTennis Actually, one thing I've noticed about all tennis instruction videos is that no one gives examples from front back and both sides. For instance, when talking about the serve it would be nice to see it coming from the returners point of view. Serve some to someone holding the camera. Maybe have your assistant stand on something at the baseline corners of the servers side so that the point of a serve strike can be stopped at contact so we can see the angle of the racket at said point. Zoomed out far enough to see body position as well. You are already doing an excellent job. I think you can do something none of the others do. You're new and already one of the best. After you describe something put a bunch of quick examples. I would love to see a bunch of freezes at the contact point for lots of shots at the strike point from different angles but the side and from the front.
I compare you pose with Federer, seems the distance between this front foot and back foot is 2, 3 inch narrower than you. I know it is small difference, but sometimes small difference is what matters. It may save your some energy, or let you jump a bit higher. snag.gy/lMg9f4.jpg
The serves at 8:06 and at 8:24 are virtually identical, the second one not being significantly better - what do you mean by “full body coil” ? the serve looks pretty static.
Yeah I also thought that was interesting... perhaps bends it a little too much? My guess is with his height, strength, and flexibility he could potentially hit a bigger serve. Compare that to Sampras who hits a heavier serve being shorter, Djokovic relies more on placement.
Not so convinced the dude in 20:00 forward has improved his serve from that "over-stretched form", he looks to be just arming it in the "after" version, cannot see or say that is a "connected" serve action engaging the whole body (especially the abs in the "somersault") through the kinetic chain...
![[DRAGON BALL LEGENDS REVEALS ＆ STUFF] LEGENDS FESTIVAL 2024 Special Edition Part 1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mV5bGIswTtQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Ground breaking for the gaps in my serve and thanks a million for saving my back! You are the real deal.
Your videos are long and I used to get frustrated but I now realise the detail you go into requires lengthy explanations and that's the only way your audience will understand.
as clear as crystal. I'm gonna watch this video every time I struggle with my serve, to revise my technique. Thanks a lot!
You’re the only guy online who teaches how to understand how the racquet and body works efficiently. Very good
As a past college player and now a physician, your technique on shoulder is excellent. If your service swing without taking the elbow back, and just hit with the elbow/wrist, you will cause the head of the humerus to actually sublux, rotate to edge of rotator cuff, and cause damage and potential rotator cuff muscle and rim tear. Great stuff. God knew what He was doing!! Serve like you point out!
Nice insight! Thx!
Coach, your explanations are so detailed and very helpful. I love how you explain things to us with different sports motions and what each muscle, joint, limb is supposed to be doing. I will go practice ASAP, thank you!
I was doing Novak take back like you are doing, got away from it and my takeback progressively got worse, glad I saw the video as a reminder. This takeback helps keep you loose and fluid throughout motion so racket will drop and get some good power when executed correctly.
Glad it helped!
Very humble, "if you are doing all the right things... my serve should be the worst case scenario." :)
Excellent job in explaining and demonstrating the kinetic chain and importance of the different muscle groups. Thanks for posting
Excellent break down of the serve, and like the reference to the kinetic chain and 'position of strength'. Very sensible and easy to follow instructions, and I find the information will help correct and improve my serve. Well done.
Steven, in order to maintain a straight spine on the tilt-back, I try to thrust my pelvis forward and upward, so as to move the hinge point from the waist (top of the pelvis) down to the ball and socket joints of the legs/pelvis, thus shifting the load of the upper body from the lower back muscles down to the obviously much stronger quadriceps. Try it in a stationary position, and you will see how much further back you can tilt before you begin to feel any stress in the spine. Great tips. Thanks for all you do.
This is excellent.. TY... I’ve been having trouble with the tilt back - getting the pelvis is the right position instead of my ribs popping up... hopefully I’ll get this fixed at some point.. great insight
You're the only guy online universally
great video. I learned real essential info about loading and joint position in the coiling/uncoiling action to release power. thank you. your teaching method is the most helpful among those in youtube. keep it up coach.
I am a recent subscriber. A fan of yours. Just came across this great video from last year. Just a minor point to add from someone with relatively less flexible shoulder. I fully agree with your point about fully pre-stretching out the shoulder prior to flipping the racquet. It works great if you have the necessary flexibility to go from fully stretched to the flip position. I find that pre-stretching the shoulder makes it harder for my to flip the racquet. Instead I stop a fraction short of fully stretched and let my torso rotation complete the stretch as well a do the flip at the same time. It makes the whole thing more fluid for me.
Dude I play in college and this helped my work out some kinks in my serve🙏🏼🙏🏼 please keep posting.. I love your videos
Glad to hear!
Great video, you pointed out a lot of nice cues not found in other videos
I agree with previous comments - one of the best tennis videos I have seen. Immediate improvement.
This is such good info, subtle things that rarely get pointed out and are easy to miss. Thanks!
Time to create an Instagram account to share video...
Absolutely GREAT video !! Congrats ! One of the best I ever saw about serve FUNDAMENTALS !! Thank you so much !!
It s amazing how much detail you can cover in your vdo. Thank you for your effort
OMG! “I dont want to make contact at the highest point. I want to make contact at the highest point that i m strong”
U nail it man
You make some of the best tennis content on RUclips. Subscribed.
I seldom write comments. I must do. what a talented instructor! excellence in scientific analysis and explanations/delivery. one of the best tennis serves instruction. phenomenal! so helpful....
Again, we are in sync. Just recently I have been re-evaluating my serve because I got into bad habits of over-reaching and arching my back on my 1st serve. This came about because I began to work on my kicker and topspin serves. I noticed my first serve got very weak and so I had to de-compose my serve mechanics. Everything you said on the video on bad upper body alignment I was guilty of but I found this out from shortening my tossing motion so I didn't have the time to over-reach or arch my back. I also changed my grip to have all my fingers on the handle which made it harder to over-reach. Before I had used just two or three fingers. Since doing this, my 1st velocity came back. Still working on my take back, trying to decide on whether to pull the arm back or to swing out to get to trophy. Thanks for expanding my understanding. BTW, I noticed that you have gotten less verbose in your videos. Are you doing more planning for them now?
Sounds like ur doing some good work! Yes, compared to a year ago I make bullets I want to hit.. esp the vids are getting longer and I don’t want to go off on tangents.
@@15PointsOfTennis I thought some of your meanderings were interesting but it did take time to get through. I enjoyed both approaches regardless. Thanks for making the videos.
I love your detailed instructions.
Thank you, those explanations are really great!!!
Such a good video, thank you!
Love the bit about not raising the traps, probably why Sharapova has shoulder issues....
I subscribe for the sound effects. And the great content.
great video! would love to see more
Respect. you make some awesome, positive; fine points !!!
I just finished watching your 3 part grip series video and I'm in the middle of making a big decision. I am thinking of changing my grip from my "extreme eastern" (I naturally hold my grip in between eastern and semi western) to an extreme semi-western or full western. The reason being is quite recently I have reached the level of tennis where my shots have become huge and problematic for opponents when it actually goes in. And while footwork is a big reason another persistent reason for my shots going long is that my shots carry little to no spin. Because of this I had done research on big hitters that use a eastern style and only Del Po manages to swing huge with eastern and keep it in, his height helps too. Most big hitters like Roddick, Kyrgios, Sock, Gonzales use a semi-western or western style grip which adds a lot of spin on their shots. Now I tried brushing the ball swinging low to high with my extreme eastern grip but it's too hard to generate spin and only happens when I focus. I need advice, is the decision to change my grip or semi-western or full western a good thing or should I stay at my extreme eastern. If it is a good thing which out of semi-western or fully western should I change it to. If it's not a good idea could you explain why?. Just additional info I do use a heavy racket as 300g rackets are too light for me now and slightly hurt my shoulder, my grip size is 3, I do use a full bed of poly for strings, I am an aggressive baseliner with a big serve and I am just about 6 foot. Look forward to hearing back, thanks.
You sound like a semi-western forehand grip type of a player, an aggressive baseliner with a moderate/medium height. I myself prefer Federer kind extreme eastern forehand grip (which is the best as far s I can tell!) but you need to have a loose/relaxed arm and lots of effortless racquet head speed plus adequate footwork to make a living with that grip in higher competition and in terms of the required topspin.
Footwork I think will always be something I have to work on. But in terms of forehand grip, if you could choose which grip I should use based the description which would you recommend I use? I right now am gravitating towards extreme semi western but still need advice.
Racket head speed is nowhere near problem it's the fact even though my swing path is low to high for aid in spin generation and my arm is loose/relaxed it's still a lot more flat making it launch longer than it should.
@luffy-senpai I’m sure you’ll get other good advice on this... I’m typically opposed to changing grips unless absolutely necessary. IMO you should first ask yourself whether balls sail long bc of ur technique or whether ur having trouble bc balls are bouncing above your strike zone. If it’s consistently the latter I’d consider making a ever so slight change to the grip. Never extreme. Otherwise, I would look to see if there’s any sort of destabilization at contact or do a bunch of drills working on “air targets” by sticking a racquet in the net so your eyes get used to hitting low. Idk how often you miss in the net.. but I’d also ask whether it’s specific shots that sail long or certain scenarios.
body obliquely bent/unbent is one of the power sources,just don’t do it too much to hurt your spine.
Best way to explain the full serve motion, is to think of the "whipping" motion. Using all the joints ( shoulder, elbow & wrist ) - also can imagine it like the old Chinese wuchu weapon - 3-sections rods - this whipping arm motion plus the racket's hammering momentum will propel the tennis ball to its max possible force.
Sampras serve pretty good:)
Best serve of history,euphemistic!
Great instruction. Very helpful.
Great about keeping up the elbow. You mention a video where you discuss the "bend and snap" concept. Can't find it, what is the title of it? Don't get much speed on my first serve but used to have a very hard overhead by just letting the racket dangle behind my back with the elbow pointing up at the ball and then rise up slowly and just dunk it with all the weight into the ball and finishing with the racket way out to the right. Never could transfer that technique to my serve though but I suspect it is all about the high elbow... The problem is to get into that position with the serve. I think I hit the ball pretty much straight above the head then and not at all so far forward as many advocate. That is why I managed to come over the ball.
Sorry that video got postponed.
Excellent details.
Excellent analogies.
excellent breakdowns thank you!!!!! private coach at a very very very very nominal free (1/2 aaaaaaaaah)
Super video!
It appears as if your grip is not a true continental but leans slightly towards an eastern forehand so that you don't get as much pronation and you swing more sidearm. It is supposed to be more like a cartwheel where at contact your body is in a straight line more above the right shoulder and not to the right of the right shoulder. In baseball your target is lower between the ankles and the chest of the hitter. It would be better to swing like you were throwing a football long with the football rolling off the fingers in a natural pronation or a javelin where you're throwing it more above your head.
-Behind you!
5:56
very helpful.
Nice vid. You did different angles but could you do more?
I’ll try for future vids.. is there a specific angle u wanted to see?
@@15PointsOfTennis Actually, one thing I've noticed about all tennis instruction videos is that no one gives examples from front back and both sides. For instance, when talking about the serve it would be nice to see it coming from the returners point of view. Serve some to someone holding the camera. Maybe have your assistant stand on something at the baseline corners of the servers side so that the point of a serve strike can be stopped at contact so we can see the angle of the racket at said point. Zoomed out far enough to see body position as well. You are already doing an excellent job. I think you can do something none of the others do. You're new and already one of the best. After you describe something put a bunch of quick examples. I would love to see a bunch of freezes at the contact point for lots of shots at the strike point from different angles but the side and from the front.
Examples from the racket side view are probably the best. Stop at contact point.
What about Roddick’s range of motion?
Hi Coach, is there an email address where can share my video for review/feedback and discuss..thanks
This guy really knows what he's talking about. Two thumbs up
I compare you pose with Federer, seems the distance between this front foot and back foot is 2, 3 inch narrower than you. I know it is small difference, but sometimes small difference is what matters. It may save your some energy, or let you jump a bit higher. snag.gy/lMg9f4.jpg
The serves at 8:06 and at 8:24 are virtually identical, the second one not being significantly better - what do you mean by “full body coil” ? the serve looks pretty static.
On his serve does Djokovic have too much of his spine bending back, rather than a straight spine?
Yeah I also thought that was interesting... perhaps bends it a little too much? My guess is with his height, strength, and flexibility he could potentially hit a bigger serve. Compare that to Sampras who hits a heavier serve being shorter, Djokovic relies more on placement.
excellent
Not so convinced the dude in 20:00 forward has improved his serve from that "over-stretched form", he looks to be just arming it in the "after" version, cannot see or say that is a "connected" serve action engaging the whole body (especially the abs in the "somersault") through the kinetic chain...
Comment!
Noeli?
Nice job. But don’t say it’s “rudimentary guys” Many people are still scratching the back. Again - Good job
:)
...loathed by water polo players.