Keeping arm up after ball toss?

[B-rian]

I've been beginning to notice that after I toss the ball up for a serve, my arm begins to bend before I swing for the serve. I've noticed on many threads and tips that people say to keep your arm fully extended after the ball toss until you begin your swing for the serve. Is there any real meaning or purpose for this? Or is this all to achieve the proper trophy position? Is there any real con to not fully extending my arm after the ball toss?

[mikeler]

When I focus on keeping the tossing arm extended throughout the service motion, it does the following three things for my serve:

1) Helps me keep my eye on the ball longer.
2) I tend to get my serving arm completely extended when I hit the ball.
3) Keeps the toss closer to the exact position I'm aiming for, especially if I keep my fingers fully extended as well.

I would never perform a shot for a "trophy" position. Keeping your arm up for an excessively long time may cause some problems, but it is very hard to keep your tossing arm up as you uncoil your body to serve. Bottom line: Try it, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

[TonLars]

Ive seen students bring that left tossing arm down to early, which often results in making their entire upper body "collapse" or dip down before contact, and therefore make their contact too low, and not get their momentum going up which is needed.

[drakulie]

Ive seen students bring that left tossing arm down to early, which often results in making their entire upper body "collapse" or dip down before contact, and therefore make their contact too low, and not get their momentum going up which is needed.

Bingo.

Well-said.

[B-rian]

When I focus on keeping the tossing arm extended throughout the service motion, it does the following three things for my serve:

1) Helps me keep my eye on the ball longer.
2) I tend to get my serving arm completely extended when I hit the ball.
3) Keeps the toss closer to the exact position I'm aiming for, especially if I keep my fingers fully extended as well.

I would never perform a shot for a "trophy" position. Keeping your arm up for an excessively long time may cause some problems, but it is very hard to keep your tossing arm up as you uncoil your body to serve. Bottom line: Try it, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Thank you I am definately going to work on trying to keep my tossing arm up

Ive seen students bring that left tossing arm down to early, which often results in making their entire upper body "collapse" or dip down before contact, and therefore make their contact too low, and not get their momentum going up which is needed.

Thank you very much I will surely try to keep my arm extended during my serve now that I know that fully extending my tossing arm directly contributes to the quality of my serve :)

[phoenicks]

Ive seen students bring that left tossing arm down to early, which often results in making their entire upper body "collapse" or dip down before contact, and therefore make their contact too low, and not get their momentum going up which is needed.


Exactly, My coach says this is one of the reason why the serve always hit the net !!!

[B-rian]

Bingo.

Well-said.

Thank you for confirming the validity of TonLars' explanation

[Solat]

I 3rd Tony's words ..

also the timing of pulling the arm inward (elbow to hip) helps to initiate the shoulder over shoulder rotation. Think of it as a see-saw by pulling load on one end you launch the other end. So by pulling inward with the front arm will help to launch the back arm over the top

[pabletion]

I like to think of it as a catapult..., the longer you hold your tossin arm up, thus risin your tossin shoulder, the more potential energy you store, then, as you pull it down, you rotate through the shot, creating more power. I took some pics of me serving, to see what was going on, and concluded that I was lowerin my tossing arm too early, even tho I was trying to keep it up, so I started workin on that. I try to emulate Pete Sampras serve a bit, maybe not bendin as much, but the toss and the point up to the ball with my tossin arm. My serves are the best theyve ever been, placementwise and powerwise; It has given me a lot of confidence, specially on 2nd serves. My toss pic is on my profile page ;)

[bad_call]

good posts here. maybe remembering that i could be a future trophy will inspire me as well. ;)

[smoothtennis]

I like to think of it as a catapult..., the longer you hold your tossin arm up, thus risin your tossin shoulder, the more potential energy you store, then, as you pull it down, you rotate through the shot, creating more power. I took some pics of me serving, to see what was going on, and concluded that I was lowerin my tossing arm too early, even tho I was trying to keep it up, so I started workin on that. I try to emulate Pete Sampras serve a bit, maybe not bendin as much, but the toss and the point up to the ball with my tossin arm. My serves are the best theyve ever been, placementwise and powerwise; It has given me a lot of confidence, specially on 2nd serves. My toss pic is on my profile page ;)

Yes, I like what you said about keeping the energy stored here. Very true. I have looked closely at this, as I was a former, drop-your-arm-guy. What we found, was with the arm fully extended up, your body can coil around and load to a much greater degree. Release that arm down too soon, and you lose a good portion of the stored potential energy. Plus, the reasons Tonlars stated all make it a must do.

Also found, some guys, have a VERY hard time actually getting that arm all the way up, once they spend years not doing it. I have a buddy, works very hard on this. He can do it in a shadow serve, but toss a real ball, and that arm has a lead weight attached to it!!!

[SystemicAnomaly]

The tossing arm should remain up (vertical) until the 'racket drop' behind your back commences. Let the ball descend to about 0.5 meters (1.5+ feet) above your outstretched hand before pulling that arm down. As the racket moves upward from the scratch position, the tossing arm is tucked in front of your body (as if you were giving yourself a hug). This action should help to increase the speed of your torso/shoulder rotation.

The vertical tossing arm does several things. Some of these have been mentioned by others already. Having your non-dominant arm extended upward will get your front shoulder up higher -- to achieve a good shoulder tilt for that all-important trophy pose. Another important function of the extended tossing hand is to serve as a spatial reference for the tossed ball. I've spoken about this for both the serve and the FH in several threads. For more details, read on:

tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=2785645 (http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=2785645&highlight=spatial+reference)

tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=2728967 (http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=2728967)

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[Il Mostro]

Great advice here. One slightly different cue that I will add as an option is "chin up", which sinks in better with some people. Same objective, though.