More "ummph!" to your groundstrokes: how?

[LeeD]

WHO called Federer scrawny?

[dman72]

Originally Posted by LeeD

WHO called Federer scrawny?

It was part of making a point, obviously. If you think that building muscle is more important than technique, that's fine.

[TennisCJC]

Technique determines the ability to hit a heavy ball. I once say an 8 year old girl will pig tails wolloping the heck out of the ball. She had a fantastic swing but any adult on these boards could beat her at arm wrestling.

Strength and fitness is very important to tennis. It helps you get to the ball, improves your stamina and helps avoid injury. But, Chris Evertt hit a very forcing 2 HBH and she had arms smaller than mine.

[charliefedererer]

Originally Posted by TennisCJC

Technique determines the ability to hit a heavy ball. I once say an 8 year old girl will pig tails wolloping the heck out of the ball. She had a fantastic swing but any adult on these boards could beat her at arm wrestling.

Strength and fitness is very important to tennis. It helps you get to the ball, improves your stamina and helps avoid injury. But, Chris Evertt hit a very forcing 2 HBH and she had arms smaller than mine.

Interesting you bring up Chris Evert.

She was number one in tennis due to her incredible consistency in an era when none of the top female tennis players really trained like pro athletes.

That all changed when Martina Navratilova worked to become incredibly fit, and in so doing came to totally dominate Chris,

Ahh ... nothing like a little competition.

Chris finally wised up, and got herself in great shape.

The result - Chris was able to hold her own against Martina, and one of the greatest rivalries in sports moved to a new level.




We saw how last week Murray was able to prevail over Fed due to an obvious increase in strength, with a resultant dominant serve game, instead of being dominated.


At any level, movement and smooth technique take most tennis players the furthest.

But to progress to that next level and beat an opponent just above you on the ladder, being in better shape can be part of the ticket.


That ... and mostly a lot of practice.



And being in great shape can let you tolerate that greater amount of practice without breaking down from an overuse injury.


Sports Fitness Advisor Tennis Training Section: http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com...-training.html

[mr_fro2000]

Originally Posted by charliefedererer

We saw how last week Murray was able to prevail over Fed due to an obvious increase in strength, with a resultant dominant serve game, instead of being dominated.


At any level, movement and smooth technique take most tennis players the furthest.

But to progress to that next level and beat an opponent just above you on the ladder, being in better shape can be part of the ticket.


That ... and mostly a lot of practice.



And being in great shape can let you tolerate that greater amount of practice without breaking down from an overuse injury.


Sports Fitness Advisor Tennis Training Section: http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com...-training.html

all true except that the op asked specifically how to achieve hitting a "heavy ball"... muscle strength or technique. And the answer to the question is technique.

[charliefedererer]

^^^ With strength, but without technique you can't hit a heavy ball.

With correct technique, plenty of practice and more strength you can hit a heavier ball.

[ATP100]

Easy Answer: Footwork

[LeeD]

Footwork, clean contact, shoulder turn, strong fast swing, heavy racket, smart target, knowing the strengths and weakness of your opponent, confidence, and tons of EQUALLY important factors.

[Bergboy123]

Thanks for all this info guys, I'm gonna be working on lots of different things to see what I can achieve

[mikeespinmusic]

If you want to hit a heavier ball. Lead tape and polysester strings. When I first started leading up my racquets. That was the first thing I noticed besides the power and speed increase. People kept making errors off my shots even if I was just hitting safe rally balls.

[Metalica]

Explosiveness plays a factor, but it most technique and footwork. You can't swing at your max effort and have the ball land in consistently enough without great technique anyway.Only those at quite a high level would be able to harness the benefits of strength training I'd think(I'm talking about upper body strength). Equipment do play a larger role than most would admit imo. Hit with new poly strings and new balls and there'll be so much more oomph on your strokes.

[wanda]

I believe a heavy ball is one that has speed and spin.
You can hit a fast ball with little spin and it's easy to get back and control. If you're faced with a ball with spin and pace when it hits your racket it's much more difficult to control due to the spin, hence it feels heavy.

I remember an interview with Tim Henman after he played Pete Sampras - he said that many guys would serve faster than Pete but none of them served as heavy. Now, Tim wasn't the best returner of the game for sure but I think he was describing the fact that Pete put a lot more rpms on the ball than anyone else.

You can hit with too much spin and the ball will just sit up, the key is to get the right combination so that you can still hit fast and through the court.
I would say practice generating racket head speed, hit through the ball with enough low to high for spin. Hitting out in front too is a must.

[asimple]

I've never quite understood how this works. The balls speed and spin can be exactly the same between a heavy hitter and normal hitter, but the difficulty in returning it is huge, and can actually seem like you are getting pushed off the court.

When I was a kid, I hit with an older ex high level touring pro (top 20). His strokes didn't look that fast and weren't, but it felt like you were being physically pushed off the court on every stroke. When I asked him about it, he mentioned it was just getting your body behind the ball and good hip turn. I have a pretty big forehand, but it is mostly arm and shoulder and not heavy.

[dman72]

Originally Posted by asimple

I've never quite understood how this works. The balls speed and spin can be exactly the same between a heavy hitter and normal hitter, but the difficulty in returning it is huge, and can actually seem like you are getting pushed off the court.

When I was a kid, I hit with an older ex high level touring pro (top 20). His strokes didn't look that fast and weren't, but it felt like you were being physically pushed off the court on every stroke. When I asked him about it, he mentioned it was just getting your body behind the ball and good hip turn. I have a pretty big forehand, but it is mostly arm and shoulder and not heavy.

So what is causing you to be pushed back, magic?

If you have more difficulty returning a shot, there are only 3 things that can be in play: pace, spin, and placement. If the opponent is consitently hitting the ball where you can't set up properly to hit it, than maybe that's giving you the illusion of some unseen force on the ball.

A tennis ball moving at 70 MPH off the racquet of a mouse or a 250lb guy with perfect technique is still moving 70 MPH. A tennis ball moving at 2500 RPM at 70 MPH off a weekend hack who just happened to hit one perfectly vs a pro who can do it on every stroke is the exact same ball.

A "heavy ball" is a ball with pace and spin. That's it. There isn't any other force that can be created hitting a ball.

[TennisCJC]

Technique is way more important than strenght/fitness in hitting a heavy ball. Stroke patterns, timing, rythmn and experience far, far, far outweight strength and fitness.

Now strength and fitness do begin to make big difference when 2 equal level players are competing to win. But, out of shape 5.0 level player will beat the living hell out of a very fit 4.0 player every single damn time.

[corbind]

Originally Posted by TennisCJC

Technique is way more important than strenght/fitness in hitting a heavy ball. Stroke patterns, timing, rythmn and experience far, far, far outweight strength and fitness.

Now strength and fitness do begin to make big difference when 2 equal level players are competing to win. But, out of shape 5.0 level player will beat the living hell out of a very fit 4.0 player every single damn time.

Laughing while thinkin' 'bout it -- I agree.

[jxs653]

Originally Posted by wanda

I believe a heavy ball is one that has speed and spin.
You can hit a fast ball with little spin and it's easy to get back and control. If you're faced with a ball with spin and pace when it hits your racket it's much more difficult to control due to the spin, hence it feels heavy.

Last summer I played with this person and he hit absolutely flat ball almost with zero spin. And his ball was very fast and felt very very heavy. So probably spin is not a necessary condition for heavy ball (while speed is).

[LeeD]

A "HEAVY" ball is one the other guy hits into your court that is better than you can handle.
It might have more spin, more speed, more wierd kick or bounce, or just hit where you don't want it.
A college player's best "HEAVY" ball will barely bother a pro.

[_craze]

You can always hit flatter.

[wanda]

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=84973

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=305556

Some related posts here.