The exercise immediately below has the objective of serving just using your back leg. The video right below is showing a player performing the single leg back leg serve effectively with good rhythm and using the back leg to effectively store; and subsequently release energy up through the body and into the ball. From our lab we have seen that all good servers can serve within 5-7MPH as fast from the back leg as from two legs. This highlights how important the back leg is and also the need to train it.
Wanna serve fast? Just use the back leg
- Thread starter AnyPUG
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The first video shows the up/forward swing and jumping off at the same time(server is exploding up to hit).
The second video shows jump first and then the start of up/forward swing. (mini explosive step and then the swing starts).
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
But on the opposite side you have Florian Meier at OTI claiming that 90% of the serve power comes from arm action.
Meier doesn't think they are useless serves like 10% faster using legs. But that's kinda a lie you still use your lower body even serving on your knees. You can still use your hips to rotate some.
A huge percentage of rec players use pancake serves and drills like this one have no impact on their game. It's not wrong just too advanced.
Bruce Elliot and his group who studied serve mechanics has these numbers in one particular server and their observation is that power generated by hand is counter productive to serve quality.
They say power generated by hand (flexion and ulnar deviation) moves the racket laterally and backwards leading in a poor serve compared to a word class server. They claim that a world class serve most likely tries to prevent power generation from the hand.
(PDF) Biomechanics of the Serve in Tennis
PDF | Epidemiological studies have indicated that the serve, arguably the most important facet of the game of tennis, is also the most likely stroke to... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
www.researchgate.net
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Bruce Elliot a professor who studied serve mechanics has these numbers -
Most of the guys that serve big on their knees using hips. But clearly if you can serve big on your knees you can take part of your lower body out of it and serve big. Likewise as demonstrated by some people you can hit say 70mph serves with just ISR/Hand stuff. What some people can't do is coordinate everything together so they get nothing/less out of their legs then they but even those guys are pretty advanced. Guys like this probably benefit from Kovacs drill.
But many rec players use their shoulder to forcibly push down on the ball - and serve more like someone shooting a basketball. So they use a totally different set of muscles. Thus drills meant to improve the coordination of the kinetic chain are wasted.
Guys like Meier are going after this low hanging fruit. The other dirty secret is that guys who serve pancake can still serve pretty hard with this strategy.. They just can't hit spin serves and their percentage is lower.
Getting people to switch styles is super difficult and some coaches just have given up. A good example is the "Serve Doctor" who talked about "working with" people who use the pancake method to get better results. He is probably correct. Most people aren't going to transition..
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I think it shows that it's better to employ big muscles than smaller ones to generate power. While it's possible to use just arm, elbow, wrist etc to hit a ball, it's not effective or good in the long term.
That's why big servers have a huge knee bend (even John Isner reduces his legs to almost 60% height before exploding up)
For some, I suspect the legs primarily serve the purpose of foot faulting..
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Jake Speeed
Professional
Sorry I didn't read any replies, not a single one, but I did take a quick look at the serve video.
This video is a clear example as to why I say much of the instruction on the net is point and valueless.
JS
This video is a clear example as to why I say much of the instruction on the net is point and valueless.
JS
Seems like you say that a lot but without any comments as to why. The video had value to me so that refutes your assertion that it was valueless.
Jake Speeed
Professional
I will disagree with your assumption. But I will invest a bit of time in this.
Of what value was it for you?
In my post above
Jake Speeed
Professional
I haven't lost interest yet, I don't know which post you're referring to?
Gotta remember, This is a Forum of ideas, thoughts and suggestions, not to mention opinions.
So, we both are entitled to our opinions. Are we not?
JS
You are entitled to your opinion but a post that says a video is pointless is in itself pointless unless some type of explanation is provided.
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