Training with a weighted racquet.

Recently, My friend who plays Singles 1 in Varsity Tennis, Told me to practice with my K90 after training with a normal weighted racquet and shadowing the motions of groundstrokes, volleys, and playing against the wall if possible. He didn't give me much info on how much weight other than lead tape the whole racquet except the strings..

Would this help at all later on?

LightningZI said:

Recently, My friend who plays Singles 1 in Varsity Tennis, Told me to practice with my K90 after training with a normal weighted racquet and shadowing the motions of groundstrokes, volleys, and playing against the wall if possible. He didn't give me much info on how much weight other than lead tape the whole racquet except the strings..

Would this help at all later on?

Click to expand...

Nope.

There is a "racket weight" item that is sold to help players improve their stroke technique. It might not work, but my technique isn't so bad that I'd need to buy it.

Also, the only way to get used to a heavy racket is to go out and play with it. If you get used to swinging a K90, then move to your regular racket, you're not going to like your regular racket. It'll be too light for you.

Though I might've misunderstood what you said.

There is no secret to getting better faster other than focusing on the right things when you are playing on the court and LOTS of practice.

Alright, So it's really not that great of an idea then? Also, It was Switch from weighted to K90.

It's not that I want a "get good fast" way of training tennis, But I'd rather practice any way that can improve even a little bit.

Thanks for the reply.

LightningZI said:

Alright, So it's really not that great of an idea then? Also, It was Switch from weighted to K90.

It's not that I want a "get good fast" way of training tennis, But I'd rather practice any way that can improve even a little bit.

Thanks for the reply.

Click to expand...

Switching from a light racket to a K90... If you can't handle the racket, why buy it?!

Geez... It's ticking me off that so many people that can't handle the K90 are using it, and aren't stopping at the fact that they can't use it, and continue to use it, knowing that they play better with other rackets or deluding themselves otherwise...

xFullCourtTenniSx said:

Switching from a light racket to a K90... If you can't handle the racket, why buy it?!

Geez... It's ticking me off that so many people that can't handle the K90 are using it, and aren't stopping at the fact that they can't use it, and continue to use it, knowing that they play better with other rackets or deluding themselves otherwise...

Click to expand...

I really don't remember saying I switched from a light racquet to K90, and It's not that I can't handle it. It's just my groundstroke action is horrible. I do play better with my Dunlop AG100 but then again, I just got the K90 a few days back so isn't it natural that I'm not supposed to be using it perfectly?

LightningZI said:

I really don't remember saying I switched from a light racquet to K90, and It's not that I can't handle it. It's just my groundstroke action is horrible. I do play better with my Dunlop AG100 but then again, I just got the K90 a few days back so isn't it natural that I'm not supposed to be using it perfectly?

Click to expand...

No... It's not natural at all. This means the K90 wasn't meant for you.

xFullCourtTenniSx said:

No... It's not natural at all. This means the K90 wasn't meant for you.

Click to expand...

I find that amusing, I really don't feel like starting a flame war, All I'll say is that you and Roger Federer aren't the K90 Pros here. Does having 6 K90's make you better than a person with 2? Not quite. It's natural to not be used to something in the first few days. Such as walking when your young. I suppose you think walking isn't natural either then.

Yes a racquet helps to progress your game, and add flare to your style of playing, But don't think the racquet is 90% of your game. It's 30%. Strokes are more important.

Okay..i used this 1 thing called a stroke trainer..you attach it to your racket strings and i'd say your racket gains about a pound..Just swing that around, not randomly..shadow stroke your forehands, backhands, volleys, serves, etc.

You'll figure out, that if you want to swing it faster, you have to use your whole body with a certain timing to swing it as fast as you can.

Great way to learn how to transfer body weight into your strokes.

I only really used it on forehands and serves, for 5 minutes each day, and it works pretty well. Plus, fyi, if you swing that thing with your racket for 5 minutes before you hit, your racket will feel like a feather (or well more like a pencil or phone)..and i'm not kidding here either.

My coach says if you dont have a trainer, just tie a shoe to 1 of your old tennis rackets and swing that around, tie it tight though or it might just fly off.

It's a great way to practice/change/correct technique, or just warm up. I'm not sure about this but it could make you get stronger, not by much though.

A general consensus amoung the sport scientist tell to not do that, it will alter your timing etc. Look for the sport science episode about swinging a heavier bat in baseball.

In baseball, swinging with a doughnut doesn't actually cause you to swing the bat any quicker. It does help you feel like you do though and that can be the difference with confidence so you hit better. If swinging a heavier racquet helps then so will just lifting weights. That's really all you're doing. Now, if you find that you're confidence is boosted, hey, give it a shot. Why not?

I started out with a light racket. Then, got a heavier racket, and screwed up my games badly. I even got my arm hurt a little. After recovered and corrected the timing, this "heavier" racket feels ...kindly light for my stroke and technique. In fact I just bought lead strips today and planned to load up.

Btw over weekend someone I know told me k6.1 tour was seriously on sale and he bought a few. I am tempted to get one, but I'm not sure going from Nadal racket to the Fed one is gonna create some sort of internal conflict for me or not! lol.

IMO, blake has a point about training with a noticeably heavier equipment. Basically when I have the APDC under control my groundstrokes were much better. My arm muscles also felt enlarged. I didn't have to put so much energy in swinging as I did with my original 9.6 wilson.

Blake0 said:

Okay..i used this 1 thing called a stroke trainer..you attach it to your racket strings and i'd say your racket gains about a pound..Just swing that around, not randomly..shadow stroke your forehands, backhands, volleys, serves, etc.

You'll figure out, that if you want to swing it faster, you have to use your whole body with a certain timing to swing it as fast as you can.

Great way to learn how to transfer body weight into your strokes.

I only really used it on forehands and serves, for 5 minutes each day, and it works pretty well. Plus, fyi, if you swing that thing with your racket for 5 minutes before you hit, your racket will feel like a feather (or well more like a pencil or phone)..and i'm not kidding here either.

My coach says if you dont have a trainer, just tie a shoe to 1 of your old tennis rackets and swing that around, tie it tight though or it might just fly off.

It's a great way to practice/change/correct technique, or just warm up. I'm not sure about this but it could make you get stronger, not by much though.

Click to expand...

Firstly, Thanks for the reply, Is 5 minutes ideal or should it go up to like 10. I'm not really looking to get stronger doing this(That's what the gym is for) but as you said practice the correct technique.

Thanks alot.

LightningZI said:

... Is 5 minutes ideal or should it go up to like 10. I'm not really looking to get stronger doing this(That's what the gym is for) but as you said practice the correct technique...

Click to expand...

ZERO minutes might be ideal -- it really depends on several factors. This subject has been discussed in length several times before. The "heavy racquet" practice is questionable, especially if performed just prior to match time. For training, however, there might be some benefit if the added resistance is not too great.

Yes, swinging a heavier racquet or a high-resistance stroke trainer will make your regular racquet "feel like a feather" that (you think that) you can swing much faster after the training. However, this feeling is a self-deception. It has been found that the practice can adversely affect your swing timing and may actually train your muscle fibers to swing slower rather than faster. The adverse effect, tho', might be a temporary one -- depends on how much high resistance training is performed.

I believe that a change in swingweight might have more of an effect than just altering the static weight. As suggested before, a change in weight or swingweight will throw off your swing timing. If the change is greater than 15% or so, there is also the danger of altering your swing mechanics. The change in mechanics might be positive as Blake0 suggested, but it there is also a strong possibility that it could have a negative impact on mechanics.
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benasp said:

A general consensus among the sport scientist tell to not do that, it will alter your timing etc. Look for the sport science episode about swinging a heavier bat in baseball.

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I've mentioned that episode of Sport Science in several threads previously (I've also posted a YouTube link for it before). The study was performed for both baseball and golf. The measurements show that there is a reduction in ball speed and ball distance with the regular bat/club after the weighted swing practice. It appeared that the swing timing was adversely affected in both cases. It was also suggested that the weighted swing practice might be training the muscle fibers to swing slower rather than faster.

I believe that in both cases, the test subject said that it felt like they could swing the regular bat/club faster after the weighted swing practice. However, the sport scientist remarked that "feel and real are not the same thing".

mtommer said:

In baseball, swinging with a doughnut doesn't actually cause you to swing the bat any quicker. It does help you feel like you do though and that can be the difference with confidence so you hit better. If swinging a heavier racquet helps then so will just lifting weights. That's really all you're doing. Now, if you find that you're confidence is boosted, hey, give it a shot. Why not?

Click to expand...

'tis true that swinging a bat with a doughnut does not cause one to swing any faster. In fact, it could result is a slightly slower swing. I believe that the confidence factor that you suggest might be more than offset by detrimental effect on swing timing. As I mentioned before, that adverse effect might only be temporary tho'. After several mis-timed swings with the regular (unweighted) bat, the normal swing timing might return.

I've previously suggested something called Overload-Underload training. This has been done with baseball and with some track & field events. Unfortunately, it might be difficult to implement for tennis -- but not impossible.

OU training starts out with a bat or implement that is about 10 to 15% heavier (or greater in swingweight) than the standard implement (bat, racquet, javelin, etc). I believe that this is done to improve muscle strength. The next step is the underload phase -- an implement that is 10 to 15% lighter (lower swingweight) is employed. This phase is supposed to get the muscle fibers to move/react quicker. The 3rd phase of the training is with the normally weighted implement. This phase if important in order to get back the correct timing.

With OU tranining, it has been found that if the weight (or swingweight) is altered 20% or more, performance mechanics or the biomechanics of the motion can be adversely affected.
.

I just swing the racquet with the cover on for 5 or 10 minutes, then take the cover off.

Wind resistance works like an isometric weight. I go through all the strokes and it's helped my shoulder improve as well as make the racquet much quicker in my hands afterwards.

It may only help psychologically, but it's been working so far.

instead of using extra weight added to a racket, i got an old racket cover, one that just covers the head of the racket. i swing that practicing my strokes to build up my muscles and tendons. works really well. really gives your arm a workout in a short period of time. if you try it, start out really slow, first time i did it my arm was sore for a couple of days.

I personally don't think that it's helpful to swing a weighted racquet to warm yourself up right before playing with your regular frame. It's likely that it will only mess with your timing. If you want to get stronger overall, then I'd say lift some weights and run some sprints, etc. to get quicker on your feet.

One thing that I did for myself a couple of years back was to train on the practice courts with very heavy, soft racquets. I needed to improve my mechanics and build better swings from the ground up - if I tried to just "arm" these tree branches through the ball, I'd be wasted in about fifteen minutes. It was initially frustrating, but after I stuck with it, I learned better habits and started doing everything a bit earlier in order to get to the ball on time. The most telling part of my success was after about a month of these workouts, I was getting tired in my legs after a longer session than before when I'd get a tired arm rather quickly.

I absolutely DO NOT encourage anyone to grab a really heavy racquet and go play with it in a match. When I did that, I got a nasty tear in my abs... that sucked! On the practice courts where you can concentrate more specifically on your own movements, a "training racquet" can be valuable, but it can be a tough change of pace.

If you try it, use that heavier racquet for only brief portions of your workouts, at least at first. You need to get used to starting your motions earlier to get to the ball on time (unit turn, first steps, etc.). Once you're fatigued, get your lighter racquet out, but pay attention to your movement so that you keep it deliberate. Regardless of how light or heavy your racquet is, you can never be set up at your hitting zone early enough. Although it feels heavier to swing that stick with your arm, it may ultimately make you appreciate the need to work harder with your legs.

fuzzy and SA,

What if you're already good with footwork, have adequate preparation and you're using a 9 oz, 120 sq" racket (just an example)? Wouldn't your stroke suffer if you don't train and get to a heavier racket?

Well, I didn't have the patience to read the replies, so I don't know what has already been suggested.

Many modern rackets are designed (light, flexy, head-light, aerodynamic, large surface, big sweetspot, powerful) to allow beginning players to get into the game with more/quicker success than in "the old days" with clunky, heavy small-headed wooden rackets with microscopic sweetspots.

It is possible with a modern racket, of that sort, to develop bad habits that are unnoticed because the racket is so "forgiving".

So, a racket- like an old wooden racket- or a new racket that requires good form to generate pace would "punish" you with poor hitting, be jarring to your arm, and give, otherwise, negative feedback. It might help you/force you to use better technique to get good results- or at least point toward your weakness.

Or you could just play terribly. Much would depend on your motivation toward improvement, practice, and overall training, as is always the case.

Since I'm more or less referring to that extra hefty racquet as a training aid more than an alternative as a daily player, I don't think it would do much for a player that's already pretty good.

This experimental case was especially good for me when I tried it because I grew up playing serve and volley on grass courts and had a significant need to drag my strokes into the 21st century. Before I worked up a more balanced skill set, I honestly had a doubles game that was a full NTRP level better than my singles game. It generally forced me to use better habits and even dial in a more smooth, fluid service motion. In my case, it did me a world of good.

LightningZI said:

Firstly, Thanks for the reply, Is 5 minutes ideal or should it go up to like 10. I'm not really looking to get stronger doing this(That's what the gym is for) but as you said practice the correct technique.

Thanks alot.

Click to expand...

Well it adds a pound..so 5-10 minutes is good..might i recommend starting off with 5 and moving up from there if you feel its easy..moving up to say 15 mins? Don't go too much and tire yourself..you might start to get lazy technique wise and will be counterproductive. Make sure to have plenty of room around you and using your legs and core to swing, try to maintain a fast swing..a fast swing thats controllable.

This is what i normally do. Swing with trainer for like 5-10 mins at a medium-high speed using body and legs. Then swing for another 5 mins without the trainer and notice the increase in swing speed. (try swinging before the weight first then use the weight then swing without it after and notice the increase in swing speed). Once a day should be enough..but you can go 2 or 3 times. You only need to go through your motion on serves, forehands, and backhands really. Slices and volleys if you have spare time. Best to do 1 thing the whole time. (for ex: forehand for 5 mins, rest, backhand for 5 mins. Then next day serve 5 mins, forehand 5 mins. Just keep rotating each day...or use it only on something you want to improve.

user92626 said:

fuzzy and SA,

What if you're already good with footwork, have adequate preparation and you're using a 9 oz, 120 sq" racket (just an example)? Wouldn't your stroke suffer if you don't train and get to a heavier racket?

Click to expand...

This is a very different question from what the OP was asking. If you are hitting the ball with moderate to high pace or if you regularly play against players who hit with moderate to high pace, you should not be using a light racquet such as this. Racquets under 10 oz (or even under 11 oz strung) are meant for beginners, low intermediates or young players who do not encounter balls with very much pace.

If are are starting to hit harder or hit against players who are hitting harder, then you should not just train with a heavier racquet, you should switch to a heavier racquet for your normal playing racquet.

To the OP & others: if you are still considering training with a heavier than (your) normal racquet or with a high-resistance stroke trainer, watch this Sport Science video first (it will likely change your mind):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_vR8U_KrhY



For further discussion on this subject check out these other threads:

tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3510505
tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3105543
tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3468482
.

SystemicAnomaly said:

To the OP & others: if you are still considering training with a heavier than (your) normal racquet or with a high-resistance stroke trainer, watch this Sport Science video first (it will likely change your mind):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_vR8U_KrhY



For further discussion on this subject check out these other threads:

tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3510505
tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3105543
tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3468482
.

Click to expand...

I guess i might be wrong..maybe just stick with shadow stroking with your regular racket.

LightningZI said:

I find that amusing, I really don't feel like starting a flame war, All I'll say is that you and Roger Federer aren't the K90 Pros here. Does having 6 K90's make you better than a person with 2? Not quite. It's natural to not be used to something in the first few days. Such as walking when your young. I suppose you think walking isn't natural either then.

Yes a racquet helps to progress your game, and add flare to your style of playing, But don't think the racquet is 90% of your game. It's 30%. Strokes are more important.

Click to expand...

But if a racket doesn't immediately fit your game, then that's a red flag for "time to demo the next racket". Perhaps you should consider that? I hit without restraint when I first picked up the racket, and everything landed right on the baseline and sidelines. It fit right in for my game. It gave me the power control I was looking for when I was switching from my previous racket. And it also gave me extra spin on second serves, another thing I was looking for.

SystemicAnomaly said:

To the OP & others: if you are still considering training with a heavier than (your) normal racquet or with a high-resistance stroke trainer, watch this Sport Science video first (it will likely change your mind): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_vR8U_KrhY ...

Click to expand...

That was very interesting.

Still, I remember the old days when pros were switching from wood rackets to aluminium and graphite. The common wisdom was that they still kept some of their old wood frames to practice with, to ensure their swings remained grooved. And I also heard that a pro using the new rackets nevertheless made sure his son learnt to play with a wood frame, for the same reason.

I use two rackets held together for warm-up - not so much to get the swingspeed right, but to ensure I use the extra weight to groove the right swingpath (as in doing a figure-of-eight service motion, and hitting-through-the-ball on both forehand and backhand). I also play golf, and likewise I swing two clubs in the warm-up to ensure I swing right through the ball, end up with high hands, club(s) across my back, and still stay balanced on my left leg with chest squared in the direction of the ball. Should I be changing my warm-up routines?

if training with a weighted racket slows down your swing speed, what can i do to increase my swing speed. does this also mean that any training with traditional weights (eg. dumbells) for my arm will also harm my swing speed, since according to the video, it will produce more slow twitch muscle fibers.

SystemicAnomaly said:

To the OP & others: if you are still considering training with a heavier than (your) normal racquet or with a high-resistance stroke trainer, watch this Sport Science video first (it will likely change your mind):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_vR8U_KrhY

.

Click to expand...

If you look at the video at the 3:01 mark you will see that the batter is farther ahead in his swing after using the weighted bat which is what causes him to miss the sweet spot because he is contacting the ball farther in front of him. How getting somewhere faster correlats to less velocity is beyond a simple Senior Math guy like me. Then in the golf part where they say that the difference would be even worse for the weekend warrior I have to beg to differ. I am that warrior and if I was hitting within a couple of millimeters of where I was aiming my handicap would not almost equal my age. If anything it would probably help average golfers to slow down their wild swing and simply hit the darn ball down the fairway.

Being an old softballer who once swung a 38 ounce bat and raised my eyebrows in wonder when they were telling us to switch to 28's before reluctantly buying a 30 simply to get the double wall construction I think results would vary from person to person. First a lot of it would depend on just how gifted a person was. Myself I don't have a lot of flexability and so my range of motion is limited. I also wasn't blessed with an abudance of fast twitch muscle. I am built like a football lineman and rely on power and cunning in my sports.

To relate a little more to us tennis bums they would need to bring in some 3.5-4.5 players and test them. They are currently testing the equilivent of 5.5 D 1 players and most of us don't have either the stokes or the muscle makeup of such players.

Ken Honecker said:

If you look at the video at the 3:01 mark you will see that the batter is farther ahead in his swing after using the weighted bat which is what causes him to miss the sweet spot because he is contacting the ball farther in front of him. How getting somewhere faster correlats to less velocity is beyond a simple Senior Math guy like me...

Click to expand...

He gets there faster, not because the swing is faster but because he starts the swing sooner. If you've ever used a racquet that is significantly heavier than your usual racquet, you find that it is becomes necessary to start your swing a tad sooner. If you become accustomed to this earlier swing start and then switch over to a lighter racquet, you'll often find that you get to the ball too early -- because you are starting your swing too early (not because you are necessarily swinging the racquet any faster).

hmm.. I do see lot of responses saying that its not beneficial..
Is the baseball hitters doing those practice swings with add-on weights not beneficial? unless baseball swing has absolutely nothing to do wt tennis swing!

rk_sports said:

hmm.. I do see lot of responses saying that its not beneficial..
Is the baseball hitters doing those practice swings with add-on weights not beneficial? unless baseball swing has absolutely nothing to do wt tennis swing!

Click to expand...

Did you bother to watch the Sport Science video link I provided? Beseball players who use weighted bats in the on-deck circle are probably doing themselves more harm than good. The timing on their 1st swing or two at the plate will likely be off a bit. Old beliefs die hard. Ball players have been doing this for decades in a misguided attempt to speed up their swing. Or maybe they are doing it primarily to loosen/warm up their arms & body. Who know for sure? Perhaps if Barry Bonds hadn't used a donut for practice swings in the on-deck circle, he might have hit 10% more home runs or might have had a batting average closer to .400

The negative effect of the weighted swing probably did not linger too long. After 1 or 2 mistimed swings at the plate, their muscle memory probably corrected the timing issue for subsequent pitches.

SystemicAnomaly said:

Did you bother to watch the Sport Science video link I provided? Beseball players who use weighted bats in the on-deck circle are probably doing themselves more harm than good. The timing on their 1st swing or two at the plate will likely be off a bit. Old beliefs die hard. Ball players have been doing this for decades in a misguided attempt to speed up their swing. Or maybe they are doing it primarily to loosen/warm up their arms & body. Who know for sure? Perhaps if Barry Bonds hadn't used a donut for practice swings in the on-deck circle, he might have hit 10% more home runs or might have had a batting average closer to .400

The negative effect of the weighted swing probably did not linger too long. After 1 or 2 mistimed swings at the plate, their muscle memory probably corrected the timing issue for subsequent pitches.

Click to expand...

My bad! I cannot see the tube at work! Now that I saw it, it answers the question about ball players.

Ok looking at the video the batter just might start his swing a couple hundredths of a second earlier after using the weighted bat in the one example they show. I really do question whether in a couple of practice swings with a weighted bat he would eliminate all his muscle memory and instinctivly know to start his swing earlier. In my bat bag I've got my current 30 ounce stick and my former 38 ounce monster club. When I swing the heavy bat I don't find myself out in front of the ball, rather the opposite but mainly I don't get the distance because of the different technologies and the fact that I can't swing like I did 21 years ago when I bought it.

I'd need a lot more than one guy swinging the bat 20 times to make any judgements. According to the video we are only talking a 1% drop in speed. Heck most margins of error are greater than that. Maybe the guy was just swinging slower because during the final stage of the test he was on swings 10 through 20 which probably should be slightly less than swings 1 through 10. Another thing is why were they using a guy that didn't have much of a bat in the first place? Um Ray Demartini swings his softball bat 95 MPH and MLB guys can top 100. Heck last time I looked I was in the 50's somewhere.

^ Yes, the reduction in bat speed is fairly small. However, this tends to bust the myth that the weighted swings on-deck will result in faster bat speeds at the plate. The important difference appears to be that the batter's timing is adversely affected (not that his bat swing speed changes only slightly).

I'm willing to bet that the video was somewhat staged so that it could slickly packaged -- it was meant to be representative of what has been seen in the lab. I'm curious tho' -- when bat speeds are talked about is it consistent? Are they always talking about the tip of the bat where the linear (or tangential) speed is the greatest or is it measured at one of the "sweet spot" nodes where the ball is usually struck?

mark999 said:

if training with a weighted racket slows down your swing speed, what can i do to increase my swing speed. does this also mean that any training with traditional weights (eg. dumbells) for my arm will also harm my swing speed, since according to the video, it will produce more slow twitch muscle fibers.

Click to expand...

It's a bit more complex (& confusing) than that. The categories, slow twitch and fast twitch, are broad and refer to relative contraction time of the muscle fibers. I may be wrong about this, but I believe that contraction time and speed of motion are not necessarily the same thing.

Our skeletal muscles are actually comprised of 3, possibly even 4, muscle fiber types -- type I (slow), type II-a (medium fast), type II-x (fast), and possibly type II-c. Some mammals also posses type II-b (very fast) fibers. Note that slow twitch fibers, which are used for endurance & aerobic activity, do not grow appreciably in size. This can be confirmed by looking at the physique of long distance runners who have a very % of slow twitch fibers (particularly in their legs). These would tend to be developed with very low weight loads and very high repetitions.

For tennis, I suspect we may need some slow twitch fibers. However for the burst endurance and for the explosive energy needs in tennis, we probably recruit a high % of both type II-a and type II-x fast-twitch fibers. It is possible that we might also possess type II-c fibers which can be trained or utilized as slow or fast twitch muscle fiber.

I also suspect that for different swing speeds and different swingweights, we would employ varying percentages of the 3 (or 4) muscle fiber types. I will try to get more into all of this stuff in another post.

Did you look into the OU training that I mentioned in my previous post? With this training, you might try shadow swinging with your regular fame without strings for the underload phase. This would represent a 5-6% reduction in weight and a bit less air drag (due to the absence of the stringbed). Alternately, you could swing a lighter racquet -- one that has a swingweight that is 10-15% less than you regular playing racket. Not sure if these underload swings would be done with or without a ball -- I would think that it would be best to do these as shadow swings (no ball).

^ Note that bodybuilding, where increases in muscle mass is desired, the faster twitch fibers tend to be recruited (to realize those increases in muscle size). Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting also tend to recruit a very high % of fast-twitch fibers. Medicine ball workouts, jumping rope and other plyometric exercises will recruit a high % of fast-twitch fibers.

SystemicAnomaly said:

To the OP & others: if you are still considering training with a heavier than (your) normal racquet or with a high-resistance stroke trainer, watch this Sport Science video first (it will likely change your mind):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_vR8U_KrhY



For further discussion on this subject check out these other threads:

tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3510505
tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3105543
tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?p=3468482
.

Click to expand...

That was a really eye opening video, I was confused on whether or not to do it since it really seemed like it was 50-50 on this thread.

xFullCourtTenniSx said:

But if a racket doesn't immediately fit your game, then that's a red flag for "time to demo the next racket". Perhaps you should consider that? I hit without restraint when I first picked up the racket, and everything landed right on the baseline and sidelines. It fit right in for my game. It gave me the power control I was looking for when I was switching from my previous racket. And it also gave me extra spin on second serves, another thing I was looking for.

Click to expand...

You do know everyone is different? I don't think I've stressed that enough in my replies to you. While your change may be "immediately" others take a while. How immediate is immediate? Because it's definition is instant. There's no such thing as an instantaneous change. It all takes time. You can't practice a kick serve and get it right continuously instantaneously. Just because you don't want more and more people using a K90 isn't reason enough to start arguments... It's a racquet, Out of many, There's many tennis players who are fit for it, and some that the racquet is fit for them. Compared to the number of people who play tennis all over the world. There's way less racquets. Of course the K90 will be used..

LightningZI said:

That was a really eye opening video, I was confused on whether or not to do it since it really seemed like it was 50-50 on this thread...

Click to expand...

Keep in mind that the video showed a short-term effect on swing timing. The effects are undoubtedly only temporary. The Overload-Underload Training the I mentioned may very well have considerable merit.