What should power the rotation on a groundstroke?

The more and more I see club level players, including myself, I notice that on groundstrokes they are using the force of their arm to rotate their body. By this I mean the force pulling their body is their arm - their arm is pulling their body. There isn't much buildup of hte legs and core. When I see pros hit groundstrokes, it seems to me like they build up power from their legs and lower body in an overall effort to bring power to their core to rotate their body, and the arm just follows with it. Is this true? Are you supposed to build up your core to use for rotation, and have the arm just follow with the rotation on a groundstroke or should you be using the force of the arm on the groundstroek to pull your body? According to your answer, what muscle groups should be worked in order to increase the speed of this rotation and what are some effective exercises to do so. Note: I am only 14 so I guess I am less prone to injury and am more focused at doing exercises to improve my game rather than prevent injury.

indianbryant said:

The more and more I see club level players, including myself, I notice that on groundstrokes they are using the force of their arm to rotate their body. By this I mean the force pulling their body is their arm - their arm is pulling their body. There isn't much buildup of hte legs and core. When I see pros hit groundstrokes, it seems to me like they build up power from their legs and lower body in an overall effort to bring power to their core to rotate their body, and the arm just follows with it. Is this true? Are you supposed to build up your core to use for rotation, and have the arm just follow with the rotation on a groundstroke or should you be using the force of the arm on the groundstroek to pull your body? According to your answer, what muscle groups should be worked in order to increase the speed of this rotation and what are some effective exercises to do so. Note: I am only 14 so I guess I am less prone to injury and am more focused at doing exercises to improve my game rather than prevent injury.

Click to expand...

It's how u described the ways pro's do it, thats the right way. You use the kinetic chain to get power from your core muscles.

The kinetic chain works from bottom to top. You sort of coil ur body, and release in a chain link formation. You load ur weight by coiling up your energy, you're weight is on your outside foot (right foot for righties) your shoulders and hips turn sideways during your set up phase. Then during your forward swing you unload from bottom to top. Your legs release the stored energy by going up and forward which causes your hips to uncoil, which then causes your shoulder to coil, which helps increase the speed of your arm/racket. Don't assume i'm saying that once your legs drive up and forward, then your hips start to turn and when they're done the shoulders turn and when thats done it drags your arm. It's more like a dominoe effect, the dominoe in front doesn't drop after the one before it drops completely, it starts dropping when the 1 before it drops on it. Think of it more like that..there's a timing of the body parts you'll need to find through practice to find the most efficient way to include your whole body into hitting.

As for what muscles you need to work out, you need to work out all of them, and don't isolate any muscles either. Tennis requires a certain balance of muscles to be hitting with your full potential, so if you just work out your arms and not your core, it'll become counter productive and slow down your racket head speed. Do a full body work out for tennis specifically, i'm not sure how one would be set up..unless you'd want to follow mine, which im not sure if it's tennis specific or not. Try to look it up, i remember some good threads on this topic before, i think. Here's a couple major muscles you'll be working out for sure. Thighs, abs, pecs, shoulders, arms, calves, and more.

read this thread:

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=299259

Look at pro golfers.
The power gets pushed from the feet/ankles on up thru the torso, the shoulder swings the racket, and every shot gets a full, followthru with weight transfer forwards.
That is the ideal. In the real competitive tennis world, it works less often than you'd believe.

The power in good efficient ground strokes comes from that pro style where the energy is loaded into the stroke from the ground up, but I don't think you need to get preoccupied with the weights to be able to hit harder. A few years ago, I got to watch the #1 twelve year old in the world play a few matches locally against grown men (college level players & teaching pros) and he could routinely crush the ball with good technique. He didn't need a killer set of six-pack abs or any unordinary musculature (his standard racquet actually made him look small). He just possessed a very good swing that habitually used his legs and core, plus he had really good movement and timing.

I've come to the opinion that doing some general work on the weights is good for a tennis player because it can help you to play better for a longer outing. Usually injuries happen if we get stretched out of position or make more of a late, muscled effort to get the racquet to the ball. This kind of stuff can happen later in an outing when we're more fatigued, but if the shoulders, core muscles, and legs are in good shape, they won't be strained as quickly.

I personally use moderate weights and higher reps for my weight routines, but for my legs, I prefer riding a bicycle over any sort of weights. For me, the difference in the health of my legs is substantial if I'm riding only twice a week. I think that the best overall difference maker for better power though, is learning better habits. Moving more quickly and habitually setting up earlier on the ball provides a hitter with more time to make their best swing. Having a bit more strength and endurance is a great idea, but I believe that improving technique is higher on the list of essentials for developing better power, etc.

Gotta be in semi shape to run around the court retrieving your opponent's balls and providing enough power to hit your own balls.
My technique is to sit on my butt in front of the internet screen 2 weeks in a row and then go out and play tough singles....

LeeD said:

Gotta be in semi shape to run around the court retrieving your opponent's balls and providing enough power to hit your own balls.
My technique is to sit on my butt in front of the internet screen 2 weeks in a row and then go out and play tough singles....

Click to expand...

A technique we can all live with!!!

Check this out:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ho3FRWm9Pw

As someone has already put it, the kinetic chain works from the bottom up. As the stored power is released through rotation / angular momentum and the rotation "moves" upwards through hips and shoulders, by the time it gets to the rackethead - because the rackethead is quite a distance away from the centre of rotation - the rackethead is moving at a very fast linear speed.