Beginner Serve Help Day 8 - Getting the Correct Swing Path

[will_ling_motivation]

Took a few days off due to bad weather.

Goals for today:

Goal for today is to get the correct left shoulder drop and swing path with pronation no matter what.

Did NOT care if the ball goes in or out, or even about the toss, only about the swing path

 

[AlexSV]

Slow down. Take your time, do some shadow swings, and try to keep your balance.

 

[tennis4me]

Your shadow swing looks decent enough. Once you added the ball, your swing path is different than your shadow swing. The reason is simply because your toss is consistent causing you to adjust your swing path to the errand toss.

The solution is you need to break down the motion to smaller units and practice that separately then add them back together slowly.

Practice until you can toss correctly and consistently. Try starting the racquet already at the up position. You can still practice the racquet drop from this abbreviated motion. In fact some WTA Pros serve like this. This is how many teaching Pros teach serve to beginners.

Basically divide and conquer. There are just too many moving parts to learn and do at the same time when you're learning it.

 

[PocketAces]

Looking at your serve in slow motion, you are committing the WTE (waiter tray error).

I think it's commendable that you want to improve and that you're willing to video yourself and solicit feedback, but all the practice in the world won't do you any good if you practice the wrong things or in a haphazard fashion. My suggestion is to save up $100-$200 USD and put the money towards a video course on the serve. Right now you are trying to perform the full service motion and getting overwhelmed by the complexity. You're receiving advice from many different people and getting overwhelmed by all of the advice. If you had an athletic background, then maybe you could figure out how to build a serve based on forum feedback and experimentation on the court. But I'm going to guess that you don't have an athletic background, so you probably have average to below average co-ordination and body awareness (there's no shame in that, I'm not athletic either). Make it as easy for yourself as possible by spending a few dollars to get a structured program that will allow you to build the serve step-by-step.

 

[nochuola]

Once again, I suggest you just practice way closer to the net. It looks like you've made some progress, but one big problem is your body simply doesn't know how to use pronation and internal shoulder rotation. It is very difficult to fix the waiters tray motion when you are this far from the target because your body wants to push the ball forward. Make things easier for yourself by learning how to hit straight down with pronation and ISR first, then slowly move backwards.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Please provide a link or quote your previous related thread.

Beginner Serve Help Day 7 - Weekly Review

Goals for today: Didn't work on anything new. Just served a bucket of balls to establish a new baseline for where my serve is after a week of asking for advice on Talk Tennis. Video from First Day for Comparison: Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I'm a 10/10 in terms of satisfaction in regards to...

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

I see that you did not notice or agree with Ellenbecker on how to orient your upper arm to reduce the risk of shoulder impingement injury.

 

[will_ling_motivation]

Please provide a link or quote your previous related thread.

Beginner Serve Help Day 7 - Weekly Review

Goals for today: Didn't work on anything new. Just served a bucket of balls to establish a new baseline for where my serve is after a week of asking for advice on Talk Tennis. Video from First Day for Comparison: Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I'm a 10/10 in terms of satisfaction in regards to...

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

I see that you did not notice or agree with Ellenbecker on how to orient your upper arm to reduce the risk of shoulder impingement injury.

Would you mind telling me specifically what I did wrong?

I tried really hard to do it the correct way according to Ellenbecker but effort does not always equal results.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Basically, what I got from it is you need a higher right elbow on the takeback and more left shoulder drop on the hit

 

[Chas Tennis]

...........
I tried really hard to do it the correct way according to Ellenbecker but effort does not always equal results.
.........................................................................
Basically, what I got from it is you need a higher right elbow on the takeback and more left shoulder drop on the hit
...........

Please quote the post that you got that information from and the Ellenbecker information.

 

[will_ling_motivation]

Please quote the post that you got that information from and the Ellenbecker information.

I believe Ellenbecker addresses nerve impingement with a high elbow position (wrt the shoulder line). OP has a very low elbow position that might result in a shoulder issue other than an impingement.

Don't believe that Ellenbecker is germane to this discussion and I fear that we've already overwhelmed the OP with waaaay to much input. already. Exccess info / detail tends to be counter-productive & may obscure more important factors.

I also tried to copy this image address specifically and noticed more of a left shoulder drop compared to my own serve from Week 7.

By the way, I did search ellenbecker shoulder impingement but I still wasn't able to find that specific video. All the links from your posts seem to be dead.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

By the way, I did search ellenbecker shoulder impingement but I still wasn't able to find that specific video. All the links from your posts seem to be dead.

The Todd E video link for shoulder impingement is no longer at the Tennis Resources page that we had linked in the past. It was moved -- perhaps behind a paywall. @Chas Tennis , do you have an alternate link?

You might try this link to see if you can access the shoulder impingement video without having to pay for it:

Rotator cuff injury | Tennis Resources

www.tennisresources.com

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Some other stuff on shoulder health by Dr Todd E

 

[yossarian]

Please provide a link or quote your previous related thread.

Beginner Serve Help Day 7 - Weekly Review

Goals for today: Didn't work on anything new. Just served a bucket of balls to establish a new baseline for where my serve is after a week of asking for advice on Talk Tennis. Video from First Day for Comparison: Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I'm a 10/10 in terms of satisfaction in regards to...

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

I see that you did not notice or agree with Ellenbecker on how to orient your upper arm to reduce the risk of shoulder impingement injury.

you do realize that knowing what to do and actually doing it are two completely different things?

 

[a12345]

Youre still opening the racket face too early. Its when you get to here that your problem occurs:

At this stage the racket should still be on its edge, like youre about to chop the ball.

The racket should only start to turn to face the ball as the arm straightens, and just as the arm reaches straight, thats where the contact is. So think about turning the racket to face the ball whilst the arm straightens - simultaneously all in one movement

What youre doing is turning the wrist to make the racket to face the ball, then the arm straightens, then you bend the wrist down to hit the ball.

 

[ballmachineguy]

Youre still opening the racket face too early. Its when you get to here that your problem occurs:

At this stage the racket should still be on its edge, like youre about to chop the ball.

The racket should only start to turn to face the ball as the arm straightens, and just as the arm reaches straight, thats where the contact is. So think about turning the racket to face the ball whilst the arm straightens - simultaneously all in one movement

What youre doing is turning the wrist to make the racket to face the ball, then the arm straightens, then you bend the wrist down to hit the ball.

Small pics on my phone, but I am not sure he is using continental grip yet.

 

[a12345]

So e.g here youre still on edge

And then here youve turned the racket face almost 90 degrees to face the ball, but your arm hasnt even straightened yet. So youve opened up way too early.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

By the way, I did search ellenbecker shoulder impingement but I still wasn't able to find that specific video. All the links from your posts seem to be dead.

Basically, you do not want you serving elbow to rise (much) above the shoulder tilt line -- for the trophy, at contact or anytime in between. In the image below, the right elbow is very nearly in line with the 2 shoulders. If the front (left) shoulder had not been lowered, then the right arm could not easily reach out for the ball without creating an impeachment at the shoulder

.​

Below shows another way to avoid a shoulder impingement at contact. From this back view notice how the right arm is angled off to the right while the racket is angled off to the left. This server is not reaching straight up for the ball but is catching at a skosh lower. This enables him to contact the ball with a bit less extreme shoulder tilt -- without impinging the shoulder

 

[yossarian]

This enables him to contact the ball with a bit less extreme shoulder tilt -- without impinging the shoulder

The “classic” model of impingement is really outdated at this point, anyway. What we thought was happening anatomically really isn’t
In throwers, internal impingement seems to be much more prevalent

 

[Chas Tennis]

I also tried to copy this image address specifically and noticed more of a left shoulder drop compared to my own serve from Week 7.

By the way, I did search ellenbecker shoulder impingement but I still wasn't able to find that specific video. All the links from your posts seem to be dead.

Don't use Toly's composite pictures for shoulder position, use high speed videos. This composite picture shows selected parts of frames from many frames of videos for the ball, arm and racket. But for the body, only a few frames were selected to show the body position. This picture shows the arm, racket and ball paths in a way that most players do not understand.

Where did you get the idea that the upper arm should be higher? This picture? And that was Ellenebecker's recommendation?

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

The “classic” model of impingement is really outdated at this point, anyway. What we thought was happening anatomically really isn’t
In throwers, internal impingement seems to be much more prevalent

And how does that come about? Did you ever see the video(s) from Dr Ellenbecker? Do you believe his claims about shoulder impingement were flawed?

 

[yossarian]

And how does that come about? Did you ever see the video(s) from Dr Ellenbecker? Do you believe his claims about shoulder impingement were flawed?

I’ve never seen the videos but references from the mid 2000s are really outdated at this point.
I told Chas before that cadaveric studies have shown that the subacromial structures are not really impinged upon past 70 degrees so we don’t think reduction of the subacromial space is really technically accurate anymore

I’d say it’s more of a strength/stability/motor control issue if I had to guess

 

[Chas Tennis]

The Todd E video link for shoulder impingement is no longer at the Tennis Resources page that we had linked in the past. It was moved -- perhaps behind a paywall. @Chas Tennis , do you have an alternate link?

You might try this link to see if you can access the shoulder impingement video without having to pay for it:

Rotator cuff injury | Tennis Resources

www.tennisresources.com

I believe that to see the video that you must join Tennis Resources for a 3 month membership. Last I saw it was $32 and allows access to other videos from Tennis Resources. It used to be available free.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

I’ve never seen the videos but references from the mid 2000s are really outdated at this point.
I told Chas before that cadaveric studies have shown that the subacromial structures are not really impinged upon past 70 degrees so we don’t think reduction of the subacromial space is really technically accurate anymore

I’d say it’s more of a strength/stability/motor control issue if I had to guess

The Ellenbecker video in question might have shown on TennisResouces.com in 2012. Chas & I had started referring to it back around 2012/13. Don't recall any mention of it before that

I had referenced other stuff from Ellenbecker In 2008. Something from him about the shoulder around 2010. But nothing about shoulder health wrt to the tennis serve until 2012 IIRC

As I recall, there was also 1 or 2 vids from Jim McLennan on YT about the same time on shoulder impingement wrt the tennis serve. Don't see thoes videos around any longer either

 

[Chas Tennis]

The “classic” model of impingement is really outdated at this point, anyway. What we thought was happening anatomically really isn’t
In throwers, internal impingement seems to be much more prevalent

Please post the links to your information, especially any updates that bear on the Ellenbecker video.

There is another mode discussed for shoulder injury. I viewed this video more carefully after your brief comment in another thread.

One injury occurs on the bursa/acromion side of the tendon - sub-acromial impingement
, see 1.00 - and the other injury occurs on the articular cartilage side of the tendon, see 39 seconds, as described in the video. See video for details, illustrations and definitions.

I am very uncertain since looking at that video and don't know the percentages of shoulder injuries or the circumstances for each type injury. If you have more recent information on percentages, please post your updated sources. This is a subject that needs creditable publications for information.

In any case-

1) ATP servers are mostly seen to use the shoulder orientation limitation as recommended by Ellenbecker. There are some more details that have been discussed in detail on the forum. Look at high speed ATP videos for examples of good practice. There are exceptions, and even Federer seems to show a high upper arm. Look at a number of ATP servers. Look at their shoulder-upper arm orientations over the service motion. Don't translate it into words. The better information is in the frames of videos.

2) The details of how shoulder injuries occur have been speculative. If details have been updated from the Ellenbecker video, let's post the sources of that information.

 

[Booger]

Bro you have a LOT going on lol. Looks like a game of QWOP.

Serve is a complex, full body maneuver. Break it down and learn one piece at a time before you throw it all together.

 

[yossarian]

Please post the links to your information, especially any updates that bear on the Ellenbecker video.

There is another mode discussed for shoulder injury. I viewed this video more carefully after your brief comment in another thread.

One injury occurs on the bursa/acromion side of the tendon - sub-acromial impingement
, see 1.00 - and the other injury occurs on the articular cartilage side of the tendon, see 39 seconds, as described in the video. See video for details, illustrations and definitions.

I am very uncertain since looking at that video and don't know the percentages of shoulder injuries or the circumstances for each type injury. If you have more recent information on percentages, please post your updated sources. This is a subject that needs creditable publications for information.

In any case-

1) ATP servers are mostly seen to use the shoulder orientation limitation as recommended by Ellenbecker. There are some more details that have been discussed in detail on the forum. Look at high speed ATP videos for examples of good practice. There are exceptions, and even Federer seems to show a high upper arm. Look at a number of ATP servers. Look at their shoulder-upper arm orientations over the service motion. Don't translate it into words. The better information is in the frames of videos.

2) The details of how shoulder injuries occur have been speculative. If details have been updated from the Ellenbecker video, let's post the sources of that information.

I'm not interested in doing that work so I'm not going to. Feel free to perform an updated literature search on your own time

I would assume the common arm angle is not adopted because it prevents injury, but because there is a biomechanical advantage to throwing with the shoulder elevated around 90 degrees. Just speculative, but I'm much more inclined to believe that people naturally adopt that posture rather than thinking that all the pros are well informed about kinesiology as it relates to injury prevention

 

[Chas Tennis]

I’ve never seen the videos but references from the mid 2000s are really outdated at this point.
I told Chas before that cadaveric studies have shown that the subacromial structures are not really impinged upon past 70 degrees so we don’t think reduction of the subacromial space is really technically accurate anymore

I’d say it’s more of a strength/stability/motor control issue if I had to guess

What does the 70 degrees measure? Reference or post?

The speculations of how the tennis serve injury might have occurred during the serve that I have read usually discussed the rapid rotation and unusual stability of the humerus during the tennis serve.

I don't understand how cadaveric studies pertain to the tennis serve. Could you show us the post where you told me something?

I don't believe that the Ellenbecker video mentioned structures in the shoulder or the details of how the injury occurred or specific injuries. It pertained to the tennis serve and showed a recommendation on how to hold the upper arm relative to the shoulder. I studied it for some years as the video was available free online and was the only thing of its kind. It used abduction measured at the side of the body, abduction. I found problems with using abduction and showed why. For example, the shoulder blade tilts up and that affects abduction, but it does not affect the angle of the humerus to the shoulder joint. I explained that in a long thread. In it, D. Whiteside, tennis researcher, posted in that thread with how to measure the upper arm angle. His method was similar to mine and avoided measuring abduction from the side of the body. Point being, the D. Whiteside is a creditable reference that has specialized in this tennis serve impingement risk.

Ellenbecker is a physical therapist that has specialized mostly in tennis. When I had my shoulder (not a tennis injury) in 2017, I asked my Johns Hopkins physical therapist about Ellenbecker. She said that he had taught a short course to the Hopkins physical therapists. He held a position at the USTA, I believe, for some time. Search his publications.

"Todd Ellenbecker is a Chairman of the USTA Sport Science Committee and is also a physical therapist and clinic director of the Scottsdale Sports Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. ... He is a certified USPTA tennis teaching professional, and is the chairman of the USTA National Sport Science Committee."

Kibler is another that has dealt with the issue of shoulder injuries and tennis. I did not notice the specific advice that Ellenbecker emphasized. This upper arm angle advice should be very similar for baseball pitching.

At this point, I believe that both sub-acromial injuries occur for the serve and so do "internal shoulder impingement" injuries as described in the video of post #23. The cause seems better understood for "internal shoulder impingement" a specific cause new to me.

 

[Chas Tennis]

I'm not interested in doing that work so I'm not going to. Feel free to perform an updated literature search on your own time

I would assume the common arm angle is not adopted because it prevents injury, but because there is a biomechanical advantage to throwing with the shoulder elevated around 90 degrees. Just speculative, but I'm much more inclined to believe that people naturally adopt that posture rather than thinking that all the pros are well informed about kinesiology as it relates to injury prevention

I’ve never seen the videos but references from the mid 2000s are really outdated at this point.
I told Chas before that cadaveric studies have shown that the subacromial structures are not really impinged upon past 70 degrees so we don’t think reduction of the subacromial space is really technically accurate anymore

I’d say it’s more of a strength/stability/motor control issue if I had to guess

Do you have any creditable information bearing on the Ellenbecker video, a video that you have not viewed?

 

[cortado]

"Goal for today is to get the correct left shoulder drop and swing path with pronation no matter what.

Did NOT care if the ball goes in or out, or even about the toss, only about the swing path"

I don't want to confuse or add conflicting advice, but the way I learnt to serve was by using continental grip throughout entire service motion and by caring whether ball went in or out. If you use continental and the ball goes in, you must be doing something right even if there are some other technical errors.

 

[yossarian]

What does the 70 degrees measure? Reference or post?

The speculations of how the tennis serve injury might have occurred during the serve that I have read usually discussed the rapid rotation and unusual stability of the humerus during the tennis serve.

I don't understand how cadaveric studies pertain to the tennis serve. Could you show us the post where you told me something?

I don't believe that the Ellenbecker video mentioned structures in the shoulder or the details of how the injury occurred or specific injuries. It pertained to the tennis serve and showed a recommendation on how to hold the upper arm relative to the shoulder. I studied it for some years as the video was available free online and was the only thing of its kind. It used abduction measured at the side of the body, abduction. I found problems with using abduction and showed why. For example, the shoulder blade tilts up and that affects abduction, but it does not affect the angle of the humerus to the shoulder joint. I explained that in a long thread. In it, D. Whiteside, tennis researcher, posted in that thread with how to measure the upper arm angle. His method was similar to mine and avoided measuring abduction from the side of the body. Point being, the D. Whiteside is a creditable reference that has specialized in this tennis serve impingement risk.

Ellenbecker is a physical therapist that has specialized mostly in tennis. When I had my shoulder (not a tennis injury) in 2017, I asked my Johns Hopkins physical therapist about Ellenbecker. She said that he had taught a short course to the Hopkins physical therapists. He held a position at the USTA, I believe, for some time. Search his publications.

"Todd Ellenbecker is a Chairman of the USTA Sport Science Committee and is also a physical therapist and clinic director of the Scottsdale Sports Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. ... He is a certified USPTA tennis teaching professional, and is the chairman of the USTA National Sport Science Committee."

Kibler is another that has dealt with the issue of shoulder injuries and tennis. I did not notice the specific advice that Ellenbecker emphasized. This upper arm angle advice should be very similar for baseball pitching.

At this point, I believe that both sub-acromial injuries occur for the serve and so do "internal shoulder impingement" injuries as described in the video of post #23. The cause seems better understood for "internal shoulder impingement" a specific cause new to me.

Again, Chas, I am not going to engage in a lengthy discussion with you partly because I am not interested but also because even if I was, you apparently lack the ability to communicate on a normal human level, at least on this forum. There is no typical back and forth responding without getting bogged down in a wall of confusing text. I don’t feel like parsing through that for something so meaningless as the tennis serve

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

... There is no typical back and forth responding without getting bogged down in a wall of confusing text. I don’t feel like parsing through that...

Well put. Could not have said this any better. I'll sometimes make a simple comment or ask a basic question of CT and then get back an epic-length novel with irrelevant or marginally relevant noise that I find difficult to wade thru... sometimes I will skim thru those but often I not bother to read those lengthy responses at all.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

... Cannot see the forest. Too many damn trees in the way. Chas appears to need a literary editor or a ghost writer to get his message across -- without having it buried with so much irrelevant or unnecessary text (noise)

 

[will_ling_motivation]

Youre still opening the racket face too early. Its when you get to here that your problem occurs:

At this stage the racket should still be on its edge, like youre about to chop the ball.

The racket should only start to turn to face the ball as the arm straightens, and just as the arm reaches straight, thats where the contact is. So think about turning the racket to face the ball whilst the arm straightens - simultaneously all in one movement

What youre doing is turning the wrist to make the racket to face the ball, then the arm straightens, then you bend the wrist down to hit the ball.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post these freeze frames man. I really appreciate it and the advice is super helpful

 

[Humbi_HTX]

@will_ling_motivation your swing path is not right, your elbow and racquet are going straight over the shoulder and above your head.

Around/after the racquet drop you need to turn your hips and rotate your right shoulder and elbow towards the right fence instead of leaving them behind you towards the back fence when you are starting the swing upward.

 

[Dragy]

@will_ling_motivation do you always practice with full motion only, with full focus from toss till follow-through, standing at the baseline and trying to actually make real serves over the net and into the box? It's a bit too much in my opinion, I'd suggest that you split it and work on elements. Serve into the fence some to warmup. Serve from closer to the net. Serve without focusing on "flat contact" - just accelerate the racquet and hit the ball...

One drill that I strongly insist on is to (using your standard toss and conti grip) try to hit the back fence on the fly. Could you? Or what would you find out trying - what would happen if you swing up at the ball instead of trying to push it forward?

And you definitely don't want to focus on (1) racquet drop and (2) pronation doing full serves. Got some feel of those in dedicated attempts? Ok, just shadow swing and just hit serves with focus on clean contact, let those things happen rather than be forced. They are harmful if forced, not helpful

 

[samarai]

i agree, slow down. Work on that toss to make it consistent. Right now u are just haphazardly swinging at balls that are thrown all over the place