Best way to warm up serving shoulder?

[kevin qmto]

I’m in my late 20s and haven’t played regular matches since HS and early college. Recently got the bug to join a league again and start playing matches again. I’ve always had regular hitting partners but just don’t play matches with them.
My serve motion, velocity, and even accuracy has survived, surprisingly enough, however, my endurance has not.
I recently just served a basket of balls after doing a few basic warm up stretches, and found that dull shoulder and upper arm ache setting in only about 50 serves in(at about 75-80% power).

Any tips for warming up better, or should I look at modifying my technique?

 

[ballmachineguy]

I’m in my late 20s

I recently just served a basket of balls after doing a few basic warm up stretches, and found that dull shoulder and upper arm ache setting in

wait until you are 50+. It’ll be a hoot!

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

I’m in my late 20s and haven’t played regular matches since HS and early college. Recently got the bug to join a league again and start playing matches again. I’ve always had regular hitting partners but just don’t play matches with them.
My serve motion, velocity, and even accuracy has survived, surprisingly enough, however, my endurance has not.
I recently just served a basket of balls after doing a few basic warm up stretches, and found that dull shoulder and upper arm ache setting in only about 50 serves in(at about 75-80% power).

Any tips for warming up better, or should I look at modifying my technique?

It could just be you need to work out your shoulder; the muscles have probably atrophied a bit.

What exactly is your shoulder warmup routine? There are tons of videos out there on using elastic bands to work the rotator cuff and the surrounding area. That would be a bare minimum.

The video I wanted to post, which looks like it's been taken down, is a series of exercises after the elastic band:

- Swinging 2 racquets in a smooth service motion [or put a weight on one racquet]; similar to baseball players warming up on-deck

- Prior to serving for real, hit the ball down into the ground [just make sure it doesn't bounce back up in your face or somewhere lower] and make it bounce up 20' or higher. This is an easier motion on the shoulder [the labrum, specifically] than a real serve.

- Serve and hit at the back fence. Go 50-60%.

For me personally, I find it easier on the shoulder to start with 2nd serves whereas others I know go straight to firsts.

 

[dominikk1985]

I’m in my late 20s and haven’t played regular matches since HS and early college. Recently got the bug to join a league again and start playing matches again. I’ve always had regular hitting partners but just don’t play matches with them.
My serve motion, velocity, and even accuracy has survived, surprisingly enough, however, my endurance has not.
I recently just served a basket of balls after doing a few basic warm up stretches, and found that dull shoulder and upper arm ache setting in only about 50 serves in(at about 75-80% power).

Any tips for warming up better, or should I look at modifying my technique?

Get a rubber tube and search for "throwers 10" on YouTube. Best warm up and shoulder strengthening program for the shoulder and arm, all baseball pitchers are doing that

 

[Raul_SJ]

Serve and hit at the back fence. Go 50-60%.

Have not tried this recently but IIRC, it takes almost full effort to hit the top of the back fence. Very difficult at half effort... The progression was (1) hit the fence (or over the fence?) followed by the smash into the ground... although it was not specially a warm up exercise. Think it was to build up RHS.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

Have not tried this recently but IIRC, it takes almost full effort to hit the top of the back fence. Very difficult at half effort...

Notice I didn't write "hit the top of the back fence." I wrote "hit at the back fence".

And if you put the right amount of arc on the ball, you can hit the back fence with a lot less effort than hitting a flat first serve in the box.

 

[Raul_SJ]

Notice I didn't write "hit the top of the back fence." I wrote "hit at the back fence".

And if you put the right amount of arc on the ball, you can hit the back fence with a lot less effort than hitting a flat first serve in the box.

What do you think of this drill. Not a shoulder warm up drill per se but a drill for hitting up. Hit over the fence followed by bringing it shorter by "not bringing the elbow forward".

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

What do you think of this drill. Not a shoulder warm up drill per se but a drill for hitting up. Hit over the fence followed by bringing it shorter by "not bringing the elbow forward".

Seems reasonable though I'm no serve expert.

 

[Curious]

Important to go nice and slow at the beginning like Kyrgios here...

 

[Fintft]

I roatate my shoulders and arms 50 times in each direction as fast as I can, after the regular warm up, followed by at least one minute of continously rotating the raquet.
Start serving smooth, not hard.

 

[jmnk]

Throw footballs. Start really easy, then try longer and longer throws

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Throw footballs. Start really easy, then try longer and longer throws

American football throwing is great idea. However, after the easy start, we do more than go for longer throws.

We will often start with low trajectory (shallow angle) throws. Launch angle is less than 30°. But when going for distance, the launch angle is more like 45°.

But we actually focus more on steeper throws -- perhaps 60° or so. Ball does not go as far but it goes a lot higher. This more closely approximates the upward swing of the racket on a serve. With a steep launch angle, we get more of a shoulder tilt -- as we would for a good serve.

A steep throw will facilitate somewhat more external shoulder rotation (stretching the internal rotators). This will help to simulate the racket drop on a serve (altho we don't actually see a football drop to speak of).

Note that an elite / pro QB will have their forearm partially pronated when they have their arms and football pulled back. This means the football will not be pointing toward the target area when it is pulled back. Instead, it will be pointing back one more towards the side.

The arm and shoulder will go thru a sequence of rotations on the forward throw. As the football is released the forearm is, again, pronated and the shoulder is internally rotated.

Joe Montana, QB for SF & KC:

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

If you feel the need you can perform some static shoulder stretches, at home or work, 45-60 minutes (preferably more) prior to playing tennis. Static stretches tend to diminish muscle speed & strength. In the short run, this can reduce tennis performance. It takes a bit of time to recover from static stretching.

Once you arrive at the court you should perform a dynamic warm-up, including dynamic stretches of the shoulder. These can include arm swings (a various directions) and arm circles.

The shoulders can also be warmed up using shadow swings. Groundstroke shadow swings as well as modified serve swings.

Dynamic external and internal shoulder rotations should also be performed. They can be performed with weights (like tennis rackets) or, preferably, us resistance bands (like therabands).

There are two ways that these can be performed -- both with the elbow bench at 90°. For one version, the elbows are positioned (down) next to the body. The hands / forearms are swung in an arc, in a horizontal plane. The elbows also rotate but are kept next to the body.

For the other version, the elbows are elevated, directly out to the side (shoulder abduction). In this case the upper arms will be parallel to the ground. When the shoulders are rotated for this version, the hands & forearms move (in arcs) in vertical planes. Up & down.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

 

[tonylg]

Important to go nice and slow at the beginning like Kyrgios here...

Pretty sure I was at the match. Dimitrov was down the other end. Kyrgios won the singles title that year.

 

[ChaelAZ]

I have a exercise band in my bag and do a lot of what are considered rotator cuff exercises with internal and external rotation. Helps a ton. Look up those terms and you will find a lot of options.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Ellenbecker has published material on the tennis serve and the shoulder. It includes conditioning and rehabilitation stretches and exercises. Search Todd Ellenbecker.

Find the source material directly.

Complete Conditioning for Tennis, E. Paul Roetert and T. Ellenbecker has many exercises and stretches targeted for tennis and the shoulder.

Complete Conditioning Tennis Book Second Edition | Tennis Warehouse

www.tennis-warehouse.com

I have read that strengthening/conditioning external shoulder rotators is important for the serve to slow the arm & racket in the follow through. Hear what Ellenbecker has to say about that.

Check your technique with high speed video. There are many posts on the forum with references and pictures.

Search words below for Google and for the forum. Search to include the Health and Fitness Forum as it has many posts on shoulder injuries.
Ellenbecker
Whiteside
impingement
rotator cuff injury
Chas Tennis
serve

There are many possible shoulder injuries but impingement has been associated with the tennis serve, so that is where to start. One particular technique flaw has been associated with impingement on the tennis serve, if the hitting arm is at too high an angle to the shoulder joint the risk of impingement increases. Research that topic.

A recent post.

Serve Help and Shoulder Pain

I've recently been trying to improve my serve. I always had shoulder pain, so I took some slow motion videos with my phone to try to see what I was doing wrong. I figure that it must be something with my technique, so I'm looking for advice on what I'm doing wrong with my serve. Does anyone have...

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

Don't practice with any pain. See a well qualified Dr.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

The shoulder joint does not actually rotate like this for internal shoulder rotation (ISR). The rotation axis goes through the ball of the joint, somewhere, and complete 360 d. rotation is not possible. But this GIF emphasizes that the humerus has high points to its bone structure. If the arm is at too high an angle to the shoulder during the serve, these boney high spots may aggravate impingement of some of the tissues of the shoulder. This may start as mild pain and get worse. Search: shoulder joint impingement pictures

Head of the humerus with its boney high points. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humerus

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Arm circles while moving shown here at the 2:27 mark. A little bit of shoulder and upper back added to some core warm up at the 4:23 mark.

One of my favorites is shown at the 5:28 mark. I have seen most pro players doing this action at some point during the warm up. Often during the coin toss. Here they are showing rotations of the forearm (pronation and supination). However, I like to take it a step further. After this forearm rotations, with extended arms, I will rotate the whole arm so that the shoulders are rotating the hand holding the racket rather than the forearm doing it. With this rotation you will also see the elbow turning.


For some variations of shoulder exercises shown in previous videos, here is one more vid:

 

[AlexR]

Maybe instead of hitting a whole basket of balls
one after another, hit like 6 balls, then go collect them. Give yourself a little rest. Hit 6, collect. etc. That’s more similar to how you’d actually be serving in a game. Personally I find that hitting fewer balls makes me focus more on each one, and the time collecting the balls is an opportunity to self-coach as well as rest. When I hit a whole basket I just ran thru them quickly and got sloppy, didn’t think about what I was doing.

It’s also important what kind of pain it is. If it’s just muscle soreness from the workout, that’s fine. If it’s more joint or tendon grabbing you while you hit, you need to get smoother.

Actually I did used to get little “grabs” or “pinches” of pain in my shoulder especially on the first few serves. I don’t anymore and I think it’s
because i figured out the right toss location and arm action.

I swing very simply at the ball from whatever my trophy pose looks like. I don’t think about “lagging”
any particular part of my arm or what any of the different joints in my arm are doing. I think focusing on that stuff is a bad idea. You just want everything to work together smoothly within the constraints of how flexible you are. All I focus on is tossing where I want it, then loading up correctly to hit the ball, then the swing is just pulling the butt of the racquet toward the ball. That’s it. I don’t even have a conscious “racquet drop”. That happens automatically if you push off your feet/toes into the court to initiate everything like you’re supposed to.

But yeah, from there I just pull the butt of the racquet toward the ball, similar to the basic coaching they give for groundies except from a different starting position.

The racquet will want to just follow your arm’s smoothest path to the ball and snap around on its own. No conscious pronation or whatever. No lagging or pointing this or that.

Now, it’s also important to be tossing the ball in a spot where your arm can follow a smooth and natural path without joint stress. For me, a lefty, that meant realizing I should be tossing more off to my left. This also led me to realize that I was losing power by bending my back too much off to the side. Now I just do a shoulder tilt, get on toes, bend knees, and try to keep my legs and back/core feeling solid and “together” rather than fighting each other.

I adjust direction and spin mostly with different wrist joint angles at contact.

And yes I can pound it in pretty good.

So that kinda walks through my learning how to serve pretty well and without any pain.

 

[Chas Tennis]

I don't agree with the joint information in this instruction.

 

[jmnk]

Joe Montana, QB for SF & KC:

Not related to the thread but a funny topic. There's video of Joe Montana trying to explain how to impart a spin when throwing a football. It is a high comedy. You can tell that he has no idea what actually causes the ball to spin - he just _does_ it without thinking but the more he tries to explain it the more it gets hilarious. Because midpoint through the video you can see in on his face that what he says does not add up. He was saying that as the ball is being propelled forward the fingers pull down on the seams and that makes outgoing football rotate clockwise - which would imply that hand is also rotating clockwise. But then he looked at his hand when he let the ball go and noticed that the thumb is pointing down - which entirely contradicted his idea. The look on his face is priceless.
Just shows you that athletes can _do_. Many times they can't _explain/teach_.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Not related to the thread but a funny topic. There's video of Joe Montana trying to explain how to impart a spin when throwing a football. It is a high comedy. You can tell that he has no idea what actually causes the ball to spin - he just _does_ it without thinking but the more he tries to explain it the more it gets hilarious. Because midpoint through the video you can see in on his face that what he says does not add up. He was saying that as the ball is being propelled forward the fingers pull down on the seams and that makes outgoing football rotate clockwise - which would imply that hand is also rotating clockwise. But then he looked at his hand when he let the ball go and noticed that the thumb is pointing down - which entirely contradicted his idea. The look on his face is priceless.
Just shows you that athletes can _do_. Many times they can't _explain/teach_.

Is this the video?

 

[Shroud]

What do you think of this drill. Not a shoulder warm up drill per se but a drill for hitting up. Hit over the fence followed by bringing it shorter by "not bringing the elbow forward".

I dont get it. If you are hitting up how is the elbow coming down? So lost on the elbow coming down part. Is it bending?

 

[5263]

I concur with the football throws.

 

[jmnk]

Is this the video?

no, I think the one I'm thinking about was an older one, the video was grainy, and I think it was done indoors.

On the one you found at least he does say that the hand should not go 'under the ball in clockwise motion'.

 

[Raul_SJ]

Is this the video?

Interesting to note that Montana wants the weight distributed 70-30 on the back foot prior to shift forward...This also aligns with the Dr Mark Kovacs instruction of loading the back foot similar to a shotput throw.

I dont get it. If you are hitting up how is the elbow coming down? So lost on the elbow coming down part. Is it bending?

Perhaps there is less ISR when serving over the back fence? He says the next step in the progression is to bring the ball into the service box by "timing the twisting of the shoulder".

Not exactly clear what he is saying about elbow "coming down" but do think the progression likely generates results in terms of more power... IF you can control "timing the twisting of the shoulder".

@Chas Tennis comment on this progression drill?

 

[Chas Tennis]

..........................................................................................
Perhaps there is less ISR when serving over the back fence? He says the next step in the progression is to bring the ball into the service box by "timing the twisting of the shoulder".

Not exactly clear what he is saying about elbow "coming down" but do think the progression likely generates results in terms of more power... IF you can control "timing the twisting of the shoulder".

@Chas Tennis comment on this progression drill?

Too much motion blur to see the racket and undefined tennis terms.

I can tell if progressions simulate the sub-motions in a high level serve with clear high speed videos. For progressions in general, I don't know much.