g think about it. you could stand perfectly straight up and down ,have your chest pointing almost parraallel to the ground and have your tossing arm staight up high. you could also bend your knees as if sitting on a bar stool and stick you hip out over the baseline and your chest would still be pointing fairly parrallel to the ground. the proper chest angle lets you stretch the chest muscles, stretch the hip flexorsas as the hips go foward and the tossing arm is up and gets you in a proper postion for alot of good things to happen
Chest Angle And The Serve
- Thread starter larry10s
- Start date
g think about it. you could stand perfectly straight up and down ,have your chest pointing almost parraallel to the ground and have your tossing arm staight up high. you could also bend your knees as if sitting on a bar stool and stick you hip out over the baseline and your chest would still be pointing fairly parrallel to the ground. the proper chest angle lets you stretch the chest muscles, stretch the hip flexorsas as the hips go foward and the tossing arm is up and gets you in a proper postion for alot of good things to happen
Larry, instead of talking about it theoretically, I went out and tried aiming the chest at the ball, and I felt more power. Thanks for the tip..
great to hear it gzhpcu. the concepts are logical just never( at least in my experience) emphasized and presented in the way the servedoctor presents it. you have always been a thoughtful and analytical type poster and have helped me think thru many aspects of the serve. glad i could help
p.s. get the download or dvd theres alot on it that i beleive is helpful
gzhpcu
Professional
I ordered the dvd last Friday. Looking forward to getting it... thanks again...
Lots of inquiries as to the quality of Pat Dougherty's DVD. Pat Dougherty is the same person that put together the "Sonic Serve", "Killer Forehand" and "Ballistic Backhand" (to name a few) videos for the Academy. Anything he puts his hands on is top notch.
I've worked with Pat on occassion over the past few years. I was a pitcher at a D1 college, could throw 90+ miles/hour, and had a hell of a time hitting 100 MPH on the serve. This disparity certainly clarified the differences between pitching and serving for me (one of these differences is chest angle). I had to learn how to redirect my throwing mechanics to a new direction/contact point. I also had to train my lower body to behave differently. My pitching experience meant primarily that I didn't have to learn throwing mechancis...but I had a whole lot else to learn...
After absorbing MPH, and a lot of practice....I'm now serving in the low 120's....Pat's stuff works....
Some chatter on here about chest angle and arching your back. You can properly align your chest without arching your back as many have pointed out. Ask yourself this....For every Taylor Dent out there (guy with back problems), how many Sharapova's are there? (shoulder issues). The answer is plenty...Tommy Haas has suffered shoulder problems, Joachim Johanssen is out of the sport...Sharapova's serve is a "horror show"....Shoulder issues are more common than back issues in Tennis....In fact, even hip and knee issues are more common than back issues (most of those are the result of repetitive injury with a root cause of poor mechanics as well).
Check out the DVD....I'm sure there will be something in there that everyone can apply to their game....
I've worked with Pat on occassion over the past few years. I was a pitcher at a D1 college, could throw 90+ miles/hour, and had a hell of a time hitting 100 MPH on the serve. This disparity certainly clarified the differences between pitching and serving for me (one of these differences is chest angle). I had to learn how to redirect my throwing mechanics to a new direction/contact point. I also had to train my lower body to behave differently. My pitching experience meant primarily that I didn't have to learn throwing mechancis...but I had a whole lot else to learn...
After absorbing MPH, and a lot of practice....I'm now serving in the low 120's....Pat's stuff works....
Some chatter on here about chest angle and arching your back. You can properly align your chest without arching your back as many have pointed out. Ask yourself this....For every Taylor Dent out there (guy with back problems), how many Sharapova's are there? (shoulder issues). The answer is plenty...Tommy Haas has suffered shoulder problems, Joachim Johanssen is out of the sport...Sharapova's serve is a "horror show"....Shoulder issues are more common than back issues in Tennis....In fact, even hip and knee issues are more common than back issues (most of those are the result of repetitive injury with a root cause of poor mechanics as well).
Check out the DVD....I'm sure there will be something in there that everyone can apply to their game....
Hi Larry !! It was what I wanted to say here -->http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=266827
I have noticed an increase in power . This movement requires to set the timing differently.
Ciao
Alberto
J011yroger
Talk Tennis Guru
Of course since lots of my favorite serve guys are posting in this thread, I am going to try to get some discussion going to help me.
So here are the pics I have saved of me, what do you think of the chest angle? Some but not enough? And pictures of pros for comparison would help also (I am 6'3" 165-170lb)
Coach wants more weight centered between my feet to take stress off of my legs and lower back.
J
So here are the pics I have saved of me, what do you think of the chest angle? Some but not enough? And pictures of pros for comparison would help also (I am 6'3" 165-170lb)
Coach wants more weight centered between my feet to take stress off of my legs and lower back.
J
Of course since lots of my favorite serve guys are posting in this thread, I am going to try to get some discussion going to help me.
So here are the pics I have saved of me, what do you think of the chest angle? Some but not enough? And pictures of pros for comparison would help also (I am 6'3" 165-170lb)
Coach wants more weight centered between my feet to take stress off of my legs and lower back.
chest angle looks good . left arm could be more straight up to stretch the left side and left hip flexors. maybe could be alittle more closed to the net with the upper body. all in all very good but could be improved
J
chest angle looks good . left arm could be more straight up to stretch the left side and left hip flexors. maybe could be alittle more closed to the net with the upper body. all in all very good but could be improved
como va alberto. molto bene to see you posting. glad to hear your serve is improving and yes you were on to correct insight on the serve in your prior posts. stay well good tennis . ciao larry
And my explanation there would have been page 1 of the 5 page technical discussion.
Pretty good, though there's some issues with your CoG not moving forward early enough. Your hip rotation comes late in the windup, and so the hips are not into the court as much as they can be. The trunk twist also comes in a little late, which manifests in a slightly higher knee bend.
Pretty easy to remedy. As soon as you initiate your toss, start aiming with your chest, even before you release the ball. This may seem counterintuitive, and you may be afraid of screwing up your toss. But, in actuality, this will give you an even more quiet toss. And this will also accentuate your hip and trunk rotation. You may even see something approaching a back arch, though it's really not that at all.
There's also variations to the visualization:
1) When serving from ad-court, you can aim with the left chest. When serving from deuce-court, you can aim with the right chest.
2) If you aim with your collarbone (again, observe left and right for respective court), you can also get a boost in pronation.
3) This is kinda unrelated. But if you want to try out a "Djokovic arch", then try initiating the toss holding the ball somewhat pointed to the ground. In other words, before you release the ball, you have to rotate your tossing forearm so that it's properly pointed to the sky. When you do this, this also causes your service arm's forearm to rotate, and that in turn causes your upper trunk to "arc" a little. This also gives you a much lower racquet drop, though it doesn't really improve power.
g love the pic of lew hoad. beautifully loaded in the "ready to launch" position even tho they werent allowed to completely launch in those day. hoad is considered to be among the best servers ever. just think if he was allowed to make contact with both feet off the ground.
Hey Larry, Second day serving with the right chest angle, and my serve really has a lot more spin and pace! My kick serve jumps a lot higher. Thanks again, I was wondering the past couple of weeks what to do to give it more sting, and your tip really helped.
thats what i have found also a "heavier serve" more pace more spin.the chest angle was the key to get my body in the right position to capitalize on the proper mechanics,kinetic chain of the serve. there was another concept that helped me thats in the dvd but to not go off on a tangent and lose the focus of this thread ill star another one on that
J011yroger
Talk Tennis Guru
Going to try to get some video and high speed, and try a couple of things. Is there an ideal angle for filming? Should I just mix it up?
J
J
J011yroger
Talk Tennis Guru
Sorry for the delay of game on my part.
No high speed, but this is from a practice set this morning.
I am trying to tweak a bit to take some strain off my (chronically bad) lower back.
http://www.vimeo.com/7378235
What do you think?
J
No high speed, but this is from a practice set this morning.
I am trying to tweak a bit to take some strain off my (chronically bad) lower back.
http://www.vimeo.com/7378235
What do you think?
J
J011yroger
Talk Tennis Guru
That is my thinking, I am trying to keep my back straight, or locked in the position I would use to squat/deadlift. And use my legs to position my back properly. I figure that combined with tossing a bit more into the court will make it less taxing on my body.
This year it has been pretty good, besides locking up on long car rides, but all of last summer I couldn't serve two days in a row, I could play one match and then for a day or two I would be out of commission and only be able to hit groundies. Sometimes I go through stretches where I can hardly serve at all for a couple of weeks. So I am hopeful that these changes will allow me to serve when it is a little tight, and avoid putting undue strain on it so that it can be good more often.
Of course it always feels like you are bending more than you actually are which is why I think the video is such a huge tool.
For reference I am serving about 70% effort, want to put some good work on the ball to make sure I can, but not quite confident enough in the motion to really cut it loose yet.
Amazing how much any little change throws off your timing. (Or maybe I am just a defective unit.)
J
