How do you teach body rotation / kinetic chain?

[Frank Silbermann]

Here is the scenario:

A tennis pupil is swinging from the shoulder on his forehand. There does not appear to be any shoulder or hip rotation during contact. The pupil intellectually understands the concept of the kinetic chain and its importance, and sees on video that what good players do, and that he is not doing it.

The student's question is, "How do I make myself start doing it? When hitting the ball, if my attention is on anything other than watching the ball I miss the shot. If I'm concentrating on the ball, I'm not aware of what my shoulders and hips are doing."

So what are the practice progressions for learning how to do this?

Note: The question is not "What is the kinetic chain?"
The question is not "What are the various body parts doing as the kinetic chain unfolds?"

The question is, "How does a player make himself start doing it?"

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Muscle memory. Thousands of shadow swings. Have him also try these with his eyes closed so that he really feels it. He should try some shadow swings with a heavy racquet. Shove a ball in the throat to make it even heavier.

After a dozen or two proper shadow swings, give him some easy hand feeds and make sure that mechanics are still correct. Continue with some relatively easy incoming feeds. Follow this with more challenging feeds.

 

[GrandSlammer]

The question is, "How does a player make himself start doing it?"

By not caring about missing, or the result (at least initially).

When hitting the ball, if my attention is on anything other than watching the ball I miss the shot.

 

[Dragy]

When hitting the ball, if my attention is on anything other than watching the ball I miss the shot.

I would second @Digital Atheist - when learning or changing mechanics making a shot is last concern. Setup practice in a way that it’s not important. First focus is executing the new thing, even if missing the ball completely. The good sequence is:
- Do shadow swings correctly, no ball
- Do shadow swings with a ball fed to the player, but swing with no contact
- Do focused new move, making contact

Then shift to making clean contact while doing new move properly.
Than to making the shot.
Then to making the shot with intention and target.

The whole process might take like 2 month of dedicated work to call it basically improved - still lots of space to solidify.

 

[nyta2]

Here is the scenario:

A tennis pupil is swinging from the shoulder on his forehand. There does not appear to be any shoulder or hip rotation during contact. The pupil intellectually understands the concept of the kinetic chain and its importance, and sees on video that what good players do, and that he is not doing it.

The student's question is, "How do I make myself start doing it? When hitting the ball, if my attention is on anything other than watching the ball I miss the shot. If I'm concentrating on the ball, I'm not aware of what my shoulders and hips are doing."

So what are the practice progressions for learning how to do this?

Note: The question is not "What is the kinetic chain?"
The question is not "What are the various body parts doing as the kinetic chain unfolds?"

The question is, "How does a player make himself start doing it?"

progression i used with my daughter:
* medicine ball throws
* simulating on bjk eye pro/topspin pro
* dead ball feeds
* live feeds

 

[WYK]

This prolly won't help you, but I'll share it anyways, because this is the internet...

When I was a kid studying martial arts, my sensei would take us aside and do a simple procedure with the intermediate students.
You faced him/her(I had both) and put your flat palm against theirs, pushing against each other. Sometimes both hands, sometimes just the one hand. Sometimes with a straight arm, sometimes bent. Whilst doing this, you changed your body position, shoulders, legs, feet positioning and footing as they rotated about your body 180* from one side to the other. All the while the instructor pushed hard against you. You learn very quickly where your lack of stability was, especially once you hit the ground.
Power comes from the ground up. Well, unless you can do those flying spinny kicks...

 

[mad dog1]

Show them video of themselves and compare it to what the pros are doing. Stand next to them while having them perform a shadow swing and physically manipulate their body so they can feel what body parts engage and when.

 

[Jonesy]

Hula hoops.

 

[eah123]

I think medicine ball throws are the best way to help someone feel the kinetic chain. If you don’t have a medicine ball any sport ball can be used. Then a heavy weight racquet can be used to transition to the regular racquet. Something like the total serve Servemaster or home made balls in a tube sock could also work.

 

[tendency]

progression i used with my daughter:
* medicine ball throws
* simulating on bjk eye pro/topspin pro
* dead ball feeds
* live feeds

+1 for the medicine ball or similar start point. Great way to learn the weight transfer.

If they're an athletic visual learner simply having an accomplished player slowly demonstrate the mechanics can work quite well too.

 

[smashlob2]

I'd approach it like this with a student. I am a teaching pro that hates the word kinetic chain. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've used it in a lesson. The point is to get the student to have a more effective stroke. Focus on what you want them to do, with this you need simple cues. Basically breaking the big concept down into bite sized pieces (and the size of each bite is student dependent.) You have the kinetic chain in your head as the instructor, but it doesn't really mean anything to anyone outside the highest level athletes.

Step one:
When you see the ball coming, turn sideways (closed stance,) or face your chest sideways (open stance). This takes care of the hips. Keep your off hand on the racquet longer, do some next gen or modern forehand thing of the moment that tennis warehouse says is best. (this aligns the shoulders.) See how it goes. This may be enough.

Step two: finish with your chest pointing forward. Rotate as you swing, let the racquet lead the turn.

Correct as needed, or if it creates other issues (this is where the BJK eye is useful. @nyta2 has the progressions down. Have them start in slow motion on it. If you speed up before a student is comfortable with the "new" swing, they'll tend to revert)
-Are their feet in the right spot consistently? How are they using their legs? Make corrections as needed with the primary focus being on the rotation. Student might turn and open up too early (let the swing lead the turn), they might stay sideways and just arm it. Their right foot might be in front of their left foot. The prep might not be early enough, etc etc.

Focus on one SMALL thing at a time that they can DO.

 

[ubercat]

I had our d2 equivalent young coach great player had the ball on a string.

Probably after too much ttw I asked him about kinetic chain. In true Oz fashion he said "get side on, bend your legs and give it a whack, that's what I do"

 

[matterer]

The pupil intellectually understands the concept of the kinetic chain and its importance, and sees on video that what good players do, and that he is not doing it.

You don't learn a forehand by studying biomechanics or kinetic chains and watching people on video and trying to mimic what they're doing. Chas Tennis has been trying to do this for like 4 decades and he has more experience than almost anyone and he hasn't had any success.

Also, developing "muscle memory" with shadow strokes doesn't work. It'd be like trying to learn to drive a car by pretending to drive a car in your living room. That's how Curious is trying to learn tennis and from what I've seen it isn't going very well.

If you want to teach him a forehand, you need to describe how hit a forehand in its simplest possible form, and develop from there. Describe to him your idea of how it's done. And if you describe it well enough and he develops the same mental image that you have, you'll be able to tell, and you won't even need to video tape him.

 

[sovertennis]

Perhaps making shadow swings while crouching on the flat side of a BOSU ball would help. If standing upright, it would be tough to retain balance.

 

[WeekendTennisHack]

Monkey drum?

 

[Frank Silbermann]

I read here a few things I don't know about ("Monkey drum" "BOSU ball" "BJK eye").

But several have mentioned "medicine ball" and "heavy racket."

It seems to me that one way to get a sense of what is to be done while hitting the ball, and to do it without trying to focus impossibly on multiple joints simultaneously, after using the medicine ball or swinging a heavy racket, is to have the hitter imagine or pretend that the racket is extremely heavy. That concept might help the hitter use the largest muscles of the body (trunk and legs) rather than the muscles that move the arm and its parts.

I tried it last night hitting against a wall -- I tried to use the body motion as though I was throwing a heavy medicine ball, and imagined I wielded an iron racket. Much less temptation to flick at the ball, and I saw a very rapid improvement of my ability to hit a heavy ball with control.

As a side-effect, I found a small tendency to grunt when heaving that imaginary medicine ball. Previously, I never understood how or why players grunted -- how would you know when in your swing to do that, or why anyone would even want to grunt.

The only downside is that I began to feel fatigue much sooner. I expect that I'll be able to accustom myself to the extra expenditure of energy.

I wonder whether this is related to the secret of those players who are able to raise the level of their game on the big points when the pressure is higher, instead of choking. Fear reduces fine motor control, but it can add strength to the large muscles. Perhaps the great pressure players would simply expend more energy in this way (swinging as though the racket is extremely heavy) on the biggest points.

 

[slipgrip93]

An idea. Slow shadow swinging with a (old) "standard" heavier wooden racquet.
Even the Chris Evert Autograph, at 13.25 oz , gives me that pendular feel where it helps feel
the engament of the kinetic chain from the ground through the involved core, hip and shoulder muscles.
Also helps "feel" the 65 sq in 'spot', and in overall heft for slowly developing a "cleaner" swing, then later using the regular racquet back on court.

 

[nyta2]

...Much less temptation to flick at the ball...

but if you add the "flick" (releasing your forearm into the contact, like golf) at the end of your bodyweight-xfer-powered-swing, you'll get more rhs and topspin to tame that power... IME anyway

 

[optic yellow]

Are these people with no experience throwing or golfing or any of the myriad other activities which involve roughly the same deployment of the same kinetic chain?

 

[badmice2]

+1 for the medicine ball or similar start point. Great way to learn the weight transfer.

If they're an athletic visual learner simply having an accomplished player slowly demonstrate the mechanics can work quite well too.

+ 2 on medicine ball workout. It’s a fairly natural way to discover kinetic chain without having to explain the philosophy.

 

[fuzz nation]

Here is the scenario:

A tennis pupil is swinging from the shoulder on his forehand. There does not appear to be any shoulder or hip rotation during contact. The pupil intellectually understands the concept of the kinetic chain and its importance, and sees on video that what good players do, and that he is not doing it.

The student's question is, "How do I make myself start doing it? When hitting the ball, if my attention is on anything other than watching the ball I miss the shot. If I'm concentrating on the ball, I'm not aware of what my shoulders and hips are doing."

So what are the practice progressions for learning how to do this?

Note: The question is not "What is the kinetic chain?"
The question is not "What are the various body parts doing as the kinetic chain unfolds?"

The question is, "How does a player make himself start doing it?"

When I'm trying to get somebody beyond too much "arming" of the ball, I'll have them throw a couple practice balls against the back fence using a side arm throwing motion similar to a forehand stroke. I demonstrate it to show a couple of things including my shoulder turn and taking my throwing hand back to its "set" position. But since I want to get them away from using the arm to drive the racquet, I primarily stress the importance of getting the whole move going by pushing off with my right foot/leg (throwing right handed). I like to point out the feel of that foot pressure to "step on the gas" and make it go.

We'll usually alternate a couple times between throwing a couple balls and taking a couple practice strokes without hitting a ball to get that feeling of driving the move with the legs and not too much with the arm. Then when I start feeding balls to hit, I keep verbally reinforcing that foot pressure and also watch for relative looseness through the hitter's chest and arm. That little progression is usually helpful for getting a player to tap into their bigger, stronger muscle groups to drive that stroke rotation over and over. It's often the case that they find more power and spin potential when they can swing with more strength (from legs and core) combined with less arm tension.

I like the idea of the medicine ball, but I don't have access to one yet. I've also done the heavy racquet training, but that's another post...