Knee pain with platform stance serve

A

azrael201

Rookie
I use to hit serves with feet apart and together on trophy stance, but decided to simplify it like Federer's serve with a platform stance. However, I noticed I get left lateral knee pain at the quadriceps insertion into the knee.

My friend think I'm jumping too much off the front leg (i'm right handed), and suggests I should jump off more off the back leg? What's the proper technique when jumping using the platform stance?

edit: clarify my question
 
Last edited:
There is no "proper" form.
Notice DJ keeps his feet very close together, compared to Fed.
Notice Monfils does very narrow platform stance.
Stands to reason, and some of you won't figure this out, that IF you knees hurt doing your platform, try narrower, and if that don't help, go back to two foot jumping, aka PINpoint.
 
let me rephrase as I am not looking for a comparison of serve stances. I just want to know how to serve with platform stance without front knee pain.
 
Generally, its not the jump or the fall that kills you, its the landing :).

I use the platform stance, but stay grounded like Wawrinka, and have no problems with the knee. But, if I get off the ground like Fed, I get immediate left knee pain.
 
tennisdad65 said:
Generally, its not the jump or the fall that kills you, its the landing :).

I use the platform stance, but stay grounded like Wawrinka, and have no problems with the knee. But, if I get off the ground like Fed, I get immediate left knee pain.
Click to expand...

you mean you get like a jumper's knee? i looked up the symptoms of jumper's knee and it doesn't seem like that's what I have. It's more of a quadriceps tendonitis, but it's still possible from my jumping. Actually it's likely my weight distribution for the jump because when I first started doing platform stance it was my right (rear leg) knee that had quadriceps tendon pain. Now it's my left knee. This is still a work in progress so probably need to distribute weight better on take off.
 
I wouldn't recommend serving platform if your left leg is your weaker leg. You're asking a lot of the left leg alone in platform stance... it has to support your entire body weight and push upwards.
 
If traditional platform bothers you, try a narrow platform like Roddick or Monfils as LeeD suggested. Pinpoint stance if that doesn't alleviate the problem.
azrael201 said:
...
My friend think I'm jumping too much off the front leg (i'm right handed), and suggests I should jump off more off the back leg? What's the proper technique when jumping using the platform stance?
Click to expand...

Not certain that I'd agree with this. But then, I've not seen your serve. At the trophy position, I appears that Sampras and Federer have somewhat more weight on the front leg than the back leg. The back leg drives a bit more as the racket head drops. It drives the body both forward and upward. However, as the back foot is leaving the ground, the front leg is doing most of the upward drive. Like most elite servers today, they land first on the front leg.

 
Last edited:
azrael201 said:
I use to hit serves with feet apart and together on trophy stance, but decided to simplify it like Federer's serve with a platform stance. However, I noticed I get left lateral knee pain at the quadriceps insertion into the knee.

My friend think I'm jumping too much off the front leg (i'm right handed), and suggests I should jump off more off the back leg? What's the proper technique when jumping using the platform stance?

edit: clarify my question
Click to expand...

Yep, I had a similar problem (patellar tendonitis) with the platform stance. Tried the pinpoint stance, but my accuracy went way down. Rested a lot and went back to platform with a slightly closer spacing between the two feet. That seemed to help.

Harry
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
If traditional platform bothers you, try a narrow platform like Roddick or Monfils as LeeD suggested. Pinpoint stance if that doesn't alleviate the problem.


Not certain that I'd agree with this. But then, I've not seen your serve. At the trophy position, I appears that Sampras and Federer have more somewhat weight on the front leg than the back leg. The back leg drives a bit more as the racket head drops. It drives the body both forward and upward. However, as the back foot is leaving the ground, the front leg is doing most of the upward drive. Like most elite servers today, they land first on the front leg.

Click to expand...

One way to put less stress on the left leg, is not to land on it ("like most elite servers"), but land on both feet (more to the right, probably like Ana Ivanovic?).

Of course this is not ideal, as my young coach pointed to me Monday...
 
One thing that serving can do to the knees depending on the move you make is torque them - probably more the front leg than the back one. If I try to serve using a leg drive with my heels planted, my rotation can put too much twisting on my front leg and that can get my knee hurting for sure.

Try experimenting with your heels off the court as you serve. As you toss the ball and flex your knees, get your weight on the balls of your feet so that your heels can lift up a little bit. If you take a strong turn over the top, your feet can pivot like that instead of taking too much of a twisting action with your heels planted.
 
^ Absolutely, get those heels off the ground (weight on the balls of your feet) when you bend your knees. (BTW, players with low tosses often start the knee bend before the ball release. Those with high tosses tend to start the knee band after the release).

roddick-serve.jpg


http://thefishbowlnetwork.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sampras-serve1.jpg

As an experiment (w/o the ball), see if you can hold the trophy position statically for several seconds or longer with your knees bent and heels off the ground -- similar to the image of Pete (or Andy) above. After several seconds, drive with your legs and complete the serve action. Any pain during the static portion or the dynamic portion of this exercise? I use this exercise with some students to develop their balance, correct their form and develop the muscles and joints of the legs and foot.

Speaking of knee torque, what is the orientation of your left foot for your forehands and for the trophy position of your serve? For your FHs, try angling your front foot toward the net instead of parallel to the baseline. Kevin G talks about this in a couple of his videos. This can possibly reduce the torque on the left knee while increasing the tension in the core.

Try experimenting with the left foot orientation for your serve (during the trophy phase). Most elite serves will have the front foot angled slightly. When they land after contact, the front foot points in the direction of the serve path (for the most part). However, since they are on the balls of the feet and come off the ground when the body uncoils, they are not torquing the knee too much. in your case, see if angling the left foot a little bit more during the trophy phase reduces your knee stress.
 
After about 25 years of playing tennis I developed a similar problem with my knee, except on the bottom front. Have tried to narrow my stance but then I think too much about it. Ensuring that I get a good knee bend and upward momentum seems to do the trick. Maybe I got lazy with the legs over the years.
 
I think I know what you're talking about. I serve with a pinpoint stance, and in the past I would get a bit of pain in the left knee. However, I would describe the pain as coming from the patella and ligament part of the knee. It stopped after I made some small adjustments.

Mainly, at first I decreased the amount of bending I did with my knees to prevent further pain. Once it was gone, I started experimenting with how I load my weight. If you're thinking about directly extending your knees to make yourself jump, this might be the cause of the pain.

What I do right now is as soon as I toss, I try to load my weight onto my right hip. Hard to explain, but as soon as I toss the ball I move my right leg up parallel with my left, putting weight to my right hip, with a comfortable amount of knee bend. I dont actively extend my knees, I just use the kinetic chain to transfer power from my hips up, which results in me jumping anyway. I dont get pain anymore and since I'm focusing more on putring weight onto my right hip, my weight seems to be more evenly balanced between both knees.
 
azrael201 said:
let me rephrase as I am not looking for a comparison of serve stances. I just want to know how to serve with platform stance without front knee pain.
Click to expand...

Consider the Sjeng Schalken serve. He bends the knees but lifts barely 2 inches off the ground.

2pLucjlm.jpg


nKjNtkdm.jpg
 
I'd been serving with the platform stance forever but lately I made some adjustment in trying to improve my serve but ended up hurting the knee on my rear leg (not front leg's knee like in your case). So I switched to pinpoint stance. It threw off my rhythm at first but I stuck with it and eventually worked out the new rhythm.

The change I made was to have my back more toward the court so I can get a little more body rotation into the serve. I think this requires more torquing on my knees so ended up hurting it. Plus, the pinpoint stance seems to make it easier for me to torque my upper body to load up on the serve because the pinpoint stance helps to partially load up my base by default already.
 
So weird I didn't get any notifications to this thread!

I just wanted to update that I figured out my problem. It was literally a basic technique issue that I completely missed. I was not rolling onto my toes when my knees bent. I was basically committing the most dangerous mistake in doing squats: letting your knees go excessively past your toes. Didn't notice this watching all those slow mo videos until I stumbled upon a basic knee bend video and the guy specifically mentioned this point and elaborated getting the 90 degree bend in back leg.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and input. I hope my discovery helps some of you guys. I can't wait to test it tonight.
 
t135 said:
After about 25 years of playing tennis I developed a similar problem with my knee, except on the bottom front. Have tried to narrow my stance but then I think too much about it. Ensuring that I get a good knee bend and upward momentum seems to do the trick. Maybe I got lazy with the legs over the years.
Click to expand...

pain in the inferior (below) portion of the patella sounds like jumpers knee.
 
fuzz nation said:
One thing that serving can do to the knees depending on the move you make is torque them - probably more the front leg than the back one. If I try to serve using a leg drive with my heels planted, my rotation can put too much twisting on my front leg and that can get my knee hurting for sure.

Try experimenting with your heels off the court as you serve. As you toss the ball and flex your knees, get your weight on the balls of your feet so that your heels can lift up a little bit. If you take a strong turn over the top, your feet can pivot like that instead of taking too much of a twisting action with your heels planted.
Click to expand...

SystemicAnomaly said:
^ Absolutely, get those heels off the ground (weight on the balls of your feet) when you bend your knees. (BTW, players with low tosses often start the knee bend before the ball release. Those with high tosses tend to start the knee band after the release).



http://thefishbowlnetwork.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/sampras-serve1.jpg

As an experiment (w/o the ball), see if you can hold the trophy position statically for several seconds or longer with your knees bent and heels off the ground -- similar to the image of Pete (or Andy) above. After several seconds, drive with your legs and complete the serve action. Any pain during the static portion or the dynamic portion of this exercise? I use this exercise with some students to develop their balance, correct their form and develop the muscles and joints of the legs and foot.

Speaking of knee torque, what is the orientation of your left foot for your forehands and for the trophy position of your serve? For your FHs, try angling your front foot toward the net instead of parallel to the baseline. Kevin G talks about this in a couple of his videos. This can possibly reduce the torque on the left knee while increasing the tension in the core.

Try experimenting with the left foot orientation for your serve (during the trophy phase). Most elite serves will have the front foot angled slightly. When they land after contact, the front foot points in the direction of the serve path (for the most part). However, since they are on the balls of the feet and come off the ground when the body uncoils, they are not torquing the knee too much. in your case, see if angling the left foot a little bit more during the trophy phase reduces your knee stress.
Click to expand...

Yup if I had seen these Friday, I would've saved my knees some pain in the past 4 days. Thanks guys. Fuzznation was right on the money even without a video of my form.
 
azrael201 said:
Yup if I had seen these Friday, I would've saved my knees some pain in the past 4 days. Thanks guys. Fuzznation was right on the money even without a video of my form.
Click to expand...

So did you just put your weight unto your toes? Getting that heel off of the ground?

I've had knee pain for a few days now which I suspect is serving. It doesn't hurt when I focus on jumping. I got a bit lazy hehe. I hope this is the issue.
 
Aretium said:
So did you just put your weight unto your toes? Getting that heel off of the ground?

I've had knee pain for a few days now which I suspect is serving. It doesn't hurt when I focus on jumping. I got a bit lazy hehe. I hope this is the issue.
Click to expand...

yea it was not taking my heel off the ground. I have weightlifted for years and did not even realize the squat mechanic. Definitely check out that video I linked above. It's definitely hard to focus on such a minor detail when all you want to do is focus on blasting that ace!
 
I had/have the same issue.
Ultimate solution: Switched to a pin point stance.

Root of the problem (for me), is that I was loading like 80% on my front leg, because I had a tendency to toss slightly too far in front (ie. I'd chase the ball).
I experimented, staying in a platform stance, with tossing less out in front (to let me push off with more of a 50/50 load distribution), but it based on tossing habits I've developed, I prefer the pin point stance.

On tossing habits.
In order to toss "out in front" you can do 2 things:
1. angle your toss arm into the court, eg. 45 degrees to the baseline - toss straight up and down - in front of you/
2. use a body shift to toss ball in front: angle your toss arm parallel to the baseline, and rock (weight shift) onto your front foot, which will gently push the toss out in front (even while toss "straight up")

With a platform stance, I found to keep the back foot contributing (40-50%) to the upward force I needed to toss using (1), but that prevents me from coiling my shoulders (further than 45 from baseline), or forces me to coil my shoulder after the toss, while doable, felt "jerky" (and prone to err under pressure)

By using toss (2), I could use keep my shoulders coiled from the start, and still keep my back foot contributting to the upward force, by sliding it to a pin point stance. Every movement seems to build on topp of each other smoothly

In the past I've tried pin point, and found i was too off balance, so i switched to platform because it felt more comfortable... but later I realized that it just let me chase a bad toss more easily (so I've spent years burning bad reps instead of just focusing on improving the toss).

Anyway, I'm not a great server by any means, but I have spent alot of time debugging my mechanics, and observations... hopefully this will help someone :)
 
nytennisaddict said:
I had/have the same issue.
Ultimate solution: Switched to a pin point stance.

Root of the problem (for me), is that I was loading like 80% on my front leg, because I had a tendency to toss slightly too far in front (ie. I'd chase the ball).
I experimented, staying in a platform stance, with tossing less out in front (to let me push off with more of a 50/50 load distribution), but it based on tossing habits I've developed, I prefer the pin point stance.

On tossing habits.
In order to toss "out in front" you can do 2 things:
1. angle your toss arm into the court, eg. 45 degrees to the baseline - toss straight up and down - in front of you/
2. use a body shift to toss ball in front: angle your toss arm parallel to the baseline, and rock (weight shift) onto your front foot, which will gently push the toss out in front (even while toss "straight up")

With a platform stance, I found to keep the back foot contributing (40-50%) to the upward force I needed to toss using (1), but that prevents me from coiling my shoulders (further than 45 from baseline), or forces me to coil my shoulder after the toss, while doable, felt "jerky" (and prone to err under pressure)

By using toss (2), I could use keep my shoulders coiled from the start, and still keep my back foot contributting to the upward force, by sliding it to a pin point stance. Every movement seems to build on topp of each other smoothly

In the past I've tried pin point, and found i was too off balance, so i switched to platform because it felt more comfortable... but later I realized that it just let me chase a bad toss more easily (so I've spent years burning bad reps instead of just focusing on improving the toss).

Anyway, I'm not a great server by any means, but I have spent alot of time debugging my mechanics, and observations... hopefully this will help someone :)
Click to expand...

Was it tendinitis? Under the knee cap?

I had that from the pinpoint stance (probs doing it wrong hehe) years ago and switched to a platform and that fixed it haha
 
Aretium said:
Was it tendinitis? Under the knee cap?

I had that from the pinpoint stance (probs doing it wrong hehe) years ago and switched to a platform and that fixed it haha
Click to expand...
Not sure what the pain is... but if I try to load too much on my front foot, I definitely feel it.
It is possible to still front load with a pin point stance (ie. if I toss waaaay too far in front), but IMO it's less likely, because you're start to have that "I'm losing balance feeling" which should be a cue to stop and retoss (instead of chasing it)..
So to clarify, the pin point stance doesn't fix the front leg loading issue, but it gives me better proprioception to know when my toss is pulling me out of balance (kinda like barefoot running,.. it's not a cool or style thing - it's just a way to get a better feel if you're balanced in a way to incorporate your muscular structure vs. skeletal structure).
 
nytennisaddict said:
Not sure what the pain is... but if I try to load too much on my front foot, I definitely feel it.
It is possible to still front load with a pin point stance (ie. if I toss waaaay too far in front), but IMO it's less likely, because you're start to have that "I'm losing balance feeling" which should be a cue to stop and retoss (instead of chasing it)..
So to clarify, the pin point stance doesn't fix the front leg loading issue, but it gives me better proprioception to know when my toss is pulling me out of balance (kinda like barefoot running,.. it's not a cool or style thing - it's just a way to get a better feel if you're balanced in a way to incorporate your muscular structure vs. skeletal structure).
Click to expand...

Yes, the pinpoint seems more flexible for ball tosses. I had trouble for ages with my toss when I switched to platform, possibly because you can manipulate your body more in the pinpoint. I had pain under the kneecap, which is called "jumper's knee".
 
I have very bad knees from years of playing soccer as a defender so I too have pain when I try too hard when serving.

My traditional serves tend to load up my left knee and the twisting during the seves really can cause a lot of hurt. It's not the most orthodox of serves but one of my friends uses his right foot to step into and over the left foot before the strike and he seems to hit a pretty good serve too.. The step over alleviates most of the pressure off the left knee as now both feet are supporting the uncoiling of the core.

This looks like a good vid on how to load up with both feet.

 
Last edited:
Suffering from jumper's knee on the left side for a few months and I probably do something wrong on serve.
Is it the weight being more on the front leg?
After playing with pain for some time, I finally could not keep going and stopped playing tennis and any other exercise 3 weeks ago.
I have being using platform stance and trying to keep it narrow. Would pinpoint be better?
 
Curious said:
Suffering from jumper's knee on the left side for a few months and I probably do something wrong on serve.
Is it the weight being more on the front leg?
After playing with pain for some time, I finally could not keep going and stopped playing tennis and any other exercise 3 weeks ago.
I have being using platform stance and trying to keep it narrow. Would pinpoint be better?
Click to expand...

What resolved this problem for me was making sure I got up on my toes and leaned back so my center of gravity was between my legs. Weight should still be on both legs with maybe a slight bias to front. Also make sure you are not twisting off your leg. You want to jump up then swing.
 
azrael201 said:
What resolved this problem for me was making sure I got up on my toes and leaned back so my center of gravity was between my legs. Weight should still be on both legs with maybe a slight bias to front. Also make sure you are not twisting off your leg. You want to jump up then swing.
Click to expand...

Yes, should be on the balls of the feet (and the toes). Must get the heels off the ground.
Boris%20Becker%20Logo.png
 
azrael201 said:
I noticed I get left lateral knee pain at the quadriceps insertion into the knee.
Click to expand...

If it is lateral at the knee, could very well be IT band related, especially with given the repetitive knee bending in serving you refer too. I'd personal suggest finding the pain issue over changing the serve to accommodate.

i had similar problems about 4 years back and had xrays that showed degenerative arthritis with the patella tracking. All kinds of suggestions, including surgery. I went with strengthing and stretching the muscles to support the joint, and losing about 20 pounds in weight. Hadn't had a knee pain problem until just a few weeks back.

So work checking into all that.

Good luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
Need a good definition of the Platform vs Pinpoint stance!
Replies
4
Views
2K
BSousa
B
T
serve with platform stance, weight at which foot???
Replies
3
Views
1K
papa
P
tyu1314
serve questions! knee bend or hip?
Replies
6
Views
5K
LeeD
L
TimeToPlaySets
Platform stance. R.I.P. Long live Pinpoint!
Replies
25
Views
3K
Raul_SJ
Raul_SJ
D
Serving Stance Advice
Replies
3
Views
755
heninfan99
heninfan99
Back
Top