Question regarding serve, curl or rotate/pivot?

[Sputnik77]

My question is does anyone consciously do a bicep curl to get your arm and racquet behind your back for the racquet drop stage, or is it more of just a rotation or pivot around your elbow that brings your racquet to that point?

 

[dominikk1985]

no biceps curl! the angle stays about 90 degrees from the "****" position. the move in the drop is mostly external rotation and a little shoulder extension.

 

[WildVolley]

Hard to say. I think for most servers, there is very little conscious muscle contraction in the bicep, but the arm needs to stay bent. I believe video shows that you need to maintain a right angle or less to serve efficiently. So rereading your query, you don't want to try to drop the racket using the bicep, you want to use the torso and shoulders to drive the elbow up and let the hand and racket lag into the drop.

I often see people have trouble with serving because they keep the arm too straight in the trophy position. Make sure you have the bend in trophy and try to relax the arm as much as possible. As the hand moves up to the ball, the triceps will do most of the action, so actively tensing the bicep will probably slow the arm.