Serve motion, need help.

[Fabresque]

The biggest problem through my career has been my serve, at least that's what I identified. Any help on how to develop a better motion? I'm using the recommended continental grip, and I set my feet parallel to the baseline, almost sideways to the net. If there are any problem identified there please tell me. After that I generally keep my feet planted, so platform serve, and I like to toss the ball mediumish height. Every coach tells me I'm not fluid enough, so I tried to hit a very quick serve instead (Dolgopolov style) to force a more fluid service motion. But then they told me you aren't hitting it flat enough, so I went to a flatter serve, by adjusting my motion and were back at square one, the coaches are telling me you aren't fluid enough. HELP

 

[mbm0912]

just do this

 

[Chas Tennis]

You have an unknown serving technique. Study the high level serving technique. Take take high speed videos to see what you are doing. Compare to high level serves.

 

[nvr2old]

TW improve tab has Andy doing a serve video that's good.

 

[Limpinhitter]

The biggest problem through my career has been my serve, at least that's what I identified. Any help on how to develop a better motion? I'm using the recommended continental grip, and I set my feet parallel to the baseline, almost sideways to the net. If there are any problem identified there please tell me. After that I generally keep my feet planted, so platform serve, and I like to toss the ball mediumish height. Every coach tells me I'm not fluid enough, so I tried to hit a very quick serve instead (Dolgopolov style) to force a more fluid service motion. But then they told me you aren't hitting it flat enough, so I went to a flatter serve, by adjusting my motion and were back at square one, the coaches are telling me you aren't fluid enough. HELP

The serve is based on throwing. You place the ball into a space in the air with one hand and throw your raquet at it with the other.

BTW, I advocate using an Eastern backhand grip on serve and aligning your feet more in line with the target, not parallel to the baeline.

 

[nvr2old]

The serve is based on throwing. You place the ball into a space in the air with one hand and throw your raquet at it with the other.

BTW, I advocate using an Eastern backhand grip on serve and aligning your feet more in line with the target, not parallel to the baeline.

Yep agree. I use a more continental grip for flatter serves and slightly eastern backhand for spin type serves.

 

[atp2015]

The biggest problem through my career has been my serve, at least that's what I identified. Any help on how to develop a better motion? I'm using the recommended continental grip, and I set my feet parallel to the baseline, almost sideways to the net. If there are any problem identified there please tell me. After that I generally keep my feet planted, so platform serve, and I like to toss the ball mediumish height. Every coach tells me I'm not fluid enough, so I tried to hit a very quick serve instead (Dolgopolov style) to force a more fluid service motion. But then they told me you aren't hitting it flat enough, so I went to a flatter serve, by adjusting my motion and were back at square one, the coaches are telling me you aren't fluid enough. HELP

Conti grip, feet set and good toss, from your description, it appears that you have a great serve. Difficult to say what the problem is.
Check your take back, trophy pose, drop, shoulder action, wrist and arm rotation, tossing hand, head position, racket angle, toss depth and height and finish.
Do you have access to a good video camera ? Might come in handy.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

TW improve tab has Andy doing a serve video that's good.

Andy has a very decent serve and most of the 1st 5 mins of his video is quite good. But then he says a few things that made me cringe. About 4:50 he says not to load to a "back scratch" position. That part is good advice. But then he says that "you will eventually get to that point". This is simply not true. Look at his own serve -- he does not ever get to that point. Instead, the racket drops AWAY from his body. "Backscratch" is a misnomer.

Then he starts talking about the wrist after 5:20. He really blows is when he says to get a nice wrist snap down into the court. NYET. This instruction is very misleading. There is some wrist action in his motion but nothing that I would characterize as "wrist snap". The so-called "snap is primarily rotations of the shoulder and forearm (pronation). And the downward motion of the racket face happens primarily after the ball has left the strings.

At 5:43, he says "as you are at full extension... your legs should explode up into the ball". He fails to mention that the leg drive actually starts well before this. Leg drive starts as the racket is dropping (after the trophy). His legs are already at full extension as he starts the upward swing (out of the racket drop). He is already off the ground early in the upward swing -- well before he gets to full extension.

I also took a look at Andy's "tweener" video. That one was much better. More accurate.

 

[Digital Atheist]

But then he says that "you will eventually get to that point". This is simply not true. Look at his own serve -- he does not ever get to that point. Instead, the racket drops AWAY from his body. "Backscratch" is a misnomer.

Yeah I think this is confusion based on the two ways to achieve a racquet drop (see tennisplayer.net). Andy does one way a la Sampras, Federer, Safin, Lopez et al. But there is another method and it does actually involve reaching that 'backscratch' position - a la Serena Williams, Thiem, Isner, Ivanisevic et al.

I was surprised there were even two ways; news to me!

 

[Digital Atheist]

You have an unknown serving technique. Study the high level serving technique. Take take high speed videos to see what you are doing. Compare to high level serves.

Yeah, truly if you want anything relevant to helping your serve, especially if you suspect there are problems, video is the only way to make progress. But even if you can't do high speed video - although that might be preferred it is far from necessary - as an iPhone or any decent android phone capable of 720p in reasonable lighting (or turning the flash on) will reveal more than enough to get you moving in the right direction.

 

[GuyClinch]

Shouldn't really scratch back especially on flat serve. Camera angles aren't the best and can be somewhat tricky with regards to back scratching.

I thought this video described it pretty well..might be helpful to some. Though that andy murray serve from above video should dispel alot of myths about the serve..if you a have seen that..

Anyway..

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

Yeah I think this is confusion based on the two ways to achieve a racquet drop (see tennisplayer.net). Andy does one way a la Sampras, Federer, Safin, Lopez et al. But there is another method and it does actually involve reaching that 'backscratch' position - a la Serena Williams, Thiem, Isner, Ivanisevic et al.

I was surprised there were even two ways; news to me!

Not seen the TP.net article. Public access to that article? Perhaps you can provide some insight on the 2 ways on achieving the racquet drop. I am not really seeing a "backscratch" on the serves of Serena & Dominic. Racquet drops away from the body as it does for Federer and others. The drop is achieved (or facilitated) by leg drive, ESR & uncoiling of the torso.

 

[Digital Atheist]

You don't think that at 13 seconds on the Serena video looks kinda like a back scratch?? The angle can be deceptive so maybe it isn't. I took the liberty of reading multiple articles when the ATP forehand debate was all the rage, but that access no longer exists so I can't help there sorry. Perhaps @JohnYandell can chime in here with the specifics as I honestly don't recall the details.

Maybe backscratch is still inaccurate, you could well be right, but her method is closer than the Sampras/Federer technique. The difference as I see it is this; some begin the drop from trophy much closer to the back with the racquet remaining vertical with the hand much closer to the shoulder (like Serena in the above video at 12 and 13 seconds, her strings never face the sky), others have the racquet further away from the body with the strings facing the sky (kinda like a waiter's tray, but we know it isn't!) - Sampras is an example of this:

Go frame by frame from 18 seconds to see what I mean.

So to is Safin:

Now Thiem:

That slowmo shows his racquet remains vertical through trophy and into the drop.

Might be easier demonstrated if you do the following. Watch the following two videos side by side using frame advance to see the difference in arm angle and racquet path from TP.
Roger Federer (at 3 seconds):

Serena Williams (at 11 seconds):

 

[Chas Tennis]

Yeah, truly if you want anything relevant to helping your serve, especially if you suspect there are problems, video is the only way to make progress. But even if you can't do high speed video - although that might be preferred it is far from necessary - as an iPhone or any decent android phone capable of 720p in reasonable lighting (or turning the flash on) will reveal more than enough to get you moving in the right direction.

The core of a high level serve is the resulting 30 milliseconds of motion before impact, whether there's effective ISR or not. A 30 fps camera takes one frame every 33 milliseconds. You get one frame in the last 30 milliseconds. You can't tell if the most important part of the serve is working. Yes, you can easily identify a likely Waiter's Tray technique from a checkpoint.

Cameras with high speed video mode are very cheap now. How many of your hours equals $100? What's the hold up?

 

[SinjinCooper]

It overstates the case to say there are completely different methods.

All service motions worth a damn are throwing motions. What that means is simply a catapult. A goalpost type arm structure out to the side of the body, with approximately 90 degree angles at the the shoulder and elbow, from which, momentum and inertia can rotate the shoulder back and then release it forward with arm extending to propel something. The c0cked and loaded portion of this catapult is the racquet drop position.

How it gets there isn't all that important. From trophy, the palm can be down, in which case you get that "comb the hair" motion with the closed racquet face. Or you can keep the wrist neutral, in which case you get that open face "cascade" motion a la Safin or Sampras. The arm can remain at 90 degrees throughout (the most efficient motion), or the elbow can bend more between checkpoints, like Serena or Isner.

Mostly, it's the bent elbow between trophy and full racquet drop that makes a motion more "back scratchy."

In terms of the physics of the motion, this is a slight inefficiency, but the net power loss will be trivial so long as you recover to a proper ~90 degrees for the catapult part. And it's a net positive if it makes the motion more comfortable or repeatable for you.

 

[Chas Tennis]

It overstates the case to say there are completely different methods.

All service motions worth a damn are throwing motions. What that means is simply a catapult. A goalpost type arm structure out to the side of the body, with approximately 90 degree angles at the the shoulder and elbow, from which, momentum and inertia can rotate the shoulder back and then release it forward with arm extending to propel something. The c0cked and loaded portion of this catapult is the racquet drop position.
.........................................................................

Which post are you addressing that "overstates"?

You might want to choose a different analogy then a catapult. That was settled in the 1990's with the work of Elliott and Marshall et al.

 

[SinjinCooper]

Which post are you addressing that "overstated"?

You might want to choose a different analogy then a catapult. That was settled in the 1990's with the work of Elliot and Marshall et al.

The catapult is not an analogy. It's exactly correct. Keep your Asperger nonsense to the 4.0's and let the pros instruct.

We know what we're talking about; you don't.

 

[Chas Tennis]

The catapult is not an analogy. It's exactly correct. Keep your Asperger nonsense to the 4.0's and let the pros instruct.

We know what we're talking about; you don't.

Let's stick to the questions and technical issues.

You see a catapult as exactly like a serve? Think about it. Which type of catapult? Picture?

Some readers might be interested in or mislead by the 'catapult' as a model for the serve, as I was for most of my tennis life.

 

[Digital Atheist]

The core of a high level serve is the resulting 30 milliseconds of motion before impact, whether there's effective ISR or not. A 30 fps camera takes one frame every 33 milliseconds. You get one frame in the last 30 milliseconds. You can't tell if the most important part of the serve is working. Yes, you can easily identify a likely Waiter's Tray technique from a checkpoint.

The bold part is my point, and OP is complaining about possible technical issues and/or feels there might be a problem with their motion. For that a phone is fine, yes?
I wasn't trying to say high speed video doesn't have its place, but rather offer some useful advice and hopefully encourage them to utilise video. Having said that, I do believe most here agree that ISR/forearm pronation just happen with a decent motion.

Cameras with high speed video mode are very cheap now. How many of your hours equals $100? What's the hold up?

How did this become about me? I am confident my latest video - no matter what the frame rate - shows some small improvements and I am happy with the progress, but feel free to post in my latest thread and I will answer you there, because I do have a response should you wish to read it .

It overstates the case to say there are completely different methods. [..]

Fair enough, but remember I am not making the claim. I read it and at the time it made some sense, and your description below actually helps clarify.

Which post are you addressing that "overstates"?

The part where I said there are two types of motions from trophy leading to racquet drop (I think).

[..]
From trophy, the palm can be down, in which case you get that "comb the hair" motion with the closed racquet face. Or you can keep the wrist neutral, in which case you get that open face "cascade" motion a la Safin or Sampras. The arm can remain at 90 degrees throughout (the most efficient motion), or the elbow can bend more between checkpoints, like Serena or Isner.

Mostly, it's the bent elbow between trophy and full racquet drop that makes a motion more "back scratchy."

In terms of the physics of the motion, this is a slight inefficiency, but the net power loss will be trivial so long as you recover to a proper ~90 degrees for the catapult part. And it's a net positive if it makes the motion more comfortable or repeatable for you.

That explains things quite well, makes complete sense, and fits in with my revised "backscratch" claims above. In another thread poor old @Curious was trying to change from the neutral wrist to the elbow bending since he didn't like the aesthetics, and I urged him not to alter that part of his serve given it was natural and good (in case anyone thought I was advocating for a deliberate backscratch!).

 

[heninfan99]

. Every coach tells me I'm not fluid enough, so I tried to hit a very quick serve instead (Dolgopolov style) to force a more fluid service motion. But then they told me you aren't hitting it flat enough, so I went to a flatter serve, by adjusting my motion and were back at square one, the coaches are telling me you aren't fluid enough. HELP

 

[JohnYandell]

The racket never stratches the back or anything close. It's on a diagonal across the back as it moves to the real key position--the drop aligned along the right side of the torso.

 

[kaninfaan]

The catapult is not an analogy. It's exactly correct.

In the immortal words of Wolfgang Pauli; ""Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch!""

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

You don't think that at 13 seconds on the Serena video looks kinda like a back scratch?? The angle can be deceptive so maybe it isn't. I took the liberty of reading multiple articles when the ATP forehand debate was all the rage, but that access no longer exists so I can't help there sorry. Perhaps @JohnYandell can chime in here with the specifics as I honestly don't recall the details.

Maybe backscratch is still inaccurate, you could well be right, but her method is closer than the Sampras/Federer technique. The difference as I see it is this; some begin the drop from trophy much closer to the back with the racquet remaining vertical with the hand much closer to the shoulder (like Serena in the above video at 12 and 13 seconds, her strings never face the sky), others have the racquet further away from the body with the strings facing the sky (kinda like a waiter's tray, but we know it isn't!) - Sampras is an example of this

No backscratch but, yes, there is a difference in the racket face orientation as it drops. Was this one of the differences in the TP article?

There is another way that racket drops will often differ. When I was taught the serve way back when, we were told to scratch the back. To implement this, most of us would change the elbow flexion angle. The angle between the forearm and upper arm would decrease from 90 degrees (at the trophy) to something less than 60 degrees (or even less than 45 degrees). Not that this decreased angle actually reflects an increase of elbow flexion. This type of drop uses increased elbow flexion and not much ESR. However, for elite servers, the flexion angle does not change much from the 90 degree angle for the drop. This drop is achieved with greater ESR (which stretches the internal rotators). This tends to be much more effective.

With Williams, Thiem and Isner, it is difficult to determine if the flexion angle changes for the drop from the perspectives I've seen. From some views what looks looks like increased flexion, appears to be fairly close to 90 degrees in other views. It they do change the flexion angle somewhat, it is not very substantial from what I've seen. Still a high degree of ESR in their drops.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

The catapult is not an analogy. It's exactly correct. Keep your Asperger nonsense to the 4.0's and let the pros instruct.

We know what we're talking about; you don't.

Derogatory responses like this are really uncalled for. Let's keep it civil here.

'Exactly correct' is an overstatement of the true nature of the mechanics. The catapult model only tells part of the story. The throwing and serving motions are both multi-joint, multi-segment actions. A trebuchet might be a closer approximation of the motions. Have also seen double pendulum and triple pendulums used as models for these actions.

 

[Digital Atheist]

When I was taught the serve way back when, we were told to scratch the back. To implement this, most of us would change the elbow flexion angle. The angle between the forearm and upper arm would decrease from 90 degrees (at the trophy) to something less than 60 degrees (or even less than 45 degrees).

Right, surely "Scratch your back with the racquet" is an outdated teaching method that belongs in the trash. Unlike the trophy pause, placing the racquet in that position is a power killer.

There are some analogies, even if they may not biomechanically correspond precisely to a serve that are extremely useful. Imo throwing is one of them, and I know you are the anomoly here, but the vast majority of players who struggle (and that is the vast majority) can benefit significantly from improving their throwing mechanics. I get that adding a racquet changes the dynamic and is one reason why it doesn't translate for a few, but it makes a whole lot more sense as a visual representation than the "shotput serve".

 

[Chas Tennis]

It seems to me that there is something missing with the catapult, trebuchet, double & triple pendulums model that the serve uses big time..............the last segment is also rotating around its long axis and nothing in those devices corresponds to the racket out to the side of the rotation.

Imagine that a catapult had a hole drilled in the flinging arm and was rotating rapidly.........

Here is a Tennis Warehouse University article that models the serve using a double pendulum model.
http://twu.tennis-warehouse.com/learning_center/doublependulum.php

How does this model recognize the part played by internal shoulder rotation during the service motion?

 

[kaninfaan]

It seems to me that there is something missing with the catapult, trebuchet, double & triple pendulums model...

There was some guy in another thread claiming that golfers used some pendulum model and therefore it was correct to use it for tennis and, again, it was claimed to be an exact description.

Ill quote the abstract of an article Im reading currently:

"We start with an ordinary configuration manifold of human body motion, given as a set of its all active degrees of freedom (DOF) for a particular movement. This is a Riemannian manifold with a material metric tensor given by the total mass-inertia matrix of the human body segments. This is the base manifold for standard autonomous biomechanics."
[Ivancevic; Central European Journal of Physics, October 2010, Volume 8, Issue 5, pp 737–745, Jet methods in time-dependent Lagrangian biomechanics, https://rd.springer.com/article/10.2478/s11534-009-0148-z]

We are a long way away from any medieval or Newtonian mechanics coming close to describing whats "really going on".
We are in the 21st century and science has progressed.
This does not mean that all those "models" arent usable to enhance peoples understanding or as analogys but they are severely lacking for modelling what's "really going on".
Some kids, and adults, respond to the damnedest things when learning motor-skills and if it works, great! But for an in depth discussion...

fwiw

 

[Chas Tennis]

I'm sure that the biomechanics of a serve can be modeled to some degree and that it is complex.

But a catapult? Maybe SinjinCooper had in mind an unusual catapult that slung and at the same time the slinging arm rotated around its long axis.?

Where is the long axis rotation?
https://www.google.com/search?biw=9...8.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.8.766.AHrNeRol0LE

I have never understood how a machine without long axis rotation can help anyone better understand a serve that has prominent long axis rotation. ? How does a catapult help understanding if the model does not have a segment that rotates around its long axis and therefore hides the most significant motion of the serve, ISR?

 

[Chas Tennis]

There was some guy in another thread claiming that golfers used some pendulum model and therefore it was correct to use it for tennis and, again, it was claimed to be an exact description.

Ill quote the abstract of an article Im reading currently:

"We start with an ordinary configuration manifold of human body motion, given as a set of its all active degrees of freedom (DOF) for a particular movement. This is a Riemannian manifold with a material metric tensor given by the total mass-inertia matrix of the human body segments. This is the base manifold for standard autonomous biomechanics."
[Ivancevic; Central European Journal of Physics, October 2010, Volume 8, Issue 5, pp 737–745, Jet methods in time-dependent Lagrangian biomechanics, https://rd.springer.com/article/10.2478/s11534-009-0148-z]

We are a long way away from any medieval or Newtonian mechanics coming close to describing whats "really going on".
We are in the 21st century and science has progressed.
This does not mean that all those "models" arent usable to enhance peoples understanding or as analogys but they are severely lacking for modelling what's "really going on".
Some kids, and adults, respond to the damnedest things when learning motor-skills and if it works, great! But for an in depth discussion...

fwiw

In golf, the club shaft has minimal axial rotation as it is limited by the grip and hands. It's probably a control problem but not a source of club head speed like ISR is a source of racket head speed. How much does the shaft of drivers twist?

Your article looks like very advanced biomechanics.

Some advanced articles are available online on Researchgate and also the PMC NCBI collection of publications. Searching the title on Google Scholar. I found the publication (I'm not familiar with the source)-
https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/phys.2010.8.issue-5/s11534-009-0148-z/s11534-009-0148-z.pdf

The mechanical devices analogies without long axis rotation may be useful for some parts of strokes that have minimal axial rotation but it is more work to determine that than the analogy is worth.

Looking directly at high speed videos and trying to identify the biomechanical phenomenology can work well but it has limitations. Mostly, the more time you spend looking at videos, the better you can see what is going on. Using analogies is probably useful in certain well chosen cases and not useful in many others. Attempting to translate complex motions into word terms, analogies or simple paragraphs seems very often misleading and obscuring for tennis in 2017 - but its seems to be very popular if you look at the many forum posts.

 

[kaninfaan]

...Looking directly at high speed videos and trying to identify the biomechanical phenomenology can work well but it has limitations. Using analogies is probably useful in certain well chosen cases and not useful in many others. Attempting to translate complex motions into word terms or simple paragraphs seems very often misleading and obscuring for tennis in 2017 - but its seems to be very popular if you look at the many forum posts.

My personal opinion is that everything can be used but nothing should be confused for something it's not.

Sports is very much about feel in the end and for a skilled athlete, finding that feel can be the goal since their solid technical background and physical conditioning gives "the feel" the correct base.
On the other hand, a beginner can "feel" better when doing something in a completely wrong way by applying motor-skills acquired from other sports in a cross-over fashion and needs to be coached into situations that feels worse but ultimately will be much better.

Given that most people are somewhere inbetween it becomes important to be clear about instructions and their ultimate purpose.

The 4.0 that just wants to get a little more speed on the serve he/she already has at all costs and the 4.0 that wants to make sure that his serve-mechanics will be a strong foundation for an injury-free career of increasing serve performance that could take him/her to a national championship at some point in life has very different needs, therefore communication/instructions need to be clear.

Imho most people asking for help on this forum needs to think about what they want before asking since there's such a difference in being prepared to change everything and aim for perfection and getting a "that's a solid 3.0serve"-pat on the back.
If youre just looking for the latter, advice on getting to the former will be confusing and ultimately irritating.

 

[GuyClinch]

Right, surely "Scratch your back with the racquet" is an outdated teaching method that belongs in the trash. Unlike the trophy pause, placing the racquet in that position is a power killer.

True. But many people don't have the flexibility to avoid this when they try to make their racquet drop happen. its an inconvient truth - but shoulder flexibility matters on the serve. To get into the fully supinated racquet on the right side of body - full drop position you need pretty good shoulder flexibility.

What you see out of rec players is a racquet stuck behind the back approximation of this position and thus inferior results IMHO.

I feel the two major 'laments' of rec serves - both the racquet drop and the frying pan grip come from this general deficit in many of the older players.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

It seems to me that there is something missing with the catapult, trebuchet, double & triple pendulums model that the serve uses big time..............the last segment is also rotating around its long axis and nothing in those devices corresponds to the racket out to the side of the rotation.

Imagine that a catapult had a hole drilled in the flinging arm and was rotating rapidly.........

True. All of these models, even a simple catapult, gives us some insight into the actions happening during a tennis serve. While they do not tell the whole story, they are still useful for telling us about some important aspects of the serve motion.