Shoulder turn geometry

[StringSnapper]

Interesting concept i've discovered in my own game when @Curious said i wasnt turning my shoulders enough on my forehand.

When I play, being a lefty, i mostly hit my forehand cross court and my backhand down the line to the opponents backhand.

So naturally this looks like my shoulder turn is good on my bh and not enough on my forehand.

In reality i don't think my shoulder turn was necessarily not enough, the problem with my forehand was that i moved that hand back slightly independently of the shoulder turn. Makes the takeback TOO big (and more WTA style). But i felt like i fixed that very quickly just by keeping my off hand on the racquet during the unit turn, until it was at my back shoulder, and then just swinging forward from there.

After hitting yesterday this is my summary on unit turns:

When hitting crosscourt, you're often having to hit on the rise (especially if changing direction) which means starting your stroke before the ball gets to you / has bounced, so you can be there in time with the racquet head at the desired contact point.

For crosscourt shots, my chest (and shoulders, but i think chest is a better reference point for your mind) faces the net post. So for me, the forehand is the left net post, the backhand is the right net post.

For down the line shots, my chest needs to face the side fence. Just to clarify, by 'down the line' - i mean this is my shot intention. I intend to hit the next one down the line, so i need to get my chest facing the side fence. Aka it looks something like a 90 degree unit turn. Really, the crosscourt shot, facing the net post, is also a 90 degree unit turn - its just that you're making contact earlier. But compared to the baseline, it will be more like a 45 degree turn. But you make contact earlier, and your swing finishes later. The swing path length is the same.

i.e. for dtl, you rotate chest to side fence (90deg to baseline) then make contact when your chest faces the net. so all up, around 90deg turn to contact. For crosscourt, you rotate chest to lets say right net post, then make contact around when your chest faces the left net post. Again, around 90deg turn to contact.

For serves, when i'm in the deuce court, i'll mostly try and just hit it back deep and decently hard from where it came from. So for my backhand side (remember i'm lefty) my chest will face the right net post. For my forehand, my chest now faces beyond 90 degrees, past the side fence. Because of the angle at which i'm receiving the ball. This is like an inside out forehand.


I played the best tennis of my life yesterday with this concept. My strokes were never late, i hit most balls (except short balls) on the rise and where i wanted them to go.

Let me tell you this... if you're a base liner and struggle to hit winners but have a very consistent game and can hit the ball deep, this is the next step:
1. You need to be able to hit it down the line or cross court, on both forehand and backhand
2. You need to be able to hit it on the rise

Applying this with wardlaw directionals, the winners were flowing without even swinging hard. My opponent was often stretched and defending, and the opportunities created themselves. All i had to do was keep focused on this timing and placement concept, and it was golden. At one point, i hit like 6 clean winners in a row. This, from a guy who usually has a pushy-consistent type of game that is lucky to hit 6 clean winners in a full 3 set match. They were swinging volleys, clean dtl backhand winners, you name it. All from the back half of the court lol

Damn, this was such an epic eye-opening hit for me.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

Congrats, @StringSnapper! My hat's off to anyone that can take the ball on the rise consistently, a la Agassi. I'm working on that for the first time and can get into a groove while drop feeding but haven't yet done so during a match. I use it not so much as a way to attack but to avoid getting pushed too far back.

 

[StringSnapper]

Congrats, @StringSnapper! My hat's off to anyone that can take the ball on the rise consistently, a la Agassi. I'm working on that for the first time and can get into a groove while drop feeding but haven't yet done so during a match. I use it not so much as a way to attack but to avoid getting pushed too far back.

I never knew i could do this so well, it just came from the shoulder turn and "geometric" knowledge. Knowing the shoulder turn and where i wanted to make contact and it just happened... Occasionally i'll shank a shot a bit but because its hit on the rise, even if my shank is short, my opponent has next to no time to react as its usually hit to the side they're not on as well. I mean, i would shank shots that I tried to hit on the decline too lol, but just never hit any winners

The thing is, i wasn't even trying to attack. I just didn't surrender any ground, and taking it on the rise, taking time away from them (and my ball had more pace on it too, since their shot hadn't slowed down much before i hit it back, redirecting their pace), they just naturally coughed up more short balls. And as soon as that dynamic happens, its just me pulling them around on a string with my forehand (deep and loopy) or hitting "accidental" winners on the rise

Maybe i just magically hit 3,000 hours of tennis and the tennis gods smiled "achievement unlocked"
Maybe hitting with the wall helped too


I want to see if this works against other opponents. The guy i was playing against has a massive win record against me, so he wasn't a pushover anyway. He doesn't hit the fastest balls, but he hits with biting jumping topspin on his forehand which a lot of people seem to struggle with

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

I never knew i could do this so well, it just came from the shoulder turn and "geometric" knowledge. Knowing the shoulder turn and where i wanted to make contact and it just happened... Occasionally i'll shank a shot a bit but because its hit on the rise, even if my shank is short, my opponent has next to no time to react as its usually hit to the side they're not on as well. I mean, i would shank shots that I tried to hit on the decline too lol, but just never hit any winners

The thing is, i wasn't even trying to attack. I just didn't surrender any ground, and taking it on the rise, taking time away from them (and my ball had more pace on it too, since their shot hadn't slowed down much before i hit it back, redirecting their pace), they just naturally coughed up more short balls. And as soon as that dynamic happens, its just me pulling them around on a string with my forehand (deep and loopy) or hitting "accidental" winners on the rise

Maybe i just magically hit 3,000 hours of tennis and the tennis gods smiled "achievement unlocked"
Maybe hitting with the wall helped too


I want to see if this works against other opponents. The guy i was playing against has a massive win record against me, so he wasn't a pushover anyway. He doesn't hit the fastest balls, but he hits with biting jumping topspin on his forehand which a lot of people seem to struggle with

Improvement is a funny, usually non-linear thing. We struggle at a plateau for months and then all of a sudden, we have a breakthrough. Chances are the breakthrough was happening in small, less observable increments but something caused a tipping point where everything came together.

In any case, good luck deploying this against your next opponent.

 

[Bender]

I kinda skimmed your OP, but the gist of what you're saying is that you managed to ensure that you drove your shots by rotating your chest and sort of pulling your arm to the correct contact position, correct?

Now the next step is to had the hip coil, which is something that gets overlooked a lot by a lot of players here, and driving your shoulders with your hip as one loose unit with the aid of your right foot (assuming you're a righty).

That should give you that effortless explosiveness that a lot of players lack.

 

[ByeByePoly]

Snapper ... this reminded me of all the serve discussion. She is a pro and “that” works.

Lol ... get to back scratch position anyway you want.

 

[StringSnapper]

Snapper ... this reminded me of all the serve discussion. She is a pro and “that” works.

Lol ... get to back scratch position anyway you want.

Interesting, she gets a deeper racquet drop than Fed himself. So does @Curious actually, but their serves aren't as fast as Feds. I think racquet drop is correct technique, and should be done above all else to insure no injuries etc. However, its not the be all and end all for serve speed. Someone like Kygrios has the fastest racquet serve motion of all time and insane speed. Perhaps the faster the motion the faster the serve - but you have to ensure good technique still.

Right now i THINK i can achieve racquet drop if i go super slow. My serves aren't fast, but they feel effortless. Whenever i try to put any force behind them, my old ****ty technique comes back.

Im hoping ill just keep doing slow racquet drop serves and eventually my muscle memory will change and i'll be able to do them faster and faster. Hmm


I kind of stopped focusing on the serve solely this last week because i was not enjoying tennis.

 

[StringSnapper]

I kinda skimmed your OP, but the gist of what you're saying is that you managed to ensure that you drove your shots by rotating your chest and sort of pulling your arm to the correct contact position, correct?

Now the next step is to had the hip coil, which is something that gets overlooked a lot by a lot of players here, and driving your hip with your shoulders as one loose unit with the aid of your right foot (assuming you're a righty).

That should give you that effortless explosiveness that a lot of players lack.

Shouldn't the hip drive the shoulders?

 

[Bender]

Shouldn't the hip drive the shoulders?

Sorry yeah, I meant driving the shoulders with your hip.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ByeByePoly]

Interesting, she gets a deeper racquet drop than Fed himself. So does @Curious actually, but their serves aren't as fast as Feds. I think racquet drop is correct technique, and should be done above all else to insure no injuries etc. However, its not the be all and end all for serve speed. Someone like Kygrios has the fastest racquet serve motion of all time and insane speed. Perhaps the faster the motion the faster the serve - but you have to ensure good technique still.

Right now i THINK i can achieve racquet drop if i go super slow. My serves aren't fast, but they feel effortless. Whenever i try to put any force behind them, my old ****ty technique comes back.

Im hoping ill just keep doing slow racquet drop serves and eventually my muscle memory will change and i'll be able to do them faster and faster. Hmm


I kind of stopped focusing on the serve solely this last week because i was not enjoying tennis.

105 heat index has put a dent on tennis enjoyment for me.

You are doing this in phases:
1) 2hbh
2) serve
3) that @Bender drive your hips with your shoulders thing . They must be some tennis playing freakshows in Hong Kong.

 

[Bender]

105 heat index has put a dent on tennis enjoyment for me.

You are doing this in phases:
1) 2hbh
2) serve
3) that @Bender drive your hips with your shoulders thing . They must be some tennis playing freakshows in Hong Kong.

Here on the other side of the world, we do everything the other way around.

 

[Chas Tennis]

Interesting, she gets a deeper racquet drop than Fed himself. So does @Curious actually, but their serves aren't as fast as Feds. I think racquet drop is correct technique, and should be done above all else to insure no injuries etc. However, its not the be all and end all for serve speed. Someone like Kygrios has the fastest racquet serve motion of all time and insane speed. Perhaps the faster the motion the faster the serve - but you have to ensure good technique still.

Right now i THINK i can achieve racquet drop if i go super slow. My serves aren't fast, but they feel effortless. Whenever i try to put any force behind them, my old ****ty technique comes back.

Im hoping ill just keep doing slow racquet drop serves and eventually my muscle memory will change and i'll be able to do them faster and faster. Hmm


I kind of stopped focusing on the serve solely this last week because i was not enjoying tennis.

Each position of the service motion has

1) Positions. Positions of body parts and racket - as shown in high speed video in 2D, with the 3rd dimension hard to estimate. A hand full of these positions - not necessarily special in the motion but useful in appearance for feedback - are selected as useful as checkpoints. The maximum racket drop is a checkpoint - a position checkpoint like all checkpoints.

2) Speeds. Speeds of body parts and racket. Two frames of video could show speed except for the limitations of a 2D image representing 3D space. 3 frames can show if the speed is accelerating or decelerating.

3) Stretched Muscles. Many muscles of the body are pre-stretched to some degree at every instant of time, constantly changing. The forces of ISR are largely produced by shoulder joint muscles stretched by unique strong motions over a period of time.

4) Other factors. ?

The racket drop is one checkpoint that you can focus on with high speed videos and compare to high level serves as the OP is doing. But to understand that checkpoint you should also study the variety of racket drop that is used in successful high level serves.

The problem with simply going to checkpoints. If you go from one checkpoint to the next as in #1 but never observe #2 and #3, then a lot of the less obvious parts of the service motion are left out. The service motion is over-simplified when consider just one checkpoint at a certain time.

This reminds me of when I learned something important about the Trophy Position checkpoint. Pictures of the TP position look very similar for most servers. But some servers are moving through TP, accelerating, while other servers are paused at TP without much speed. Point #1 is the same but point #2 above is very different for a large percentage of players!!

We can't cover all of this detail by looking at 'getting a good racket drop' position even though it is a very good checkpoint. It is one of the more obvious checkpoints. The checkpoints leading to impact are not commonly used checkpoints, they are less known and last only tens of milliseconds, so that, in 30 fps videos they are hidden. But the final checkpoints before impact are very important for impact. See OP's recent long serve analysis thread.

Comparing service motions with high speed video potentially can show differences in #1, #2 and #3 above throughout the entire service motion. Side-by-side comparisons are ideal.

We could probably search threads and posts over the last 20 years and find that what we are discussing about racket drop has been discussed in 2016, 2011, 2005 etc.. with little progress.... Some issues were researched and advanced years ago.

 

[StringSnapper]

I actually think the focus maybe shouldn't be on shoulder turn, but on swing path. The shoulders should work the same way, but i think swing path is a better focus in those emergency situations when we need to be ready. Ideally swing path is created by shoulder and body rotation and positining but sometimes ya gotta just arm it, in those cases worrying about shoulders too much will create an error where just arming proper swingpath might get it back.

 

[StringSnapper]

One other thing i need to mention:

When my oppoent hits crosscourt attempting to hit to my bh but its not quite angled enough, i can take it on my fh and hit it crosscourt myself, if i hit it in the middle of my strings on the rise the resulting shot of mine is absolutely massive and usually a clean winner. Wtf is going on here? Is this just the ideal way to redirect pace? It feels faster than if i hit an inside out fh back to where it came from

 

[Bender]

One other thing i need to mention:

When my oppoent hits crosscourt attempting to hit to my bh but its not quite angled enough, i can take it on my fh and hit it crosscourt myself, if i hit it in the middle of my strings on the rise the resulting shot of mine is absolutely massive and usually a clean winner. Wtf is going on here? Is this just the ideal way to redirect pace? It feels faster than if i hit an inside out fh back to where it came from

That sounds like Wardlaw at work.

I get similar results sometimes, except usually I accidentally get a lot more spin than intended either CC or a loopy I/O if I hit a reverse FH.

Position-wise CC is not a bad direction to hit if an intended CC BH ends up going closer up the middle, because you won't need to move that far to your right to stay in the middle of potential angles if it comes back, but your opponent will have to rush to the opposite end of the baseline.

 

[Chas Tennis]

OP, it seems as if your approach is based on what you observe about your own strokes and think.

Knowing more of what the top players are doing shows what is currently most successful - always a basic standard. Their best techniques can be seen when they are less pressured in matches. Their adjustments for the ball can be seen and described in stats. But stats are a lot of work. Compare your conclusions to a few pro strokes.

For the shoulder turn, watching the French Open ladies, I was impressed by how many ladies were hitting very hard and how fast they turned their shoulders line. I'm trying to come up with a useful/typical estimate for the turn that won't be misleading. Best guess would be about 90 d take back and I'm not sure where the shoulders line is at ball impact.

Djokovic is very flexible and is a model for hip and shoulder turn, probably physically too much trunk twist for most people. The shoulders can be turned both by the legs moving the pelvis and by the trunk muscles twisting the spine. What percentages for each?

 

[StringSnapper]

That sounds like Wardlaw at work.

I get similar results sometimes, except usually I accidentally get a lot more spin than intended either CC or a loopy I/O if I hit a reverse FH.

Position-wise CC is not a bad direction to hit if an intended CC BH ends up going closer up the middle, because you won't need to move that far to your right to stay in the middle of potential angles if it comes back, but your opponent will have to rush to the opposite end of the baseline.

It feels like if he goes cc to my backhand, but it dosnt quite make it and i hit a fh cross court (to the opposite side it came from) then it does a lot of damage

If he goes cc to my backhand then i go cc back to where it came from, its not as big