The serve is most powerful shot in the game. In today’s lesson, Brady demonstrates 3 things that may be killing power on your serve and how to best avoid them.
Published on 10/09/2018 by Brady
Another outstanding video. Due to some ‘rotator’ problems, I can’t do some of the motion that you have so well described. It is possible that I could do much better on the pronation movement…so I will give it a try. Thanks so much.
Best of luck with it Bill!
This – and yesterday’s on the forehand – were both excellent for the same reasons
Glad you’re finding them helpful Richard!
Thanks Brady…you always find a way to explain/show the essence of a stroke. I use to have a pretty good serve but a shoulder injury (rotator cuff) has weakened my delivery. I really can’t go thru the exact motions that you have shown but with this excellent video such that I can try to revive some of my previous technique.
Great job…I always get a lot of value from your videos.
Awesome presentation regarding serve power. Allows us to see where we need to get to in order to produce a weaponized serve.
I love the term weapon for a serve!
2 great videos in a row , yesterday was great as was today’s , learned a lot . I know you taught these concepts before , but the best way to learn is repetition . Thanks .
Excellent video as always, Brady!
I worked with a student who had a terribly ingrained “waiter tray” as he’d been doing it for about 3yrs (prior to my introduction). We spent over 18 months on it (in addition to utilizing OnForm, a great video analysis tool) and he was finally able to hit a good serve with proper mechanics. He then told his father and I that he was switching to volleyball…
Anyhow, I’ve been asked to volunteer with a local girl’s HS team and the majority of them have the same issue, among other things. Do you have any advice on re-training (and unraveling the old muscle memory) from a group, mass production standpoint?
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Please keep up the great work!
Coach Michael
Tough to change something like that in the middle of a tennis season as it’s a tough transition. I like to start my students in “trophy position” to isolate the motion and then very gradually work back towards a full motion when they start to get the hang of it. But this takes weeks and typically months of training.
Great summary of the basic mechanics of the serve. I worked on them for a long time and became fairly proficient at the swing path but did not really see any power boost. Thinking about it, I remembered discussions about great servers (and pitchers) having a “Iive arm”, so I tried to loosen up when swinging into the pronation motion. The result was really impressive, but a bit scary since it felt like I was also losing control of the racket path and ability to aim the shot. As with so many higher level tennis strokes, the feeling of control develops with practice. The “Iive arm” is one more concept you may want to address in future videos. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Ronald. Love the term “live arm” as it encourages a loose swing!