WEBVTT 00:00:00.579 --> 00:00:01.500 What is up athletes? 00:00:01.509 --> 00:00:05.289 In today's video, we're covering the five most common mistakes that 00:00:05.289 --> 00:00:08.489 might be sapping your power when it comes to the serve. 00:00:08.699 --> 00:00:10.619 This video is gonna be dedicated to one of 00:00:10.619 --> 00:00:13.560 the most important aspects of power on the serve, 00:00:13.779 --> 00:00:16.889 and it's also one of the most misunderstood parts as well. 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:17.629 That's right, 00:00:17.680 --> 00:00:18.569 we're talking about 00:00:18.780 --> 00:00:20.090 none other than 00:00:20.430 --> 00:00:20.979 the thumb. 00:00:22.799 --> 00:00:23.440 I'm just kidding. 00:00:23.639 --> 00:00:25.670 We're talking about body rotation, 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:29.510 and until you properly learn how to actually use this action, 00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:32.639 talking about loading away and rotating in, 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.840 chances are you're missing out on a huge potential for power on your serve. 00:00:37.450 --> 00:00:39.490 So, let's get into the five common mistakes, 00:00:39.569 --> 00:00:41.759 one of which you might be doing right now, 00:00:42.009 --> 00:00:43.450 and let's learn how to fix it. 00:00:43.689 --> 00:00:45.930 The first common mistake I see players making all 00:00:45.930 --> 00:00:49.209 the time is not getting enough body rotation, 00:00:49.450 --> 00:00:52.369 and this is especially if your stance is too open. 00:00:52.689 --> 00:00:54.759 Getting the proper rotation away from the net 00:00:55.009 --> 00:00:56.080 will be quite difficult. 00:00:56.290 --> 00:00:57.959 Now I get why this happens a lot, 00:00:57.970 --> 00:00:59.439 and when I was just starting out, 00:00:59.569 --> 00:01:00.919 I often did this as well. 00:01:01.209 --> 00:01:02.380 When we open up to the net, 00:01:02.564 --> 00:01:03.305 our chest, 00:01:03.424 --> 00:01:04.254 our stance, 00:01:04.425 --> 00:01:06.894 we feel a greater sense of control because 00:01:07.154 --> 00:01:09.495 naturally we're facing the direction we're trying to hit, 00:01:09.625 --> 00:01:11.875 so hitting a basic serve is much easier. 00:01:12.105 --> 00:01:16.294 But then of course we don't have enough space to rotate in and accelerate, 00:01:16.495 --> 00:01:20.995 and this leads to a very arm dominant shot or over rotating at contact. 00:01:21.264 --> 00:01:23.254 Now maybe you've watched a few videos, 00:01:23.425 --> 00:01:24.625 maybe including ours, 00:01:24.705 --> 00:01:25.375 that said 00:01:25.665 --> 00:01:27.614 rotate your body more away. 00:01:29.169 --> 00:01:30.290 (What was that?) (LAUGHTER) 00:01:31.779 --> 00:01:35.449 And maybe listening to this advice you've closed your stance off a lot more. 00:01:35.779 --> 00:01:36.290 If you did, 00:01:36.540 --> 00:01:39.730 chances are you might be making common mistake number 2. 00:01:40.099 --> 00:01:43.970 When we think about players who have a lot of body rotation on the serve, 00:01:44.190 --> 00:01:44.889 who do we think? 00:01:45.059 --> 00:01:46.019 Maybe Sampras, 00:01:46.220 --> 00:01:47.519 definitely McEnroe, 00:01:47.900 --> 00:01:48.629 perhaps even Federer. 00:01:49.260 --> 00:01:51.980 We've all probably tried to emulate these players at one point. 00:01:52.220 --> 00:01:52.730 And 00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:53.779 I must admit 00:01:53.980 --> 00:01:58.639 I spent about 10 years too long in the Federer copy land 00:01:59.419 --> 00:02:01.569 trying to emulate every single thing he was doing, 00:02:01.940 --> 00:02:03.330 including the routine. 00:02:03.580 --> 00:02:05.940 And what happens when you copy these very extreme 00:02:05.940 --> 00:02:09.130 stances is exactly that, it ends up being very, 00:02:09.179 --> 00:02:10.110 very extreme. 00:02:10.500 --> 00:02:12.910 Now, of course, this isn't necessarily incorrect, 00:02:13.259 --> 00:02:15.020 it's just a lot more difficult to pull off. 00:02:15.580 --> 00:02:16.330 Let me explain. 00:02:16.860 --> 00:02:19.690 Federer and Sampras had some of the best serves in history, 00:02:20.020 --> 00:02:22.729 and the closed stance helped them to generate more spin 00:02:22.899 --> 00:02:24.210 and access greater angles. 00:02:24.399 --> 00:02:25.630 But for most rec players, 00:02:25.820 --> 00:02:28.580 this extreme stance often tends to just 00:02:28.580 --> 00:02:31.660 lead to more difficulties with coordinating because if 00:02:31.660 --> 00:02:34.929 your chest and your hips are faced all the way to the back fence here, 00:02:35.100 --> 00:02:38.740 there's a much greater distance now that we have to rotate all the way in 00:02:39.020 --> 00:02:40.300 if we want to reach our contact point. 00:02:40.565 --> 00:02:44.796 And a lot of the times in order to do this we end up sacrificing a good swing 00:02:44.966 --> 00:02:50.156 and a good contact point and this counterproductively decreases a lot of power. 00:02:50.406 --> 00:02:51.195 Now by this point, 00:02:51.205 --> 00:02:52.436 I know what you're probably thinking. 00:02:52.766 --> 00:02:53.276 Datre, 00:02:53.326 --> 00:02:54.436 this is ridiculous. 00:02:54.645 --> 00:02:58.356 How am I supposed to rotate away but not rotate away too much? 00:02:58.526 --> 00:02:59.436 I totally get it, 00:02:59.485 --> 00:03:03.516 and this is one of the core challenges that Datre and I had on the serve as well. 00:03:03.606 --> 00:03:05.285 And it wasn't until we developed this 00:03:05.401 --> 00:03:06.341 crucial concept 00:03:06.472 --> 00:03:08.582 that we really started to dial things in. 00:03:08.792 --> 00:03:12.421 Developing an elite serve is kind of like walking a tightrope, 00:03:12.712 --> 00:03:15.421 because if you lean too much on one side or the other, 00:03:15.751 --> 00:03:18.261 it harms your performance and you end up falling 00:03:18.921 --> 00:03:19.212 probably 00:03:19.222 --> 00:03:20.141 to your death. 00:03:21.311 --> 00:03:22.132 And just like that, 00:03:22.511 --> 00:03:24.572 everything requires balance on the serve, 00:03:24.591 --> 00:03:26.542 otherwise known as the middle path. 00:03:26.772 --> 00:03:27.701 (INDISTINCT) 00:03:27.912 --> 00:03:29.722 you must walk the middle path. 00:03:31.600 --> 00:03:32.479 So, to solve this, 00:03:32.570 --> 00:03:36.300 we first need to know that there are two main types of rotation on the serve. 00:03:36.929 --> 00:03:39.210 The first is the full body rotation. 00:03:39.740 --> 00:03:40.619 Like we mentioned earlier, 00:03:40.699 --> 00:03:44.149 you can see some of the like Sampras doing this with the back foot offset, 00:03:44.339 --> 00:03:46.130 the pelvis rotating further back, 00:03:46.300 --> 00:03:48.009 and the rest of the body following, 00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:51.100 the entire body rotates away further from the net. 00:03:51.300 --> 00:03:54.649 Another modern player you can take a look for this is Shapovalov. 00:03:54.750 --> 00:03:58.830 You can see he gets a lot of body rotation away for a pretty effective sir. 00:03:59.059 --> 00:04:03.850 Now the second type of rotation is called the hip and shoulder separation, 00:04:04.020 --> 00:04:06.300 and this is like the forgotten younger brother, 00:04:06.339 --> 00:04:07.850 the Datre... (LAUGHTER) 00:04:09.669 --> 00:04:13.380 But arguably it's a more fundamental element of the serve as well. 00:04:13.589 --> 00:04:16.160 The hip and shoulder separation refers to 00:04:16.470 --> 00:04:18.260 the separation angle between 00:04:18.510 --> 00:04:19.260 the hips 00:04:19.470 --> 00:04:20.619 and your shoulders. 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:24.700 So, imagine I've got these two rackets and this is my upper body, 00:04:24.869 --> 00:04:26.059 my line of my shoulders, 00:04:26.230 --> 00:04:28.869 and this is the line of my hips or my pelvis. 00:04:28.950 --> 00:04:33.390 Now full body rotation is when my entire body turns away as a unit. 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:38.410 Hip and shoulder separation means my upper body is rotating further away, 00:04:38.470 --> 00:04:42.070 and what happens when we do this is we actually end up creating a stretch 00:04:42.070 --> 00:04:46.519 in our core that allows us to explosively snap it back in for contact. 00:04:49.019 --> 00:04:49.980 Why did I do that? 00:04:50.140 --> 00:04:51.649 Now to see this effectively being done, 00:04:51.779 --> 00:04:53.630 you can take a look at players like Tsonga, 00:04:53.899 --> 00:04:54.619 Kyrgios, 00:04:54.709 --> 00:04:55.929 or Ben Shelton. 00:04:56.100 --> 00:04:58.500 You can see that they don't nearly get the same 00:04:58.500 --> 00:05:01.609 amount of full body rotation as somebody like Sampras, 00:05:01.779 --> 00:05:06.059 but they're still able to utilize rotation as a powerful element on their serve. 00:05:06.510 --> 00:05:09.809 You can see that even though they're moving their back leg toward the right, 00:05:09.980 --> 00:05:11.600 which creates more of an open stance, 00:05:11.739 --> 00:05:13.809 they're pulling the hitting elbow back in a way, 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:17.059 so they're getting tremendous rotation in their trunk and 00:05:17.059 --> 00:05:19.649 again a lot of that hip and shoulder separation. 00:05:19.859 --> 00:05:23.769 Now what I recommend this if you have mobility issues and spine issues, 00:05:23.940 --> 00:05:24.170 or 00:05:24.179 --> 00:05:25.570 you're 100 years old? 00:05:25.890 --> 00:05:26.609 Probably not. 00:05:26.739 --> 00:05:30.049 This is because the greater hip and shoulder separation angle you have, 00:05:30.209 --> 00:05:30.779 the more strength 00:05:30.875 --> 00:05:33.975 and mobility you're gonna need in your spine and back. 00:05:34.225 --> 00:05:36.614 So, even players who are more athletic or younger, 00:05:36.825 --> 00:05:40.265 I still recommend at the very least building your body up first 00:05:40.265 --> 00:05:43.095 so you can develop the tolerance for that amount of load. 00:05:43.304 --> 00:05:43.755 So instead, 00:05:43.785 --> 00:05:44.815 as a starting point, 00:05:44.825 --> 00:05:47.024 I recommend following this. For your stance, 00:05:47.144 --> 00:05:48.385 if you've got a platform stance, 00:05:48.505 --> 00:05:52.584 you can align your back foot roughly to the midpoint of 00:05:52.584 --> 00:05:55.105 your front foot just like so about shoulder width apart. 00:05:55.730 --> 00:05:59.290 Now if you have a pinpoint stance you can get a little bit closer to parallel 00:05:59.589 --> 00:06:03.920 and from here get your hitting elbow in that throwing like position just like this 00:06:04.070 --> 00:06:09.059 and focus on pulling your elbow back and away just like so. When you do this properly, 00:06:09.109 --> 00:06:09.799 you'll notice 00:06:10.029 --> 00:06:13.459 a powerful stretch in your core created again by that hip 00:06:13.459 --> 00:06:16.510 and shoulder separation angle. And if you do this powerfully, 00:06:16.589 --> 00:06:19.519 you'll be able to uncoil explosively into contact, 00:06:19.660 --> 00:06:22.790 creating that powerful rotation you see the pros doing. 00:06:25.929 --> 00:06:26.519 Like so... 00:06:26.649 --> 00:06:27.450 So, try this out, 00:06:27.489 --> 00:06:28.390 experiment with it, 00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:31.000 and you'll notice yourself developing an effortless, 00:06:31.130 --> 00:06:31.600 smooth, 00:06:31.649 --> 00:06:33.679 and explosive serving motion. 00:06:33.890 --> 00:06:35.130 Now after the loading phase, 00:06:35.200 --> 00:06:37.359 we get into the acceleration 00:06:37.570 --> 00:06:40.079 which leads us into common mistake number 3, 00:06:40.290 --> 00:06:42.179 the overactive upper body. 00:06:42.410 --> 00:06:45.320 This is one of the most common mistakes I see at the rec level. 00:06:45.609 --> 00:06:50.160 It's where you use your upper body to initiate your swing instead of your lower body, 00:06:50.290 --> 00:06:50.529 either 00:06:50.622 --> 00:06:51.682 with the hitting arm, 00:06:51.851 --> 00:06:54.962 which leads to tightness or a shallow racket drop. 00:06:55.131 --> 00:06:59.002 Or for some players you might even be using the trunk muscles just a bit too much. 00:06:59.252 --> 00:06:59.921 If you're doing this, 00:07:00.092 --> 00:07:03.242 chances are you might be completely fine doing warm-up serves, 00:07:03.372 --> 00:07:06.562 but the second you get into a match or you try to add more power, 00:07:06.731 --> 00:07:10.962 this is when things start to feel tighter and the service box starts to shrink. 00:07:11.092 --> 00:07:14.131 This is because when we're actively trying to use our arms, 00:07:14.291 --> 00:07:15.291 we're actually recruiting 00:07:15.614 --> 00:07:17.364 more muscle fibers throughout our arm, 00:07:17.454 --> 00:07:19.324 which means that we're contracting 00:07:19.533 --> 00:07:21.403 or tensing these muscles. 00:07:21.574 --> 00:07:23.764 And counterintuitively when we're more tense, 00:07:24.093 --> 00:07:26.014 instead of having that nice, relaxed swing, 00:07:26.134 --> 00:07:29.324 we end up encountering more enforced errors and less power. 00:07:29.403 --> 00:07:32.084 And this oftentimes leads us to mistake number 4, 00:07:32.414 --> 00:07:33.723 over-rotation. 00:07:33.973 --> 00:07:36.973 The way a lot of players start learning to serve is kind 00:07:36.973 --> 00:07:40.093 of like a forehand where they use a lot of body rotation 00:07:40.955 --> 00:07:43.605 because it's a rather intuitive motion to learn, 00:07:43.895 --> 00:07:47.165 but oftentimes when we don't learn how to rotate the right way, 00:07:47.415 --> 00:07:51.026 this leads us to common mistakes like dropping the off-arm down too soon, 00:07:51.335 --> 00:07:52.485 dropping it too much, 00:07:52.776 --> 00:07:55.126 or dropping it way too over to the left side. 00:07:55.256 --> 00:07:56.966 And if you see yourself do any of this, 00:07:57.055 --> 00:08:00.615 you'll probably notice that this off-arm is actually hindering your ability to 00:08:00.615 --> 00:08:04.855 rotate and it's creating that feeling of more of a dragged slow rotation 00:08:05.528 --> 00:08:09.567 feel, almost like your entire body is being pulled down by gravity. 00:08:09.778 --> 00:08:12.298 Other times if you swing your off arm too far to the right, 00:08:12.537 --> 00:08:14.858 there's nothing you can counterbalance with and it's gonna 00:08:14.858 --> 00:08:17.567 easily cause you to over rotate into contact. 00:08:17.697 --> 00:08:20.608 And this, of course, leads us to a poor contact point, 00:08:20.817 --> 00:08:22.437 not allowing us to utilize as much 00:08:22.437 --> 00:08:25.398 of this powerful internal shoulder rotation motion 00:08:25.697 --> 00:08:27.937 and never learning to get that whip-like release 00:08:27.937 --> 00:08:29.697 of the racket head through the contact. 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:31.350 And as an effort to fix this, 00:08:31.470 --> 00:08:33.510 you might be falling victim to common mistake 00:08:33.510 --> 00:08:36.549 number 5, trying to keep your body sideways. 00:08:36.630 --> 00:08:36.909 I know, 00:08:36.989 --> 00:08:37.500 I know, 00:08:37.669 --> 00:08:39.179 yet another dichotomy. 00:08:39.479 --> 00:08:40.308 Let me explain. 00:08:40.590 --> 00:08:42.058 If the rotation of the body 00:08:42.270 --> 00:08:45.179 is a tremendous power source that we can actually use, 00:08:45.469 --> 00:08:46.590 we don't want to eliminate it. 00:08:46.739 --> 00:08:47.119 Personally, 00:08:47.309 --> 00:08:51.059 this is one of the things that caused me to suffer on my kick serve for the longest time. 00:08:51.190 --> 00:08:51.590 So instead, 00:08:51.669 --> 00:08:54.780 I was using these weaker movements like elbow extension 00:08:54.780 --> 00:08:57.549 and wrist extension to try and just topspin the 00:08:57.695 --> 00:08:58.594 ball over the net. 00:08:58.734 --> 00:08:59.684 Now don't get me wrong, 00:08:59.775 --> 00:09:02.854 you still don't want to over rotate on the serve because 00:09:02.854 --> 00:09:05.244 that leads to a lot of problems that we mentioned earlier. 00:09:05.614 --> 00:09:07.205 So, then again you might be thinking, 00:09:07.494 --> 00:09:09.364 how are we supposed to rotate 00:09:09.695 --> 00:09:11.044 without over-rotating? 00:09:11.174 --> 00:09:14.655 According to Dr. Brian Gordon's research on high level serves, 00:09:14.775 --> 00:09:17.844 he says that although there's more research required in this area, 00:09:18.135 --> 00:09:19.645 the back leg extension 00:09:19.934 --> 00:09:22.294 might play a major role in generating this 00:09:22.294 --> 00:09:25.215 hip rotation by forcing the pelvis to turn. 00:09:25.630 --> 00:09:28.849 It does this by pushing the right side of the pelvis forward. 00:09:29.020 --> 00:09:33.250 In his analysis of Sampras' serve with John Yandell over at tennisplayer.net, 00:09:33.419 --> 00:09:37.809 they found that Sampras is accelerating his body by leading with his hips. 00:09:37.940 --> 00:09:39.619 Now if you want to check out the full article on this, 00:09:39.739 --> 00:09:41.770 I'll leave a link to it in the description below. 00:09:41.979 --> 00:09:45.460 Now one of the most important parts of creating power is this initial 00:09:45.460 --> 00:09:49.039 push of your hips rotating as you drive your legs through the ground. 00:09:49.299 --> 00:09:52.690 But after our legs actually finished driving to the ground, 00:09:52.859 --> 00:09:55.460 there's actually no more ground reaction force that's propelling 00:09:55.604 --> 00:09:57.914 our body and this means we're gonna naturally 00:09:57.914 --> 00:10:00.463 stop our hips from continuing to rotate in, 00:10:00.633 --> 00:10:04.583 which means that theoretically there should be no issues with over rotation 00:10:04.874 --> 00:10:09.023 so long as you properly initiated that back hip rotation before you began. 00:10:09.234 --> 00:10:11.674 So, any other problems you have with your rotation might have to 00:10:11.674 --> 00:10:15.544 do more with your stance or bringing your entire off-arm around, 00:10:15.754 --> 00:10:17.823 which is causing your body to sway. 00:10:17.994 --> 00:10:19.073 So, next time you're on the court, 00:10:19.314 --> 00:10:22.463 instead of trying to initiate that swing with the trunk and the arm, 00:10:22.593 --> 00:10:25.434 try to create your acceleration by pushing hard from your back 00:10:25.578 --> 00:10:27.757 hip and keep your off arm up for longer, 00:10:27.768 --> 00:10:29.838 make sure that it's dropping into the correct position. 00:10:30.007 --> 00:10:33.088 And lastly focus on accelerating and releasing that 00:10:33.088 --> 00:10:35.838 hitting shoulder up as high as you can. 00:10:35.968 --> 00:10:36.528 Now personally, 00:10:36.607 --> 00:10:39.398 a good visual cue that I like to keep in my head is that 00:10:39.848 --> 00:10:43.317 while I'm actually making contact hitting through the serve, 00:10:43.487 --> 00:10:45.127 I'm actually still ascending. 00:10:45.247 --> 00:10:47.687 Now this isn't exactly happening on the serve, 00:10:47.807 --> 00:10:52.398 but it's a great visual cue to be able to keep ourselves from coming down too early. 00:10:52.528 --> 00:10:53.687 And if you do this properly, 00:10:53.728 --> 00:10:55.367 you'll be able to naturally 00:10:55.562 --> 00:10:58.341 decelerate and you'll get that nice whip like 00:10:58.341 --> 00:11:00.572 release with your hitting arm at contact. 00:11:00.781 --> 00:11:02.052 As you've probably experienced, 00:11:02.182 --> 00:11:03.892 the serve is innately hard. 00:11:04.142 --> 00:11:07.331 There aren't very many motions that are as counterintuitive as this, 00:11:07.502 --> 00:11:10.731 and a lot of the instructions that we hear are overgeneralized 00:11:10.731 --> 00:11:13.341 or don't give you a full description of what's going on. 00:11:13.461 --> 00:11:14.012 So for example, 00:11:14.182 --> 00:11:17.302 while closing your stance off and staying sideways 00:11:17.302 --> 00:11:19.731 might get you 50% of the way there, 00:11:19.861 --> 00:11:22.851 if you wanna actually maximize your potential on the court, 00:11:23.021 --> 00:11:25.341 it's key that you use these techniques that are backed 00:11:25.676 --> 00:11:28.515 by actual biomechanics and then simplify 00:11:28.515 --> 00:11:32.075 them into simpler cues and progression drills. 00:11:32.075 --> 00:11:35.966 And that's exactly what we did in our five-day serve power challenge, 00:11:36.276 --> 00:11:37.945 which is a series of techniques, 00:11:37.955 --> 00:11:38.556 instructions, 00:11:38.565 --> 00:11:39.716 and progression drills, 00:11:39.846 --> 00:11:41.466 some of which you probably saw today. 00:11:41.556 --> 00:11:44.226 And if you apply what we cover over the course of the challenge, 00:11:44.435 --> 00:11:48.625 you're gonna start hitting the most powerful and consistent serves of your life. 00:11:48.755 --> 00:11:50.476 So, join now by clicking the first link in 00:11:50.476 --> 00:11:53.185 the description below and go out and train hard. 00:11:53.315 --> 00:11:54.265 I will see you 00:11:54.515 --> 00:11:55.395 in the next video. 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