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Developing the Serve

Nov 15 2019

Warsaw 2019: Developing the Serve at Orange and Green

Warsaw 2019: Developing the Serve at Orange and Green

Download a printable version of the powerpoint here: [download id=”4140″]

Written by SharonLeeLukas · Categorized: Developing the Serve, Green Serve, Orange Serve, Technique, Wadi Degla - Content For Lessons

Jan 30 2019

Throwing Checklist for Developing the Serve

In this post we are sharing the checklist we use in our Developing the Serve CPD. The checklist is part of the programme we use when developing the serve with our players and when we train coaches both in the UK and around the world. The checklist is an invaluable tool for helping coaches to evaluate the overarm throw as part of developing the serve.

To ensure consistency of teaching and provide the most benefit, we use the same teaching points when we practice the throw and when we practise the serve. Otherwise, players can struggle to apply what they’re learning and practising.

Download now: [download id=”2802″]

i2c’s philosophy for developing the serve

At inspire2coach we use a tactical approach to structuring serve coaching; it gives you great teaching points and provides you with strategies to get your players serving with a purpose. We highlight what’s required to serve effectively – clearly highlighting the changes at each stage in a player’s journey.

We’ve published a lot of articles and videos on developing the serve at all levels; from red ball to performance and adults. Below we’ve linked to some of our other articles and videos.

Tennis(24/7) articles and videos on developing the serve

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Written by SharonLeeLukas · Categorized: Coach Academy, Developing the Serve

Sep 05 2018

How to use vertical throwing to develop the serve

How to use vertical throwing to develop the serve

Do you get your kids practising overarm throwing to develop the serve? If you do, then you’ll know that there is a problem!

Read on for Coaching Tips to get players vertically throwing to develop the serve and an activity that parents can do.

Replicating the player’s serve action

A lot of throwing (including for sports like baseball and cricket) is done horizontally. Whilst throwing horizontally is good for coordination and practising an overhead release, it doesn’t replicate the action that players need for their serve.

Once children master the fluid overarm action with good rhythm and technique, it’s important to learn to throw on a more vertical arc to tilt the shoulders and the push out the lead hip. That’s because the serve is an ‘up and out’ action where vertical drive becomes as important and linear or forward momentum.

Next time you work on throwing, throw for height first and distance second.

Activities for Coaches: vertically throwing to develop the serve

Ask your players to throw for height rather than distance. Have the players work in pairs for these activities.

INDOOR coaching sessions

  • When your courts have dividing curtains – ask the players to stand with one either side of the curtain, about 1-2 meters back) and throw the ball over the curtain to each other.
  • For courts where there are no curtains – ask players to throw the ball to each other along the arc of the roof without hitting it.

OUTDOOR coaching sessions

  • Stand players either side of a high fence and get them to throw the ball over the fence to each other.
  • Place one player at the baseline with their front foot on a bench or chair to tilt their hips and gives a more vertical arc. This player then throws to the second player whose job is to collect the balls and return them to the basket so that the players can exchange places.

Activities for Parents: vertically throwing to develop the serve

You want your child to throw for height rather than distance!

Throwing to develop the serve: INDOOR practise ideas

  • On an indoor tennis court with dividing curtains – ask your child up to stand close to the side of the curtain and throw the ball over it.
  • If there are no curtains, have your child throw the ball along the arc of the roof without hitting it.

Throwing to develop the serve: OUTDOOR practise ideas

  • Stand your child close to the side of a high fence and get them to throw the ball over the fence (you will need several balls or you will need to throw the ball back for each throw).
  • Ask your child to stand at the baseline with their front foot on a bench or chair – and throw from this position. This tilts the hips and gives a more vertical arc.

Developmental stages of the throw

The pictures below show the developmental stages of the throw. I’d love to tell you where I got them from, and I’d like to give the author credit, but I honestly can’t remember. If anyone knows – please let me know.

 

More articles on developing the serve at 10U

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Originally published on: Jan 19, 2017

Written by SharonLeeLukas · Categorized: Coach Academy, Developing the Serve, Orange Serve, Red Serve

Mar 28 2018

You’re only as good as your second serve

By Matt Kuzdub

Coaches, players, parents…even your aunt Judie know the importance of the serve in today’s modern game. More specifically, the first serve. The first serve is so critical that the top 10 servers on the ATP, year after year, win over 77% of their first serve points! And it’s not just on the men’s side. The top 10 women on the WTA win between 69%-79% of first serve points.

 Table 1.

Table 1.

Want more proof? Look at Table 1 – in 2016, the top serving men won over 3/4 of their first serve points. On the other hand, when these top pros missed their first serves, they only won between 52% and 55% of their points. That means that every time you miss a first serve, it’s almost a coin toss whether you’ll win that point. This scenario is even more dire on the women’s side (Table 2) – with only 2 players (Stosur and Makarova) having a second serve winning percentage above 50% in 2015. So if you’re a female player hitting a second serve, you’ll lose that point more often than you’ll win it. If you weren’t convinced before about the importance of the first serve, you should be by now.

More Than Just Percentages – Tennis Players Need Speed On First Serves

So…get your first serve in and you’ll win more points….that’s a pretty straightforward equation. Or is it? Just getting the first serve in isn’t the whole story. I could get 90% of my first serves in the court if I wanted to, but that wouldn’t help if I was serving at 80mph. So therein lies the other side of the equation, serve speed.

 Table 2.

Table 2.

Table 3 shows the top 10 fastest serves – both men and women – at the 2016 US Open. Traditionally, big servers have been known to be taller than average but looking at the top 10 on the men’s side for example, 4 of them are either 6’2” or 6’1” (Murray, Sock, Tiafoe, Tsonga) while Dominic Thiem is 6’0”. Yes the other 5 are all over 6’4” – taller players still have an edge – but the gap is narrowing. Female players are also serving big. Ten years ago only a handful of WTA players could serve in the 110-120s. Now there are many female players that have that ability. Of course players aren’t serving this big on every point, but average serve speeds are still in the 120s for men and over 100 for the women. This is likely due to a number of factors including racquet & string technology…but sport science tells us there’s more to it than that. Most players have strength & conditioning coaches & physiotherapists that travel with them full-time, making sure they’re in top form year round. Furthermore, the advances in sport science and training theory have helped players gain strength & power, which transfers to many strokes, including the serve. So how can we increase serve speed? Let’s take a closer look.

 Table 3.

Table 3.

Programming the Serve

Before we get into different ways serve speed can be increased, let’s look at volume of serves a player may hit in a tennis match. In the 2016 US Open Final, Novak hit 123 total serves (63 first and 60 second) while Stan the man hit a total of 162 serves (92 first and 72 second). While Andy and Novak – in their 2-set Barclay’s final in 2016 – hit 61 and 59 serves, respectively.

On tour player’s are looking at hitting between 50 and 200 serves in one match. In a Masters 1000 tournament, if a player reaches the final, they could hit as many as 500 serves while if players make it out of the early couple rounds of a Slam, they may hit anywhere from 500 to 1000 serves (or more). Consider this, MLB pitchers throw between 90 and 120 pitches per outing AND they only have to do this a couple times a week. Yes the stresses of throwing are higher but serving also takes it’s toll on a player’s body.

How about junior tennis? A 12 year old girl I previously worked with hit just over 300 serves in one weekend tournament (5 matches)! We then wonder why players are having elbow and shoulder problems at such a young age. It’s simple….we should look at the serve as we would any other training component…by closely monitoring volume and intensity. There was only 1 coach that I ever saw do this, his name was Larry Jurovich. He would prescribe daily serve numbers with is top players – including how many slice serves, flat serves & kickers and in what direction to hit these serves. Here’s what I would add to his prescription:

Varying Speeds

You can’t hit all out every time you serve. Our bodies aren’t prepared to handle that type of constant high neural stress. Look at sprinters. They don’t sprint fast every time they train, this would destroy them. They can still gain speed by adjusting the intensity of their sprints throughout the training year.

Adding Throws to Serving Programs

Although not identical, the mechanics of throwing and serving are similar. Using various types of throws and weighted implements act as an overload to the throwing arm (similar to a heavy squat acting as an overload for the lower body). Over time, not only will you develop greater force generating capabilities in the internal rotators (which will add velocity) but you’ll also develop sport-specific strength (which will help stave off repetitive strain injuries…that are all too common in tennis). Keep in mind that you wouldn’t do a lot of these – the programming is similar to what you’d see with med ball training (2-4 sets of 4-6 throws is more than enough). And 2 sessions a week is also sufficient – spaced out throughout the year (you wouldn’t do this ALL year round).

Get a 250g Mattspoint Plyoball here.

Recovery & Regeneration for the Serving Arm

Often overlooked. As coaches we often ask our players to hit a bucket of serves. But what about recovering from those stressors? In baseball, pitchers participate in a thorough recovery session after each outing to restore internal and external ranges of motion. How many young tennis players go through this type of routine after a tennis match? Andy Murray has a 2 hour recovery routine after every match and I’d bet his serving arm goes through an extensive regenerative process.

Whether it be academy settings or private lessons, the serve is often left until the end of practice. The young player won’t be prepped for a tournament with random serving practices. Bottom line, fitness coaches and tennis coaches need to work together to plan serving sessions appropriately based on time of year, training status of the athlete and injury history.

Learn more about shoulder recovery – check out these 2 posts:

Post-Match Recovery for the Tennis Shoulder – Part 1
Post-Match Recovery for the Tennis Shoulder – Part 2

Complex Training & The Serve

So how can we increase serve speed? One way may be through a sport science phenomenon called PAP (post-activation potentiation). A while back, Tsonga did a form of PAP training – he performed a heavy set of bench press and followed that up almost immediately with some attacking forehands. The theory being that the heavy exercise will increase the power output of any subsequent high velocity movement. One study (Vial 2014) attempted to increase serve velocity using a PAP technique. College players performed a set of 5 power cleans and followed it up by hitting 5 flat tennis serves. Some players did increase peak velocity by just over 2% but overall, the results were not significant. In any case, increasing a player’s serve almost instantly by 2 mph isn’t too bad.

Another study looked at the effects of throwing weighted plyo balls and serve speed in young (U14) players (Ferrauti & Bastiaens 2007). Again, there were no significant increases in serve speed but the problem here was clear. First, PAP works best with older athletes who are already strong and powerful. Second, some athletes are responders to PAP while others aren’t – sport scientists aren’t quite sure why and the only way to figure it out is to test with each athlete individually. Future research into PAP should aim to use exercises that are more biomechanically similar to the targeted stroke – like a med ball throw rather than a power clean – while using physically mature subjects.

Strength, Power & The Serve

What about strength & power programs? Fernandez-Fernandez et al. (2013) were able to increase serve speed in 13 year old competitive juniors following a 6-week training program that included general core exercises, a band routine and a series of high velocity medicine ball (MB) exercises. While core and band exercises can help improve general strength and stave off injury, the authors proposed (and I agree) that the upper body plyometric program was likely the reason these youngsters were able to increase serve speed by close to 10 km/h in such a short time frame. They used the following MB exercises:

  1. Chest Pass
  2. Overhead Throw
  3. Ear Throw
  4. Squat to Thrust
  5. Overhead Slam
  6. Diagonal Wood-Chop
  7. Close-stance Throw

Another study compared the effects of a plyometric training program versus a strength training program and increases in serve speed (Behringer et al 2013). The plyometric group increased velocity by 5-1 km/h over the 8 week period. The strength training program had no increases (although machine based exercises were used which have been shown to be less effective in improving strength/power compared to free weight exercises).

Interestingly enough, both studies above saw increases in serve speed with MB exercises while neither study saw a drop in serve accuracy. Why? Because players in each study continued practicing their serves while participating in a power training program. This provides us with a bit of validity that training to increase serve speed doesn’t have to compromise serve accuracy.

Traditional, Periodized Strength Programs Work Too

While power programs have had better success with increases in serve speed, we shouldn’t count out strength training. Kraemer et al (2003) conducted a 9-month strength training study with an NCAA female tennis team and many performance measures improved – groundstroke velocities, leg strength, upper-body strength – INCLUDING serve speed…which saw increases at each testing interval; 4, 6 and 9 months. The authors concluded that these gains occurred because of 2 main factors. First, there was a variation in training volume and intensity – i.e. heavy day, moderate day and light day – and the program was long enough to see positive adaptations. And second, because heavy loads were used, the female players recruited more type 2 muscle fibers, leading to increases in force generation, explosive abilities & power output.

Anecdotally, using a general squat exercise to increase max strength, I’ve found that players can generate significantly more pace in as little as 6 weeks. If players continue serving while performing an off-court strength program, their coordination likely won’t suffer – but they will improve their ability to push-off and thus improve overall racquet head speed (which is what produces greater shot speeds to begin with).

Serving Up Some Recommendations

Based on the above findings we can provide some general recommendations when it comes to increasing serve speed:

  1. PAP needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis and should be employed primarily with more advanced players.
  2. A periodized strength & power program will likely increase serve speed across all age groups and genders (specifically those ready to being a progressive resistance training program).
  3. Including a variety of high velocity exercises (like med ball throws) works better than a traditional strength training program when trying to increase serve speed in a short time frame.
  4. When incorporating strength training into a tennis player’s program, it’s important to use heavy loads. If avoided, players won’t reap the benefits of increased type 2 muscle recruitment and an enhanced neural drive – this will impede their long-term power generating capabilities.
  5. Periodize the serving program just like you would an off-court training program. Vary service speeds throughout the training week, use various implements to work on shoulder specific strength and prioritize recovery.

To see the videos which accompany this article, visit http://www.mattspoint.com/blog/sport-science-can-increase-serve-speed

MATT KUZDUB MSC CSCS

E: matt@mattspoint.com // mattspoint.com

MATTSPOINT // COACHING & TRAINING SOLUTIONS

This article has been reproduced with the kind permission of Matt Kuzdub.

Written by SharonLeeLukas · Categorized: Coach Academy, Developing the Serve, Technique · Tagged: second serve

Nov 14 2017

How to Correct the Ball Toss on the Serve by Taking the Player’s Weight Off the Back Foot

How to Correct the Ball Toss on the Serve by Taking the Player's Weight Off the Back Foot

We apologise for the audio-feedback! This clip was filmed live in possibly the worst audio setting ever; an echoing gym hall! However, we thought this short clip on how to correct the ball toss on the serve was still worth sharing.

Early November I was working with coaches in Romania on teaching the serve. I looked specifically at the importance of having the weight transfer onto the front when the ball is released from the throwing arm. Serving with the weight on the back foot starts a whole chain of linked problems.

What’s the biggest give-away that the child’s weight is on the back-foot when they’re serving? Watch your junior-player when they’re serving; the majority of kids will be moving their front foot when they are serving. The front foot moving indicates that the child has their weight on their back foot – which will have follow on impacts on their ball toss and balance. When the child’s weight is on the back foot, the ball toss will go behind the player – upsetting the player’s serve rhythm and balance. When the ball is going behind the player, they will need hit from below the ball… and they will then change their grip to do that.

You see what’s going on here! One small issue leads to a ton of problems.

 

LEVEL 2: Other Drills we Recommend for Level 2 Coaches and Candidates

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LEVEL 3: Other Drills we Recommend for Level 3 Coaches and Candidates

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LEVEL 4: Other Drills we Recommend for Level 4 Coaches and Candidates

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See more on Teaching the Serve

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Written by SharonLeeLukas · Categorized: Developing the Serve, Green Serve, Orange Serve, Red Serve · Tagged: Level 2, Level 3, Level 4

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