Let's talk about how to load your body, how to use your body to generate more
power. The easiest way to understand what you're trying to do with your body in
tennis is to visualize a spring. And what you're going to do with that spring is
turn it like this and then push it down. As you release it, the spring is
going to rotate and push up and that is exactly how you load your body for power.
The power in the strokes, the efficiency in the strokes starts from the bottom up.
You're generating force from the bottom upwards, so in order to do that you have
to make sure that you set your body in a position to be able to really uncoil and
accelerate that racquet head. So the way that you need to visualize for your
groundstrokes is: you're turning your body like you're turning that spring and
then you're pushing your body down. From that position you're going to
aggressively uncoil your body and generate racket head speed. So the segments
that are involved are your ankles, your hips, your upper torso, your shoulder, your
wrist, and you're... basically at the end is your racket head. So it's going to be kind
of like a whip. So when I crack a whip the tip of the whip is going the fastest,
and that's what I want. I want to start generating force from the bottom, push-up
to make sure that my racket head is going fast at the end. In order for this
to work I need to use all the segments, and I need to make sure that everything
is nice and relaxed. If I lock for instance my wrist, then that means
that that segment is not being used anymore, so I'm not going to be able to
generate as much power. All right, so let's visualize how this might work. So
let's think about an open stance forehand. So what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna coil my body around and push down. So the first thing that's gonna happen
when I release this is my ankles are gonna push up ,and my knees are going to
push up, and at the same time I am starting to turn. Okay, so as I turned my
hips my hips are gonna stop turning and then my torso is going to turn as my
torso stops turning my arm is gonna catch forward, and at the end... if you've
seen a lot of the picture of the pros, right before they hit the ball the wrist
is still coiled and that is the last segment that releases. So the way to
practice this is really visualizing that coiling and pushing down and from that
position releasing up, with your legs with your body, you want to make sure
that everything has to be sequential. You cannot force it. If you go too fast with
some of the segments you're gonna break the rhythm and it's not gonna work. So
you wanna try to do it naturally. Just visualize, like grabbing a ball and
throwing it with your whole body, grabbing a ball, throwing it. If you stay
nice and relaxed and then visualize that coiling, pushing down and then lifting
and pushing up making sure that you're very nice and relaxed, little by little
you're gonna get the rhythm on that. So next time that you're on the court make
sure that you're taking big steps at the end, that you're pushing down with your
body, that you're coiling and that you're uncoiling as you swing. Practice that
and your strokes are gonna feel a lot more fluid and you're gonna generate
some easier power.