(hits tennis ball)
- What is the role of the wrist on the serve?
And how do pros achieve the critical wrist positions
that you see them do,
to allow themselves to generate massive racquet head speed,
into the shot while all remaining injury free?
The wrist action on the serve is one of the most
controversial topics covered in tennis.
And for good reason too.
It can either unlock a kingdom of whip-like power for you,
Or if you fall victim to some of the many myths
of the serve and the wrist action,
you could easily end up injuring your wrist.
So here are three simple steps that you can execute today
on the court, to actually start unlocking
that fluid, whip-like action on the serve,
with the wrist action on the serve.
Let's go.
(funky music)
To start off, we've got the prep.
There's more variation in the wrist in your backswing,
than almost any other part of the serve.
Some players have their wrist flexed,
others have it supinated pronated and anywhere in between.
But luckily for us,
a lot of this is a matter of personal preference
that we don't really need
to master the most important serve wrist-actions,
for a powerful and consistent serve.
But, as players move into the trophy position,
that's where we start to see players all reaching
the key critical positions with
their hitting arm and their wrists,
which we'll get into.
Top servers will have their wrist neutral
along this flexion and extension plane,
along with slight ulnar deviation, so that their racquet tip
is pointing up and slightly forward.
And again, ulnar deviation
is that slight flexion to the pinky side.
Now, what I see a lot of players do
instead of this motion,
is a lot of this extension motion,
which ends up causing the very common
waiter's tray position.
The problem with the waiter's tray serve is that
with your racquet already dropped behind you,
there's not really a lot of space for your hitting arm
and racquet to flip back into the racquet drop
and what happens in this case?
Well, if your racquet drops early,
it's impossible to start getting that dynamic flip
where the racquet swings in and out of the racquet drop
quickly and smoothly,
which for you means way less power and a weak kick serve.
If you look at top pro serves, you'll see that
there's a straight line within their form and racquet
from the back view. And from here,
with a slight internal rotation of the shoulder,
your racquet tip should be pointed upward
and slightly forward.
So again, whatever your wrist does in the backswing,
it could do whatever crazy maneuvers that you want to,
whatever it is,
just get your wrist in that neutral position,
slightly ulnar deviated to the pinky side,
and then you're good to go.
Now, one of the easiest drills that I've seen,
that really helps to get this position down,
is what I like to call the racquet bounce drill.
Here's how it goes:
to start off, just get into your trophy position
with the key checkpoints in your hitting arm position.
It's going to be pulled back to be in-line with your body,
bent about 90 degrees, and raised about 90 degrees
from your torso.
And from here, all you're going to do
is slightly relax and bounce your racquet, just like so.
Now again, if you flip your racquet back
and extend this wrist prematurely,
you're going to feel the weight of this racquet
already behind you like so.
So instead, get it right into this neutral position
and then bounce it. It should feel very nice and relaxed.
So just remember: create a straight line from you racquet
all the way to the tip of your racquet
to make sure you're not bending too far this way
or too far this way, and you're good to go.
From here, just add in the bounce, toss, and swing
and bouncing your racquet here is going
to give you the added benefit of keeping your wrists relaxed
before your swing which is going to help
with step number two: the racquet drop.
If you've positioned your wrist correctly,
by the end of your trophy pose,
most of what should happen from here on out
should be natural and automatic.
As high-level servers accelerate,
they're going to drive their legs explosively
through the ground
and propel their hips to rotate forwards.
And if you do this properly,
the inertia of the racquet head and the hand
is gonna actually help to propel your racquet down and back
because of its desire to stay in it's place.
This racquet flip force is what will create
the proper wrist action in our racquet drop.
In all top servers, you'll see
the wrist moves into full extension and radial deviation,
which is, again, this flexion toward the thumb side,
along with this, the form is going to go
from this pronated position to a supinated position as well.
And if you combine these motions,
you'll notice instantly that you're going to achieve
this iconic racquet drop position
that you see almost every player getting into.
Now, once again,
the key to achieving that fluid, natural racquet drop action
is to keep your wrist and your hitting arm naturally relaxed
by doing this bouncing drill
and start to practice feeling
that fluid, acceleration and whip.
So once again,
the key to achieving this natural racquet flip motion
is to push heavy from the ground,
rotating the hips and torso forward.
And for that to cause this natural racquet flip motion,
as long as you're hitting arm and your wrist is relaxed.
After the racquet loops through your racquet drop,
it starts getting into the critical upward swing phase.
According to Dr. Brian Gordon's study
published over at tennisplayer.net
link in the description below
the first wrist action that happens here
is the wrist ulnar deviation,
which again is the pinky flexion.
Now, if you perform this correctly,
it's going to feel like your hitting arm
is just one big whip.
And your hitting arm is gonna
release up with this elbow extension motion.
Again, this is a natural result
of your upward force that you create
from your hitting shoulder and elbow
driving up during your acceleration.
And as your hitting arm continues to drive up
through the elbow extension,
your wrist is actually just a natural extension
of that same catapulting effect.
As long as your hitting arm is relaxed,
this will cause your wrist to move
from this radial deviation position to ulnar deviation.
Now, as we move into contact,
players will have different degrees
of this ulnar and radial deviation,
depending on what type of serve they're trying to hit.
For example, on kick serves,
players are going to make contact lower
with the racquet tip angled more to the side
and with their wrist neutral,
they're going to release up through contact.
Now on the flat and slice serve, however,
while you still are going to release up,
you'll notice that the critical point at contact
the racquet tip is actually going to be pointed higher.
And that basically means that you've done this ulnar
deviation motion a little bit earlier before contact.
Now, if you want us to make a video dedicated
to the kick serve wrist action,
definitely let us know in the comments below.
And if this video hits 3000 likes
we'll work on that right away.
One of the biggest keys to this video, that we made here is
that it's not just your form pronating
that creates all the power.
Top pros are actually going to use this unitary rotation
of both their shoulder and their form
in order to drive massive, racquet head speed into the shot.
And this internal rotation is going to help
with the last wrist action: The forward wrist flexion.
Now this is going to get a little bit complicated,
so bear with me here, because if you get this motion down
you'll finally start to feel that crack of the relaxed,
effortless, whip action
that you're going to feel on the serve.
Now fundamentally, the racquet and the hand
is going to have momentum going forward,
because of the motion you've done earlier
of driving the hitting arm and the elbow up.
And as you get into this fully supinated on-edge position,
you'll notice that if I don't do anything here,
the natural forward momentum of the racquet head
is gonna basically make me chop the ball
with the edge of the racquet.
But if I actually start to rotate the hand
and the racquet into the net,
you'll actually notice that this same forward momentum is
going to cause slight wrist flexion.
And this right here, unlocks tremendous amount of relaxation
and natural power on your serve.
It's the difference between feeling
this tight, clunky motion of trying to push the ball
versus feeling that like you're transferring
all of the momentum and energy that you've generated prior
to the serve to this critical moment at contact.
So what does this mean for you? Well,
all it comes down to
is your ability to actually time this internal rotation.
And if you do it right, this natural release
is gonna cause your racquet head
to drive massively forward and upward,
which is going to create that natural spin
and power on your serve.
So your legs, hips and trunk are going to create the power,
but through the proper hitting arm coordination,
you'll start to feel this massive racquet head speed
and passive forward and upward wrist release for power.
Now after contact,
one of the most harmful myths that I see
is to actively move your wrist
into this forward flexion motion
to try and add power to your serve.
The problem here is that the extensor muscles
in your forearm are just simply way too weak.
When all that force is applied to forward wrist flexion,
that is a recipe for disastrous injury.
If you look at top servers instead,
their wrist is only flexing forward
well into their follow-through position.
And this is most likely a result of preference
because some players just like that feeling
of completely relaxing the wrist
until it moves into flexion.
But for some players,
it might just be a result of doing
this ulnar deviation a little bit earlier.
As some players make contact higher
or more toward their right,
their wrist moves into full ulnar deviation
a little bit faster.
So the wrist is going to end up
curling forward to continue the momentum
of the racquet head,
until players can start to decelerate
with the larger muscles of their body,
like their shoulder, their lats, and their chest.
Now, the wrist is just one element of many
in the entire complexity of the serve motion
that's going to take your game to the next level.
So to help you out, we've made a full video series
here on YouTube that you can check out right away
by clicking the first link in the description below.
And thank you all so much for watching.
I love you guys so much,
all the comments and kind words
that we get in the comments section.
It is just incredibly unbelievable and inspiring,
and I just hope to make so many more helpful videos to come
until next time happens, go out and train hard.
I'll see you in the next video.
(funky music)