What Are Your Shoulders Doing?

When you swing your racquet on a forehand, is the arm pulling the shoulder, or is the shoulder pushing the arm?

If you’re hitting the ball correctly, your shoulder is driving the arm forward not only your groundstrokes, but during your serve, as well.

In fact, one of the leading tennis sport scientists, Dr. Bruce Elliott of the University of Western Australia, found that the majority (55 percent) of racquet head speed at impact on the serve is generated through internal shoulder rotation.

So, how the heck do you generate “internal shoulder rotation” on the forehand?

Just before hitting the ball, you open the hips first, causing the elbow to collapse against or near the body. The racquet naturally follows through across the opposite shoulder, but not in the same way it does with a “windmill” or “windshield wiper” forehand that some recreational players use (with the elbow out at contact).

If you use the lower and larger parts of your body to make a tennis stroke, you’ll hit the ball harder. If you attempt to hit the ball primarily by putting a death grip on your racquet and swinging your arm, your elbow will most likely be out at contact and you’ll be limited to hitting the ball with whatever energy you can generate from 3-4 pounds of arm.

Richard Schoenborn, one of the world’s most respected tennis coaches, has shared research from the German Tennis Federation which found that a professional tennis stroke requires about 4,000 watts of power. The human body can produce about 100-150 watts of energy per kilo of body weight, so that means that a large male can probably only generate about 600 watts of the 4,000 needed to hit a tennis ball.

Most of the “power” on a tennis stroke, therefore, comes from the big parts of the body.

Players who have a “trailing” shoulder, where the arm pulls the shoulder forward, are relying too much on the arm and generate too little power. AND, they repeatedly stress the shoulder and elbow.

Players with a good knee bend and upper body rotation who push off the ground and open their hips slightly before they hit the ball will notice that their arm collapses into the body, with the elbow in at contact. This drives the shoulder into the ball while transferring all of the energy generated from the big parts of the body into the ball.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The shoulder drive is NO SUBSTITUTE for a correct swing, and like an over-reliance on pronation on the serve, can lead to injury if used as the primary initiator of force. This means that players who hear about this new technique and try to use it without the proper torso rotation may put too much stress on the shoulder.

The shoulder driving into the shot should be the RESULT of the rest of the lower body doing its work and the hips opening up. Be careful to let your players know that while they can stand stiff-legged and face straight on to the ball and “push” their shoulder into the ball, this will not generate the pace they are seeking and can eventually cause an injury.

Again, the shoulder drive is a RESULT of the hips opening up, and should not be the first goal of the player.

For the backhand, an over-reliance on the arm also comes from a lack of upper body rotation. If you play against opponents with powerful backhands, you’ll notice that they coil, or turn, their upper body so much that you can see the back of their shirt before they strike the ball.

While a two-handed backhand makes it more difficult to open the hips into the shot, it’s still a component of the shot and allows players to use the legs, hips and trunk to drive the shoulder into the shot. For many players with a two-handed backhand, the left arm is dominant (for a right-hander), driving the racquet into the shot like a left-handed forehand. In this case, the left shoulder will drive the arm forward.

See the articles, Forehand Quick Fix and its accompanying drill for more on helping your players keep the elbow in on forehands.