hey guys in today's video i'm going to talk about the role of the back leg on the serve and let's
get right into it so on the serve the back leg is very important and it's mainly there to supply
rhythm to the serve and let me show you what that looks like so on the serve you're going to start
by shifting the weight onto your front foot this is very important you can bounce the ball inside
the court and then you can connect the racket and the ball together inside the court preferably and
while you do this the weight has to be on your front foot now from here you are going to shift
the weight onto the back foot this is what's referred to as the rocking motion so you're
going to go from the front foot to the back foot now when you do this there's a couple of options
option number one is that you can lift the tip of your front foot up into the air and just keep the
heel on the ground and option is number two you can do the pete sampras technique where you put
your hip back a little bit this is gonna make the rocking motion even more effective so let's
go through it again we're gonna be on the front foot we're gonna bounce the ball inside the court
connect the ball and the racket together now we're shifting the weight onto the back foot and here's
where all the confusion starts so a lot of players think that you actually accelerate from the back
foot and it's very confusing i'm going to clear it up in today's video so yes you are shifting
the weight from the back foot onto the front foot there's absolutely no doubt about that so now when
i start going forward i'm going to initiate my toss and start going towards my front foot so yes
i'm using this weight transfer from back to front but it's happening while i'm tossing the ball
there's going to be some stylistic variations at the professional level when the weight transfer
towards the front foot begins so some players will shift the weight towards the front foot
at the initiation of the toss other players will wait a little bit longer so they'll stay
on the back foot toss the ball and then close to the release they will start shifting the weight
forward however all professional players will have the weight shifted towards the front foot
when the ball has been released and the reason why is that all players will toss the ball inside the
court now some will do this less than others but what happens when the toss is inside the court
is that naturally the body will start leaning towards that ball that's inside the baseline and
this is what i call forward momentum it's one of the easiest ways to get power on the serve
and actually the rocking motion specifically the back leg can actually help with forward momentum
so all you have to do is go through the rhythm that i just described where you go front foot then
you go on to the back foot and now you're going to toss the ball in front and then just shift
all your weight forward it will naturally start going into the court see i hit this serve kind of
lightly and yet my whole body weight went into the contact ended up going forward which provided me
with more power and here's where a lot of players get frustrated when it comes to the back leg and
they try to load the back foot in the trophy phase of the serve so when they're about to accelerate
they are trying to get all the weight onto the back foot and try to accelerate from the back foot
some players have told me they imagine like doing a shot put loading everything on this back leg
and then going up towards the contact and one player in particular had tried to do this for
a year and he couldn't feel the pressure on the back leg and he came to me for a lesson he was
very frustrated and asked for my help and i told him you can do this for another year or two years
you will never be able to load the back leg if you keep throwing the ball inside the baseline
the only way you can load the back foot on the serve if you end up throwing the ball behind the
baseline and why is that that previously explained that when we throw the ball inside the baseline
we are slightly leaning forward and then when we throw the ball behind the baseline then in fact if
it's somewhere around here we can load this back leg and accelerate from here now the problem is
that when you throw the ball behind the baseline you have almost zero chance to get the ball inside
the service box this is one of the worst things you can do in fact is the number one contributor
to the serve going long when you end up throwing the ball behind your head so with this particular
student i presented him with the research and i've made two videos on the leg drive and i explained
this in great detail which basically is the fact that all professional players will have the back
foot come off the ground first now why is that because they are all leaning forward they're all
putting more pressure on that front foot because they're all throwing the ball inside the baseline
in fact some of the greatest servers ever like guy forget and venus williams they kind of serve off
of one leg guy forget didn't even set the back foot down and venus williams has very little pressure
on that back foot when she is in the loading phase the same goes for john isner
and goran ivanisevic now these are some of the best servers in the history of the game
and when i presented my student with this information he understood that there's nothing
wrong with feeling more pressure on that front leg there's nothing wrong with throwing the ball more
inside the baseline and what he started doing was simply not even think about the legs because most
of the stuff will happen naturally so when you throw the ball inside the baseline you go through
the rhythm and that are previously explained explained naturally the weight will start shifting
onto the front foot and you don't really have to force this on the other hand if you're trying to
make something happen from that back leg you will have a very difficult time doing
so and it will cause adverse effects to your serve and here's the proof that you can't load
the back leg when you're leaning forward on the serve grab the fence with your dominant arm put
your non-dominant arm up in the air and now simply lean forward and you don't have to have an extreme
lean like this it's a slight leaning forward that would mimic the trophy phase what you will feel
is that when you do this the slight leaning forward is that most of the pressure is going
to be on the front foot so if you try to put the pressure on the back foot you just simply can't
your center of gravity has changed now all of a sudden you're leaning forward it's not here
anymore so naturally all the body weight is shifting forward now we are balancing
some of this out by having our toss arm vertical to the ground possibly maybe we're going to even
put the hip slightly in to give us a little bit more balance but still all the weight is going
to be absorbed by that front foot you can simply feel this when you do this exercise the only way
you would be able to put pressure on the back leg is if you lifted the front foot off the
ground now the weight is on the back leg but once you set that front foot on the ground naturally
most of the pressure is transferred towards the front foot and i know what if some of you guys
are thinking why don't i just lift the front foot up in the air and serve off the back foot
this is going to be absolutely impossible because you won't be able to balance your body let me try
it out so now i'm going to load that back foot lift the front foot in the air and i'm unable to
balance my body and this is not a good serve also i will add that it's not optimal to serve off the
front foot either yes there has been some players like i previously mentioned guy forget who have served
off of one leg this is something that i do correct when i see it on my players there is an advantage
to having both feet on the ground even though more of the weight is towards the front foot but having
both feet on the ground will provide you with much needed stability in the trophy phase of your
serve now some of the greatest rocking motions in the history of serving are boris becker and pete
sampras so you guys sure remember boris becker with this crazy rocking motion where he was going
like this and he would go towards the end of the serve a little bit slower like this and then this
so that helped him get into his loading position and it helped him generate more power now my
personal favorite is pete sampras and it is something that i did try to copy getting my hip
a little bit more back on that second stage of the rocking motion let me try that and demonstrate it
for you guys so this is the pete sampras serve he used to go forward and now he used to connect the
racquet and the ball while popping his hip out like this the ball on the racket will be kind of high
the tip of the front will go up and the weight would be on the back foot while the hip is back
i'm sure he had the feet a little bit more apart so he was like this and now he would
start transferring the weight forward as he initiated the toss and he would get great
forward momentum and a great acceleration on the serve let me try it again here's the pete sampras serve
now you don't have to copy this particular thing from sampras this is just his own
individual thing that he likes doing uh keep your own style on the serve but what you should
definitely copy from all the top players especially sampras is that rocking motion which
will provide you with more forward momentum now the thing that you shouldn't do is try to load
the back foot in the trophy phase this is first of all not possible unless the ball is thrown
behind the baseline which is something you don't want to do and do not waste your time simply don't
think of your legs go through your rhythm and you will effortlessly generate forward momentum
while the front foot is naturally going to be loaded in the trophy phase of your serve