hey guys in today's video i want to talk about how to correctly position the elbow on the tennis
serve and you saw the thumbnail i said don't do this and i mean it if you do this under specific
circumstances you're going to suffer greatly on your serve but is not by any means a wrong
position of the elbow it is in fact the optimal way to position your elbow prior to unloading
your serve but before we get into the problems that some recreational players experience with
over coiling on their serve first i want to show you the only elbow position that
is wrong on the tennis serve and that is if the elbow happens to be positioned on the outside
of the body in other words on the hitting side of the body if you happen to have this position
of your elbow your rotation on the serve is going to greatly suffer and the reason for
that is that the elbow if it's positioned on the hitting side of the body doesn't have any space
to go out so if i position my elbow here now the elbow can start going out and this will
initiate my torso rotation so if i start with my elbow here i have very little room to do so
so players that have the elbow position on the outside of the body will suffer with sub-optimal
torso rotation but also interestingly because the arm is in quite an uncomfortable position it kind
of feels tight right behind the shoulder here i find that a lot of recreational players will
also have an insufficient racket drop when they position the elbow in this way
prior to unloading the serve and if you happen to have the elbow on the wrong side of the body one
possible cause is your stance so some recreational players will have a very open stance i'm sure
you've seen players serving like this very open and now what happens because the body is so
open the elbow will naturally be more towards the outside as the racket goes up into the trophy phase
so regardless of whether you have a pinpoint stance or a platform stance the back foot
always has to be behind the front foot so you should never set up your serve in this way
because now while it is still possible to coil the elbow you will have to force this movement
at a later portion of the service motion it is not the optimal way to do it generally speaking
as long as the back foot is behind the front foot as you go up into the trophy phase naturally the
elbow will be further behind the body so even on a pinpoint stance if we set the serve up with the
back foot more behind the front foot even though we're pulling that back foot up towards the front
foot or even on the outside this doesn't matter in the initial coiling movement of the serve
it's because the coiling is going to occur prior to that back foot coming up so this is what it's
going to look like on most pinpoint stance serves as i take my racquet back and up this is where the
coil starts and now as the racket starts getting closer to the trophy position it's then when that
back foot slides up so even on a pinpoint stance it is really important how the feet are positioned
in determining how far back your elbow will naturally end up now of course if you had
your feet more parallel to each other you still can coil but as i said in the beginning you will
have to do it at a later stage in your serve so it is still possible on a pinpoint stance or a platform
stance to coil later in the service motion but this is generally a more difficult process than
achieving a more natural coil from the feet being further apart all right so now that we got the
stances out of the way let's talk about the elbow position that is used by some of the greatest
servers in the history of tennis sampras becker federer ivanisevic they all have their elbow
very far back in other words they're coiling their bodies their elbow is on the outside of
the body and there's absolutely no doubt that this is the optimal way to serve i serve like
this myself and the reason for that is that we are increasing the range of motion when the elbow
is on the outside of the body now there's a lot more space for the elbow to come out
and therefore there's more power potential stored in that movement
all right guys i'm going to try a couple of serves the first one i'm gonna do
with the neutral position of the elbow and let's see what that one feels like
okay now my regular serve with a bigger coil where my left elbow is on the outside of the body
so there's a huge difference on my serve whether i put my elbow
here in a neutral position or if i put it further back when i put the elbow further back
i get a lot more power so you're probably thinking nick are you insane why are you telling us don't
do this when this is obviously the optimal way to strike a tennis serve well guys i'm
not making this stuff up i do a tremendous amount of video analysis and many players
at the recreational level are forcing their coil they are forcing this elbow to go very far back
and what happens with a lot of these players is that they don't possess proper serve fundamentals
and in addition to that the racket doesn't accelerate fast enough so what ends up happening
with these players is that when they're over coiling they're unable to get out of this coiling
position and they have a sideways approach towards the ball which will always result in an accidental
slice so let me explain that in a little more detail what happens on any high level serve
whether we're talking about the flat serve kick serve or the slice serve is that we're going
to have a forward approach towards the ball in other words no matter how much we coil we could
even be coiling like john mcenroe with a extreme lateral stance and the chest pointing towards the
back fence no matter what coil high-level players get into prior to accelerating
the racket always comes out towards the back fence and then the approach towards the ball is forwards
so what happens to some recreational players when they coil like sampras or federer is that they're
unfortunately unable to get out of that large coil whether they don't have proper fundamentals
on the serve or whether they don't accelerate fast enough in any case the racket does not
come out towards the back fence and now these players because they're over coiling because
they're sticking this elbow out they have a sideways approach towards the ball now
what ends up happening because the racket is traveling sideways towards the ball naturally it
will continue going sideways and what that does it creates an accidental slice serve and these
type of players have a very hard time getting the maximum pace on their serve and you're probably
thinking what about the kick nick that kind of sounds funny but even on the kick serve we don't
want a sideways approach towards the ball because we're going to be hitting the ball too thin so
even on a kick serve if you're going from the left side on right handers towards the right and then
continue going towards the right you're going to be hitting the ball extremely thin this is
not the proper kick serve movement what happens on any high level kick serve is that
no matter what the coiling setup is the racket will go back towards the back fence there will
be a forward approach towards the ball and then a lateral delivery shortly thereafter
so what's the solution to coiling too much and not being able to get out of a coil well the solution
is super simple it is something that a lot of atp players do but it is something that almost
all wta players do which is a neutral position of the elbow in the loading phase of the serve
now it's very important that you understand this distinction it is of course
better to have the elbow go further back the best serves in the history of the game have
this type of setup however some players are unfortunately unable to get out of
this position so it is a million times better if you have problems because of this setup to go a
little bit further back into a neutral position in the loading phase of your serve because from
here you still have enough room to get the elbow out and initiate your torso rotation
now some of the greatest wta servers of all time have had this exact setup on their serve
for example karina pliskova who is the best server on the wta tour over the past few years she has a
neutral position of the elbow in the loading phase of her serve now if you followed me for a while
you know that i don't recommend that you copy anyone you have to develop your own style but if
you were gonna take on some serve characteristics it is in my experience better for the recreational
level to copy wta players if you want to know in great detail why this is the case check out
my video titled what you can learn from the best wta servers in any case i understand that we all
want to be like roger we all want to get that big coil it looks kind of cool but it is unfortunately
a big problem for some players so what i do with a lot of my students who have the problem of not
being able to get out of a coil that's too large i instruct them to put their elbow in a more neutral
position so from here the rotation into the ball is going to be a lot easier there's going to be
less space to cover in other words it's a lot easier to rotate into the ball from here if
you don't have a lot of acceleration naturally on your serve if you have some physical limitations
so the corrective technique if you happen to have these same problems is to simply go
from here to here when you do so from here it's going to be a lot easier to rotate
into the ball and you're going to be serving faster and more accurately as a result of that