hey guys in today's video i'm going to discuss whether the hitting arm can be extended or bent
on all the different tennis strokes let's get right into it with the serve so on
the serve a lot of beginner players will find comfort in not extending the arm so there's a
sense of safety when the arm is bent at contact the contact is occurring
closer to the body and novice players feel more comfort that way and what needs to happen to be
be able to generate the most leverage and the most power on the serve and also to be able to get
more net clearance the arm has to be fully extended at the moment of contact and if you
have a good toss and good acceleration this will naturally happen and here's a few things that will
prevent you from having a fully extended arm so obviously if your toss is very low on the serve
you will not be able to extend the arm and you would therefore lose a lot of power
and lose that higher net clearance if you've seen my previous toss videos always say it's better to
toss the ball too high than too low this will help you uh to get that full extension a lot
of people ask me nick what about when it's windy should i still throw the ball high it's a perfect
day for that question because we have 20 mile an hour wind you can see my shirt blowing in
the wind so on a day like today i might actually reduce my toss height a little bit i might not go
as high as i normally do but generally speaking the statement is still true that it's always
better to throw the ball too high than too low and the reason is when you throw the ball too low
there's absolutely no way to correct a toss that's too low and you can always wait for a higher toss
to come down so despite the big wind i'm still going to try to toss this ball high and hit it
on the way down this is going to help me to get that full extension at contact now at the advanced
recreational level there's another problem that some players experience where they do throw the
ball high enough and they still don't quite get the full extension and here's the reason why there
might be a lack of acceleration so the racket is not accelerating fast enough to the contact and
therefore the ball ends up dropping too low and the arm is bent as a result of it so let me try to
demonstrate that i'm going to throw the ball high but i'm going to accelerate slowly and therefore
be bent at contact so this is something that i do see at the recreational level
from time to time and the solution to this is that you must learn the proper serve fundamentals
including all the different power sources on the serve so that you can accelerate the
racket as fast as possible and meet the ball at a higher level
and on to the next shot which is one-handed backhand and here we do want to have the arm as extended as possible now
it's actually okay to have a slight mini bend there's even some elite tennis players that have the arm
slightly bent but you do generally want to keep the arm as straight as possible now be
careful not to hyper extend the arm there are some players that will hyperextend the arm this will
make the arm too stiff and you will get a lack of acceleration because of that so make sure that it
feels comfortable as you're extending your arm now here's the reason why the arm needs to be
extended on the one-handed backhand we're using the back side of our hand we're naturally weaker
on this side so if we were to hit a backhand with a bent arm we would number one lose range of motion
so the stroke will overall be much shorter and we'll get less power because of that so
by extending the arm we get a longer lever and it's going to help us generate more natural power
and remember that when it comes to the one-handed backhand you have to extend the arm
prior to the forward phase there are some players who will keep the arm bent
and then extend into the contact in my experience this type of movement going from bent to straight
shortens the stroke and again you will get a lack of acceleration because of it so make
sure that when you're extending the arm that it occurs prior to the forward phase
on the one-handed slice is going to be somewhat similar only that we are going
to extend a little bit closer to the contact so the arm is going to be bent longer in other
words so we're going to keep it bent and the arm is going to extend somewhere around here
and it is very crucial that even on your slice backhand in order to get that longer
lever in order to increase the range of motion in your stroke
that the arm indeed is extended prior to the contact and it remains extended on the finish
Two-handed backhand is one of the most complex shot in tennis I would put it right behind the
forehand and the serve that's where the two-handed backhand comes in and the reason why it can be hit
with many different arm structures so there are some players that will hit the two-handed backhand
with both arms extended there are some players who will hit the backhand with one arm extended
and one arm bent and there are some players who will hit the two-handed backhand with both
arms bent so this is by no means a bad technique if you happen to have a two handed
backhand where both elbows are bent i personally hit the backhand like this
and some really amazing backhands on the wta tour have a tendency to hit the backhand
the same way and even players on the atp tour such as alexander zverev will hit the backhand
with both arms bent and since we're talking about the left side of the body now we can transition
into the forehand because it is different when we're hitting the ball with this
side whether it be a one-handed forehand or a two-handed backhand when we have this movement
we can allow the arm to stay bent and we don't necessarily have to straighten it and why is
that the case because we are much stronger hitting from this side versus this side so if we hit from
this side bent there is very little strength we have to extend the arm to get a little bit more range
of motion however when we're hitting with this side of the body we can comfortably hit a ball
with the arm bent and this is also the case for the two-handed backhand the left side of the body
can be bent because of that now if you watch my other forehand videos and i'm going to link
to some in the description below you can check them out i often discuss the difference between
a straight arm forehand and a bent arm forehand this is absolutely due to genetic prepositions so
if you naturally have a forehand with a bent arm this is absolutely fine and if you naturally
have a forehead that has a straight arm at contact this is fine as well but here are the
things that you want to avoid so there are some players who will be bent in the preparation stage
and now they will extend into the contact or even worse they will be bent at contact and extend
after contact if you do both of those things you will severely hurt the consistency and power
of your forehand and just remember that there are absolutely no elite players who will extend after
contact so even the players that have a straight arm immediately after contact the racquet will go
up across and back so there's no further extension of the arm and even players that have a bent arm
will never extend the arm further they will remain bent throughout the entirety of the stroke this is
true for some of the best forehands in the history of the game now a lot of players
think falsely that you can correct bad timing or a bad contact by straightening and extending the
arm this is used as a corrective technique and i have to tell you that the extension of the
arm has nothing to do with proper contact so you could easily fully extend the arm and still make
improper contact so if i hit a forehand like this where my dominant shoulder is behind the
non-dominant shoulder the fact that i'm extending the arm forward does nothing to the contact
because now my body is completely blocking the arm and i'm still hitting the ball behind even though
i'm stretching the arm out and what needs to happen on the forehand whether it's a bent arm or
a straight arm the contact needs to occur with the dominant shoulder in front and like i said some of
the greatest forehands of all time whether it be the females or the males have a contact with the
elbow very close to the body there's nothing wrong with this type of contact if the dominant shoulder
is in front because now we have all this open space in front of us where we can easily swing
up across and back and continue to rotate the body and therefore connect the ball to the core
and on to the next shot which is the volley so on the volley similar to the forehand you never
want to start bent and then extend forward into the contact this will do nothing to your volley
what you need to do on the volley is make it a deflective shot and try to freeze the racket at
the moment of contact and what i find with the volley if you have the arm slightly bent that
number one you have more feel we always have a little bit more feel when we're playing the
ball with the arm bent and closer to the body but we also have a lot more strength when the arm is
bent since the volley is a deflective shot we need to create the stability of the racket head at the
moment of contact this is much better done with a slightly bent arm than a fully extended arm and
this is also the case for the one-handed backhand volley you don't want to have the arm completely
extended this will make the stability worse it is much more comfortable to hit the one-handed backhand volley
with a slightly bent arm
Of course when it comes to emergency shots at the net
will have to stretch your arm to be able to reach the ball this is an emergency situation and it's
perfectly fine to do this but what i find with a lot of recreational players they will
unnecessarily straighten the arm without moving their body so this is kind of their their first
instinct when the ball comes laterally just to go like this this is something that you want to avoid
and when you're moving laterally keep the arm close to your body and you can have the advantages
that i previously mentioned and leave the full extension of the arm only for emergency situations
and guys when it comes to specialty shots whether it be a short little angle top spin shot like this
or even a a drop shot or even a top spin lob this is always easier done with a bent arm and for the
same reason as the volley when we are have the arm slightly bent we have more feel so any specialty
shot that you hit with the exception of emergency shots such as squash shots where we're stretching out
but any specialty shots where you're in control and you're doing it in an offensive situation
you're better off doing those shots with a bent arm because you have a lot more feel when you
do so and to simplify this whole video if you're dealing with the back side of your arm any shot
that involves the back side of your arm hit off the ground you want to have the arm straight
so whether it be a backhand slice or a topspin backhand you want to have the arms straight when
we're dealing with this side of the arm you have options you don't necessarily have to be straight
you can be bent it also involves the two-handed back and you can be a little bit more bent here
because we are using this side of the arm on the serve obviously because a completely different
shot we want to have that extension for power and net clearance you definitely don't want to hit it
with a bent arm and when it comes to the specialty shot because we have more feel
when we hit the ball closer to the body you don't have to extend you're going to find more comfort
when the arm is slightly bent and this applies to the volley as well