If you look at all the pros on the tour,
you'll see that every single one of them is going to get off
the ground when they serve.
Why?
According to a study done by Dr. Mark Kovacs,
the leg and hip kinetic chain is responsible for producing
up to 51 to 55% of the total force that you're going
to generate on your serve.
And that means if you don't use your lower body correctly,
you won't be able to maximize your power.
And that might be why you feel tight.
And like, no matter how hard you swing,
you're not able to generate as much power
as you think you should be getting.
(gentle music)
I need to redeem myself.
Ah, that was good, what, oh, okay.
And secondly, getting off of the ground allows you to raise
your contact height by even a few inches
and that decreases your margin for error
allowing you to have a more consistent serve
just like this.
(gentle music)
Oh, that was actually in,
I thought that was going to go into the net.
Now the key to understanding how to get power from your leg
drive is understanding that it doesn't come from jumping
and it doesn't come from even the back leg
pushing the ground.
These are both common terms that I was taught when I was
growing up as a junior.
And it wasn't until I saw Wawrinka serve
that I started to question whether you actually needed
to jump or to execute some other technique.
Hint, hint, hint.
Am I good at creating suspense?
I dunno.
And to understand this you just need to look
at a volleyball server.
At the start of their serve you'll see tons of hip flexion.
What else will you see?
As they drive through the ground
they'll also swing their arms up and this helps them propel
their body even higher off the ground.
And this is going to ultimately allow them to spike
at crazier angles.
And they'll only begin this throwing motion
or their actual swing until they reach
the apex of their jump.
Compare that to a tennis serve.
You'll see that pros will have minimal hip flexion,
sometimes virtually no hip flexion in their load.
And they'll begin their swing simultaneously
with their leg drive.
And this is huge because this hip extension motion
is one of the most powerful movements
that your body can perform,
but it's purposely neglected or not used by the pros.
I mean if everybody was trying to get as high off the ground
as possible they'd be serving like Battistone.
And in case you didn't know
he played volleyball before tennis.
This is my, this is my Battistone impression by the way.
Oh.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I should, I should,
I should become a volleyball player.
Volleyball, volleyball.
I dunno.
Instead, they're going to focus on properly coordinating
the lower body with the upper body.
That means beginning this leg extension motion
with the start of the racket drop.
And this is going to allow them to transfer the force that
they do generate as efficiently,
and effectively into the racket as possible.
And this is one big theme that I want to emphasize
throughout this serve power series.
The transferring of power into your racket is more important
than the total power that you actually generate.
When you only focus on generating as much power as possible
it's like filling up a leaky bucket.
The more you fill it, the more you spill it.
Okay, that sounded way cooler in my head.
So again, by driving through the ground
and beginning your racket drive action simultaneously,
you're able to transfer as much force into the racket
at contact as possible just like this.
(gentle music)
Whoa, that felt crisp.
Now different pros are going to get off the ground
to different amounts.
Compare Wawrinka to Federer.
They're both about the same height.
They're both top players and top servers in the world,
but one server is regarded as one of the best in history
while the other is, I can't talk bad about Federer.
I'm just kidding.
At the end of Wawrinka's serve in his trophy position,
you'll see that he has very minimal hip flexion.
And as he drives through the ground,
it's going to almost look like he's falling into the court
as opposed to driving up and jumping.
This is my Wawrinka serve impersonation.
I nailed it right?
No I'm just kidding.
Now, if you look at Federer's serve,
right before he explodes up to contact,
you'll actually see that he has a slight amount
of hip flexion.
Now it's a very small angle,
but this range of motion gives him a powerful hip extension
that allows him to get a few inches higher off the ground.
Now I'm willing to bet that when Federer is serving,
he's not focusing on jumping as high as he can.
If anything, he's driving through the ground
in order to initiate his kinetic chain.
And as a result, getting higher off the ground,
if he's even thinking about that at all.
So getting off the ground is going to be a by-product
of coordinating the leg drive
and the racket drop action correctly.
Now along with getting your body up off the ground,
the leg drive actually helps with a few other really
powerful and transformative motions.
First of all, when you press your legs,
specifically the back leg,
you're able to propel your hips to rotate in.
So if right now you tend to not utilize your entire body
on your serve, maybe your chest stays sideways
and you push it with your arm.
The key is all in loading and unloading your body.
So as you load your entire body
and you press the ground hard,
you're able to naturally unlock
the rest of your kinetic chain.
Now, along with the actual body rotation,
you also get what we call the power tilt action.
This is where you have forward hip flexion,
primarily from the front leg.
And that's going to cause your body to tilt forward
into the court.
This forward tilting motion of your trunk is going to help
you generate what's commonly called
in biomechanics angular momentum.
This is the rotational force of your racket that goes up
into contact and creates that big snap.
And you'll notice a huge difference here.
If I keep my body straight up and I try,
even if I serve as hard as I can.
Oh my God, that feels so bad.
Even though it went in.
Maybe I should do that from now on.
Versus watch if I exaggerate this power tilt motion
and I actually run forward to the net.
(grunts)
Power just comes so much more effortlessly.
So on that note, I'm feeling on now.
So let's get into some drills.
Alright athletes, the first thing we're going to work on
is the launch progressions.
Here's how it's going to work.
You're actually just going to get into your stance first
and serve without getting off the ground at all.
So you're here, really softly, don't even launch.
And as you finish you want to get your back heel up
off the ground.
So your toe, your back toes should be the only thing
touching the ground by the time you finish your serve,
just like that.
And this is going to encourage you to get your hips
to rotate because when you rotate your hips,
you'll see that naturally your back heel
will come off the ground.
So what you don't want to do here is stay flat-footed
on both feet and just use your arm like that.
Use your entire body here, rotate and get that back heel up.
And from here, once you're comfortable with that,
we're going to simply step the back leg through,
just like that.
And it's going to signify getting more hip rotation.
So I'm here in my stance.
And after I hit the ball,
I'm going to step my leg through.
You don't want to over-rotate here.
So what you can end up doing is tossing
and getting your foot around in this over-rotated position.
You want to stay close.
You want to actually keep that back leg on the ground
until after you hit, like so.
So once you get comfortable with that,
you're going to start launching just slightly
so that you get a few inches,
maybe one credit card height off the ground.
I know for some of you guys, that's all you can do.
(laughing)
Dude what's wrong with me?
Dislike, unsubscribe.
Oh my God.
Okay, so here's how that's going to look.
I'm launching ever so slightly here,
soft launch, just like that.
Then slowly you can start getting a deeper knee bend
and pressing against the ground harder
so you can accelerate right into the net.
So soft knee bend here, launching up.
And next up in order to work on the forward power transfer
this forward tilting of your trunk.
One of the best things you can do is actually practice
running through your serve.
So I'm going to do a little bit of serve
and volley footwork here.
As I hit, I'm going to run forward through my serve.
Running through my service.
You thought I was going down to tee him.
And, I guess I'm not Kyrgios. (laughing)
And last up there is no launch without the landing.
Your body isn't going to feel safe enough
to actually go high if you don't know how to land softly
and injury free.
So there's a very simple drill you can do here.
Simply get on one leg, get your back leg behind your body.
So if you're a righty,
you're going to get onto your left leg
and get your right leg bent behind you.
And from here,
you're going to slowly go from that one leg position
to two legs and we're working on getting splits up.
So you're going to go one leg bounce
and two leg split.
One leg bounce and split.
Same thing on your serve.
You're here, one leg bounce, split.
Now with the ball here, load, unload,
one leg bounce, and split.
Alright athletes I'm feeling it right now.
So we're going to play some points out with Dayday,
Dayday coming for you.
(funky music)