most people believe that when we play tennis if we were to move our body
in the direction of the incoming ball and also continue to move forward
after the moment of contact that this will greatly contribute to the quality of our strokes
something like this on the forehand moving forward and then continuing to move forward
the idea of moving our body forward on our tennis shots makes sense it is very logical to think
that moving our body weight through the shot will help us to play tennis
and also most people will throw the ball for fun whether they're bowling or throwing the baseball
naturally on those type of things we are going to move our weight from the back foot on to the
front foot and this is not something that people have to learn this is just naturally
how people throw we move our weight forward when we're throwing the ball
now what about tennis this is where it gets a little bit complex so i showed you the serve
in my intro it is absolutely 100 fact that we are moving forward on the tennis serve
also there is going to be situations where we are going to move forward
on our volleys and our ground strokes
and this is going to be the case whether it's a forehand or a backhand when we're attacking a
short ball and when we're literally hitting the ball on the run with no time to get our
feet set and position on a ball like this where we have to run through it we are going to be moving
forward through the ball whether it be a forehand or backhand or whether it be your volleys
at the same time there's going to be situations where we're going to be moving to this side we're
going to be moving to this side as well and also we're going to be moving backwards very frequently
where our body weight is carrying us back and we're either hitting a forehand or a backhand
so the important question is what happens when our feet are set in other words we are not
hitting on the run we're in a set position do we still move forward absolutely not
if you do so you're going to greatly hinder your ability to control the ball and you're therefore
going to have a very difficult time keeping your shots inside the baseline and guys i know this
sounds a little bit confusing i'm going to go back to the serve and it's going to make
a lot of sense when i explain the difference between a serve and a ground stroke for example
so the trajectory on the tennis serve is going to be more down the trajectory on a ground stroke
is going to be more up so what happens on the tennis serve we are throwing the ball inside
the baseline naturally when we lean forward our body weight is going to move down and forward
take a look again i'm going to throw the ball inside and naturally my body weight is going
to move forward into the court now this doesn't only help me with power but it also helps me
with my trajectory i want to be able to get that ball inside the baseline
and going forward and down at the same time helps tremendously when we're talking about a trajectory
of a tennis serve now on the forehand for example and this is going to be the same
on your two-handed backhand and the one-handed backhand the trajectory is different it's going
up and then down because now we can't have a downward trajectory it's impossible the ball
will not clear the net our contact is way lower than for the serve interestingly however when
we're striking a high forehand depending on our position in the court now we can have more of a
downward swing path to deliver more of a downward trajectory on a high forehand
so guys when we're talking about high balls it is absolutely okay to go forward and it's
not actually only forward it's even down with the upper body a little bit you can see this on high
forehands you can see it is on high two-handed backhands you don't see it so much on a high
a one-handed backhand for reasons that i'm gonna get into in a different video also
if you're hitting high volleys it is absolutely okay to go forward and down with the upper body
and it's the same thing on the overhead just like the serve it is okay to go forward and
down at the same time however if we're talking about the bread and butter shots which is the
vast majority of the ground strokes that we're hitting from stationary positions
at a lower level it is absolutely no benefit to go forward because the racket needs to go up
now why does the racket need to go up because the trajectory of the ball is not straight it is more
going up and down because we need to get the ball over the net and inside the baseline on the other
side so when this is the case going forward on a shot like that will actually be counter intuitive
to what you're trying to do with your ground strokes now the racket doesn't only go up on
the vast majority of ground strokes it also goes across this is the case for ninety percent of the
ground stroke struck at the high level so what happens on the forehand for example that will
make contact with the dominant shoulder in front and down and now immediately after contact the
racket will go up and across at the same time in a rotational way now here's what people get
confused over yes there's absolutely a forward phase on all strokes whether it's the forehand
there's a forward phase where the butt cap is going towards the ball whether it's a backhand
there's absolutely a forward phase on the backhand and even on the two-handed backhand there's also
a forward phase but what most people fail to realize is that the forward phase is happening
in conjunction with the body's torso rotation i'm going to go through the forehand the one-handed
backhand and the two-handed backhand real quick to explain to you what happens in the forward
phase so on the forehand we're going to sequence the torso rotation early when the racquet starts
to drop so that when we get into this phase the beginning stage of the forward phase when that
butt cap turns and it starts pointing towards the other side now our chest is going to be fairly
open and now it's not going to stay here in this position the chest is going to continue
to rotate while the racket is moving forward towards the ball resulting in a contact that's
made with the dominant shoulder in front take a look again here's the forward phase we're going
to go forward here while we're already fairly open now we're going to continue to rotate the
racket's going to go forward and we'll make contact with the ball take a look at the
one-handed backhand we're going to set the one in the backhand up with a big shoulder turn and
now we're going to rotate into the contact while the racket is going forward same thing happens on
a two-handed backhand we're going to rotate with our shoulders while the racket is going forward
now this is an undeniable fact take a look at any high-level player whether it be your local
high-level junior college player or even elite players that we watch on tv these are fundamental
elements of ground strokes that are so important that if players didn't have torso rotation they
wouldn't be able to play at the high level here's what a forehand for example looks like without
torso rotation now when i don't rotate my torso i am going entirely forward with the racket it is a
linear stroke in other words so here it would make sense to go forward with the shot now if you hit
the forehand this way you're of course going to get power no doubt about it you can throw your
body into the shot and get a tremendous amount of power but you're going to be lacking in a great
amount of control it's going to be impossible to hit the ball very hard and control it at the same
time and this is why all shots at the high level have a circular swing path whether it be your
forehand or the one-handed backhand the two-handed backhand or even the slice backhand it is all
a circular rotational shot that's accompanied with the body's torso rotation and the primary
reason why this is taking place at the high level is control and not power now power is indirectly
affected by that because players have so much control they can throw their whole body at the
shot they can absolutely rip the ball whack the ball whatever you want to call it they can hit
it as hard as they possibly want without losing control so indirectly a rotational shot has a lot
more power than a linear shot now of course most people find it logical that when you throw your
body in the direction of the ball and in the direction of the intended target of your shot
this makes sense that we get a lot of power from that because we're used from our intuitive throw
that we go forward when we throw the ball also when we're bowling we're going forward so most
people have this idea that if they do the same thing on a tennis stroke if they go forward
they're going to get a lot of benefits from it however the undeniable fact that i'm willing to
go through it one more time just so you understand when we hit the forward phase on any stroke but
especially the forehand we're already going to be open with our chest now the body is not going to
get stuck like this while the arm goes forward the body is going to continue to rotate why because we
started in a turned position and now as the racket is dropping we start opening up so then when we
hit the forward phase the body continues to rotate now take a look at this movement you see i'm going
forward but what am i doing at the same time i'm rotating and this is going to be the case for any
forehand whether you're hitting it closed stance like this or whether you're hitting it open stance
so yes there is forward movement on tennis strokes that are stuck from stationary positions but
it is happening in conjunction with the body's torso rotation so that when you look from a player
from above you'll see the the player is spinning in a circle with a wide base whether it be any
stance you wish there's always torso rotation there's very little forward movement you can
just look at the player's feet for example in a semi-open stance position you will often see
that the player's body will not move forward at all they will be hitting the ball off their
dominant leg and the dominant leg will remain in the same position if you're talking about
a close stance forehand they will hit the ball off the non-dominant leg and if you take a look
at the non-dominant leg it will stay in the same position as the back leg wraps around the body so
that means there's absolutely no forward movement on the body on the vast majority of ground strokes
i want to make sure that you understand this one distinction which is when we're moving
around the court yes our body is going to be moving in many different positions so when we
hit a short ball yes our body is going to be moving forward the same way it is when
we're moving backwards or to the sides however the vast majority of tennis strokes are struck
when players feet are set in position and when this is the case the body is absolutely not moving
forward on the ground strokes and as i already mentioned earlier when we strike a higher ball
now the trajectory is more downwards and here it's okay to go down and forward with the body whether
it be a serve an overhead or even a high forehand it's okay to have the body go forward while we're
executing that type of shot however what i told you before the sequencing of the torso rotation
and the torso rotation is going to remain the same the fact that we are hitting the ball more
at a downward trajectory will allow us to get a body weight into the shot a little bit more
so guys forget the idea of going forward i know this is something that's intuitive to you as a
tennis player you have this idea that you're going to improve your shots by going into them
but remember tennis can be very counter intuitive when you're a beginner you pick up a
racquet the most natural thing to do is serve it a forehand grip and approach the ball with
the strings and then kind of swat at the balls like this now is this the correct way to play
absolutely not now most players figure it out after a while that the secret
to tennis is consistency you got to get that ball inside the baseline over the net
as many times as possible and now the high level is defined by the ability to hit the ball
as hard as you possibly can without sacrificing control and how can you achieve this well
you absolutely cannot achieve it by having this idea of going forward through the shot
you will go forward naturally on the shots that require you to go forward but on the
vast majority of your ground stroke what's going to give you the most amount of control
is a circular up across and back swing path that doesn't require any forward movement of the body