Using shoulder rotation well in tennis forehands and backhands is the key to hitting the ball with good control and effortless power.
Shoulder rotation is the third fundamental of tennis biomechanics as described in the original overview article on tennis fundamentals.
We’ve already covered balance and hip rotation, and in this article we’ll go deeper into the explanations of why shoulder rotation is important and how we can help the player feel it.
How The Lack Of Shoulder Rotation Affects Tennis Strokes
How do tennis strokes look when they are executed with or without incorrect shoulder rotation?
On the forehand, a player with incorrect shoulder rotation stays too much sideways and the shoulder of their hitting arm stays back. The hips also tend not to rotate.
A usual sign on disconnected shoulders are disconnected arms. (not coordinated)
A typical sign of poor forehand shoulder rotation is the disengaged non-dominant arm, which tends to dangle down alongside the body.
That tells us that the left shoulder (for right-handed players) is disconnected from the right shoulder, and therefore they do not rotate together as the forehand is being hit.
When the shoulders are connected well – meaning there is a certain firmness across the shoulder girdle, upper chest muscles and upper back muscles – then the whole upper body rotates as one unit from the start to the end of the forehand.
The non-dominant arm is coordinated with the hitting arm.
The result of this disconnect is that we cannot transfer power from body rotation into the ball and we also cannot control the ball well, which I will explain in a bit.
The two-handed backhand with poor or no shoulder rotation looks very similar to the forehand, as the hitting shoulder stays back and the player uses only their arms and wrists to move the racket through space and hit the ball.
On the one-handed backhand, lack of shoulder rotation is not as common because the body tends to coil and uncoil more naturally as players hit the backhand.
The lack of shoulder rotation typically happens when the player has been instructed to stay sideways as they are hitting the backhand and they’ve taken this instruction too literally or too far.
If shoulders don't rotate even one bit then there's no power.
As the player is swinging towards the ball, they don’t allow their shoulders to rotate at all and they force their body to stay sideways.
That again prevents any force from body rotation to be transferred into the ball.
The correct way to rotate the shoulders on the one-handed backhand is to let the shoulders move while contacting the ball and then stop them from over-rotating.
Shoulders have to rotate to around 45 degrees even on the one-handed backhand.
Another stroke that often lacks shoulder rotation is the backhand slice as the player focuses too much on the arm action and tries to hit the ball by flexing and extending their elbow.
While staying sideways on the backhand slice is a correct advice you shouldn't stop your body from natural movement.
This action results in so-called chopping, which makes the ball float and have no depth or pace.
As is the case on the drive/topspin one-handed backhand, the shoulders must do their part in the one-handed backhand slice to contribute to power and then stop to prevent loss of ball control.
I am still sideways but shoulders have rotated a bit and added power to the stroke.
How To Help The Player Feel The Shoulder Rotation
It’s one thing to just theoretically explain the importance of shoulder rotation in tennis and another thing to actually teach it effectively, which means that the player learns it well and fast.
I like to teach with feel. In this case, I actually demonstrate the incorrect and correct way of using shoulder rotation and have the player feel that.
For the forehand, the player needs to create some resistance against my left shoulder with his hand. I show him how there is no force into his hand and arm if I don’t use shoulder rotation.
Peter can feel that there is no force if I simulate a forehand without shoulders turning.
Then I also execute a forehand with correct shoulder rotation which will push my player away as there is such force created through rotation.
Peter now feels a lot of force pushing against him because I rotate shoulders as one unit.
The player will feel a huge difference in the amount of force into his hand and arm when I use incorrect and correct shoulder rotation.
The next step is to switch roles and have the player execute the incorrect and correct forms of forehand shoulder rotation as I create resistance against his non-dominant shoulder.
I also show the player one key point when it comes to shoulder and body rotation and how they connect to the stroke: if I prevent the player from rotating by pushing against him strongly, he should not be able to execute a forehand.
If I prevent Peter from rotation he should not be able to hit a forehand.
Most player will initially try to hit a forehand with only their arm since they can’t rotate their body, but I explain that they should not be able to do it.
Using their arm alone without the body makes the forehand unstable and weak.
They should be locked in place and unable to move and execute a stroke if I prevent them from rotation.
Only when I release the pressure to the point that they can rotate their shoulder can they swing and hit the forehand stroke.
The same principle applies to all backhand strokes – the one-handed, the two-handed and the backhand slice.
I have the player resist my hitting shoulder first, and I demonstrate the strokes first without shoulder rotation and then with correct shoulder rotation.
This is how a one-handed backhand feels like without engaging the shoulders...
That helps the player feel the difference in force, and the amount of force almost always surprises the player.
... and this is how much power can be generated with only partial rotation of the shoulders.
Then we switch roles and the player has to try and execute the backhand stroke correctly with the right amount of shoulder rotation.
Why Is Shoulder Rotation So Important?
Shoulder rotation is important for two main reasons:
- source of power
- source of stability
If we don’t use our trunk and shoulders by rotating them as we’re hitting a tennis groundstroke, then all we have left is our arm with its joints and muscles.
We can play tennis by mostly using our arm, but because the arm is much smaller and lighter compared to the body, it will have to work more. That results in arm muscles fatigue quite quickly.
The player has to strain the arm muscles all the time while playing tennis whereas a player who rotates the body into the stroke can play with a very relaxed arm.
The paradox of tennis is that we can hit with much more power if the arm is relaxed (meaning we work less) than if we strain the arm all the time and put a lot of effort into stroke execution.
How does the shoulder and trunk rotation provide stability/control to the stroke?
If you just use the arm to hit a forehand or a backhand, then you will engage a lot of smaller muscles in the arm and you will tend to use all three joints of the arm – shoulder, elbow and wrist.
Having all three joints move with many small muscles being engaged causes the racket angle to constantly change throughout the stroke, which results in spraying the ball all over the place.
The player will find it very hard to angle the racket consistently with so many small movements happening all the time, and this results in a very inconsistent and unreliable stroke.
But if we hit from shoulder and body rotation, we will get a lot of power from the body.
I can align the racket angle calmly and consistently over and over while playing.
When our arm “feels” that there is a lot of power already available, it doesn’t need to engage so much.
Therefore the arm is much more calm throughout the stroke, and the player finds it much easier to consistently angle the racket as they rally.
The same principles apply, of course, to all types of the backhand stroke.
Summary
Shoulder rotation is one of the fundamentals of tennis forehand and backhand technique, which means that it’s always functioning regardless of the style of the stroke.
If the player is not engaging the shoulder area correctly, they will lose on power and control of the stroke.
While it’s instinctive to use the arm a lot since we hold the racket with it, we need to learn to make the arm a bit more passive and engage the body more as the main source of power and stability.
This video article shows you the general approach on how to help a tennis player improve their shoulder rotation for both forehand and backhand strokes.
In the next article, we’ll go a bit deeper into the forehand stroke as many players engage their arm way too much and struggle with ball control on their forehands.
We’ll discuss the role of the non-dominant arm on the forehand and I will show you many more drills that help improve the power and stability of the forehand stroke, so stay tuned.
Update
Here’s an exercise you can do in the gym to feel the shoulder area engaged properly.
The main mistake in terms of shoulders is that players engage the hitting arm shoulder always MORE than the other side. That causes tension and imbalance in the body.
You need to engage both sides equally!
As if you don’t hold the racket in your dominant hand but you just turn your body around its axis.
So this machine helps you feel that since it gives me resistance in front of one shoulder and in the back of the other.
Good stuff! I have been really focusing on rotation lately with my forehand. Been getting good results so far against my ball machine. Being that we are still in the midst of Covid… How could we do the exercise alone; perhaps with resistance bands?
You can try holding the racket with both hands at its ends – so one hand at the handle, one at the tip of the racket.
Then sit down on a chair, fix your eyes forward and turn your body left and right while keeping some pressure into the racket as if both hands are squeezing together.
Then try the same standing with feet apart, like open stance. Then also neutral stance.
Then use your imagination to create more similar exercises.
Excellent videos. However, one comment on rotation. Particularly the rotation of the head, one can observe in the video demostrating the importance of the shoulder rotation with your partner. Pls be more particular. The head should not rotate when the racket hits the ball. Or?
No, the head should not rotate.
I know. My problem in the past was the “dead non dominant-arm”. Whe I saw my video with my dead left arm, I was astonished. In that time I did not realize that this is the (sign) result of the shoulder rotation absence. One again, thank you for these videos. I am looking foreward to see the video dealing with the tennis serve and the body (spine) rotation
Bravo for your comment regarding watching video of your own strokes. It takes some bravery to accept what you see. We all just assume we look like Fed, Rapha or Serena, etc. Sadly, this is often far from the truth. Like they say, “the camera doesn’t lie”.
I am too chicken to record myself (I cringed at the few seconds I have seen accidentally), so I commend you for your open mind and envy your resolve to fix whatever problems you find. Best of luck to you, sir!
I laughed when you tried the stop-shoulder experiment with Peter. A couple months ago, I did a similar experiment, but it was not voluntary. I had suffered a minor non-tennis injury to my left shoulder. I am right-handed with a 1-handed backhand, so I thought maybe I could play tennis anyway. I tried a few shadow strokes. I was unable to swing the racket. I discovered that my left arm and shoulder are essential to all my strokes. I must be doing something right!
I was doing some homework on the unit turn, and found that focussing on the non-dominant shoulder gives that extra leeway to the whole turn. Also, focussing on the non-dominant shoulder relaxes the rest of the body and let’s it do his work. I was so happy to have this confirmed when I read your post today, Tomaz!
Hi, I subscribe and love your teaching, but I struggle on my forehand and think I’ve confused myself.
In a lesson that you did on “rebuilding the one-handed backhand” about half-way through you start to put everything together. You talk about keeping a firm wrist in the backhand whilst also saying that in the forehand “we want to have a more loose wrist”
Then I watched this video and at about 11” you’re talking about “positioning your hand, and then you rotate through contact and you’re going to have a much more stable racket-face without much variation because you’re not engaging arm muscles to hit the ball…. just positioning the racket face behind the ball and then I rotate and the racket face is very calm through contact and I hit very consistently…”
That sounds like there is very little wrist action, similar to your teaching of the backhand.
So I’m confused… stable wrist or loose wrist in forehand? I like the idea of consistency that you say, but there doesn’t seem to be much of “lag and snap” that I hear so much nowadays.
Thanks if you have time to answer this.
Hi Peter,
The wrist must be loose so that it lags behind the arm (forearm). So as the body starts rotating forward and the arm follows, the wrist needs to be loose so that it lags.
As it lags and goes “backward” it will at some point stop (stabilize) as the bones of the forearm and wrist won’t allow any more bending.
At that point the wrist becomes stable and then it needs to stay relatively firm.
Definitely not loose any more but not stiff.
It then holds the position all the way through contact and it can be released after contact.
In the most simple and fundamental way is what Halep does which is explained here:
https://www.feeltennis.net/forehand-wrist-lag/
Lag is always present at all levels, snap only at advanced (high level) or specific situations.
Halep does not snap nor do I. We “drive” the racket through the ball in stable manner.
I am about to publish the video on the role of the non-dominant arm on the forehand where I will also point out the role of the wrist so stay tuned.
Thanks so much for your reply Tomaz, it’s really kind of you, and appreciated as I’m sure you’re very busy. Being a little older (64) I was taught an older-fashioned forehand and in trying to change it I was sure “snap” was considered essential, and have really struggled. Working on this new (to me) swing will help a lot I think. I absolutely love that you say Halep doesn’t snap and neither do you, it means I can progress without thinking that I’m doing it “wrong”. And I really look forward to the next video. Thanks again, I’ve always enjoyed your videos, even more now!
Greetings,
I love this video. I have been an advocate of feel not only in tennis, but in other sports also. Feel is important because it enables the player to analyze his/her stroke production and make necessary adjustments during game play and/or practice. Thank you so much for this demonstration of feel on both the forehand and backhand. I will use these videos as my main resource for review to improve of my tennis game.
And thank you for the wonderful feedback!
Great video, rotation has relived tension in my neck as well