How To Finally Feel Power And Control On Your Tennis Groundstrokes & Serves

Hi, Tomaz & Neil here,

If you’re an adult recreational tennis player struggling with your technique and hitting tennis strokes effortlessly despite taking tons of lessons, then read on…

There’s a program designed specifically with you in mind - yes, you, the adult tennis player - which will help you unlock your body to finally hit the effortless strokes you’ve been looking for.

Since this course is so different from any other you have ever come across, we’ve decided to present it to you in the form of questions and answers.

Q: What Is This Course About?

This course improves the fundamental biomechanics of your body when it comes to forehands, backhands and serves.

In this course, you will follow specific exercises performed a few times per week in order to develop the correct movements of your body that are needed for the game of tennis.

The exercises for groundstrokes target balance, hip/pelvis rotation, core stability and chest/shoulder stability.

The exercises for serves target core stability, the ability to load and release energy, and the ability to connect the whole kinetic chain from the ground up.

Q: Why Would I Need These Fundamentals?

There are three requirements to play tennis well: consistency, power and accuracy.

When you struggle with any or all of those, you are likely not engaging your body in the right way, meaning you’re not engaging the right body parts and not in the correct sequence.

Contrary to what you have been told, the main causes for poor consistency, power and accuracy are not incorrect arm movements, but rather poor balance, poor or no engagement of the pelvis and poor or no engagement of the chest and shoulder area.

Power and stability of the stroke originate in the larger body segments.

If they do not function correctly, you will always struggle for power and control as the arm alone cannot compensate for the lack of body engagement.

In fact, as the arm struggles to compensate for the lack of power from the body, the arm actually loses the natural correct swing path and therefore ruins the technique of the stroke.

Forehand & Backhand Examples

Example #1: Losing balance vs being stable

Note how the players in the video control the ball much better with the same technique but with much better balance and stability.

Example #2: Lack of hip rotation (especially forehand)

One of the more common mistakes on the forehand is engaging only the upper body parts or even just the arm and leaving the hips behind.

A correct forehand is executed with the hips in sync with the upper body and sometimes even the hips leading the body rotation with the upper body following.

Example #3: Lack of chest and shoulder stability (firmness)

We can diagnose a player who doesn’t properly engage the chest and shoulder muscles simply by seeing how the non-dominant arm drops down.

Q: And Why Is My Serve Lacking Effortless Power?

While the serve has some similarities to groundstrokes, it is a much more complex movement, which makes it a more difficult stroke to master.

Players lack power and consistency of the serves for these main reasons:

So what do we need to do in order to have a powerful and consistent serve?

We need to:

These principles, of course, don't apply to only tennis but to all sports with similar throwing or spiking motions like volleyball, baseball, handball and javelin throw.

Q: Why Do I Fail To Engage Large Body Segments Correctly While Hitting Groundstrokes & Serves?

The reason is simple: you never did any exercises to stimulate those large body segments.

Tennis strokes, even on the recreational level, are quite complex in terms of biomechanics. It is not easy to execute a stroke correctly from the ground up.

You may wonder why many juniors play tennis so well. The reason is that the more serious ones attend conditioning sessions in addition to their regular tennis lessons.

At a young age, they do not lift weights, but they develop all sorts of movements and skills necessary to play tennis well.

They develop good biomechanical fundamentals with the help of the conditioning coach using body weight exercises, throwing medicine balls, pulling rubber bands and many other exercises that teach them how to engage large body segments in the correct sequence which they’ll need to hit a good groundstroke.

Q: Who Are You Guys Behind This Course?

Just some of my tennis education: the first certificate from 1993, the last one from October 2019. 

Perhaps they took a few lessons and then started playing matches, which caused most of their technical problems because they played at too fast a pace for their current skill level.

That resulted in their being rushed, not positioning well and not executing the stroke completely. They were basically constantly improvising and hacking at the ball with their arm.

The long-term consequences of such play is that you develop bad habits and you never really learn what a correct tennis stroke is and why it’s necessary to have solid fundamentals of technique.

I now specialize in teaching adults, and I help them apply many biomechanical principles that I have learned over the years with very good results.

As with anything you’re passionate about, you always want better results, so I am always on a quest to improve my teaching method.

That means I am always looking for more effective exercises that can improve the player’s tennis strokes faster.

When I met Neil Alvarez at the GPTCA tennis conference in October 2018, I knew he could help me since he presented very interesting views on the biomechanics of tennis players and athletes in general.

Q: How Did You Develop The Exercises In The Serve Course?

Developing the serve biomechanical exercises was quite a complex and long process because Neil and I were using 4 sources of information to put together the program:

2. Then we used one of the best biomechanical theoretical models of a tennis serve developed by Mark Kovacs and Todd Ellenbecker.

This is an 8-stage tennis serve model that is well established in the tennis coaching community. You can find more information about it here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445225/

3. Neil drew on his extensive anatomy knowledge and physical therapy skills combined with his considerable experience with teaching biomechanical principles to athletes from different sports over the years.

4. I contributed my knowledge and experience as an ITF and PTR certified tennis coach with more than 28 years of teaching tennis.

After months of exchanging ideas, Neil and I settled on the program and set of exercises that we believe develop the key movements and abilities essential for powerful serves in the shortest amount of time and are best suited for the adult tennis population.

Q: How Long Do I Have To Perform Such Exercises To See Some Tangible Results?

Because the serve is a much more complex movement to master it takes longer to develop the right movements compared to groundstrokes. In all courses you will follow along Neil who will guide you through the exercises.

Remember, you are trying to catch up on biomechanical development of juniors who trained in similar way for years.

We recommend committing to the program for at least 4 weeks. (6 weeks is our recommendation.)

If you feel that you cannot commit to such program, please do not consider buying this program

We don't like refunds and we don't like people giving up or failing to follow through when they start something.

This program is a PHYSICAL type of course, not a THEORETICAL one.

You will play no better tennis if you just look at the exercises because they will not make sense to you.

They do make sense to the body after it can execute them well - and consequently the exercises will make sense to your forehands and backhands once you start feeling the connections between large body segments. (legs, pelvis, core, upper body)

Q: Is There A Two-Handed Backhand Course Too?

No, because biomechanically the two-handed backhand is very similar to the forehand. If you would like to work on your two-handed backhand, just use the exercises from the forehand course and apply them to the other side of the body.

Q: Do I Need To Be On A Tennis Court For The Exercises And Do I Need Any Training Aids?

No, all exercises are done without any training aids (only own bodyweight) and you don't need to be on a tennis court. You need around 3 meters (10 feet) of distance for some exercises that require you to spin around.