Thanks for the article. I think I have a good understanding of how important trunk rotation and proper use of the kinetic chain are in hitting a powerful, consistent stroke, yet I have been having difficulty in properly using my body with my 2 handed backhand. Instead of rotating my hips and letting the energy flow up through my body, I have a bad tendency to tense up my abdominal muscles and I end up rotating my whole body through the shot all at once, which causes it to lack spin, speed, and consistency. I’ve been trying really hard to break this habit but so far it has proven unsuccessfully. Are you aware of any good on-court or off-court drills or exercises I could do which force me to properly make use of the kinetic chain? I’ve tried to simply relax my upper body but I end up doing the same thing anyways. Will it simply get better with practice? Any feedback would be appreciated and thanks again for the article!

-Jacob

also for an intermediate player time is dangerous as you have too much time to think

thanks again

Hi marky,

This is the exact situation where weight transfer is very important so that you don’t arm the ball.

Don’t try to hit a slow ball hard, try to hit it fairly fast and avoid contraction. Article on that coming up soon…

I struggle to get rhythm on the slow floaty/loopy ball and just tend to arm it back. More pace seems easier to lean on the ball

any tips?

Yes, Q, time and space, that’s what tennis is all about…

Off to the wall to see if I can do this!

Keep ’em coming!

Thanks

Q

Your long-term goal is to bring as much work as possible as close as possible to the center of your body and away from your arms. – Wow, this is heavy stuff.

Glad that you enjoyed the article, Greg!

And yes, the trickiest thing in tennis when it comes to weight transfer and timing is to do it well when the ball is faster or landing deep and close to you.

That’s when you’ll need to initiate “blind” and focus on hitting the ball in your ideal contact point rather than trying to make sure you see it before you swing…

I think the key to really “getting” the importance of weight transfer is experiencing that you will actually start playing more relaxed when you do it properly. Once you find that out, a bright tennis future lies ahead of you  I have been focusing on weight transfer when hitting the wall the last few weeks. Since I’m shifting forewards when using body weight, I manage to do so every second shot (the ball comes back too quickly, so there you have it: the importance of timing). But this gives you a great feel of rhythm too: forwards (hit neutral with weight transfer), back up (hit open stance with a bit of rotation), forwards (neutral with weight transfer), back up (open with a bit of rotation) etc. Sometimes this hitting with proper weight transfer can give you this federesque feeling of floating or gliding. Isn’t that the end goal we all want to achieve?

Thanks, Robert. Another exercise you can try to “connect” the arms and the body more is simply holding your wrist of the hitting hand with the other hand.

It also steers the racquet in the proper swing path…