Monday, June 11, 2012

Interesting Experiment Using Ball Machine

 tennis coaching tennis tips and strategy I like to use the ball machine at my club.

It's funny, but many of my tennis buddies don't go near the ball machine, and I'm not sure why. I find it both relaxing, and a great way to work on specific parts of my game.

There's a muscle memory argument in favor of using the ball machine, but I also think there's a psychological argument. I need to hit hundreds of whichever shot I'm working on, to begin to gain a little confidence. And, as we all know, in tennis confidence is critical.

 I always play with the ball machine controls, as I suggest that you do, if you use a machine. On most machines, you can adjust ball speed, ball height, ball spin, ball location, and the interval between shots.

You can practice hitting crosscourts on the run by setting the machine up to feed balls to the backhand corner, and then the forehand corner, forcing you to bust your gut. Or, you can set the machine to produce high, soft, mid-court balls so that you can practice your aggressive forehand.

You're only limited by your imagination.

Last week, I decide to have some fun with the machine.

I wanted to see what kind of ball the highest settings would produce. So, I cranked up the spin and speed to the max. I had to keep the height set to just over the net, because these babies were flying over the net like a Jimmy Connors forehand.

Then, I rushed over to the opposite side of the net to see if I could return these bullets with my forehand and 2 handed backhand. The first few were a disaster. I couldn't time the ball properly, and if I did, I mishit most of the balls.

Gradually, I sped up my trunk rotation in the set up, so that by the time the ball landed I was finished my backward core rotation. Then, I focused on minimizing any wrist and arm rotation, and just tried to rotate my core back towards the ball and through the ball, so that I finished with my back shoulder now underneath my chin as I looked forwards.

To my amazement, I began to make very solid contact. I began to suspect then that my standard forehand didn't have enough core rotation, and actually relied too much on wrist and arm motion.

Of course, this type of swing is a return of serve type of swing against a big serve. But, as I mentioned above I think it's a great way to get a sense of the control and the stability that you can get from good core rotation.

Here are a couple of videos which might help explain a little bit. The first video is a very basic instruction about arm swinging versus core swinging. You can skip the ad of course.

The next video shows the full forehand on a regular ball with great core rotation. In the full forehand, there is, of course, a big backswing and lots of arm and hand rotation, but I suggest you focus on the core rotation.

So, get out and use the ball machine if you have one available. Crank it up and work on your core rotation. Until next time,

Glenn Sheiner M.D. - author of Insider Tennis Strategies Using The Ball Machine To Improve Your Forehand guaranteed to make you a smarter tennis player and take your tennis to the next level. Also, check out the world's top tennis humor screensaver
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