'Power Tennis'

By. Dr Ray Brown Ph.D.

In the era of Evert and Conners, stroke technique was the primary subject of tennis camps, private instruction, and articles on tennis. To a great extent this is still true today. However, teaching the consistent and accurate use of power requires a new approach to instruction. In this article we examine why this is true, and explain what the new approach must be.

The need to use power accurately and with control, changes our approach to instruction because of physics. In particular, the law for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction comes into play in a significant way when using power that is unimportant when power is removed from the player's skill set. How our approach is changed is this: If we are to teach power tennis successfully, there must be considerably more attention given to developing the control of the stroke from the waist down that is presently being done in most instructional venues. In fact, it could be argued that, to play power tennis, control of the body from the waist down is even more important than the quality of the player's stroke technique from the waist up.

Here is the short story: First, note that a tennis ball is struck by a racquet held in the hand, which, in turn is attached to the shoulder, which is near the top of the body. Second, note that the forces above the waist that must be used to accelerate the racquet to high speeds must generate equal and opposite reactions that diffuse through the body down through the waist, hips and and into the legs. If, at any point along this path, control of the body from the waist down is imprecise by even a small fraction, the speed of the stroke will result in a large error in the racquet path. This in turn produces an unforced error. Stated in a less formal way, power tennis is very sensitive to small errors in control of the body, especially from the waist down.

There is a curious side bar to this story. Power tennis and Chaos share a common property which is the butterfly effect (it is related to the movie). While there are various formulations of this effect, a common one found in the literature is the notion that small changes in a starting point can result in dramatic changes in the outcome. This is true of both power tennis and the natural phenomena of Chaos. To see the exact relation to chaos, just have a player who has not developed the body control we describe here hit a dozen balls as hard as they can.

What has led us to this observation about power tennis was two results. One is that we carried out the most extensive rigorous scientific analysis of power tennis technique ever conducted over the past ten years to determine exactly how the modern ground stroke was produced. We backed up our findings by demonstrating the results on camera with state-of-the-art doppler radar. The second finding was that in spite of being able to teach a player exactly how to hit an 80mph forehand consistently from the baseline when fed balls that did not require that they move very far, we found that they still could not produce a consistent power rally from baseline to baseline.

The inescapable conclusion is that something subtle was being overlooked. It was after an extensive experimentation and analysis period that we identified the fact that very small and subtle errors in the control of the body from the waist down was the source of large errors when rallying at high ball speeds, from baseline to baseline. To confirm this result we conducted an analysis of the elements of body control needed to assure consistency in power tennis. We designed instructional techniques to develop these elements of body control and began teaching them. The result, the unforced power tennis rally errors diminished dramatically.

Our analysis showed that teaching power tennis requires three physical instructional components. One is well known: correct stroke technique. Second is precision movement skills, the third is physical endurance. There is also a mental skill component that will be addressed in a separate article.

Correct stroke technique has been explained in previous articles, so we only address the other two factors in this article. We address the easiest component first, endurance. Clearly if you get tired, your ability to control your body will diminish and the errors in high speed rallies will correspondingly increase.

The subtle component, precision body movement, required more attention. To carry out our analysis, it was necessary for us to analyze player movements in detail. While there is an abundance of data from TV sources, we also included a hands-on study of four players. One was a former top 100 WTA tour player, another was a top 600 player as a junior, the third was the #2 player on a Division I college team and the fourth was a former highly ranked junior who elected not to play college tennis. We filmed her 10 years after she graduated from high school. As a reference point we used Dawn Buth, former top 100 WTA tour player and four time NCAA champion in doubles and team competitions.

Based on this work we identified twelve waist-down movements that are essential for power tennis. These movements are: (1) Ballistic recoil in the feet, (2) the ability to arrest lateral movement and stabilize the body for stroke execution, (3) power component in the thighs for body stability when executing the stroke, (4) agility and precision in the feet for fine adjustments (as little as four inches) to the ball, (5) cross step and (6) side shuffle for recovery, (7) first step speed for pursuit, (8) back peddle for reversing position while tracking the ball trajectory (9) precision balance, (10) core strength for fusing the upper and lower halves of the body during stroke execution, (11) core acceleration to produce controlled power, (12) leg strength for thrust and rotational power.

We do not claim that our list is complete as the analysis of tennis power is an ongoing enterprise. However, these twelve movements are essential to use power consistently. Also, there is a list of movements above the waist not including stroke technique that will be addressed in a separate article.

The design of exercises to develop these movements is important and to be complete, we researched three academies ( Van der Meer, Bollettieri, Evert) and the seminal work of Pat Etcheberry. Here we describe a representative set of exercises we have designed based on our research. Where possible, we have adopted exercises that are available form sources such as Dr. Yassin, or the Etcheberry DVD's, so as not to reinvent the wheel. Note that in every exercise, the player is holding their racquet. This is because tennis is physically asymmetric: the racquet hand is a different weight than the other hand. Our exercises reflect this.

(1) Ballistic recoil in the feet is developed effectively using the Etcheberry jump test as an actual exercise. This exercise consists in a player jumping over a string held about 18 inches above the ground as many times as possible in 10 - 20 seconds. Many variations are possible. We conduct this exercise using a professional gymnastics mat over 1 inch thick to protect the player's knees from injury.

(2) Arresting lateral movement is developed using the following exercise: Place two cones 18 inches apart on the singles sideline and on the service line (sideline to sideline is also good). Starting with the player in the middle, the player turns moves to the right hand cones and simulates a stroke being careful to have the racquet move over both cones. Then they recover with a cross step and shuffle to the center with a split step to simulate the ball being struck by their opponent. They then turn to the left and move to the left most cone pair and simulate a stroke as before. This exercise can also be used for (7) first step development and (5) cross step and (6) side shuffle as well. The exercise is run for 30 seconds with 20 seconds rest to simulate playing conditions. The exercise is very similar to practicing a dance step. Key points are that the player should move as quickly as possible so as to build up speed before arresting the motion using the back foot. Also, the player should be careful to reach a complete stop before the stroke and then quickly reverse direction after, not during, the stroke.

(3) A lunge exercise is essential using an unstable base to simultaneously develop the "static" strength control to have the thigh support the entire body weight while resting on an unstable base. One may use a ladder or any raised structure to force the entire weight onto the front leg. Clearly, this exercise develops both thigh strength, ankles, and balance. In addition, we use waist-to-ankle resistance bands to build "dynamic" strength and control while moving to the ball.

(4) Dots exercises have become so institutionalized that one can buy the mats on the web with the dots already embedded in the proper places. Football teams use very large mats whereas for tennis small mats are better. We supplement the nearly static agility exercises using the dots mats with 60 foot ladder drills for dynamic agility. Both exercises aid in the development of the fine foot movements needed to make adjustments to the ball as little as 6 inches. This exercise is necessary because the difference between a power hit and a average stroke is as little as a five inch adjustment in foot position at contact.

(8) We combine back peddling with forward movements using a cone exercise where the player must simulate hitting six shots. The forward distance of the exercise is 30 feet and the lateral distance is half the singles court. A player should be able to repeat this exercise just over two times in 30 seconds.

9) For precision balance training we use rubber balance beams spanning 30 feet obtained from a medical rehabilitation supply store. The exercise is heel-to-toe. One must be sure the player does not run over the beams as this will defeat the purpose of developing precision balance. As before, the player must carry their racquet to develop asymmetric control of the body.

(10) For gross core strength we use conventional medicine balls of varying weights. We emphasize that the medicine ball cannot be used to develop the all important ballistic rotation speed that is controlled from the core, or core acceleration. The movements are much too slow.
For ballistic rotation we use exercise 11 below.

(11) For core ballistic acceleration we use a dropped ball exercise with a radar for biofeedback. We have been unable to find any exercise that will duplicate the core development strength provided by actually hitting a ball at high speeds over and over. The importance of the radar feedback cannot be over emphasized. It provides instant feedback that allows the player to converge on the correct stroke and core control needed for high ball velocity simultaneously! Our target speed is 80 mph from a dropped ball.

.(12) For leg thrust and further core strength we use resistance bands with shoulder harnesses rather than waist harnesses. The shoulder harness provides additional core development as opposed to the waist band since it forces the player to flex the core muscles to keep the body stable under the simultaneous forces exerted on the body by the harness and the ground.

Additional focused exercises are developed by using active cords from Dr.Yessis. These products are proprietary and we cannot illustrate their use here.

Once the player has developed initial control from exercises 1-12, we add on on-court exercises that are identical in concept to several of the movement exercises but combine them to obtain natural ball movement situations.


For example, we may feed balls slowly from side to side to further develop skill movements initiated by exercise (2). The advanced form of this exercise series consists in having the player work from the baseline. We begin by feeding 6 balls side to side, half the court in width. This is followed by a 20 second rest. We then feed 8 balls, and rest, then 10, and so on with the objective of reaching 24 to complete the full exercise. Clearly the possibilities are endless.

In summary, power tennis today, to be consistent, requires careful development of precision body movements, just as in ballet and gymnastics. Of particular significance is precision movement from the waist down. Insufficient attention is given to this fact in most training venues, but if your players are to learn to use power effectively, then they must "bite-the-bullet" and put in the necessary time developing the control of their bodies from the waist down to assure that their power shots go where they intend, rather than over the baseline or into the net

Ray Brown, Ph.D. Founder of easitennis2.com

In the 1970's, Dr. Brown taught tennis to the general public for Dick Gould (Stanford Tennis Coach) where he learned classical tennis fundamentals. In the 1990's Ray studied with Vic Braden and Dennis van der Meer. He was introduced to the use of scientific methods in tennis by Vic Braden and Professor Howard Brody (author of Tennis Science for the Tennis Players). He learned the fundamentals of communicating effectively to the public from studying the work of Dennis van der Meer. Ray also learned significant refinements to the classical methods from the work of Van der Meer. Dr. Brown has studied the classical players (Laver, Rosewall, etc.) modern players (Evert, Connors, etc. ) and contemporary players (Agassi, Sampras, Hingis, Capriati, etc.). Dr. Brown has used high speed photography obtained from Advanced Tennis to determine the fundamentals of the professional stroke and the progression needed to advance a player from NTRP 3.5 to professional in the shortest time possible. From these experiences and the research conducted with his wife, Dr. Brown devised a new method of tennis training (patent pending) that dramatically accelerates the learning process. In particular, Dr. Brown has developed, taught and demonstrated the power forehand and backhand, exceeding in both ground strokes 80 miles per hour as recorded by state-of-the-are doppler RADAR

We would like to thank Dr Ray Brown for his indepth work. We would be very interested to here your views on the points he has raised, how do you teach power and maintain consistency?

Best Wishes