Podcast #181: Struggling Against Weaker Players (Part 3)
So lastly let's talk about the actual technique of how to do this, and there's three different parts to this. Number one, you need to have a strong acceleration across your entire kinetic chain. And if you've been listening to this podcast, you've heard the use of the term kinetic chain many times. That basically just refers to the transfer of energy through your body, out your body, into the racket, and eventually into the ball. And there's a certain kind of order of operations that should be occurring. Basically most of the time kinetic chain means that you're transferring energy from your legs, up through your core and torso, and then out your shoulder through your arm, to your hand and the racket, and out to the ball. Smooth accelerated motion using all of those body parts together and in the correct order will create plenty of racket head speed, plenty of power, and plenty of spin. If you don't use your whole kinetic chain very well, and I'm not going to get into specific ways that could happen but you have to use your whole body together correctly using good technique. And that will give you the racket head speed that we're looking for. And when you have the racket head speed, then you're able to create pace and able to create spin. Without that, well you're right back where you started. And you're right back essentially at the level of the person that you're playing against. And that's exactly what you don't want. So that's number one. You have to use your whole body correctly and efficiently, strong use of the kinetic chain will give you the potential to be able to accelerate the racket enough so that we can create an offensive shot.
So once we are using the body correctly and get that racket head speed, we have to have to good racket technique as well. The racket head needs to be moving correctly in order to hit an effective shot. And the basics of that is or are a low to high swing. We need topspin. If you want to consistently attack, and for a lot of people that's an oxymoron, consistently attack. You can consistently attack if you have topspin. Without topspin, things become much more more difficult. Topspin makes the ball curve back down toward the court again, so if you're able to use it effectively then you can hit the ball with more offense. You can hit the ball with more pace and harder and still be able to keep it in play.
By the way as you do that you can aim the ball higher over the net and still keep it in play because of that curve, because of the spin. So being able to hit with topspin in conjunction with using the kinetic chain correctly and strongly, those are really important keys technically to be able to beat this type of player over and over again.
Then thirdly, and again all of these things work together, and when they do work together in harmony then you will see your full potential, you need to be loose and relaxed. When your body is physically tight, using the kinetic chain correctly becomes very difficult because the body just doesn't move smoothly when it's tense. I mean, that's just common sense, right? And yet so many recreational players try to hit the ball with a great deal of physical tension. When you do that, it takes a lot more work to accelerate the racket. Even if you do expend that extra energy, it very often chokes off your technique. And the actual technique of your swing decreases, and it's not as good technically of the swing. Now it's not impossible to still hit a good shot that way, but you're just going to have to work a lot harder for it. So ideally you want to have the good use of your kinetic chain. You want to have a low to high swing pretty consistently to make the topspin to hit offensively and stay consistent. And you want to be loose and relaxed. If you do all those things and you do what I talked about before, the practice and repetition, then you can start to hit these types of shots consistently enough that you can have the confidence that when you go out and play this type of player you can be successful and hit this shot. You own this shot from the middle of the court where you have to generate your own pace, your own spin, and you'll have the confidence that you can do it over and over again. You know what, there's no better feelings in the world. There's no better feeling than playing somebody who is just marginally weaker than you are but just not quite up to your level of play. And really just dominate and take over the match and dictate play and play confidently. There is no better feeling than that.
On the flipside of the coin, there's no worse feeling than playing somebody who is significantly weaker than you not having these skills and struggling through the match. We've all come through matches like that and won just by a little bit and been so frustrated. So really good question, Eric, and to be honest I'm happy with this outline I put together. I think it hits the important parts really well. I hope it's helpful, and I hope you enjoyed listening. And if you have any comments or questions, if anything didn't make sense or if you have some suggestions or anything, come over to EssentialTennis.com and let me know. This is episode #181. Click on that and leave your thoughts and comments. I'd love to hear from you. So with that, going to wrap things up. Eric, thanks again for the question. If I can be of any further help, definitely let me know. Best of luck.
Alright, that does it for episode #181 of the Essential Tennis podcast. Man, time has really flown by. I can't believe we're at #181 already closing in on 200th episode of the show. Big thank you to everybody that listened to my voice today, and I really do hope that it was helpful. Again, please drop by the site and leave any comments or questions that you may have. I will always do my best to reply and answer all of those. So with that, thank you very much for listening. Take care and good luck with your tennis.
