Exclusive Slow Motion Videos Now Posted on YouTube

I just wanted to give all of you a head-up to check out the TennisSpeed Channel on YouTube (http://www.youtube.con.tennisspeed) because I've uploaded some interesting (super) slow motion clips of the top ATP pros from our huge slow motion video library.


Right now, there are clips of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Fernando Gonzales, Fernando Verdasco, and Ivo Karlovic (and many others to come) available for your viewing (and learning) pleasure.

If you're a regular visitor to the TennisCruz website, which is the best* tennis instructional website on the web, you've already seen samples of the kinds of slow motion footage in our vast library in some of the featured articles there.

(*For those of you who know my general opinion of online tennis instruction from previous posts, for me to come out and say the TennisCruz is the "best" online source for tennis instruction, you know that the site is something perhaps bordering on the extraordinary.

What's special about TennisCruz.com is its creator, Sergio Cruz (who was the personal coach of 4-time Grand Slam winner, Jim Courier). Sergio has been there and done that as both a player and coach in tennis, and everyone who loves the game is frankly incredibly fortunate to have someone of Sergio's knowledge and experience in the game sharing with his insight with everyone so freely.

Especially if you understand the closed, secret society that is high-performance tennis!)

And, if you're interested, the reason why we started collecting this footage is to increase our understanding and insight into the technique used by today's top players.

The clips posted on YouTube will show those players who we believe represent the "Gold Standard" when it comes to racket or court movement speed today (and in the foreseeable future).

Slow motion video (or "high speed video") has enabled us to seen a far richer, more complex and until now, mostly hidden universe that underlies the physical genius of the top players.

What we have seen in the movements of the top pros at 210 to 1200 fps ("frames per second") video has revealed new insights into the stroke (bio-)mechanics used by Federer, Nadal, and their colleauges. And these new insights have driven the development of our new biomechanical analysis tool (and service), called BVM or BioVideoMechanics (more on BVM in future posts).

BVM has enabled me to make a quantum leap in understanding of how players like Federer and Nadal move to produce "hall of fame" performance AND how to teach players to execute those very same techniques. The challenge in this process has beenn to figure out how to distill the most important discoveries from the fundamental complexity behind the Federer Forehand or the Roddick Serve--because their genius is in fact highly complex, far beyond the conventional oversimplifications and buzzwords that dominate tennis instruction today.

In coming posts, I'll show you some of the different ways that BVM can transform your game. If you're interested in finding out more about BVM and how it can help your game, send me an email at speedmaster[at]tennisspeed.com.

TTFN!

Sports Conditioning Secrets They Don't Want You to Know (Part 2): Specificity is the Key to Training Success

Let’s pick up our discussion of ideas and concepts that the sports training “experts” in our fair US of A really don’t want you to know about, much less understand with a discussion of the impact of “specificity” on training for tennis (or any sport, for that matter).

I’ll start off by recounting a conversation I had with a former American pro athlete who decided to pursue a career in the fitness and sports conditioning business by establishing his own “speed training/sports performance center” near my home.

The most interesting and revealing part of our conversation came at the very end when this ex-pro athlete now “certified strength and conditioning specialist”, we’ll call “Fred” (not his real name, of course) asked me this question:

“So what do you do differently from what we do here at XXX?”

On the surface, Fred’s question is a fair question.

What is different about what I do from what they’re doing?

Before I reveal my response, I should mention that the time, I remember taking a short pause before answering Fred so I could find a “diplomatic response”. I did this because at the time, I wanted to leave open the possibility of being allowed to use their really nice, new indoor facility to train my own players.

*To see my “real” response that appeared first in my brain before being filtered out by my better judgement at the time, please see the postscript at the end.

Anyway, my polite, diplomatic answer was this: what’s different about how I train players is that I focus on solely on tennis-specific training for competitive players.

What this means is that I ask my athletes to solely perform training exercises that are identical to the exact performance demands (i.e. the exact type of movements, the exact speed of movement, the exact sequence of movement, the exact nerve and muscle firing patterns, etc.) they encounter on the tennis court.

It’s not important or relevant to me if my athletes run the 40 under 4.5 seconds, bench press 2X their body weight, or have a 35+ inch vertical jump.

What is important is having my athletes improving their physical (and mental) performance on the tennis court as rapidly as possible.

What this means is that I want to train players who are capable of executing their maximum tennis performance level every time they compete.

In order to achieve this, I am training players who will be capable of serving consistently over 125 MPH, retrieving 90 MPH groundstrokes with full control after sprinting 3 yards in 0.4 seconds, and having the functional strength in their lower body to decelerate from a full sprint, then form a hitting stance, then make an explosive first (recovery) step to prepare for what could be a series of 10 to 15 returns from their opponent…

Among other extreme physical (and mental) challenges faced on the court (i.e. having 0.4 seconds to return today’s power serves, etc.).

Fred’s response in return was his own pregnant pause followed by this exact question:

“So how is what you just described different from what we do here again?”

At that point, finding another facility to host my training program was clearly the “action step” I needed to take after this meeting.

What you need to learn from my experience with Fred and virtually everyone else who’s in the “strength and conditioning” business here in the USA whether they’re a “certified personal trainer" in the local gym, a “certified strength and conditioning specialist” in the local “speed school”, “sports performance center” or collegiate weight room is this:

1. They all believe that improving the general conditioning level of the athlete is all that is sufficient and necessary to increase the competitive performance level of any and all athletes, regardless of the actual demands of the sport the athlete wants to excel at may actually be.

2. They all believe that increasing general athletic attributes such as strength, endurance and straight-ahead speed alone will make any and every athlete a higher performer in any sport.

3. They all believe that trying to design a training program that meets the specific demands of a particular sport is solely reserved for athletes who have already clearly demonstrated world-class or professional-level athletic ability and performance levels in their chosen sport.

For everyone else, even those who may eventually achieve world-class performance levels in their sport, general training is “good enough”.

The proof of their belief in general training being both the ”best” and “right” path to higher athletic performance is clearly demonstrated by the fact that regardless of the actual nature of the sports, the same body of training exercises (i.e. weight lifting, plyometrics, stretching, medicine ball throwing, sprinting form drills, etc.) are used for virtually all athletes from tennis players to golfers as well as baseball and football players.

They assume that a general increase or improvement in general athletic attributes translates directly into higher performance in any sport, as if swinging a golf club is identical to swinging a baseball bat or tennis racket.

Heck, what does specificity mean anyway?

It’s just another 50-cent word/idea thrown around by those “sports scientists” who don’t leave their “ivory tower” to venture into the so-called “real world”.

Specificity is a really simple idea: it means that sports training should be relevant and appropriate to the sport for which the individual is training in order to produce a training effect (= “improvement”).

When you apply specificity to tennis training, this means that whatever training exercises you do for tennis should probably closely match the actual physical demands and challenges you face when playing tennis.

For example…

Is running 5 miles continuously at a medium pace (a common endurance exercise) the same as sprinting 3 yards after an explosive split-step at least 10 times per point, for 65 points per set (on average)?

Is accelerating your 11 to 12 ounce racket to 75 MPH at contact in 0.12 seconds (or less) for every forehand the same as throwing a 10 pound medicine ball sideways (a commonly recommended exercise to add power to your groundstrokes)?

Are the exact same muscles used in your forehand used at the same speed and same muscle contraction pattern and sequence as that side throw with the heavy med ball?

The answer in both cases is a resounding “NO”, yet virtually every conditioning coach and personal trainer will make you do exactly those types of general exercises to help you “improve” your tennis-specific skills.

It’s just not logical, is it?

Maybe there’s something to this specificity idea? Just maybe?

The importance of specificity may now be clear enough to all of you out there, so why isn’t it clear to all the so-called, brand-name sports training experts out there?

Another “fair” question, right?

TTFN!


*PS: The real answer to Fred’s question went something like this:

“(T)he difference between me and XXX Sports is that what I do, what I ask my athletes to do, essentially begins where your training ideas and systems end. I am the one that your athletes have to come to when they hit that proverbial “wall” and stop improving using your overly general and inherently limited training philosophies, principles and methods. By definition, I, and the precious handful of others like me, are the only ones who can help aspiring elite athletes achieve their maximum performance level.”

Sound self-righteous and overly confident?

Maybe a little…

Yet, these words directly reflect the dilemma faced by all American athletes.

Doing general exercises might work, but if you’re really a world-class performer, general training takes you only so far, and then what?

Well, that is where people like myself come in... To help you continue to improve in a territory where the “inches are miles”.

The questions I would ask you next are:

Why wait so long to get to the real answers?

Why not begin with the best information and know-how?

Why compromise if you’re seeking ultimate performance?

Why waste your precious time?

These are also all “fair” questions, no?

Technical Training II - Video doesn't lie: How to use video to improve your game

You know what they say about good intentions…

I remember starting off this year - 2009 - saying that I would post more frequently, and well, you all know how that has gone in reality .I really do want to post more often—rather, more consistently—here, but as life goes, things happen and time flies by.

So, let’s consider this (another) a fresh start…

Oh yes, I also wanted to tell you that I do read every one of the precious few comments to these posts, and this post is based on a comment left by Wildvolley regarding an earliest post (Technical Training I — Looks define the result).

Wildvolley's comment was this:

“A key to doing this is to take video of yourself hitting. It is usually enlightening to see the difference between what you feel your body doing and what it is actually doing. Video can allow you to develop the form you want to have.

If you look at some of the tennis boards, there are a lot of young players who mimic the mannerisms and dress of the top players but not their actual strokes when hitting. It is easy for players to be delusional about their game unless they "see" what they are actually doing.”

Amen, Wildvolley, I could not agree more…

It’s one thing to study video taken of other players...

It’s far more valuable to study video of your own game.

I remind all my players that “video doesn’t lie” and watching themselves perform on video is a very important and powerful tool for improving virtually any aspect of their game: technical, tactical, even mental.

Video reveals the cold, objective truths about your game—and when you see yourself and your game the first time out, that truth may be shocking, perhaps even embarrassing in terms of how different your own internal perceptions and sensations (“feelings”) of your tennis movements and tactical choices may be from the reality depicted on the playback screen.

Some common examples of the truths of your game that video reveals are:

1) your complete lack of knee flex in all aspects of your technique from your ready position to your serve motion;

2) the fact that you look like you’re ducking under a too-low door frame instead of exploding at full extension to impact on your serve;

3) how slowly you really move around the court, especially when changing directions;

4) your wide open racket face at all phases of your forehand and backhand, especially at contact that launches the ball straight into the windscreen behind your opponent on the fly;

ETC., ETC.

Video will also not only reveal the truths of your game, but also the truth about how much or how little your teaching pro or coach really knows about tennis…

The potential of such a revelation explains why so many in the teaching and coaching establishment marginalize the value of video in training/helping their players…

They’re afraid that video will also reveal their fundamental tennis knowledge deficiencies and shortcomings along with those of their players!

Then again, there are those in the tennis teaching establishment who base their instruction on video footage (e.g. FYB, Hi-Tech Tennis, etc.) and end up describing concepts that aren’t even demonstrated on the video... Concepts that likely exist only in the mind of the “instructor”. The bottom line is the same—they end up unmasking their own knowledge gaps - chasms, really — whether they know it or not.

So, let me include this addendum to Wildvolley’s comment about “(I)t is easy for players to be delusional about their game unless they "see" what they are actually doing.”

IMHO, we should give credit where credit is due...

A large proportion of these “delusions” that the great majority of players have about their games is fundamentally “enabled”—if not entirely driven—by the dreadful instruction they get from just about everywhere—from their own pro/coach, the vast majority of “free web instructors”, their friends and league teammates, etc.

They did not arrive where they’re at without “help and support” from the available “experts” and resources that they trust blindly.

The question of why these players trust so blindly and implicitly in such flawed ideas is the subject of a separate post - in a different blog.

Now that my editorializing is concluded for the time being, let’s cover some simple fundamentals about how to reveal the truths of your game using video.

1. Shoot your video with a high-speed video camera

If you (or your coach/teaching pro) are serious about using video to improve your game, you need to make your video using a video camera that is capable of shooting high-speed video so you can see your game in ultra-slow motion.

Personally speaking, I don’t even bother using normal speed video anymore. For instructional and learning purposes, it is nowhere as informative and useful as high-speed video.

The amount of useful information that’s available when you can see movement in a high-speed video is simply astonishing and reveals an entirely new, previously hidden world compared to normal video. Once you see yourself (and others) in ultra-slow motion, normal-speed video (even HD video, however pretty it looks) will leave you unsatisfied and disappointed.

There are 3 such high-speed video cameras available on the consumer market today, and they’re all made by Casio: the Casio EF-X1 ($1000 MSRP); the Casio EF-X20 ($500 MSRP); and the Casio EF-X100/X10 series ($350 MSRP).

Each one of these Casio cameras can take high-speed video starting at 210 frames per second (7 times slower than normal video—which in the US is 30 frames per second), and can shoot up to 1200 frames per second (40 times slower than normal video) with amazing clarity and resolution.

If you are a teaching pro or coach, you should definitely invest in the higher end EF-X1 or EF-X20 models so you have maximum control of the image quality, but if you are a casual player, the newly introduced “take-down” version (EF-X100/X10) will do just fine—especially given the price.

One limitation of high-speed video I need to mention upfront is that in order to maximize the brightness/clarity/sharpness (the “resolution”) of the footage, you will need to shoot the video in high-light conditions.

This means that the best quality high-speed videos will be shot outdoors in full sunlight, and the image quality will not the same when, say, you try to shoot high-speed video indoors under the typically overly dim lighting of your local indoor courts (unless you are willing to go through the trouble of lighting your indoor video session in a professional manner using high-intensity lamps, reflector screens, etc.).

As far as which setting to use for your videos, 210 or 300 frames per second is plenty fast (slow?) enough to reveal the smallest details of your strokes, movement, etc. Shooting at higher speeds is even more revealing (i.e. 420, 600, 1000, even 1200 frames per second), but for the basis of fundamental analysis of your movements, 210 or 300 frames per second is more than satisfactory.

2. Use a tripod when shooting your video

Even with image stabilization built in as a standard feature on the Casio cameras, you need the stability of the tripod to guarantee a clear, focused image—especially when you’re shooting high-speed video.

Set the tripod such that the camera pointing somewhere between your waist and shoulder level. When the camera is set at this height, you will appear at a, natural-looking, “eye level” perspective when you’re on-screen.

3. Place the camera in the right positions

You need to know where to place the camera to get the most useful perspective(s) of your game.

For all practical intents and purposes, there are only two camera angles you need to shoot from to learn the most from your strokes:

a) Side view: place the camera perpendicular to where you’re standing at the baseline or net, so you can see your entire stroke movement from the side.




b) Back view: place the camera directly behind you, parallel to the baseline so you can see your entire stroke movement from the back. (FYI, playing on a sunken court really makes this perspective informative as well as convenient to shoot from!)



4. Frame yourself properly

You need to know how to “frame” yourself in the video so you can maximize the amount of information you can get from the footage.

In general, I suggest framing yourself in a way where you—the player—take up roughly 1/3 of the total on-screen area. There should be only a little space over your head (except when shooting video of your serve, where you want to be able to see ball contact overhead, so there will be more space visible overhead), but wherever possible, zoom in/adjust your tripod so there is very little “extra” court area visible at foot level.



In addition, I am very interested in seeing the initial 4 to 6 feet of ball flight after impact, so I suggest factoring in this increment when setting up your shot (this will be the subject of a future post—the highly valuable information that’s available by studying the first few feet of the ball flight of a groundstroke).

Finally, I strongly recommend that you take the 3 to 5 minutes total to make sure that you “frame your shot” properly so you can get the most usable information from your video.

5. No panning!

Last piece of advice when shooting your tennis video: avoid (as much as possible) panning the camera (i.e. move the camera to “follow” the player as they move around) when shooting your video.

Yes, there may be some upfront investment (both time and money) involved in putting yourself on video, but the payoff will be well worth it!

TTFN!

P.S.: The player images (US junior Shane Vinsant; ATP players Tobias Clemens and Thiago Alves, and WTA player Dominika Cibulkova) you see here were clipped from our extensive high-speed video library of ATP, WTA and junior players taken over the past 2 years, mostly shot from live tournament practice and match courts.

Typically, we shoot a player’s serves and groundstrokes from player practice sessions during live tournaments to observe their “base” techniques, as well as a few (practice) points if possible.

Sports Conditioning Secrets They Don't Want You to Know (Part 1): Hey Brother/Sister, Can You Spare $12,270?

Let’s start this post with a question:

Which scenario would you choose to increase your serve speed around 20 MPH?

Scenario 1) Conventional strength training (Kraemer et al., 2003)

• 120 workouts
• 200+ hours total workout time over 40 weeks total (9 months)
• $12,270 minimum cost
• ~$757.00 per 1 MPH improvement

OR

Scenario 2) SpeedChain training

• 8 workouts
• 4 hours total workout time over 4 weeks total (1 month)
• $175 minimum cost
• ~$9.00 per 1 MPH improvement

I think that most reasonable people would probably choose Scenario 2 over Scenario 1 the majority of the time.

And with times as tough as they are, I think that Scenario 2 is the only practical choice.

After all, who has $12,000 lying around? And, who could justify spending $12,000 to accomplish the same outcome as spending about $200?

On top of that, who really has the time to spend 9 months grinding 5 hours per week when there's an option to achieve the same results by training for only 1 hour per week for 1 month?

Well, I thought that in these times when people are really more conscious about their time and their money—especially about their money—I wanted to point out to you the hard, cold, time-consuming and very expensive facts about how much time and money you need to invest to increase your serve or groundstroke speed by training using conventional training methods.

(As well as demonstrate the real value that's delivered by SpeedChain training--value that can be measured in both time and money!)

How did I arrive at these numbers?

These numbers are based on a published scientific study regarding the “Physiological Effects of Periodized Resistance Training in Women Tennis Players” conducted by the American exercise physiologist, William J. Kraemer and his colleagues.

In their study, Kraemer and his friends were able to help a group of female, college tennis players increase their serve and groundstroke speeds up to 30 percent—after 9 months of rigorous, highly supervised and controlled weight lifting.

After reviewing all the gory details of their study, I tried to estimate how much real training time was spent by the players to achieve the published results.

By my conservative estimates, these players spent at least 5 hours a week in the gym in 3 personally supervised weekly training sessions over a 40 week or 9 month period.

In all, these players spent about 200 hours to achieve the observed increase in serve and groundstroke speeds.

So, the “good news” is that there is a documented way to increase your serve and groundstroke speeds if you are willing to invest at least the time and energy—5 hours a week for 40 weeks—to do so.

Well, the “bad news” is that the actual financial costs of such a training program are not mentioned—and these unmentioned costs are frankly huge.

Your willingness to invest the necessary time and energy is only the beginning, because you’ll need to expend a lot of cash to achieve their results as you’ll soon see… And maybe this amount of cash ($12,000+) is something you don’t have around right now…

This is because the only way to maximize your chances of duplicating the Kraemer study results is to reproduce that exact published program—including not skipping a single workout and having a personal trainer personally supervise every one of your 120 workouts.

Kraemer and his team point out that the “success” of their program is in large part due to the fact that the players worked out under the supervision of an experienced trainer at all times, which has been shown to the most effective way to produce the most (strength) training improvement in athletes of all levels.

Therefore, if you really want to achieve the same results described in this program, you’ll need to hire a qualified personal trainer to supervise all 200 hours of your workout program. From what I’ve seen recently, the hourly rate of personal trainers nationwide runs at about $60 per hour.

So, the total financial cost of performing this proven program is 200 hours X $6 per hour or $12,000. Add to that the fact that you’ll need a gym to work out in, and gym memberships typically run about $30 per month, you’ll need to add another $270 (9 months at $30 per month) to that total. At least you don’t have to pay your trainer to design the workout program for you (which typically runs about $80 to $100) as you can follow the published program.

Now, to sum it all up, you’ll need to spend at least 200 hours over 40 weeks, as well as $12,270 to cover the personal training and gym membership costs to achieve an average increase in serve speed of about 25.2 KPH or 16.2 MPH (according to the Kraemer study) by going to the gym and lifting weights.

What does this improvement amount to in terms of time (A) and money (B)?

A) How much time does it take to improve even 1 MPH?

When you do the math, to improve your serve speed 1 MPH using conventional methods, like the ones in the Kraemer study (and methods universally endorsed by almost everyone in the tennis world including Tennis magazine and the USTA, USPTA and PTR) you need to spend:

2.5 weeks or 18 days real time (16.2 MPH / 40 weeks = 0.405 MPH improvement per week OR 16.2 MPH / 280 days = 0.057 MPH per day)


B) How much money will you have to spend to increase your serve speed 1 MPH?

You’ll spend:

$757.40 per 1 MPH improvement ($12,270 total cost / 16.2 MPH = 757.40)

Oh, yes there’s one more important detail you’ll need to know before you embark on this 40 week journey…

Yes, my friends, there’s a catch!

The catch is: you’ll achieve the reported serve speed improvement only if you’ve never engaged in any form of resistance training.

Which means:

You’ll achieve those results only if you haven’t been training for a while, or if you haven’t ever trained before.

If you have any previous experience lifting weights or are continuously performing any form of serious off-court training (as is required if you want to be a successful tournament competitor!!!), your improvement will be far less than the reported 16.2 MPH.

In fact, you’ll be lucky to improve your serve speed 5 to 6 MPH total after 40 weeks of intense training if you have lifted weights previously.

So, if you’re a serious competitive player who thinks that all they need to do is to start this Kraemer program to see their serve and groundstroke speeds jump 15+ MPH, you need to think again. Real hard…

For these serious competitive players (highly-ranked junior, college and pro competitors), the time (A) and money (B) costs look like this:

A) Time Costs:

To increase your serve 1 MPH, it will take:

8 weeks of training (5 MPH / 40 weeks = 1 MPH / x weeks)

That’s a 1/8 of a MPH increase per week, after 5 hours of supervised training with a personal trainer.

B) Money costs:

You’ll spend a grand total of:

$2,454 per 1 MPH improvement (= $12,270 / 5 MPH).

Yes, that’s right!

The real cost of serve or groundstroke speed improvement for the serious competitive player is $2,454 per 1 MPH.

Let me repeat that figure again:

If you want to increase your serve speed by 1 MPH by lifting weights, you need to spend roughly $2,454 !!!

Does this make sense in these tough times?

Does this make any sense at any time?

Is there a better, cheaper way to increase your serve and groundstroke speed?

Yes, there is…

Recall “Scenario 2” at the beginning of this post? The solution is called training with the Tennis SpeedChain!

Players who train with the Tennis SpeedChain typically increase their serve and groundstroke speeds about 20 MPH in 4 weeks of training twice a week.

This means, that on the high side, the real financial cost of improving your serve or groundstroke speed costs as little as $9 per 1 MPH ($175 / 20 MPH improvement)!

$9 versus $2,454?

$9 versus $757?

$205 total versus $12,270 total?

4 weeks versus 40 weeks?

Oh yes, and I will also mention that in those four weeks, you’ll spend only about 40 to 60 minutes working out per week.

So, let’s add…

60 minutes per week versus 5 hours / 300 minutes per week?

Which training program sounds better to you? Which training program makes more sense?

I think that when you look at the real numbers, the answer becomes crystal clear.

The only sensible solution to increasing your serve and groundstroke speed is training with the Tennis SpeedChain.

TTFN!

Technical Training I: Looks define the result

Everyone loves talking about strokes. What’s textbook? What’s not? What's classic? What's modern? What's a modern classic? Is there even such a thing as a textbook stroke? And so on…

This debate is at the very least entertaining, as well as a complete waste of time as far as helping players to achieve what the want to the level that they’re capable of achieving. (Another frequent debate topic in tennis circles…)

One fundamental view of stroke technique we have at TennisSpeed can be described in 4 simple words:

Looks define the result.

What is so puzzling is that this simple concept simply eludes so many players, parents and coaches today.

What this means is that if you want to hit your forehand with some reasonable hope of achieving the same result as Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, the simplest way to do this is to copy the exact movements they make when they hit their forehands.

I pick this specific example of the Federer and Nadal forehands because the technique(s) used by their respective owners is the current state-of-the-art as far as how to maximize the power, spin, and consistency of the forehand stroke goes right now (and for the immediate future).

And despite what the vast majority of instructional articles that exist all of today’s media in either print or on the mighty Web may say, the only way that you’re going to reproduce their stroke is to reproduce their exact body and racket movements, as completely as you’re capable of reproducing them.

Yes, as far as I am concerned, you CAN reproduce the fundamental movement patterns involved in reproducing either hall-of-fame forehand either fully or partially.

What you need to understand is that the quality of your reproduction, the quality of the resulting stroke will be determined by how much innate, or, as many call it—“natural”—athletic ability you have.

If you have the same raw, athletic ability of the actual owners (i.e. Roger or Rafael), then you can reasonable expect to generate the same stroke they have (more or less).

If you have a different—most likely lower—level of athletic ability, then your reproduction will be slightly different (i.e. less powerful, consistent, accurate, etc.) from the original.

What’s impossible is to think that you can reproduce their results by just modifying your existing technique using all available, published instructions in print or on the Internet, or by copying the techniques of other players who aren’t them.

For example, I guarantee you that you will not reproduce the Federer or Nadal forehand by trying to copying the Gonzalez or Blake forehand. And, consulting the resident Web tennis “experts” at places such as F-B.com; T-----P----r.net, W—T-----.com, or T-----O--.com, etc is as futile as the previous option as well.

(Let me just say that as far as I am concerned, there are enough free videos of Federer and Nadal hitting forehands on YouTube, that it doesn’t make sense to pay the subscription rates that these sites ask for. Anyway, the rest of the so-called “content” on those sites only serve to dilute, if not contaminate the real value of those sites, which lies in the videos themselves.)

The next illogical stage in this almost absurd situation is the common claim made by the tennis coaching and instructional establishment that their movements are specific and idiosyncratic to them (i.e. Roger and Rafael) alone, and the best that you can achieve is to reproduce the immutable and unchanging tennis technical “fundamentals” they promote that may be present in their technique.

What if the truth is the exact opposite: that you CAN learn their exact movements, and what’s preventing you from doing so is the inability of your chosen teaching pro, coach, parent-coach, or website to figure out what they’re actually doing. There are probably tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of words and images out there that have vainly tried to uncover the principles of the Federer and Nadal forehand.

What you and they fail to realize is that no amount of mainstream tennis technical knowledge or experience will be able to decode the not-so-secret principles (for a select few coaches on Earth, that is) used by Roger and Rafael.

The truth of the matter is that conventional tennis technical knowledge is really unimportant (and perhaps irrelevant) to reproducing their supreme movements compared with understanding the fundamentals of general athletic movement in humans.

Bottom line is this, for all practical intents and purposes, if you want to stroke it like Player X, get some video (high-speed video would be very helpful in this regards: i.e. 200+ frames per second video) of Player X executing the stroke of interest and copy what you see to the best of your ability.

If you want to take it to the next level and understand why you’re making exactly those moves, well… Your options are limited and very expensive, or you can just stay tuned!

TTFN!

P.S. I’ll be in Indian Wells for the BNP Paribas Open from 3/8 to 3/11/09, so anyone who wants to talk about anything relating to speed in tennis should give me a ring (303.242.5441) and maybe we’ll get together and “talk TennisSpeed” somewhere in the limited shade at the Tennis Garden.

TennisSpeed's Top 5 Pro First Serves (1985-2009)

Remember how I said I would be posting more frequently and trying to promote more feedback and discussion?

Well, here's words put into action...

I've noticed that people like to respond to "best of/worst of" lists.

So in the hope of getting folks who read this blog into "response mode" around here, I present the first of my lists: the Top 5 first serves of the last 25 years.

I'll do a few lists over the coming weeks and months for all of the strokes of general interest (serve, forehand, backhand, etc.), for completeness.

One thing I wanted to know is: should I separate these list by gender (i.e. men and women) or just make a master list?

Maybe I won't separate them the first time around...

But, if you think I should provide a second series of Top 5 lists focusing only on the women, you need to let me know (hint, hint...)!

So, without much further ado...

Top 5 First Serves (1985-2009)

--in alphabetical order---

Boris Becker
Goran Ivanisevic
Andy Roddick
Pete Sampras
Michael Stich

All 5 serves blended unbelievable power, accuracy, spin, variety and disguise under pressure.

Honorable mention:

Roger Federer
Ivo Karlovic
Richard Krajicek
Greg Rusedski

These 4 guys are close, but fall short in one of the five categories above...

So, what do you think?

TTFN!

P.S. Let me know which online tennis instructional websites you would like to see reviewed here. Just leave a comment or email me!

Change and the Power of Being "Different"

Happy New Year, Everyone!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and let me begin by thanking all of you out there who have been following the blog and I hope that you have found the ideas and perspectives presented here interesting and useful sometimes. :)

Yes, the title of this post is a hint of what’s in store from TennisSpeed and this blog in the coming year.

There are going to be some major changes at TennisSpeed including a new website and the launch of a brand new service (tentatively called BVM, we’ll talk more about this future posts) that taps into the massive amount of new information we’ve obtained in the past 6 months about how to develop maximal power and control from your stroke technique on serves and groundstrokes.

This blog will change a bit too, as I plan to post more frequently with shorter entries with more photos and videos. I will also include some commentary and analysis of select ATP and WTA players and matches from a speed training and development perspective.

I also plan to introduce some of the really intriguing new findings about stroke techniques that we’ve uncovered using super high-speed video analysis and a novel video-based biomechanical analysis technique we’ve developed with the help of a retired, physics and engineering “superman”.

Essentially, what these new discoveries have been telling us is that if you want to perform at a world-class level, you need to focus solely on how to reproduce the stroke techniques used by the top players and essentially be willing ignore (or block out) virtually all conventional tennis instruction—especially when it comes to serves and groundstrokes.

If you look carefully, the top performers, the great champions have always performed in ways that went against the grain of virtually all of the dominant instructional ideas of their playing careers. They did things in ways that were considered by the tennis experts of their respective days to be either outright “wrong” or completely idiosyncratic in that only that player could execute that stroke (during their active playing careers).

What’s also true is that there is an optimal technique—an optimal movement—to execute every stroke, yet, there is still room for the “evolution” of these “optimal” techniques by an exceptional athlete.

From Lacoste and Tilden, to Budge, Hoad, Kramer and Laver, to Borg, Lendl, Becker, Agassi, Sampras, and now Federer and Nadal, the greats of this sport have almost always done things differently than those before them. The greats of any endeavor, of any “field”, separate themselves by doing things differently, not by “following the masses” and doing what even the most respected or famous experts say they “should be doing”.

For example, if you wanted to “follow” the path that Nadal took to the top, what you will find is that Nadal developed in a way that the great majority of so-called experts in US tennis believe is flat-out wrong. Our “experts” mainly dismiss his success as being unique to his specific circumstances and impossible to reproduce in general.

Truth is, having seen, met and worked with some of Nadal’s inner circle team, I will tell you that what he did to develop into a top player is completely logical and totally reproducible, just not in America. And, if you’re wondering, it has everything to do with character and family values (Yes, they matter! Big time!) as it does with superior training knowledge and methods.

At this point in history, as far as I can tell, US tennis is really incapable of developing a player of Nadal’s (or Federer’s) caliber given the type of people involved in tennis in general, as well as given who’s “in charge” of tennis right now. And when you look at the few recent exceptions who have broken through (esp. Sam Querrey), you will find out that these players did not conform to the commonly accepted “standards and practices” of US high-performance tennis, and found their own way, often going (far) "against the grain".

So, yes, if you haven’t figured it out already (or if you’re reading this blog for the first time), I have zero confidence in US tennis, especially when it comes to its ability to develop top players. Without a complete "re-start" of the tennis establishment here, I only expect more of the same: a random trickling of successful American tour pros.

Now, to show you that I will do more than complain, I want to offer you a few potential solutions. Here’s the most practical advice I can offer you today:

1) Hire a really expert tennis coach (there are only a few around on Earth; you can email me for a list of these individuals--fair warning, only a very few individuals on this list live in the US!)
2) Spend time training and playing tournaments in either Spain or France
3) Be completely skeptical, if not outright suspicious about all “free” tennis instruction that appears in the mass media—especially on the internet.

IMHO, most, if not all “free” tennis instruction on the web is worth exactly the price you’ve paid for it—i.e. absolutely nothing.

At least the videos they post are pretty good, but often they're no better than some of the vids you can find on Y**T**e (I really like the tennis vids posted by the user named "worldted"). Many of these websites have what I would call "entertainment value" (this is why I look at them), but frankly I just don't expect them to have any valuable instructional insights.

These sites are well-intentioned by and large, but simply lack the competence and insight that you could actually use to reproduce what you see in their images of ATP and WTA tour pros.

Better yet, ignore all free tennis instruction unless you are satisfied with information that will get you to maybe NTRP 4.5 max. Then realize that the NTRP of even a decent NCAA D3 player is between 5.0 to 6.0 (yes, really). So, if you choose to rely on the info that’s presented on sites like T*****P*****r.net, H*T*** T****s, W*bT*****s.net, F**.com, T*****O*e, etc. to mold your game, you absolutely won't improve beyond NTRP 4.5. What this means is authentic "high-performance" in tennis (i.e. NTRP > 5.5) will be impossible for you to EVER achieve, even if you did have the will, interest and talent to do so.

Finally, I wanted to just tell you upfront that your feedback is always welcome here. Please feel free to comment or even email me directly with your feedback anytime.

I have been wondering lately about why I’ve received relatively little feedback about what the contents of my posts since it's been around. Then it dawns on me that many of the ideas I’ve presented so far are either completely novel or fundamentally contrary to the vast majority of tennis instructional and training concepts that are familiar to American players, coaches, parents and fans.

So to a great extent, I conclude that many of you need to take some time to consider these ideas and opinions yourself before you might consider responding.

Or, maybe, I need to tap more often into my "inner provocateur" and see where this takes us…

TTFN!