Serve motion like throwing a ball? Watch Serena throw a ball.

[nytennisaddict]

Throwing a racket over the fence seems as bizarre to me as a baseball player throwing his bat as some sort of drill to help him develop his swing. Are people really having that much trouble with the concept of swinging a racket at a ball? Maybe they are. I dont know.

there are seriously some folks that have zero sports experience... it's like their mom/dad never went to the backyard to "throw the ball/frisbee/football/etc..." around

At any rate the topic addressed the notion that there is a correlation and that women dont serve as well as men because they've never learned how to throw a ball (a theory I've heard countless times) and not because they are 22% smaller than men on average and just happen to serve about 22% slower than men.

ah, never heard that theory... i just presume women (wta) in general don't serve as well as men (atp), purely due to size/strength differences... anyone who is a pro certainly practiced serving alot :P

[don_budge]

interesting that you can serve lefty, but not righty (and vice versa with throwing a ball).
for me, i can serve lefty, but like at the low 3.5 level... can spin it in... but the left side of my body, from the ground up, is not as sync'd as well as my right side.

i wonder if your ability to "not" be able with your right side, is because you have such a highly developed throwing motion, that doing something else that's similar, but not quite the same, forces you into the "throwing" groove (ie. like swinging forward, vs. swinging up).

in mixed martial arts, for example, when learning a new but similar move... the body naturally gravitates to the "old" familiar movement (eg. a muy thai roundhouse kick is similar but not the same as the similar kick in tkd, savate, capoeira,...)... growing up with tkd, i found it very hard to break habits formed in tkd, to learn a muy thai kick.

I bat left handed and play golf right handed.

[nytennisaddict]

I bat left handed and play golf right handed.

that seems to support my theory?
either way, sounds like you're a gifted athlete.
i have a hard enough time to get my right side coordinated.

[don_budge]

I should have been a boxer. Or martial arts. Left? Right? You'd never know what hit you. Seriously...I have thought about it. The problem is number one I never want to get hit. Number two...I don't like to hit. I wouldn't want to hurt my hands on some knucklehead.

But I don't think your theory holds water in this case. In my case I think the secret lies in my brain. I have this unusual ability to see things from different points of view. If you are left handed you use one side of your brain more and if you are right handed you use the other? Is this true? I have often wondered about my dominate eye. Tonight when I checked it it is my left eye that is dominant. I am under the impression that normally it is my right eye that is dominant. It's strange...well not to me because I live with it. But I think it is a bit unusual.

I am pretty certain that I could develop a right handed serve if I trained on it. Or throw left handed. I was pretty decent going to my left in basketball and I should have trained on that more and I probably would have if I had gotten super serious about basketball. But the one thing that is disturbing me greatly is my lack of natural correct technique in my golf swing. I took my first golf lesson on my 40th birthday but I grew up playing baseball. The right handed swing never felt completely efficient by a long shot. Tomorrow I am taking a lesson with a friend who has all of the latest technology with the cameras, computer gizmos. I feel like I am really getting closer to it. Sometimes I attain it but it will take a lot of reps to make it mine. I had been having an insanely difficult time making solid contact with chips and pitches (less that full swings) but today I stumbled on to something in that I was using the "baseball swing" dynamics on the shorter shots and was making solid contact every time.

The golf swing is so similar to the batting stroke. Except the contact takes place down at your feet. But all of the biomechanics are exactly alike except for the ball contact which of course changes things a bit.

So this discussion about the throwing is fascinating. Throwing versus serving. I think that the idea of throwing the racquet over the fence is very valid in that the motion is definitely more of an upwards throw seeing as you are using an "implement" and teeing the ball well over your head. In order to make this stroke on a ball you must use a lot of spin as well which requires hitting up on a ball.

[jeffreycounts]

For hours? Standing there chucking rackets for hours? And she still cant throw a ball? .

I bet if she threw a tennis racket it would have been a strike.

The weight of a baseball versus the weight and length of a tennis racket are dramatically different. Combine that with the upward direction versus forward, and I can certainly see why she wouldn't be putting it right in the glove.

[nytennisaddict]

was thinking about this a bit...
i think some folks take the "serving is like throwing" analogy a bit too far... then claim later, that serving is nothing like throwing...
for me i want to instill the gross motor components of a throwing motion...
* body sideways perpendicular to target
* left arm pointing in the general direction of the target
* right arm in a 90 degree angle...
* palm facing 90 degree away from target
* load/launch of back foot,
* weight xfer to left foot
* hip fires
* chest faces target
side note, to me serving is like throwing almost vertically up

they type of person i'm using this analogy for... is someone who
* step/weight xfer with the wrong foot
* doesn't stand sideways
* elbow close to body
* "throw" is a pushing motion (like darts),

if you're already a decent level thrower (ie. played even little league baseball, football), i'd never use this analogy, and focus on the specifics of serving

problem with "tips" that are taken out of context, is that you don't know wthat the tip was initially trying to address... and if you're apply it to yourself, yoiu might be trying to fix a problme that doesn't exist, or doesn't apply to you. so the moral of the story is to not eavesdrop on the lesson next to you :P

[nytennisaddict]

I bet if she threw a tennis racket it would have been a strike.

The weight of a baseball versus the weight and length of a tennis racket are dramatically different. Combine that with the upward direction versus forward, and I can certainly see why she wouldn't be putting it right in the glove.

exactly.
i liken it to throttle control, or even clutch control on a car.
if you're used to driving a honda, and someone puts you in a lambo, yoiu might end up like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LidF1gF3YQ