5 tips to improve your potency

Everyone wants more power! Even if in fact the "club players" should rather focus more on consistency and on the placement of the ball than on power, no one can refute that the search for power has become essential in modern tennis. The many technological developments in racquets, ball speeds and increased player fitness mean that the game has become faster and more physical than ever before. This is why power is more and more necessary even the finesse and placement of the ball are still as important to master as before.

1- The relaxation of the hand and the arm.

Any player who aspires to produce more power in tennis should question their level of relaxation when hitting. If you want to transmit the power effectively to the ball, you have to try to be as relaxed as possible and not become muscular, that is to say contract at the moment of contact and thus keep the energy in yourself. It starts with the hand that holds the racquet, it must be as relaxed as possible, it is important not to "strangle" the handle of the racquet! An interesting exercise to feel this would be to hit a few balls with only 2 fingers on the handle, the middle finger and the thumb. All the other fingers are in the air, so we can see how we can manage power without forcing. To be relaxed when hitting, you obviously have to center the ball well in your racquet and this is done by positioning yourself solidly at the ball with the right distance to it to optimize your balance, while keeping your eyes on the ball. point of contact even when it has passed is also necessary. If you want to produce speed as smoothly as possible, executing a top-down “loop” on forehands and backhands will help you achieve optimal flexibility during those shots. For the serve, a nice flow of the racquet in the back will help you accomplish the same goal.

Finally, the trigger will give you more power, cost you less energy and above all will minimize injuries related to working the arm incorrectly during the strike.

2- Rotation

In tennis, as in many other sports, the power is generated primarily by the body and not by the arms. Think of the baseball player who swings at home plate to hit the ball, his rotation is of paramount importance to generate the maximum power by working the least possible with the arms. It is the same in tennis, where the rotation of the upper body will allow you to accelerate much more in each strike and make sure to give the most possible speed to the ball. All of this must start in the right way, that is to say by putting the body aside before the ball arrives at us, with the aim of turning the hips and shoulders slightly before contact. If we shoot too early, we spend our energy too soon and if we shoot too late, we don't take full measure of our shot. This is why the rotation must be done at the right time. How do you know if you've done a well-synchronized rotation? Well, we will feel that the power increases compared to our previous strikes without feeling like we are expending more energy. To achieve having the body in profile before the ball arrives at us, it is good to use the non-dominant hand (the hand that does not hold the racket) which should be on the triangle of the racket in position d 'waiting. This will bring the racquet behind, which will automatically turn our shoulders to the side. Too many players just bring the dominant arm back without using the other hand and the body stays facing the court. The non-dominant hand will also help us execute a faster and therefore more efficient rotation to generate full power. An easy way to practice this to find good spin feel is to simply drop a ball in front of you and spin into the shot being aware of the timing of our spin.

3- Weight transfer

Once again the body is in the spotlight to produce power with good weight transfer. This is necessary if we want to maximize our strike and damage our opponent with the speed of the ball. Let's go back to our example of the baseball player who hits the ball at home plate with his bat. We previously explained that this player will attempt to spin well in the strike. But another element that will happen right after the start of the rotation is this famous weight transfer. Who says "transfer" says to pass from one to the other, it will be necessary that the weight of the body can pass from one leg to the other. To do this, it is important to keep the ball in front of you to be able to move towards it at the right time and put all the gum! Many players come to the ball too early and have no space when the time comes to transfer their body weight onto the ball. For a right-handed person, we will try to pass from the rear right leg to the front left leg in a forward movement. This will help us to produce the maximum power with the minimum energy expended by the arms. You can practice this simply by dropping a ball slightly in front of you with your hand and practicing hitting as you move forward. A last important detail is the waiting position that we adopt in the field. It is important to position ourselves slightly behind the baseline on hold and not with our feet three-quarters up the court, this will allow us to have the space required to move forward into contact when the ball arrives.

4- Legs

The largest muscles in the human body are found in the legs. The muscles of the thighs and calves are obviously much stronger than those of the arms, so it is necessary and desirable to use them as much as possible and in the right way to improve your power. This is the reason why professional players have very muscular legs compared to the upper body which is often modest in stature and build. Again coordination is important here. We will need to have our legs slightly bent when we get to the ball to be able to push up and forward with them and thus maximize our power. Like the previous two examples (rotation and weight transfer), this is easy to practice with a few balls. We drop the ball in front of us by bending our legs at the same time, then give a forward and upward momentum to feel the contribution of the legs in our shot.

5- Taking the ball early

An often underestimated element that will help us generate power without too much effort is not letting the ball lose too much speed when we receive it on our side of the net. When the ball comes to us with little power, we will have to work harder to generate speed. When the ball arrives faster, we will use its speed to easily return it with more power to the other side of the court. "Club players" often tend to back up a lot during play, causing the ball to bounce back towards them with much less speed and they will have to work very hard to put power on the next shot. . Try to catch the ball earlier, in the bounce or simply in its rise after its bounce. This way you will use the energy that your opponent gave to the ball and you will work less hard for a better result. Practice not backing up too much during play and attacking the ball soon after the bounce. This will require good racquet preparation and good coordination, but by succeeding you will increase your power tenfold and your opponents will have much less time to react. A simple exercise would be to knock on a wall by approaching it more and more while trying to maintain a faster and faster striking rate. Not easy but how much fun to achieve this!

In closing, a good combination of the listed elements is necessary to successfully increase your power in tennis. That is to say, have a relaxed hand when reaching the ball, come to the side to be able to make a good rotation, transfer your weight well into the ball, use your legs to push forward and hold a position aggressive in the field to take the ball early. A good way not to get discouraged and to improve is to train the elements mentioned but individually and not try to put everything into practice at once. Eventually, we will be able to combine them and thus strike at our full power potential. Always keeping in mind the pleasure of playing and improving!

Happy tennis :)