Your Arms and Hands
Your Arms and Hands
While your upper body isn’t the best thing to rely on in tennis for balance, your arms and hands are as important as your legs when it comes to making sure the ball goes where it needs to.
Your elbows, wrists, shoulders, and handgrip all play into how your reaction time and direction of shot pans outs. Remember to keep your elbow up higher than you’re used to because this will reduce the time you need to get it into a position to hit the ball. If prior to your swing, you have to extend your elbow up and out, you automatically place yourself at a disadvantage as your opponent can use your delayed reaction time against you.
Warming up your shoulders is vital before practice or a match because the very nature of the game of tennis means they are going to get a vigorous workout. Your shoulders will constantly be rotating and pulled back and forth as you aim your racket towards those balls for the perfect shot.
As you see the ball hurtling towards your end of the court, your shoulder should already be in movement to get your arm and hand extended to where the racket needs to be for the ball to hit it perfectly.
Don’t keep your wrist stiff or flexed in, as this controls your immediate swing of the racket. Make sure that your wrist is extended and prepared for the shot that it’s about to take. Your wrist will be the guiding force that pulls your arm up or sideways to guide your shot, let it take that lead.
Your grip on your racket matters as well. Control will help you win your games at the end of the day. Control over your balance, control over your leg and shoulder movements, and even control over your grip on your racket.
You need to make sure that you have a solid grip on the racket so that it doesn’t fly out of your hand when you extend your hand to meet the ball. You also want to make sure that the impact of the ball on the racket doesn’t rattle your arm.
So, how do you know when you have a perfect grip? Perfect grip means that your finger and palm position is the same before a hit as it is after the racket has been hit. If your hand movement is moved by the impact of the ball then you weren’t gripping the racket properly. You need to exercise both power over the racket and control over its movements.
The other important aspect of tennis when playing is to learn how to use your non-dominant hand. For most people, this is their left hand. However, for the lefties of the world, their right hand will be their non-dominant hand.
Have you ever watched a match of professional tennis being played? The players constantly switch up which hands they are using in order to keep those shots perfect and primed for their benefit rather than their opponents. Your non-dominant hand is also playing when you are holding the racket with your dominant hand.
How? Well, it’s simple. As you swing with your dominant hand, your other hand will help prep your forehand and help control your balance if you hit a backhand swing. It also will help you keep your balance as you volley and set up those overhead shots. Most importantly, your non-dominant hand brings balance when you serve and that can often set the tone for your entire game.
You need to get into the habit of focusing on your non-dominant hand during gameplay rather than ignoring that it is there. Ensuring that your other hand is balancing out your play is crucial to your success and your fun in the game. Also, having more balance ensures that less of our body takes stress during those harder hits and pull-throughs.
Â
