There are some good tennis videos out there. Many are too long for me. Tennis Hacker videos are outstanding; shorter in length but loaded with fantastic information. This is my go-to tennis channel. Make this your first stop, and you will not regret it. Just awesome 👌
Hi Richard, I'm writing you this comment just to remind you are a great man human being, I saw you in UA-cam couple of years ago, and I never regretted subscribing.
This is one of your best videos yet Richard. When moving the head causes so many errors in tennis or leads to suboptimal shot quality, I for one am willing to search high and low for any solutions that helps solve this problem. I do know that the adult human head weighs between 4.5-5KG and for children it is even worse as their heads are of a greater mass as a proportion of total body mass, so keeping this part still while swinging a racquet on a consistent basis is critical to short & long term improvement. From a biomechanical point of view, players should learn to appreciate that they will in fact hit the ball harder if they can keep their head still, because it stops over rotation AND energy is not leaked into keeping the player balanced with decent posture. 👍🏼👍🏼
I think you overlook a root cause for many athletes: in throwing sports you look at the target. When throwing a baseball or football you do not watch the ball in your hand at all. This reflex is hard to overcome when switching to tennis. It is even harder when added to the desire to see what the opponent is up to. I am slowly learning to reprogram this, but tips in this regard would be welcome.
I haven’t overlooked it. I don’t believe it’s a root cause for most players. Throwing in football and baseball are different skills. There are certain mechanical similarities, but different sports and situations. If you know you need to keep your head still in tennis. It’s about focusing on it properly in practice. If you aren’t able to do it despite focused practice, then we need to dig deeper into why. That’s where this video fits in. I have other videos that dig deeper into how to do focused practice. And videos that talking about how to improve focus.
@@TennisHacker This keeping your head still at contact is always taught in hitting a baseball. Players from little league on practice " not lifting your head off the ball." We've heard that a million times. Also a batter can start to tell if it's a two seam fast ball by looking at the red seams spinning from a four seam fast ball. It's really easy after a while. The two seam has less of a tight spin so you see more of the white and s four seam has a tighter spin and if it's thrown fast it you see more of the red seams. So yeah baseball has this same fundamental requirement. Throwing a baseball has a different dynamic even though I'd say throwing a football 🏈 is closer to the tennis serving dynamic except for the looser fluid motion of throwing a baseball is closer to serving. The major difference of both compared to the tennis serve is you have a racket in your hand to propel the ball and you have to have your eyes fixed to the physical contact point. In baseball and football throw you have your eyes on the target .
This info is so great and must be shared:) is it possible to make it translated to another language (Russian)? Like with Z portal? This will be very beneficial for Russian speaking tennis players but unfortunately they are often too uncomfortable to watch it in English
Thank you for these exercises. Here's a follow up question ... I think I move my head before contact because I'm looking at the last moment to visualize where I want the ball to go, or I'm looking too early to see where it's actually going. Are these plausible reasons for moving one's head right before contact? If so, are there exercise for learning to avoid these mistakes?
I would like to know that also. I turn my head too early because I want to see where my shot will land. I think it's impossible to see if I keep my head still.
If you know that are lifting your head to look at where your shot is going it initially comes down to lack of focus. You need to tell yourself to keep your head still. What I present in this video is why a solution to why players can't stabilize their head even though they are focusing on it. If you are unable to maintain focus in general, then there are various different things you can do to train and improve focus. It's also possible to have other contributing issues. For example, if your timing is very late, it can make it much harder to keep your head still.
i keep saying to mysefl ‘keep your eye on the ball’ and a splitsecond later i lift my head. its incredibly frustrating. some days are worse than others. I wondered if I could maybe paint a ball with coloured marks and try determine what colour i could see at contact point. just and and have a partner hit flat balls to me.
Very interesting stuff. Especially for those of us who have struggled with this issue forever. Just out of curiosity, with fairly regular training how long do estimate until people generally start seeing results?
It’s a hard question to answer because people have such different starting points. Both in terms of how their systems are functioning and in respect to their strokes.
@@TennisHacker can't say I have won GS tournaments 🏆. My great uncle did date Bill Tilden back in the day. We kept it a dark family secret till he passed away.🤣😎🎾
Yes definitely. When players struggle on serve or overheads. it's often related to this system. You want to train all directions, but for serve you can do additional reps focusing on up and right.
If I was incorrect, then I'd be happy for you to correct me. But it's the vesibulocollic reflex that I'm talking about. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157641
This is almost impossible with glasses. When I turn my head as you do I keep looking at the borders of my glasses or even not through the glass anymore so I won't see a thing.
@@TennisHacker yes unfortunately I have a severe eye condition called Keratoconus which makes it hard (if not impossible) to still play tennis at a high level. You can't really see depth. Having played tennis at a fairly high junior level till I was 19 and now being a tennis coach made it so that I've had millions of balls coming at me, so the brain can predict where the ball is going to land. I am very interested in these type of knowledge you are presenting here because it might help me.
These systems are functionally autonomic. This issue of keeping the head still (chicken effect) is no more than basic posture and flexibility which can be trained. An upright posture creates a simple vertical axis around which the swing path operates. The reality is that this verticality though optimal is varied constantly to create different angles and swing path directions. We typically see the shoulder axis tilting on the serve (shoulder over shoulder) but the principle is just like a carousel. The axis shifts angle but the swing path still stays fundamentally circular. This kind of pseudo science is just a ruse to get people to sign up to worthless training that is in itself not rocket science. In the same way that coaches love to talk about pronation and supination and label every muscle and tendon most of this is not necessary to know. We typically learn physical skills through observation and mimicry but of course there are some very basic concepts in physics that can help unpick the mechanics of what js optimal and then match that to some basic biomechanical mimicry. These is so much disinformation in this space and that of skills sharing in general that it helps to focus on appropriate courses of improvement. Basic fitness core strength and flexibility are pretty much prerequisites for any physical activity or sport. Good posture is consequence of that focus. It is good posture that high level tennis players all have.
Thank you for commenting, even though it was an extremely negative comment. There is a massive and I mean massive amount of research about how brains function and how different training modalities can create structural changes within the brain. And changes in performance outcomes. I’ve personally used vestibular training with very good effect. I’ve also seen it make a huge difference of a lot of players. My recommendation would be that if you don’t understand something, do a little research, instead of trying to prevent other people from learning something that might really help help.
I’m going to respectfully disagree that there is a physiological component to lifting the head on a shot. Keeping the head down on, or after the shot is a very high-level skill and indicates years of training. When a player can withstand the urge to put the head up it means there is a larger commitment to the mechanics of the swing than there is to seeing the shot that was hit. This is true of any impact-on-ball sport, squash, baseball, golf, soccer, and of course tennis. Most club players will never train a swing long enough so that they can consistently keep their head down when under pressure.
Thank for the video but, being brutally honest, who will spend their free time doing this silly exercises for hours? They might help but, come on, this is boring as hell.
There are some good tennis videos out there. Many are too long for me. Tennis Hacker videos are outstanding; shorter in length but loaded with fantastic information. This is my go-to tennis channel. Make this your first stop, and you will not regret it.
Just awesome 👌
Thank you I appreciate that.
Hi Richard, I'm writing you this comment just to remind you are a great man human being, I saw you in UA-cam couple of years ago, and I never regretted subscribing.
Wow, thank you
This is one of your best videos yet Richard.
When moving the head causes so many errors in tennis or leads to suboptimal shot quality, I for one am willing to search high and low for any solutions that helps solve this problem.
I do know that the adult human head weighs between 4.5-5KG and for children it is even worse as their heads are of a greater mass as a proportion of total body mass, so keeping this part still while swinging a racquet on a consistent basis is critical to short & long term improvement.
From a biomechanical point of view, players should learn to appreciate that they will in fact hit the ball harder if they can keep their head still, because it stops over rotation AND energy is not leaked into keeping the player balanced with decent posture.
👍🏼👍🏼
Thank you for your kind words. Glad you enjoyed the video.
I think you overlook a root cause for many athletes: in throwing sports you look at the target. When throwing a baseball or football you do not watch the ball in your hand at all. This reflex is hard to overcome when switching to tennis. It is even harder when added to the desire to see what the opponent is up to. I am slowly learning to reprogram this, but tips in this regard would be welcome.
I haven’t overlooked it. I don’t believe it’s a root cause for most players.
Throwing in football and baseball are different skills. There are certain mechanical similarities, but different sports and situations.
If you know you need to keep your head still in tennis. It’s about focusing on it properly in practice.
If you aren’t able to do it despite focused practice, then we need to dig deeper into why.
That’s where this video fits in. I have other videos that dig deeper into how to do focused practice.
And videos that talking about how to improve focus.
@@TennisHacker This keeping your head still at contact is always taught in hitting a baseball. Players from little league on practice " not lifting your head off the ball." We've heard that a million times. Also a batter can start to tell if it's a two seam fast ball by looking at the red seams spinning from a four seam fast ball. It's really easy after a while. The two seam has less of a tight spin so you see more of the white and s four seam has a tighter spin and if it's thrown fast it you see more of the red seams. So yeah baseball has this same fundamental requirement. Throwing a baseball has a different dynamic even though I'd say throwing a football 🏈 is closer to the tennis serving dynamic except for the looser fluid motion of throwing a baseball is closer to serving. The major difference of both compared to the tennis serve is you have a racket in your hand to propel the ball and you have to have your eyes fixed to the physical contact point. In baseball and football throw you have your eyes on the target .
It is super interesting to watch you explain stuff, subscribed:)
terrific ideas and easy [enough] to do and see results over time...
👍
As always, awesome stuff!
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the video.
Thank you. I’ll give this a go
Great explanation!
This info is so great and must be shared:) is it possible to make it translated to another language (Russian)? Like with Z portal? This will be very beneficial for Russian speaking tennis players but unfortunately they are often too uncomfortable to watch it in English
Thanks. If I haven’t looked into any translation services.
Thank you for these exercises. Here's a follow up question ... I think I move my head before contact because I'm looking at the last moment to visualize where I want the ball to go, or I'm looking too early to see where it's actually going. Are these plausible reasons for moving one's head right before contact? If so, are there exercise for learning to avoid these mistakes?
I would like to know that also. I turn my head too early because I want to see where my shot will land. I think it's impossible to see if I keep my head still.
If you know that are lifting your head to look at where your shot is going it initially comes down to lack of focus. You need to tell yourself to keep your head still. What I present in this video is why a solution to why players can't stabilize their head even though they are focusing on it.
If you are unable to maintain focus in general, then there are various different things you can do to train and improve focus.
It's also possible to have other contributing issues. For example, if your timing is very late, it can make it much harder to keep your head still.
i keep saying to mysefl ‘keep your eye on the ball’ and a splitsecond later i lift my head. its incredibly frustrating. some days are worse
than others. I wondered if I could maybe paint a ball with coloured marks and try determine what colour i could see at contact point. just and and have a partner hit flat balls to me.
Very interesting stuff. Especially for those of us who have struggled with this issue forever. Just out of curiosity, with fairly regular training how long do estimate until people generally start seeing results?
It’s a hard question to answer because people have such different starting points.
Both in terms of how their systems are functioning and in respect to their strokes.
Are you saying your eyes stay on the letter even when your head turns?
Yes!
Using the Eye Coach helps 100% to fixing head shifting . Coachcaz TenniPerfections
Coaches eye is a device that helps train this reflex.
Thanks for this.
You are welcome.
@@TennisHacker1st that I've seen explaining this. Fantastic and very useful 👌
McEnroe did this chapstick thing when he came back to play a match when he was hungover. He told me that.
Yep, everyone watching Yt videos is a multi time grand slam champ
@@TennisHacker can't say I have won GS tournaments 🏆. My great uncle did date Bill Tilden back in the day. We kept it a dark family secret till he passed away.🤣😎🎾
Sounds like it could work fir balance on the serve which is difficult for me
Yes definitely. When players struggle on serve or overheads. it's often related to this system. You want to train all directions, but for serve you can do additional reps focusing on up and right.
Very good advice but if you don't mind, as a doctor may I correct you - these are called the 'vestibulo-cochlear' & 'vestibulo-ocular' reflexes!
If I was incorrect, then I'd be happy for you to correct me. But it's the vesibulocollic reflex that I'm talking about.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157641
This is almost impossible with glasses. When I turn my head as you do I keep looking at the borders of my glasses or even not through the glass anymore so I won't see a thing.
Second and third are no problem of course.
Sadly yes glasses create limitations. Which is what you see very few pros wearing them.
Where possible contacts are preferable for this reason.
@@TennisHacker yes unfortunately I have a severe eye condition called Keratoconus which makes it hard (if not impossible) to still play tennis at a high level. You can't really see depth. Having played tennis at a fairly high junior level till I was 19 and now being a tennis coach made it so that I've had millions of balls coming at me, so the brain can predict where the ball is going to land.
I am very interested in these type of knowledge you are presenting here because it might help me.
These systems are functionally autonomic. This issue of keeping the head still (chicken effect) is no more than basic posture and flexibility which can be trained. An upright posture creates a simple vertical axis around which the swing path operates. The reality is that this verticality though optimal is varied constantly to create different angles and swing path directions. We typically see the shoulder axis tilting on the serve (shoulder over shoulder) but the principle is just like a carousel. The axis shifts angle but the swing path still stays fundamentally circular. This kind of pseudo science is just a ruse to get people to sign up to worthless training that is in itself not rocket science. In the same way that coaches love to talk about pronation and supination and label every muscle and tendon most of this is not necessary to know. We typically learn physical skills through observation and mimicry but of course there are some very basic concepts in physics that can help unpick the mechanics of what js optimal and then match that to some basic biomechanical mimicry. These is so much disinformation in this space and that of skills sharing in general that it helps to focus on appropriate courses of improvement. Basic fitness core strength and flexibility are pretty much prerequisites for any physical activity or sport. Good posture is consequence of that focus. It is good posture that high level tennis players all have.
Thank you for commenting, even though it was an extremely negative comment.
There is a massive and I mean massive amount of research about how brains function and how different training modalities can create structural changes within the brain. And changes in performance outcomes.
I’ve personally used vestibular training with very good effect. I’ve also seen it make a huge difference of a lot of players.
My recommendation would be that if you don’t understand something, do a little research, instead of trying to prevent other people from learning something that might really help help.
I’m going to respectfully disagree that there is a physiological component to lifting the head on a shot. Keeping the head down on, or after the shot is a very high-level skill and indicates years of training. When a player can withstand the urge to put the head up it means there is a larger commitment to the mechanics of the swing than there is to seeing the shot that was hit. This is true of any impact-on-ball sport, squash, baseball, golf, soccer, and of course tennis. Most club players will never train a swing long enough so that they can consistently keep their head down when under pressure.
ua-cam.com/video/gdtP8EgFvXY/v-deo.html
Thank for the video but, being brutally honest, who will spend their free time doing this silly exercises for hours? They might help but, come on, this is boring as hell.
Vestibulocolic reflex = the urge to poop after you turn your head? (cf. gastrocolic reflex = the urge to poop after a meal). VESTIBULOCOLLIC
😂