Serve Faster - How to Increase your Tennis Serve Speed!

Before the technical and physical sections. It's time to get your mind right. Reframing the way you think about serving will unlock the potential for so much more speed. Step outside of traditional tennis coaching and let your human instincts take over.

Human's throw because our pre-historic ancestors needed the movement to survive. This means there is an inbuilt intention that needs to be accessed for maximum speed. When you "Serve to Kill", you unlock your inner caveman and unleash a whole new level of speed.

You might think in detail. But you should move naturally. Using 'Sensations' to name, remember and perform complex movements. Shift the movement out of your pre-frontal cortex, the planning centre and into your Cerebellum. A deep part of your brain where movements are calibrated, co-ordinated and controlled on a sub-conscious level. Start feeling your serve and say goodbye to slow jerky movements.

If you can't spend all day on a tennis court serving over and over and over. Don't worry. Any sport with a fast throwing motion will help. Baseball, Cricket, American Football, Javelin, fetch with your dog. All these activities will translate to tennis as the movements are all linked.

Every move you make should be for one reason and one reason only. Speed. All your little jerks, bounces and idiosyncrasies aren't helping. You set, load and fire. And only that. Every time. No more wasted effort.

The #1 Drill for Serve Speed. Forget the service boxes and ramp up the tempo. When you've reached your max. Gradually increase the steepness of the serve until you are ripping serves in the court that are now lightning quick.

Don't forget. If you want to serve fast. You've got to serve fast!

Get ready to shift your focus away from technical minutiae and into using your body to increase your power and speed.

Primal Patter Movements the foundation of all human movement. Understand how your body moves and how to translate that into a service motion.

Your muscles were made to work together. Understand how your little finger links to your hamstrings and why your obliques need your feet to be still. Putting it all together to create a smooth, strong, syncopated movement.

You want to be a "Rear Wheel Drive" Server. Your legs should do the power. Your hands the "steering". When your arms do both, your become "Front Wheel". Slower, stiffer, less accurate and injury prone.

Your body is an elastic band. Stretch it out. Load it up. The snap all that tension into the ball.

Every action has an equal an opposite reaction. So, if you want to drive forwards and up to serve. You need to push backwards and down. This is reverse vectoring.

Your body will always find a way. And, left to it's own devices, your best, most natural and strongest way. Use this drill to find your ideal stance for maximum power and speed.

Stop thinking like a tennis player and start moving like a human. Smooth, natural, coordinated movements for ease, efficiency and effortless speed.

Time for the detail. This section is all about your racket. The techniques, movements and timing tweaks you can make to add more speed to your serve.

Changing your arm angle, adding some rotation and keeping your serve "Outside the Line". All these things, open up your arm to swing faster and more freely. Maximising your Speed!

Speed: Acceleration x Distance.

So, if you can increase the distance you are accelerating. You will be serving faster. Stretch out and extend your motion for more speed.

Calm and steady during the set-up, strong during the load but fast and explosive towards the ball. Different for everyone, find your rhythm with this video.

Pronation is so 1990s, and not exactly true. Do more and free your elbow from the risk of injury by internally rotating your shoulder instead.

Different for everyone. Tennis technique is entirely individual. Keep the concepts in mind and explore your own game to find what works best for you.

Learn - Practice - Train - Test - Compete

Take each new skill though these 5 stages for complete integration and consistent success in the crucible of competition.

The course may be over but we're never finished. Each new thing you try, each new skill you add will have a knock on effect. Refer back to this course anytime or get in touch if you get stuck and need some extra help. Good Luck!