Fatso Tennis

Posts Tagged ‘Vic Braden’

When I was at Vic Braden’s tennis college Vic said that on my forehand I was not extending out to the target enough. He said with my brain makeup that was a common error. He also said that watching tennis on TV and video contributes to the error……Hmmmmm. How so, I thought?

Vic has done an enormous amount of high speed videotaping / filming ….sometimes 10,000 frames per second … which allows super slow motion playback of strokes. With normal video things happen so fast the human eye and brain cannot see what “really” happened during the stroke so the brain skips things and just sees the beginning and end of a stroke and not what happens in between.

With the circular followthroughs over the shoulder or around the waist on the forehand it looks like the stroke goes from backswing to contact to over the shoulder directly. Things happen so fast our eyes and brain don’t see the pronounced extension toward the target that the best pros use. We just see a backswing and windshield wiper and most club players try to emulate that….usually with poor results…..

Why are the results poor?

The reason the results are poor is that going from the backswing to the windshield wiper directly gives only a few inches of margin to hit the ball cleanly. If you have excellent timing, then you can hit fairly consistently when balls come at you consistently. The trouble comes with slow balls or fast balls that throw off your timing. With only a few inches to be perfect on the strike zone this causes shanks and hits that fly all over the place.

Vic videotaped Roger Federer and Juan Martin Del Potro and found that when you really watch in slow motion Roger’s strike zone for a clean hit is (I’m just going from memory here) is 4 feet and Del Potro’s is even longer. Both have world class forehands.

Their swing speed is so fast all we normally see is the backswing and the over the shoulder follow through and we never notice this extremely pronounced strike zone. It’s no wonder they are so great when they have 4 feet to hit the ball cleanly and most of us only have a few inches.

What Vic did with me?

Since it was raining a little he took me in the gymnasium and Andy, one of his top coaches fed me forehands. I was supposed to hit them to the other end of the gym right into the center of the padded wall behind the basketball hoop. I wasn’t even supposed to follow through at all. I was supposed to catch my racket way out in front toward the target. I was also supposed to hit the ball way out in front with a totally cocked back wrist throughout the stroke.

When it quit raining we went back to the courts and got the ball machine out. I was supposed to take what I learned in the gym, pick targets and hit forehands. I did not shank one forehand and most of them had depth and accuracy.

Since this is so new during practice I’m consciously thinking about extending toward the target more on each forehand and I’m sure if I keep this up over time this will become natural and fast…So when you see me on video you’ll see the backswing and the windshield wiper but you’ll know I snuck in a pronounced extension toward the target.

In this final part of my interview with legendary tennis coach and tennis researcher Vic Braden Vic talks about Keeping it simple, the value of education, and he mentions Chevy Chase, Tim Conway, Ronald Reagan, The Bryan Brothers and Tracy Austin

In part III Vic talks about how soccer can help your tennis, how he increased my serve speed by 30 MPH in only one hour, his two new books, his innovative junior tennis ambassadors and elementary school doctors.

Hear Vic Braden talk about Bobby Riggs and his antics, hitting with depth and brain research.

I had the chance to do an exclusive interview with legendary tennis coach and tennis researcher Vic Braden.
Here’s Part I

Hi Folks:

I just got back from spending several days one-on-one with the legendary tennis coach and researcher Vic Braden in lovely Coto de Caza, California the home of the original Vic Braden Tennis College.

Here's Vic Braden and me on site at Coto de Caza tennis facility

Besides increasing my serve speed by 30 MPH (yes, I know that sounds ridiculous especially since he did it in only 1 hour….more on this in an upcoming post) Vic was telling me story after story about pro tennis from the old days when he turned pro right up to the minute. Vic is still to this day right on the cutting edge of human performance. In fact, Vic was the only one sanctioned to video tape using three hidden cameras at the latest Indian wells tournament (apparently the obvious presence of a camera changes on court performance….that’s why they’re hidden.

Before he took me on one-on-one I sat in on his lecture for a doubles clinic being held that day.

OMG! The research he rattled off in 90 minutes was mindblowing….It really was mindblowing. He was talking about how we make the best decisions when our brain is working in the frontal cortex. It’s our job as tennis players to get our opponents playing in their back brain while we stay in the front brain. He told us many ways on how to do this.

If you want a complete breakdown of what was covered in that session visit Richard Neher’s coverage of the session for the Examiner.

Vic Braden, Richard Neher tennis reporter for "The Examiner" and Tom Antion just after Vic's lecture at his doubles clinic at the Coto de Caza, Tennis Club

Watch for my exclusive video interview with Vic Braden coming up this week and I can’t wait until you hear his story about Bobby Riggs and an elephant beating Vic and Anita Bryant.

Yesterday I told you how I learned about hitting deep from Vic Braden. Today I want to expand on another reason it is good to hit deep.

Let’s back up a bit. When a tennis ball hits a tennis court it slows way down from the speed it was traveling while in the air. If you regularly hit really hard, to be consistent, you most likely have to hit shorter in the court to make sure you don’t hit the ball long. Even if you hit hard, the ball isn’t going nearly as fast by the time it gets to your opponent because it has hit the court and slowed down.

Let’s say you look at this a little differently. Let’s say you didn’t hit the ball nearly as hard but you aimed higher over the net to make sure you got great depth into the court while the ball was in the air. Guess what. The ball was probably going just as fast when it got to your opponent as it was when you hit hard and short.

What are the advantages of this tactic? A.) By not swinging as hard you will have better control, B.) A ball that lands deep in the court forces your opponent to either take the ball on the rise which is a much more difficult shot, or back up way into the back court to hit the ball in their normal strikezone which opens up the entire court for you.

Try hitting controlled deep shots and see what a difficult time it will create for your opponent.

When I first started playing tennis in my thirties I had the great fortune of having one of Vic Braden’s top instructors as my coach. Even though it was a different era of tennis, so much of what I learned still sticks with me today.

One of the main tips Vic always emphasized was that if you could consistently hit the ball down the middle within three feet of the baseline, you would most likely beat 90% of the people that are beating you now.

I’ve tried to do that most of the time I’ve played tennis and darned if Vic wasn’t right. I started beating people who used to beat me. I’ve even added a little “spin” to the same idea that makes hitting deep even more effective.

Vary your spin

Sometimes I’ll hit underspin. Sometimes I’ll hit flat. Sometimes I’ll hit regular topspin and sometimes I’ll hit heavy topspin. I’ll even lob out of nowhere for no reason at all.  Doing this doesn’t allow the opponent to get into any kind of rythm. They never know what kind of spin you are going to hit at them and it keeps them off balance. Mix this idea with Vic’s depth idea and you will drive your opponents crazy.