Ultimate Tennis Footwork Guide - Beginner Tennis Lesson

in this video we're covering tennis footwork and all the information that you need to prepare better on the court and is coming up right now a common aspect amongst all pro tennis players is that they have great footwork a common red flag when it comes to tennis footwork is going to set up for the ball and hitting by having the ball too close to your body or too far away which often times results in a mishit another common red flag on tennis footwork is when the player is moving and setting up for the ball but they're playing the ball too high or too low when they could have moved their feet a little bit better and taken it at their ideal contact point these red flags that i mentioned just are going to increase the likelihood of making unforced stairs and the whole idea about tennis footwork is to prepare the best way that you can on court to hit the ball as intended in tennis there are set ways to move on the court just like in other sports such as basketball or dance there are technical movements that just allow you to perform better at the activity that you're doing first things first let's cover the ready position when you're in the ready position you want to be on the balls of your feet a good rule of thumb is that you're able to stick your racket in between your feet which is going to be roughly shoulder width apart or a little bit further and this really puts you in more of an athletic stance when you're here your booty's down a little bit just enough to where you feel like you can push off the ground in an athletic manner to explode out and get the ball or after you hit when you're down in your stance that you can recover back to the center it's very common for players not to want to be in the proper ready position because it takes more work one thing to realize is that when you're in the ready position you're lowering your center of gravity where you can be a little bit more athletic to push off and go get each shot it's going to be more work but it's going to bring up your performance and over time with you being in this stance your body will get used to it your glutes your legs your feet everything will just get a little bit stronger it's just going to take time doing it quick pro tip on the ready position oftentimes if you tell a player to bend their knees they really don't want to they hear it all the time it's not something that's very fun you can talk about widening the base that helps some of my clients i'll tell them that they're a ferrari you know ride low like a ferrari and then they end up getting a little bit lower a little bit more athletic on the court the split step in tennis is a small little hop that allows you to get on the balls of your feet where you can react to the oncoming ball effectively and explosively the split step can be seen in other sports when we look at soccer on the goal line oftentimes the goalie is looking for the ball and they'll do a split right before the player kicks so then they can go out and try to get that oncoming ball try to protect it from going into the goal now that we know that the split step is just a short little hop that gets you on the balls of your feet it's important to know when to initiate your split step you want to initiate your split step before your opponent makes contact with the ball so recognize their swing pattern and right before they're going to make contact with the ball initiate your split by the time they make contact you'll be in the air and then hopefully by the time you land you'll know where the ball is going and you can explode out to get that oncoming ball in my experience if i just try a split as my opponent's making contact with the ball over and over and over and over again habitually i'm going to start to feel it i'm going to get used to it and i'm going to start to get the timing and rhythm of my split step for the first step reaction think of your outside leg as being the loaded leg for a sprinter who's going to go off and sprint so you hit your split you push off with your inside to load your outside that's going to make this foot pivot so you split you push off you pivot this foot and now you're off to the races to go run down that oncoming ball it's very important that you push off hard for those first two steps to maximize your movement to the ball because in tennis it's not about covering a ton of ground it's about being quick to react to go get that ball let's say that you're going to be receiving a backhand grown stroke you hit your split you push off with your inside leg which then is going to make this foot pivot so you see how my body is all oriented towards my back hand and then you're gonna move out race down that ball and hit tennis is much like dance where footwork builds upon itself so as you learn every step it's gonna work in conjunction with the other steps to make sure that you're moving and performing your best on court so you've hit your split you did your first step reaction now it's time to do adjustment steps which are small calculated steps to ensure that you set up as best as you can for the oncoming ball and position yourself properly let's do some examples of adjustment steps so you're back here you're going to hit a forehand you hit your split you pivot you're going to do your first step reaction and then you're going to take these small calculated steps to set up and hit the ball so you're here split pivot push off small steps step in and hit here's a quick pro tip one way that you know that you need to work on your adjustment steps is if you go to set up for the ball and you end up hitting the ball where the ball is too close or your shoulders raise up or your body weight is pulling in a direction other than forward where you intend to hit the ball those are all signs that you could be utilizing small calculated steps to ensure that you're going to make contact with that ball right on the money right where you want it when you go to hit your forehand ground stroke or your backhand ground stroke your back foot is going to follow through just the same way as your racket falls through it's going to happen naturally so when you go to hit your backhand you step in you finish your racket your shoulders and hips unload which is going to naturally bring some momentum for your feet to line up parallel with one another and this is important because it's going to set up recovery steps or crossover steps that you can utilize to get back into the center of the court and prepare for the next oncoming ball we have different footwork and tennis for moving out to the ball and recovering back to the center and we're going to cover those right now when you go to hit your forehand you hit your split do your first step reaction which we covered and then you run out to the ball however when you're recovering you don't want to run back to the center of the court because you don't know where your opponent is going to be hitting the ball and it's so important to hit your split step each time that way your shoulders and hips are squared up to your opponent so then you can make the right decision on where to move so let's talk about the side steps after you split you move out you hit the ball you're going to sidestep back to recover into the court and these side steps you're down in an athletic position and you're pushing off your feet where your feet never touch but you're down in an athletic stance moving so you push on your outside leg to come back to the center and by doing this it's going to make you very agile and ready to explode out to get the oncoming ball no matter which way it's going if you go and you sidestep back like this i can push off to hit a forehand or if i sidestep here i can push off and go hit a backhand either one's going to work let's say that you need to recover because you got ran off the court hitting a forehand this is where you're going to utilize a crossover step when you do a crossover step it's exactly what it sounds you're here and you're going to take your leg and you're going to cross over the other leg so it's just making one big step as a cross this is going to make up a lot of ground but it shouldn't be utilized if you're close to the center of the court only when you're really getting pushed off so let's see it in action you're here you get a forehand so you move all the way out you go you hit your feet are parallel you push with the inside leg you cross over then you sidestep here step in hit inside leg push side step so slow motion you're here step and hit take this foot cross over side step now let's say that you get pulled off the court in a major way where you're thinking okay i'm going to get this back but i know that he's going to the other side of the court and if i don't run right now i'm going to lose the point in this case you may want to do a run step and it's similar to the first step reaction so let's say that you're getting a forehand that pulls you way off the court so you're way off the court you go to hit and you know that they're going that the other way you may decide to push off run and then transition back to sidesteps just to make up some ground i like the crossover step much more as well as the side steps however sometimes you got to do what you got to do to survive the onslaught that your opponent's giving you and stay in the point i think that it's important to address that perfect footwork rarely happens so for example if you are under duress or you're returning surf you may just have to do your split and then make one quick step over where you're not in the best position to hit the ball but that's what you got to do of course ideally we want to split get our feet adjustment steps step in and hit but at times we're not going to have the luxury of being able to utilize that time to make the proper setup so you have a little bit of wiggle room another thing to consider is your development as a tennis player there may be things that your coach has you do that may not fit this mold because they're trying to get you to stay on balance or develop some other piece of your game and until you get that down you can't move on to the next step so like for example instead of doing the back foot follow through like if you're here and you step in and you're going to do the back foot follow through let's say that the student is standing a little bit straight up and when they go to hit they're kind of spinning and they're out of balance then the instructor may decide that hey for a while we're going to step in and i want you to hold yourself on balance on tiptoe back here and then once you have that and you're unloading with your shoulders and hips into the ball then we can get that back foot to naturally go forward so just remember you have some wiggle room it all depends on your development so trust your coach whatever they're saying is probably specific to your needs let's go over some tennis footwork best practices when you're moving your feet on the court one of the best practices is to make sure that you're always down in your ready position you don't want to be standing straight up you don't want to be waiting for the ball like you're standing in line at a grocery store you want to be down set light on your feet and bouncing sometimes i refer to this as having happy feet or you're popping the popcorn so you're always bouncing on your feet when the point's over then you can relax but you definitely want to be down in an athletic stance popping the popcorn ready to explode ready to move for whatever that ball comes best practice number two make sure to utilize all the court that means that when you're receiving a ball be okay with moving inside the court to take that ball waist high recover back let the ball drop to your waist move up do whatever you have to do with your feet to make sure that you're going to take it at the optimal point oftentimes this would be waist high especially if you're first learning or you're developing your game waist high is a solid option and then as you grow and you you go further with your game maybe you're going to be going more chest high depending on your grip that sort of thing but rule of thumb waist high great option tennis footwork best practice number three take adjustment steps you aren't limited to the number of steps that you can take so make sure that you take those small calculated steps to make sure that you hit the ball in the right spot where you intend to so then you get the result that you want when working on your tennis footwork i recommend shadowing so grab your racket find a court or turn on the tv do it in your living room do what you have to do but go through the steps step in hit make sure that you go slow do what you need to do to make sure that you have quality practice and you execute each step so you may just start off with hitting your split pivoting doing your run steps step in hit and then just shuffle back then when you get better you may decide to split run out step in cross over step back to the center you can build upon it but just go slow at your own pace do the proper form and through repetition and practice you will get it down and even if you're not hitting the ball it's going to translate to the court just put in the time that's it for today's video guys if you enjoyed this go to tennisnation.com and check out the ultimate tennis footwork guide i have it all written out step by step for you and give me a like subscribe to the channel and i'm going to be bringing contact to you guys next week until then i'll see you guys on the court

Channel: Tennis Nation Racquet Sports

Views: 11,752

Keywords: tennis footwork techniques, tennis footwork split step, tennis footwork patterns, tennis footwork training, tennis movement tips, tennis movement patterns, tennis movement analysis, tennis movement breakdown, tennis movements basic, Ultimate Tennis Footwork Guide - Beginner Tennis Lesson, Ultimate Tennis Footwork Guide, Beginner Tennis Lesson, randy reynolds, tennis footwork adjustment step, tennis footwork cross over step, tennis footwork side steps, beginner tennis footwork

Id: ezcJHe23nH0

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021