Hi Richard, I'm writing you this comment just to remind you are a great man human being, I saw you in KZfaq couple of years ago, and I never regretted subscribing.

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.

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. 👍🏼👍🏼

As always, awesome stuff!

terrific ideas and easy [enough] to do and see results over time...

Thank you. I’ll give this a go

Thanks for this.

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?

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?

Using the Eye Coach helps 100% to fixing head shifting . Coachcaz TenniPerfections

Are you saying your eyes stay on the letter even when your head turns?

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!

Sounds like it could work fir balance on the serve which is difficult for me

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.

McEnroe did this chapstick thing when he came back to play a match when he was hungover. He told me that.

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.

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.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ncqkg5t2zKzaiI0.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