Players and teaching pros agree that you should use your hips when executing groundstrokes. But how many players do this? In analyzing hundreds of players, I have found very few who use the hips to produce more force in their hits.
This is understandable because use of the hips is not stressed in the early stages of learning forehands and backhands. Nor is their role in developing greater force taken into consideration when modifying or changing hitting technique. For example, in teaching the open stance forehand and backhand the hips are typically ignored..
Note that even though this information is specific to tennis, it also applies to golfers and other athletes were involved in hitting and many throwing sports. Because of this the exercises and recommendations for improvement apply to more than just tennis.
If you recall your first days of learning a tennis groundstroke, you were shown or taught the grip and arm movement. The next task was to make contact with the ball. You bounced or were tossed a ball which you then attempted to hit swinging the arm with the racquet.
In essence, you learned how to swing the arm to make contact with the ball. As you learned to hit the ball harder, you increased the range of motion over which you swung the racquet, which then brought in shoulder rotation together with the arm swing.
This is how most players hit the ball today. They turn the shoulders and the arm to make contact with the ball, but the hips remain in place or turn together with the shoulders. The net effect is basically the same.
However, an early hip turn can greatly increase the amount of power that you exhibit, and the more you rely on the hips, the less you will have to rely on the arm movement. In the long run this will help prevent arm and shoulder muscle fatigue and shoulder and elbow problems.
To learn how to get the hips involved is not difficult. It can be done fairly quickly and effectively if you do not play or compete for a few weeks so that you can practice the new movement until it becomes automatic. You will also have to do specialized strength exercises for learning the new movement and developing a feel for the action.
For maximum effectiveness, it is necessary to separate the hip turn from the shoulder turn. Since all groundstrokes start from the bottom up, the hips should be the first to be put into motion after forward weight shift. As the hips begin to rotate forward, the shoulders should remain in the side-facing position. This produces more efficiency and power. The greater the separation between the hip and shoulder rotation, the greater the power that can be generated.
One of the best exercises you can do to develop the flexibility needed for this separation is the reverse trunk twist. It typically has two variants that can be used for beginners as well as more advanced athletes.
After the hips start forward, then the shoulders should begin rotating forward, pulled by the force of the previously stretched abdominal rotational muscles.. The more you can separate these actions, the more force you can generate, but the key point is to get the hips started before the shoulders, even if it is through a small range of motion. This will still give you considerably more power.
To learn the feel of rotating the hips forward, you should do specialized strength exercises with Active Cords to develop the feel of this movement. As you do this you will also strengthen the hip muscles that are involved in rotating the hips forward.
The Active Cords set is used for this exercise because it has a nonslip belt and D- rings on the sides, front and back for correct attachment of the cords for both learning the feel and timing of the hip rotation and for strengthening the muscles involved in the hip rotation.
With ample resistance on the cord, you should feel the tension as you rotate the hips forward for learning the hip rotation as needed in both the forehand and backhand. Doing one exercise for feel of the movement and one exercise for strengthening the muscles as they are involved in the hip rotation will enable you to transfer this movement into your groundstrokes. .
For more information on technique of the forehand or backhand and getting your hips into the hits, see Explosive Tennis: The Forehand and The Backhand and Biomechanics and Kinesiology of Exercise