 Hey guys, welcome back. So in this video, I'm going to be talking through the serve and specifically using the chopper grip or the continental grip. Now I'll be talking through some of the reasons why you should consider using the chopper grip if you don't already. Hopefully it'll be useful for coaches who are working with players who are moving around towards the chopper grip, but also for players themselves who are really struggling with it. Now we'll go through some of the reasons why you should use it, but also some of the exercises that I like to use to develop the chopper grip and the feeling of using the correct grip when you hit your serve. Let's get into it. So first of all, why should you use the chopper grip? Why not use your normal forehand grip to pop your serve in? Now the chopper grip is widely used on the Pro Tour, but also down to, you know, good level tennis players. The reason being is it allows you to hit a flat serve, a slice serve, and a topspin or a kick serve with the same grip. Whereas if you're using more of a forehand grip, you'll be able to do a basic pop over the net, but you'll be very very limited with your variations. You'll only be able to hit a flat serve and you'll be very limited with your power because you can only go so far hitting with the frying pan forehand grip. Secondary to the amount of options you have, even more important is the fact that you won't be able to serve with the proper mechanics if you're not using the chopper grip. Now the chopper grip is very difficult and we'll go on to why in a second, but having the chopper grip will allow you to get a proper throwing action with your serve as opposed to kind of a bunt instead. Now obviously for us when working with children, it's very important for us to get them into the chopper grip as soon as possible. It's much easier to learn the chopper grip when you are a younger player, when you don't have bad habits, so you don't have poor muscle memory ingrained into your game. However for adults, if you don't use the chopper grip, there is still an opportunity for you to develop it and we'll talk through some of the exercises that I like to use that can help you to get feeling more comfortable with that grip. So what is the chopper grip? Now it's also known as the continental grip, but the reason it's called the chopper grip or some people call it a hammer grip is because it's the grip that you would use if you were knocking a nail into wood or if you were chopping something. So quite simply, you're going to grab the racket as if you're holding a hammer or as if you were chopping something, or you could also say is if you were shaking hands with somebody, this is the grip. I have made a video on all of the different grips that you'll use when playing tennis and it does involve the chopper grip. And if you want to look at the grips in more detail, I'll put a link above and you can check that out. The chopper grip is a very versatile grip. It's used in lots of shots, so the serve being the one that we're talking about today, but it's also used for your forehand and backhand volley. It's also used for a slice backhand and it can also be used as your base grip for a double-handed backhand as well. So very versatile grip. Today we're looking through the service use of that grip. So the real question is, why is the chopper grip so difficult for players that haven't used it before? And the answer is, it's because it's a movement that you don't really use in day-to-day life. So it requires what we call pronation and internal shoulder rotation as well, which can sound quite complex, but if you do the right things to work on those things, it can become quite comfortable and quite easy for you to achieve. So when we're talking about pronation, pronation is when you're turning your hand away from your body here. So in a service action, pronation is turning the strings to face the court. Now naturally, when you pick up a racket, if you're new to the chopper grip, you pick up the racket with the chopper grip and you try and serve, the most common mistake that people make is they can't pronate. Naturally with the chopper grip, the edge of the racket travels forward towards the ball. And what this results in is players ending up serving very far to the left or hitting with loads and loads of slice because the strings just aren't pointing the right direction. And that's just through having a lack of experience in using that pronation and internal shoulder rotation. So when coaching players or when I see players that are on the court and they are trying to change from, let's say, the forehand grip around to the chopper grip, one of the biggest mistakes that us coaches can make is actually just to get a player going straight with the chopper grip and trying serves. They won't have very much success at all. Everything will go to the left, everything will be hit with heavy slice and the ball just won't reach the net. Now you can over time, if you've got enough time, on court. You can over time start to improve the feeling of the chopper grip just by changing your reference points. So for example, if my serve is going really, really far left because I've got the new chopper grip and the strings pointing that way, I'd literally aim further and further right until the ball ends up going straight. I may end up having to aim higher and higher over the net as well to get the ball to travel over and in. But A, this takes lots and lots of time. B, it's not going to be very robust in a precious situation and we all know how tough it is when you take a new technique into a match, it falls to pieces. I find that the best way to develop the chopper grip in the serve is not to jump right into serving with the chopper grip, but it's actually to develop the mechanics required to use the grip. So when we're talking about the mechanics required, it's developing the skill to be able to pronate when you're serving and the skill to be able to have internal shoulder rotation too. Again, it's much easier in younger children to develop these skills because there are lots and lots of games that we can play. But some of these exercises that you see me do in a second will be really good for adults to do as well because it will strengthen those mechanics and give you the ability to hit with the correct action so that when you do change around to the chopper grip on the serve, it will feel completely natural and completely normal rather than you stepping up to the baseline and it feeling completely unnatural. So to be good at these mechanics, you don't have to know what pronation is and you don't necessarily have to know what internal rotation in the shoulder is. You can look into more detail. If you search on YouTube, those things, you'll find lots of videos about them. But if you do these next exercises that I'm going to do, you'll get the right skills that you require to use the chopper grip. So don't worry too much about the technical terms. You just want to get the feeling of the action that I'm going to show now. So the first exercise that I like to use with players is called palm out throws. And all it is, is an overarm throw. But when you finish the motion, your palm is going to face out and away from you. So I'll do a few now. So you're going to set up as if you're going to do a big throw over the net in your service action. And when you finish, you want your palm to be facing outwards. So we'll do another one, big throw, palm out. Again, so that's the first exercise, palm out throws. This next exercise focuses more on internal shoulder rotation. So you may have seen me in other videos warming up with my dinobands, with my resistance bands. And I quite often, before playing, put the band around the net post, hold the two ends and warm up. My internal and external rotation. So here I will pull backwards for my external. And sometimes I will hold the bands here and go forward for my internal shoulder rotation. And that's where we would use that muscle group for the serve. So these, with the kids, we call them robo slams or robot slams. You can call them what you like. But basically, we're going to stand with our arms at two right angles here. Okay, holding two tennis balls. And your aim is to slam the balls down to the floor, whilst keeping your arm here level with the floor. So we don't want to slam down like this. We're going to keep our elbows still. We're rotating around our shoulder here. So robo slams will be down like this. Do another one. So make sure both arms are at 90 degrees and we'll. So this one's a really good one for strengthening that internal shoulder rotation, ready to do a serve. The other version of robot slams is robot flings and it's just the other way around. So instead of starting with your hands up, you're going to start with your hand down here, but still with a 90 degree angle. So again, we're rotating around our shoulder for that internal and external rotation. This time we're going to throw the balls backwards, but still trying to keep our elbows in the same position. So we'll go here, like that. And another one. Hope there's nobody behind me. There. So those exercises are good for developing internal and external rotation, which can both be useful for your serve. So the next exercise that can help you with your chopper grip serve is hammer strings taps. Now I'll show you what I mean. We're going to use the chopper grip. We're going to face onto the court with our butt cap pointing straight forwards. And our aim here is to throw the ball up and hit with the edge of the racket with the first serve. And with the second serve, I'm going to pronate and hit with my strings, but keeping that chopper grip. So we're going to go here. Edge strings. Edge strings. So when you do that exercise, you'll feel quite restricted when you're trying to hit with the strings. But it's getting you feeling, getting the edge of the racket through first before opening up to pronate. Give those a go. But this next exercise is slow motion swings. And we're going to do this to really refine that exaggerated pronation action. So all you're going to do is you're going to set up for your serve at face on in what we call the camera position. We call this the camera position with the kids because imagine you're filming something here. So everything facing forwards, chopper grip, elbow in front of you. And we're going to do a few shadow swings, practicing reaching up with the edge of the racket first, opening up your strings and finishing with your strings pointing out to your side. Obviously, if you're a lefty, they'd be pointing the other way. So we'll go back to the start. So we're going to go up and out. Back to the start, up and out. And you can see I'm trying to meet my contact point up high before I come out to the side. And again, one more up and out. So you'll see or you'll feel this strengthening all of those muscles that you don't usually use, giving you better mechanics on your serve. This exercise can also be done with a tennis ball and you'll do with the same technique nice and slowly. But the aim from the same setup is to throw the ball up and meet the ball with your strings flat. Okay, so you're really focusing on making sure you're sending the ball in a straight line rather than turning your strings too early and sending the ball this way or not turning enough and sending the ball that way. So here we go, we're going to reach up and contact to finish out to the side. So it's a nice, gentle tap to send the ball nice and straight. I hit the tripod there, one more. So up, there. Okay, and you can see that I'm really focused on meeting the ball with my strings flat before finishing that exaggerated pronation with my strings to the side. This one's a really, really good one, if you do it correctly. It's not about power. It's not about trying to get the ball over the net. It's just about getting the mechanics right in meeting the ball with flat strings and pronating out to the side. Okay, so this is another basic one and it's still with the chopper grip, but instead of doing any service action, we're going to be bouncing the ball down to the floor. So you can start with hammer taps, which is just hitting the ball down using the edge of the racket. Okay, just to get used to the feel of the chopper grip. These ones are especially good for children, but again, as adults, you can still benefit from these. Now, once you get comfortable with using the chopper grip and hitting the edge, you can then experiment with trying to hit the strings. Okay, but still using that chopper grip. So now, you can see that this is the same as contacting above your head with that pronation on your serve. Okay, so we've gone from this hammer taps to strings, getting that same action of pronating when you hit your serve. So we've gone from hammers to strings. Finally, and this is the real deal, is hammer strings, hammer strings. So we'll go again here, keeping that chopper grip, and just alternating between the two. Now, if you're working with kids, if you're a coach or if you're a parent of a child that's doing this exercise, you don't have to explain the mechanics and the pronation, all these sorts of things. You'll just get them hitting with the edge first. They'll naturally pick up the chopper grip if they do that. Then keeping them on the same grip, getting them to do both. And they'll develop the pronation skills to be able to serve comfortably when you put them in the chopper grip. So the final exercise, and I've saved the best till last. This is my favorite one, and usually it's the player's favorite one too. Don't know what it's called. It's a trick shot, but it's basically hitting a shot from behind. Now, we're not doing a tweener. What we're gonna do is we're gonna start facing backwards to the court. Okay, so completely backwards. Court's behind me. I'm gonna have my racket in the chopper grip and I'm gonna drop the ball just next to my favored, my dominant side. And my aim is to see if I can hit the ball over the net. So you can see here, I've hit the ball with this action. Again, when you're working with kids, you don't need to tell them why. You can just have a little fun go. But this action is the same as this action at the top. So we'll go again. Well, maybe I should use this more often. One more. Okay, so give that one a try. Great fun. Again, you don't need to tell the children why you're doing it. Some might be inquisitive and might want to know. It will help the pronation. And when they do use the chopper grip on the serve, they're gonna be far more used to doing that action. And it will become second nature to them. So there you have it. They're some of my favorite exercises that I like to use to develop the chopper grip on the serve. Now, as I mentioned before, you don't want to have too much information in your mind as a tennis player. And it's the same for adults and same for kids. More information you have in your mind when you're trying something, the tougher it is to achieve. So just by doing those simple exercises will develop the skills without you having to think too much. So if you are a coach, again, you obviously don't have to recite everything that I've mentioned, just use those exercises to help those skills to develop. If you are an adult and you like knowing more about the technical stuff, then hopefully some of the information that I've given you about the serve, the chopper grip and the pronation will help you. But when you get out on court, don't overthink it. Just do the action, do what feels comfortable. But if you get any time and you can do these exercises at home, practice some of those skills, whether it be the hammer strings taps downwards, whether it be the slow motion, exaggerated pronation. Or if you've got a big garden, you can go for the behind the backflicks. If you've made it through this far in the video, you're obviously pretty serious about improving your tennis or improving your coaching skills. So do hit the subscribe button underneath. It is free of charge. You get all of these coaching videos for nothing. And if you click the bell as well next to subscribe button, it means that you'll get an alert each time I put out a new video. I'm hoping to put one video out every week or so. So hopefully there'll be some good content for you as coaches, players and parents as well. Take care and I'll see you all soon.