Major Dominances of the Body & Balance Preference
When I first step on the court with new students I am in discover mode. I am trying to figure out who they are physically. One of the first things I look at is the major dominances of the body:
- Fine Motor Dominance: the hand they write and primarily pick up objects with
- Major Motor Dominance: the arm they throw with
The Fine Motor and Major Motor actions are often performed with the same hand and arm. There are, of course, exceptions to this. For example, Nadal writes right-handed, but plays tennis left-handed.
- Spinning/Balance Preference
This is the direction that your student’s body prefers to rotate, clockwise or counter-clockwise. As humans we all have a way of rotating which feels more natural or comfortable to turn our bodies. My natural preference is to rotate counter-clockwise, whether I turn around and walk away or roll over in bed.
What does this mean in tennis? If you are right-handed your forehand and serve rotate counter-clockwise, whereas your backhand rotates clockwise. I am definitely more comfortable, balanced and stable on my forehand and serve than on my backhand. So, to correct and help my backhand I did several things:
First, I practiced many shadow swings in a mirror. Basically, I had to let my body know it was “OK” to rotate that way and get comfortable doing it.
Second, I had someone feed me balls, and I held my finish for “5-Mississippi” (a long, slow 5-count).
Third, when doing core rotation/abdominal work in the gym I noticed that the left side of my abs needed to be stronger, so I did more reps on that side to build up my strength and balance out both sides.
Putting in the work with this will help strengthen the weaker side of the body.
A bonus way to use this information tactically is to watch the opponent after the coin toss at the net. How does she turn around? When we are being ourselves our natural tendencies come out. Observation of how the opponent turns and walks away will give a quick glimpse of weakness without ever hitting a ball.
