Sunday, October 5, 2014

LEG DRIVE -- A Critical Component for the Power Serve.

A critical component of the power serve is the effective use of the leg drive. One must drive with the legs from the loaded position to get additional power behind the serve. First, there must be a sufficient leg/knee bend, then there must be an explosive push up with the legs into the court to where the ball is contacted close to its toss height. One would land inside the baseline with the front leg first with the back leg coming in and through after. There may still be some servers that do the scissor kick landing with the back leg landing first, but a majority of servers in the game today will land with the front leg first. But, for foot up style servers, the leg push can be quite important as these servers are not as effective vertically as the foot back servers are. Remember the ideal degree of leg bend is somewhere close to 110 degrees plus or minus 5 degrees for optimum use. The effective use of the legs lends itself to a strong body core and of course strengthened calves, quadriceps, and hamstrings. goyc