Are Ball Machines & Backboards Obsolete?

Racquet makers aren't the only ones who are having fun with new technology these days.

Ball machine makers now have throwing devices that are portable, can serve, feature more knobs and buttons than the space shuttle and have ball retrieval systems that let students keep hitting without having to pick up balls.

Once-deafening backboards are now silent and feature a variety of angles and cosmetics.

But the recent flood of sport science information seems to indicate that, since tennis is a game of typically short rallies, the traditional method of "grooving" strokes by hitting hundreds and hundreds of balls in concentrated practice sessions may actually do more harm than good.

Using ball machines and backboards as they have been traditionally used - - hitting until your arm is ready to fall off - - violates what we now know about how tennis strokes are learned and perfected. However, this is not the fault of the ball machine or the backboard - - it is their improper use that hurts the player, not the teaching aid.

A proper understanding of two sports sciences, physiology and motor learning, can help teachers and players use throwing machines and walls as effective learning and practice aids.

The article continues by explaining why the way backboards and ball machines actually degrade skills as traditionally used, and offers advice on how to properly use them from Drs. Jeff Chandler, Jim Loehr and Ron Woods.