Swing Easy, Hit Hard

In order to hit the ball harder, player's often tighten their grip on the racquet handle, tense their arm muscles and swing as hard as they can.

Unfortunately, trying to hit “hard” actually results in the opposite happening. When a player puts a death grip on the racquet handle and tenses her arm muscles, this causes a deceleration in the swing, and therefore, produces less pace on the ball.

Of course, the player still feels like she hit the snot out of the ball, and so continues to use this mechanic.

Relaxing your grip decreases muscle tension and allows you to produce a higher swing speed.

Grip the racquet as if it were a bird – tight enough so that it can't fly away, but so tight that it crushes it. Tell your players to swing fast, rather than hard, and they will immediately see the benefits of relaxing.

Quick Tips
Players who hit the ball hard use their lower body, including the legs and hips to generate more force.

I. The Legs
While players are often told to bend their knees, they are usually not told to then push back up off the ground to use their powerful legs to generate more force into their shots. Practice getting down low on groundstrokes, and then pushing back up into your shots. This will take some experimentation as this will require the development of new timing, but you should immediately begin to see a dramatic difference in how much harder you can hit the ball, and with less effort.

II. The Hips
The hips should actually open up just before the upper body, not with the upper body, in order to transfer more of your body into the shot.

Practice “throwing” your hips into your shots earlier than usual to generate more power into your shots. You will initially experience a loss of control, with balls flying over the fence as you begin to hit with much more force, but as you begin to develop this timing, you will see how using the larger parts of your body helps you hit harder, and with less effort.

Using the hips to get more power is recommended for the serve, as well. Since most power on the serve is generated from the shoulder and not the "wrist snap" (as so many magazines say!) "throwing" your hips into your serve (and letting your arm go along for the ride) increases your racquet speed.

Summary
Relaxing your grip on the racquet decreases tension in the arm muscles and allows for greater acceleration. Using the bigger parts of your body (rather than trying to do everything with your arm) also gives you more power with less effort.

The next time you want to kill the ball, relax your grip and think about swinging fast, not hard.