Hi and welcome to the Essential Tennis Podcast, your place for free, expert, tennis instruction that can truly help you improve your game. Welcome to episode number 398 of the Essential Tennis Podcast. So, here's the deal, there's a 90% chance that your Ready Position sucks. I'm saying that based on tens of thousands of hours that I've spent with regular everyday
tennis players, like myself, by the way, I put myself in that category. I'm a solid 4 or 5 level player, which is, I think in a top 5 or a top 10% or so of amateur tennis players. And guess what, 404 or 5 tennis players, if you're listening and you're that level, frequently have the same problem that we're going to be addressing today. I just got back from Indian Wells. And while I was there, I did three camps, three double strategy clinics that were
two days each. And in those six days back to back to back, we worked on Ready Position a lot. And by the way, you can basically interchange that with the idea of the split step and what position you're coming down in in your split step. But we're not, we're not really talking about the split step today, but this is obviously part of it. The position you come down into after executing your split step is essentially the Ready Position. But
guess what, most tennis players don't use this split step. And frankly, I feel like most tennis players are kind of hard, I'm sorry, are kind of tired of hearing about it from coaches. So today we're talking about the Ready Position. And so we're going to talk about the four key checkpoints right now that you need to hit. And by the way, if you want to see visuals with this, then you can check out the Essential Tennis YouTube channel
and check out the video with the same title, Your Ready Position sucks. And you'll see all kinds of pro examples of ready positions and amateur examples, which we're going to be talking about. But I'll describe it. Like you definitely don't have to watch the video. I'm just just letting you know if you'd like to see the visuals that go along with it.
So here's the four check boxes that if you want to move as smoothly and as athletically as possible and cover as much court as possible, be just be the best tennis player possible. These are the four things that you need to accomplish. Number one is Bend in the Knees. And there should be a pretty significant bend in the knees. When you look at professional players, they get down pretty close to 90 degree bend in the knees. And I think for most
of us normal players, that's probably a little bit excessive. You want to get enough knee bend that you feel like you have some spring to be able to push off of in whatever direction the ball ends up going. But not so low that it feels like it takes a long time to get out of that deep bend. Whatever deep is for you, it's going to be all relative. Different levels of athlete are going to be able to accomplish different depths and more easily
get out of it. So kind of feel it out for yourself. So knee bend is a critical element. With of stance is a critical element. And this is going to be kind of the big one that we really hone in on in a second in this episode. In my experience, most players are about shoulder width apart or if they're if they're trying and they're making an effort to be
athletic. And I don't mean trying like, I mean, consciously trying like if they're consciously trying to get wide because I've asked them to or they've made an effort in the past to train a good athletic ready position. Then on average, kind of the best case scenario that I see from everyday players is about one and a half shoulder width apart. When you look at professional players, they're usually right around two times shoulder width apart.
So depending on your build and you know, how physically large you are that might or how tall you are rather is probably more accurate, the taller you are generally speaking the wider you're going to have to get in order to get to two times shoulder width apart. So I strongly recommend getting in front of a mirror and see how wide that actually is. And that's check point number two is width. Check point number three is our heels need to stay off
the courts. If you go into your ready position and your feet stay flat, then we I use the word spring before we're not going to have the same amount of spring to be able to push off in one direction or the other. If you're if you come down from your split set or you're just going into a ready position and your heels are both on the courts or even if one of them is on the court, if one of them is on the court, you're only ready to spring in one
direction. If both heels are off the courts, now you could equally spring in either direction and seamlessly use your stored energy because of your knee bend, because of your width and because your feet are not flat on the courts, now you have the ability to very seamlessly and athletically and fluidly direct your momentum and your energy in any given direction.
And the fourth checkpoint, which really goes hand in hand with the heels off the court, it's not exactly the same thing, but it's very close, is we want to have our balance slightly forwards. And the reason for that is we want to have a little bit of tipped
energy that's kind of stored and we're holding it. And ideally, we time this just before we know where the ball is going so that we already kind of have some kinetic energy flowing that we can harness and smoothly direct and propel to the right or to the left or forwards or backwards, by the way, if you need to move backwards, then the first move you're going to do is to put one foot or the other in front of yourself to be able to push off of and pivot
backwards. So regardless of what direction the ball goes, we need a little bit like a slight forward posture and kind of feel like your chest is tipping over the front of your toes just a little bit. Not a ton. We don't want to feel like we're literally falling
over. You should be able to hold this position, but it should be able to take a little bit of effort or energy to hold yourself up and not fall forwards when your heels are off the court and your posture is tipped forwards just a little bit. Okay, so now that you know the four checkpoints and that is two times shoulder with a part, significant amount of bend in the knees, heels off the court and are balanced slightly
forwards. Let's talk about what most tennis players do. And the reality is to be totally honest, again, like this is just fresh in my head is why I'm talking about it today. I just got back a couple days ago. And something in particular about this really blew my mind
on this specific trip. But thing number one that you need to be aware of is if you're below a five o level and ninety seven percent of these listeners, like if you're listening right now, there's like a ninety seven percent chance that you are below a five point o level. I promise you there's at least one, but probably two or three of those four elements that you can optimize. You might be wider than shoulder with a part, but it's
highly unlikely that you're two times shoulder with a part. It's based on my experience and just seeing thousands and thousands of tennis players rarely get to that position. Plus, I'm going to give you like a kind of little bonus insight at the end here in just a second. And most tennis players don't have much bend in the knee in my three o three
five clinics that I just did. It was normal. And I mean the vast majority of the students that I just worked with who by the way are super passionate and have taken all the lessons and they've watched all the YouTube videos. And the only people who show up to work with me are hardcore. Like they're a little weird. Like they they've already been around the
black a whole lot of times on average, 95 percent of them. And yet even those super hardcore passionate students at a three o three five level, most of them are one time shoulder with a part. Very little if any bend in the knees either neither heel either neither either neither heel off the court or maybe one, but almost never at three o three five almost never both off
the court. And posture is pretty straight up and down. And so if you imagine a human standing there, shoulder with a part, no bend in the knees, heels flat on the court posture just straight up. And what what are we visualizing? We're just visualizing a person just standing there. And I'm telling you, if you're listening to me right now, most tennis players at the moment
that the ball gets hit on the other side are just standing there. And the illustration like the visual, I was kind of jokingly using during this trip, which I think I'm going to continue to use is and we're all kind of laughing together. And like I showed examples of myself and you're not using a split stuff and just standing there. And what it looks like is somebody in the serial aisle at the grocery store, just trying to decide which
box to take off the shelf. And they're literally just standing there casually passively checking something out in front of them with no athletic preparation or spring or energy or like kinetic flow at all, just standing there. And I'm telling you, that's what most tennis players are doing. Now, if you're a 4045 player, I did a 4045 group as well. And if you don't think that you need to work on this, then please go to the YouTube channel for essential tennis
and look at the lesson called your ready position sucks. And you'll see a bunch of examples from my 4045 strategy clinic that I just did where players are just standing there. 404 and I mean, they're actually 4045 players like that's the level they are competing at. And just like the 3035 students, they're actually super passionate and they've taken lots
of lessons that I've watched all the videos and a significant chunk of them. It's not as many as the 3035 students, but I would say half of them are doing some variation of cereal shopping and they're just standing there. So now you know what to look for and what to feel for. And by the way, I highly recommend you actually just record yourself practicing this or practice this in front of a mirror because here's why here's the part that really
shocked me and kind of blew me away. So I recorded everybody first to show them their kind of normal habit before they knew we were going to work on it. And I showed them what they're usually doing, which is cereal shopping. Then we went out on the court and we practiced hitting all four check boxes, double shoulder with the part, significant bend in the knees, heels off the quirt, balance slightly forwards. And I recorded everybody while we were practicing
this. Everybody kind of lined up and I was like, okay, let's practice our new and improved ready position. And as we practiced, I walked around and I kind of gave feedback to different students. And the most consistent feedback I gave was you got to go wider. Like you're
not two times shoulder with the part. But here's the thing, everybody thinks they're wide enough, especially when they're practicing it and they just saw the whole like spiel and they saw themselves on the video and they're like, oh crap, yeah, I don't, I definitely look super casual. I don't look like an athlete at all. So then we go out and practice and they're going what they think is wide. But then I walked past and I go, no, no, you got
to go wider than that. And after doing that and being like, okay, good job, everybody. Let's grab a quick drink and I'll show you how you're looking now. And I showed them the recording of them practicing as we're heading back to the TV to watch the replay. I heard over and over and over again during these six days of strategy coaching. Oh man, that was that was way too wide. Like there's no way that that must have been exaggerated,
right? And you're like, you're just having me go super wide so that, you know, I kind of stretch myself, but I don't, I don't need to go that wide in real life, right? Like there's no way that was correct. That was too wide, right? And then we sit down and I play the video of the writing position that they were just in, right, like right before they made the comment, okay, but that's too wide, right? And student after student after
student, I asked them the question, does that look too wide to you? And student after student after student says, well, I'll be darned. No, that looks just about right. In fact, I'll just, I'll just tell you, nobody went too wide. Nobody went too wide. But player after player after player, it was like, okay, but that's too wide, right? And then when I showed them the replay, they're like, oh, wow, I just, I just look like a good tennis player. Not
only is that not too wide, but that just looks right. Like that's, that's just the way a good tennis player looks. And what does that mean about what that player normally does? It means that that player who would make that kind of comment normally doesn't look like a good tennis player. They normally look super passive. They normally look super unathletic. They're normally just kind of standing there. And so going wider than just standing there
feels really wide and going two times shoulder width feels like mega wide. Like there's no way this is correct. But player after player after player sat down, watch themselves, go two times shoulder width apart and was blown away by the fact that holy crap. Like what feels like way too wide to me is actually it just looks good and it just looks right. And
again, if you go check out the video, you'll see like the actual real examples of that. And I just want to say to my students, like, I really respect and admire all of you tremendously for coming out with for the coaching with me and watching yourselves, seeing yourselves like look at what your current habits are. And if you're listening to me right now and you have not done that yet, if you have not recorded yourself and you have not checked
and you're thinking to yourself, okay, well, that's that's those players. But my ready position is good. I'm not just standing there. I'm not shopping for cereal. I'm definitely moving athletically. And I definitely look like a good tennis player when I play tennis. I'm telling you, you got to check yourself and you'll have a vast majority of you listening right now are going to be like holy cow. I can't believe that I was so narrow and I was
so upright and I looked so casual. So please do yourself a favor and check in on yourself and check for all the four check check boxes that we talked about today. And this is like I start all my strategy clinics with this topic because it's easy to argue that this
is the most important thing. If we talk about everything else about shading and moving and court coverage and positioning and coaching and serving and following, like if we do all these other things from a casual unathletic, righty position, like what are we, what's the point? What's the point of practicing all those things? If we can't even get the most basic physical preparation right and we can't just be an athlete out there each time the
ball gets hit on the other side. That's how important this is. That's why you need to check yourself. If this has been helpful today, I haven't I haven't asked this for a while.
Can you do me a favor and just share the link for this episode share the link for the Essential Tennis Podcast with one of your teammates, your friends, somebody who you practice with, maybe even your coach or if you're a coach, can you please share the Essential Tennis Podcast with people who you feel like it really, they really have a passion for improving a tennis and they would actually get something out of it. That really mean a lot to me. Thank
you so much for your passion, for your dedication. If you're listening to me right now, you're one of the special players out there who really cares about it deeply, so I really appreciate your support tremendously. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you next time on the next episode of the Essential Tennis Podcast. For more free, game improving instruction, be sure to check out Essentialtennis.com where
you'll find hundreds of video, audio and written lessons. Also, be sure to subscribe to Essentialtennis on iTunes and YouTube, where we are the number one resource in the world, providing passionate instruction for passionate tennis players. Thank you so much for listening today, take care and good luck with your tennis.