How Should You Visualize Your Serve?

You're listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast with mental game of tennis expert, Dr. Patrick Cohn. Do you want to improve your mindset for tennis? Then join us on the Tennis Psychology Podcast. How should you plan and visualize your serve in tennis? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohen, a mental performance coach at Peaksports.com. In this video, we're going to talk about some of the options for you to both plan and...

visualize your serve so you can hit your best serve. You're listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast. Want to quickly improve your mental game for tennis? Visit www.sportspsychologytennis.com today and download a free e-book titled Six Unforced Mental Errors Tennis Players Make Between Points.

One of the elements that tennis players leave out is what I call the planning and programming stage of the routine. I've talked about it in previous videos in this particular series. But I want to dial down a little bit in terms of the specific plan and then how you fit that into your type of visualization. So for me, you want to select a specific plan.

And that's based upon what's working or what you're comfortable with. Maybe you're not comfortable with your flat serve, for example. Maybe you're more comfortable with a slice serve. That's okay. Maybe you're more comfortable. hitting that kicker on your first serve that's okay i'm all about you feeling comfortable and confident so you have to decide on what's the location of the serve

And what's the type of serve that I want to hit? That's vitally important. Once you commit to that and tell yourself, this is a serve I'm going to hit, I'm going with this through thick or thin, then you're on go.

But I also like you to visualize your serve as well. Now that can mean many different things to many different players. So let's talk about what visualization is. Jack Nicklaus popularized visualization in Golf My Way, where he talked about going to the movies in his head. So not everybody is a strict visualizer, for example.

You might be more of what we call a kinesthetic. You might be more of an auditory player. So when I talk about visualization, I'm basically talking about mental rehearsal or imagery of your serve. For those of you that are more visual in nature, you're going to see things in your mind. We call it in your mind's eye, right? You can see the trajectory of the serve that you want. Maybe it's a high kicker.

You can see it going to the target. It's like the shot tracer that you see in golf. If you watch any of the golf telecast, they have like a shot tracer of the ball in the air. Some players have that ability to see the trajectory. Now, another visual cue is just to think about the ball going to your target, seeing a straight line to your target, if you can't see the trajectory.

Or think about the target in your mind, where in your mind's eye, you're thinking about that corner of the box and you're focused on that. It's just different levels of imagery or visualization, if you will. Now, you might be an auditory performer. It's a little bit more rare, but you might like the sound. of a solid contact of the ball coming off the racket. And that's fine too. So you're going to program yourself with that type of an image of that sound of the ball coming off the racket.

Next, we have more keen aesthetic performers, learners and performers. Keen aesthetic means you're more into the feelings of a good serve. Now, there's a couple different ways to conceptualize that because... You might think about feeling the trajectory of the serve. Yes, you might think about that particular feeling of something out there. Even though you can't see it in your mind's eye, you can feel what you want to do.

One that's more common is maybe feeling something generally on the serve that's going to program you for a good serve. Maybe that's explosion. Maybe that's good tempo. Maybe that's acceleration, for example. Maybe that's good balance. I'm not here to tell you which one is right for you, but those are some of the images or feelings.

that more kinesthetic players use. My recommendation is go out and hit 10 serves with each of those different images. or feelings that I gave you today and find out where your consistency lies. You might find out that all this time you're trying so hard to visualize a good serve and that wasn't your strong suit. that maybe just focusing on good balance or exploding into the ball creates a way more consistent service action and thus result with the serve.

Go out and try some of those images and see where your consistency lies, but also what felt easy for you to do because you don't want it to be a chore. You want it to be difficult for you to feel or... See the serve that you want to hit. Hope that's helpful. If you want more information, jump over to peaksports.com for our one-on-one mental coaching programs for tennis.

We do mental training with tennis players all over the world via FaceTime, Skype, and Zoom. We'll see you soon. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast with Dr. Patrick Cohn. Discover the secrets to superior tennis confidence by visiting www.sportspsychologytennis.com for practical... game strategies to improve your tennis game.