The Bottom Line
Pros
- Technically accurate
- Well referenced
- Good chapter summaries
- Scientific approach
Cons
- Some poor diagrams
- Numerous grammatical errors
- Style may be too academic for some readers
Description
- Paperback
- 136 pages
- Chapter 1: Biomechanical Principles of Tennis Technique
- Chapter 2: Injury Prevention in Tennis
- Chapter 3: Biomechanics of the Serve
- Chapter 4: Biomechanics of the Forehand
- Chapter 5: Biomechanics of the Backhand
- Chapter 6: Biomechanics of the Volley
- Extensive references
- Index
Guide Review - Book: Biomechanical Principles of Tennis Training
Biomechanical Principles of Tennis Training, by Duane Knudson, Ph.D. best suits tennis coaches who want a fairly compact introduction to biomechanics, which Knudson defines as the "study [of] the motion and causes of motion of living things." Knudson explains the key research findings in five main areas of tennis biomechanics: injury prevention, serves, forehands, backhands, and volleys. Each chapter explains what we know, how that knowledge differs from popular beliefs, and how much more is yet to be studied.As anyone well trained in science should be, Knudson is cautious. The great benefit of his caution is accuracy: his recommendations are supported by sound research. For some readers, though, his style will be too academic, and his caution might sound like equivocation. Readers seeking simple, practical advice will find it sparsely distributed in the main text, but Knudson helps those readers by ending each chapter with "Match Points," key practical recommendations to take out onto the court.
Knudson's mission and the huge gaps in biomechanics research put significant constraints on this book, but it could be easily improved. Grammatical errors abound, and some diagrams are needlessly unhelpful. On page 41, for example, Knudson writes, "Increasing the range of motion and time used in the body motions of a follow-through decrease the peak loads of negative acceleration acting on the body tissues." This sentence is repeated on page 42 in large, bold type, as are other key ideas throughout the book--a nice feature, provided you've hired a good copyeditor. Page 51 is occupied by diagrams comparing two serving stances in terms of the forces the player's feet exert against the ground. Each diagram has a dotted and a solid line, but those lines are neither labeled nor explained.
