Chicken Winging (right) vs Normal Topspin Forehand (left): Holding a more vertical racket with a 60% cocked wrist helps prevent this very grievous stroking fault. This ready position encourages more of a wrist first lock phase. If the racket is drawn back elbow first the elbow remains flexed so that the load winds up the shoulder instead of the forearm. Stored force in this location cannot easily reach the wrist, so it is lost - along with any hope of controlling the ball. The symptoms of this syndrome can be very non-specific and intermittent, often appearing when one is particularly nervous - i.e., when it counts! Ain't tennis fun?

Chicken Wing Syndrome

When one is nervous, one tends to tuck the elbows into one's torso. That is classic anxious body language. It is not surprising then, that as we get tight in tennis, we tend to tuck in the hitting elbow - keep it close to the body - during some or all of the stroke. It may "feel" like shortening of the lever arm gives us more leverage and therefore more control over the racket, but actually, the opposite is true. Chicken-winging leads to a dramatic loss of power, spin, control and a profound loss of the beauty of the stroke itself. Because it pits the elbow directly against the incoming missile it can lead to all kind of damage to the elbow, forearm and wrist including, but not confined to, tendonosis, muscle tears, osteoarthritis, and tennis elbow. Besides, it creates a short-armed swing that makes one look like a juvenile Tyrannosaurus.

The Chicken Wing Syndrome has to be the simplest and therefore the dumbest syndrome that has ever dragged me down to the depths of tennis hell. The fault is obvious to sufferer and observer alike, and the solution is trivial. Chicken winging is also ubiquitous. I have seen it cropping up amongst very talented players, even professionals, but, in them, only as a transitory, self-limited phenomenon, not as the pernicious, soul-crushing disease that spawned in me a seemingly endless series of slumps. So why did it take me 50 years to identify it? The answer is D - all of the above. The syndrome is everywhere, so it does not stand out. It is pathetically simple, so it does not challenge or excite the intellect. And it is trivial to fix, so it often repairs itself before one has time to recognize it. Indeed, once I zeroed in on this malady, I found it simple to diagnose, easy to understand and trivial to fix and prevent.

The basic pathophysiology of Chicken Wing Syndrome is keeping one's elbow too close to the body through the moment of contact. That's it. Nothing more to it than that. Yet this fault can disrupt every groundstroke, every volley, the serve, the overhead, and even the drop shot. It results in spectacular mishits - such as driving your topspin forehand into the ceiling, loss of power, loss of control, imbalance and a sense of complete discombobulation and dyscoordination. It can wreck your elbow, forearm or wrist. It is the most destructive pure stroking fault I have encountered in 50 years of research.

The root cause of pulling one's elbows into the body during a stroke is mysterious, but I believe that an important factor is a paradoxical misconception that doing so increases both control and power. When the arm is fully extended at the moment of contact one may feel 'weak,' especially in and around the shoulder joint. Indeed, with the arm fully extended away from the body, the leverage applied through the shoulder is enormous. If you doubt that, try performing the 'iron cross' on the rings. If one is trying to hit the ball with power, either to generate pace or to enforce control over the racket face, tucking the elbow into one's ribs provides the illusion of improving leverage and control.

Actually, static leverage is increased, but in stroking we are only concerned with dynamic leverage; the leverge that allows us to most efficiently generate the racket head speed. To maximize racket head speed, the most efficient technique is to start with a short lever arm and increase it's length as the racket head approaches the ball. Since the lever arm is the hitting arm, we increase its 'length' by extending the joints at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist, i.e. 'reaching out' for the ball.

Lag and Extend in the Serve: During the acceleration phase of the serve, the racket trails the wrist as we pull the racket, butt-end first, towards the point of contact: this is lag. Simultaneous to that the elbow extends until the arm is completely straight well before the moment of contact. By lengthening the lever 'arm', you can optimize leverage, racket head speed and pace.

Hello
Orbitl Collapse in Chicken Wing Syndrome: Compared with the orbital path of the racket's sweet spot in a normal forehand (blue balls left), the same orbit in Chicken Wing Syndrome is tighter and more 'curvaceous,' making it harder to address the ball. Note that the radius of the curve is basically the length of the forearm in the abnormal stroke (on the right) and the entire length of the arm in the normal stroke (on the left).

As for control over the ball, that is achieved by generating impulse using forces stored in the forearm muscles that are released at the moment of contact. Those forces are stored during the backswing (load) phase and completely contained in the forearm muscles, so the position of the shoulder at the moment of contact is irrelevant to control. The inability to create control at the moment of contact is counterintuitive because deep down we all imagine that the only opportunity for us to take hegemony over the ball is that brief period when the ball is on our strings. In fact, the moment of contact is way too late to start worrying about control. Instead, you must store control forces within your forearm muscles during the load phase then throw them out towards the ball, all before the ball arrives. So extending the arm out towards the ball is the most efficient way of achieving power and control.

Orbital Collapse

Stroring forces for control and accelerating the racket head to dizzying speed for pace are all well and good, but they are useless if you do not make solid contact.

If you mishit the ball your efforts are wasted. Proper stroke geometry is essential for solid ball contact. In every stroke, the racket head follows at least a segment of a continuous, elliptical orbit centered on the hitter's upper body. In some strokes, such as the volley, the segment of that ellipse that the racket head transcribes is quite short, but tracing that orbital path is nonetheless vital. The orbital flight path allows the hitter to apply three orthogonal forces to the racket through the handle:

    Orbital Forces
  1. a short-lived axial 'pull' force along the handle responsible for acceleration of the racket head
  2. a stored rotational 'push' force in the direction of the racket face which opposes the tendency of the racket head to lag and delivers control via impulse
  3. a stored rotational 'twist' force around the shaft of the racket in the direction of the desired spin which delivers rotational impulse


When you shorten the radius of the ellipse by keeping your elbows tucked into your body instead of reaching out to the ball, you disrupt these forces as follows:

    Force Disruption
  1. By shortening the lever arm you increase the curvature of the orbital path, resulting in less 'time-on-target' for the sweet spot of the racket face. In essence, you pull the racket off target creating mishits and off-center hits.
  2. Since the 'push' stored rotational force is pointed tangential to the orbital path, you cause that force to change direction more quickly increasing the chance that, at the moment of contact, the impulse is pointing in the wrong direction.
  3. If you are not increasing the diameter of the ellipse dynamically during the stroke you cannot achieve maximal racket head speed, so pace and spin are suboptimal.

Curing Chicken Wing Syndrome

This is the beauty part; the fix for this condition is trivial, it applies to almost every stroke, and it serves as both a quick fix and a preventative. All one needs to do is to start every volley or groundstroke in the proper ready position and intend to follow through in extension, i.e., reaching away from your body. For example, in the forehand, if you start with the racket head down and across your body, you will incline to pull the arm back into the pose elbow-first.

This draws the elbow away from the body during the pose and lock phases, but when the hips start to turn in the direction of the stroke during the load, the elbow snaps down into the ribs and gets stuck there through the point of contact. Conversely, if you start with a vertical racket with wrists 60% cocked you tend to lay the racket back and down, extending the elbow. Bottom line: if you feel cramped, feel like you are not reaching out for the ball, or are suffering mishits or loss of control on groundstrokes and volleys, focus on your ready position. Make sure your wrists are 60% cocked and racket near vertical before and after each strike, and check the position for quality, vis:

    Ready Position
  1. Wrists 60% cocked.
  2. Keep both hands on racket.
  3. Racket near vertical.
  4. Elbows close to body.
The serve and overhead also display this syndrome and the solution is similar. In the 'trophy pose', a position common to both strokes, simple avoid dropping the hitting elbow down behind your back. This should go without saying, but some sculptors like to carve tropies depicting servers with dropped elbows in the pose contributing to confusion.


    Chicken Wing Syndrome
  • Chief Complaint
    • "I can't make solid contact with the ball!"
  • Symptoms(Sx):
    • clunky sound on ball contact
    • random or constant volley and groundstroke errors
    • getting jammed or hit by the ball
    • feeling discombobulated or dyscoordinated
    • feeling off balance during the stroke
    • feeling cramped
  • Signs(S):
    • misshits (failure to address the ball)
      • especially tip of racket
        • occasionally missing the ball altogether
        Pathophysiology(Px):
      • broken stroke geometry
        • hitting elbow tucked into body at the moment of contact
          • shortened lever arm that never extends
            • reduced power
            • reduced spin
          • decreased diameter of the racket head's orbit
            • results in decreased time-on-target of sweet spot on point of contact
            • degree of elbow extenion is an additional unwanted parameter that effects addressing the ball
        Diagnostic Tests (Tx):
      • try stepping away from the point of contact
        • reach out for the ball
      • Treatment(Rx):
      • do not crowd the ball
        • extended elbow at moment of contact
          • non hitting arm elbow extended as well
            • prevent sympathetic contraction hittting arm
        • keep feet moving during stroke ("chirp")
          • so you can escape from a ball hit into your body
    • loss of spin and control
      • unable to generate snap
      • random errors like volleys into the net and wide forehands
      • inability to generate spin
      • no or minimal 'flip' of the racket load phase
        Pathophysiology(Px):
      • failure to lock
        • directing the racket into the lag position instead of 'loading' it
          • 'circular backswing' (bad!)
            • (in the forehand) externally rotating the shoulder to lay the racket back
            • (in the 2H backhand) intentionally dropping the wrist and layi g it back in the backswing
            • (in the volley) laying the racket back from the shoulder (instead of up)
        • results in NO WINDUP OF THE FOREARM MUSCLES so NO IMPULSE!
        Diagnosis(Dx):
      • listen for pop
        • vs. dull thud
      • listen for swish on shadow swing
        • maximum racket head speed during lag
      • Treatment(Rx):
      • CONFIRM appropriate lock position
          =basic follow-through position
        • wrist cocked
        • wrist neutral flexed
        • forearm and shoulder comfortably pronated on forehand, supinated on backhand
        • BOTH elbows extended
      • REMEMBER the backswing proper
    • bending over in the backswing
      • restricts hip and shoulder rotation
      • redirects all forces
        • rotates the racket's orbit
      • hard on the back
        Pathophysiology(Px):
      • substitute for knee bend
        • tiredness
        • generally weak legs
        Diagnosis(Dx):
      • try to straighten back and beend knees
      • Treatment(Rx):
      • dip - don't crouch
        • bend knees
        • straight back
        • conditioning
          • sits
          • squats
          • weight
  • Differential Diagnosis:
  • Prevention
    1. Always return racket and wrists to the proper ready position!!!
      1. wrists 60% cocked
      2. both hands on racket
      3. racket vertical
      4. elbows close but not tucked into body
    2. clear the point of contact
      1. step back from the ball's line-of-flight
      2. reach out with hitting arm
      3. keep feet moving ("chirp")