Hot Shoulder Syndrome

This is a crazy common condition that applies to all strokes. Duffer or pro, this happens to everyone every time they play. The signs and symptoms are nonspecific (i.e., you don't know if you've got it) - basically it is just making errors. The key to detection and diagnosis is suspicion and understanding. Whenever you start making errors on any stroke, suspect his condition first. Then understand that there is a strong, natural desire to continue to accelerate the tennis racket through the ball. This misbehavior has been abetted in the past by teaching pros who admonish us to "hit through the ball!", an infamous black pearl we all learned in the '70s and '80s along with the Hustle. When we endeavor to hit through the ball, we must use our hips and shoulders to accelerate the racket head during the moment of contact. The only obvious effect of this is to cause over-rotation of the shoulders, but in itself, over-rotation is more of a symptom of the disease than a cause. Paradoxically, a hot shoulder can also be caused by under-rotation of the body in the preparation phase (unit turn and backswing proper) of the stroke. There is a requisite amount of swing in every swing - a certain number of degrees of rotation of hips, shoulders, and arm to achieve the ends of the stroke. If you do not wind up sufficiently then the swing itself "slops over" into the follow-through. More specifically, if there is not enough distance between the backswing and the point of contact for a proper lag phase, the lag phase will not complete before the moment of contact. In the serve, for instance, the windup or unit turn phase is larger than most of us would like to believe. By the time you get to the trophy pose your chest needs to be facing the back right corner of the fence. Most people barely get sideways to the net. Thus the distance between the position of the racket head at the end of the backswing and the point of contact is decreased. Most people will compensate for this by continuing the lag phase of the serve through the point of contact, which prevents the release of stored control and spin forces. The most obvious sign is a lack of pronation and wrist flexion in the follow through. The only symptom is a notable absence of "snap" and the result is a disastrous lack of control and consistency.

The Cost of a Hot Shoulder

What a hot shoulder mostly costs you is control, because as one is driving through the ball and beyond into the follow through, the directional control and spin forces stored in the forearm during the lock and load phases never get released. Instead, all of the impulse that ends up being delivered to the ball comes from the frenetic rotation of the shoulders, torso, and hips. This raw energy cannot hope to direct the ball through the paper-thin window that the ball must traverse to stay inbounds.

The shoulder and hip muscles are all about raw power, crude spin and directing the racket to the ball. They can't be bothered to fine tune the flight path of the ball nor should you try to use them for that purpose, being the big, clumsy muscles that they are. That job belongs to the smaller muscles of the forearm and wrist, and for them to have an effect, the shoulders and other core muscles need to get out of their way. To accomplish that, one must stop the acceleration of the trunk and shoulders just before the moment of contact. You can slow the acceleration through sudden relaxation of the muscles of the torso and shoulders, but the most effective way to slow the shoulders is to create a multi-modal power wave with a terminal trough in a direction opposite to the positive peak. You create the trough by stepping into the ball well before the moment of contact. By pushing back off the front foot, you create a powerful counter wave. I the shorter strokes, like the volley, you can counter-rotate the non-hitting limb to generate a trough from the shoulders to oppose the forward acceleration. Involving the other arm can help start, maintain and stop rotation of the shoulders on cue.