How To Build Your Kinetic Chain Like Djokovic

• By Aiden Lefebvre

According to Aspetar, the kinetic chain is the biomechanical system by which the body meets these inherent demands of tennis. Building the kinetic chain will help generate the force needed to hit a tennis ball and also to absorb the load that your joints bear when moving on the court. But how do you train your kinetic chain? Here, I’ll show you the way that Djokovic uses instability training so you can play like the pros. 

Fully Body Stability

Obviously, it's essential that we create stability and power in our athlete's core, to create a connected kinetic chain. Instability training is an excellent way to develop your kinetic chain. One of the greatest coaches to do it is Marco Panichi, Djokovic’s strength coach. He is a massophysiotherapist and a master at creating stability in his players by using instability in his training regimen. 

In the video below, Marco Panichi shared what exactly he does with one of the world’s best players. Here, Djokovic has a container partially filled with water strapped to his back. With each movement, the water moves within the container, creating endless instability and reduces his balance. This makes Novak’s nervous system make constant adjustments to maintain dynamic balance. 

Upper Body Stability

Another thing Panichi talks about is the stability of the upper body. Isolating the upper body from the lower body will ensure that both sections of your body are trained evenly and will optimize performance on the court. Just as Panichi described with the first drill, he focuses on distributing weight unevenly on the athlete. That way, they have to build up a strong core to evenly balance out the weight distribution. 

In the video below, Panichi explains how to build the upper body’s kinetic chain. He uses the same principle of stability through instability to train two other players. The first is to lay on a yoga ball with free weights in your hands. With your chest out, spread both weights out from your sides and gradually lift one weight out in front of you. As you do so, your core and hips will need to adapt to the weight imbalance you create and maintain stability. 

Lower Body Stability

The lower body cannot be forgotten either. In the same video, Panichi instructs us how to train the lower body using a similar weighted exercise. First, the athlete gets into a lunge position while holding a weighted object with both hands. Here, the athlete is using a bosu ball to support his knee. Then, they kick their leg up and land it out in front of them, causing the weight to rotate faster than the rest of their body. The athlete needs to use their core and hips once again to stabilize the weight and stop it from spinning the rest of their body. 

As you can see, the player on the left is working on anti-rotation stability, with alternating single arm “chest fly” on a yoga ball. And the player on the right is working on the transfer of power through a loaded position on a bosu ball. This engages the legs, core, and hips throughout the motion.  

Panichi’s approach to training is one of the reasons Djokovic has remained in such outstanding physical condition. And one of the reasons he consistently goes deep into slams. If you want to learn more about how to train the kinetic chain, you can watch the rest of Panichi’s course here.

How will a strong kinetic chain help your tennis game? When you train your kinetic chain, you will have more control over the transfer of energy from your body to the ball when making contact. Tennis coach Cryil Genevois puts the training into practice with a video on using your back leg to drive the ball. He uses biomechanics to explain how to use your kinetic chain to your advantage in serving.

To learn more about Cryil Genevois’s wisdom on biomechanics in tennis, click here.  

Whether you’re just getting started in tennis or you’re a seasoned veteran, there is always room to improve your stability. If you stick with it, you will dominate the courts and make it look flawless.