Muscle Actions and Ground Reaction Forces in Tennis

This study investigates the action of nine muscles during the execution of tennis strokes such as the service, the forehand, and the volley. More precisely it was our aim, using electromyographic techniques, to determine which muscles are active and in what sequence, and to what extent they participate in the execution of the selected tennis strokes. Besides muscle action, it was informative to know the overall force action of the human body during these tennis strokes. This is realized by simultaneous recordings of the ground reaction forces of the player on a force plate. The electromyographic and force recordings were synchronized with film pictures. The EMG recordings of the tennis strokes we investigated revealed that most muscles around the shoulder and elbow joint exhibit their greatest activity during the active propulsion of the racket and during impact. Ground reaction forces, on the contrary, were generally low except for some vertical body thrust of about 300 N.