The immediate effects of serving on shoulder rotational range of motion in tennis players

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the immediate effects of serving on shoulder rotational range of motion (ROM) in tennis players by comparing to groundstrokes.Design: Same-subject, randomised, crossover study.Setting: Indoor hard courts.Participants: Eighteen male and 12 female professional and university level tennis players.Main outcome measures: Passive glenohumeral internal and external rotation ROM measurements, using a digital inclinometer, were undertaken at baseline and immediately following serving and groundstroke tasks on both dominant and non-dominant shoulders. Total rotation was calculated as the sum of internal and external rotation.Results: On the dominant and non-dominant shoulders there was no significant interaction effect between the factors of tennis task (serving and groundstrokes) and time (pre and post) (p = <0.05). Indicating that change in rotational ROM was not specific to tennis task. On the dominant shoulder there was a significant main effect of time (p = 0.007), with internal, external and total rotational ROM decreasing irrespective of tennis task.Conclusion: Both tennis tasks resulted in immediate significant reductions in shoulder rotational ROM on the dominant shoulder but not the non-dominant shoulder of professional and university tennis players. There was no significant difference between serving and groundstroke tasks.