When looking at Max Velocity Mechanics, there’s three different velocities that are actually occurring: 

1. Retraction Velocity 
2. Ground Velocity
3. Recovery Velocity 

Let's break down each one below, and walk through how they all tie together. 

1. Retraction Velocity

For retraction velocity, think from the hip -> down to the knee ->  to the ankle. 

It’s the velocity of the leg coming down to the ground. This will help determine how hard that ground contact is. 

Our goal is to spike the ground contact in the initial phase. When it hits the ground, we want to be able to spike that contact as hard as possible. 

It’s swinging the leg down. This sets up the next phase. . .

2. Ground Velocity 

This is when our foot hits the ground and our hips start moving over our foot. As the hip moves forward, it will create an extension out the back. 

That ground velocity becomes significantly important. How fast we can get on and off the ground is largely dependent on how we move the hip over the ankle. 

You can think of this as the moment of touchdown to the moment of toe-off. How much range you can produce and how quickly you can do it is what determines this quality.

3. Recovery Velocity 

The recovery velocity is how much angular speed you can generate from toe-off to the leg getting to its apex point in front.

In simpler terms, recovery velocity is measuring the velocity of the leg swinging off the ground back up to the top. 

This will determine if you can get frontside to generate your next groundstroke.

All three of these max velocity mechanics go hand in hand. 

If you don’t have good recovery velocity your leg isn't going to get in front enough, which means you won’t have very good retraction velocity. 

If you don’t have good retraction velocity, it means your ground velocity is going to be slow. 

All three work together.