You should check the pitch on your main blades.This is usually the main cause of No lift or Bad lift. As for the tail motor 1st set your proportional and gain like the guys before me have said. Now its quite possible your tail motor is bad. I just had 1 do what yours is doing only a few days ago. The only way I could get it to start was by applying full rudder. Then it would stop spinning maybe hiccup a couple times stop and start, anyway, your motor is probably dying and it takes full power just to get it to spin a bit.
Try do what you said youre doing and Im sure that when you check the tail motor its smokin hot. If you have a spare try slap it on.