I spent a few hours putting some video together with one of my assistant coaches - who played NCAA tennis - to show some sprint applications for tennis. I threw the clips together to generate discussion, as well as give her something to put up on a website she is starting.
It is obvious there are some specific applications (i.e. sprinting to the net for a drop-shot or for serve and volley play). But there are also general benefits in terms of foot elasticity, hip extension, etc.
I recently watched a tennis conditioning DVD from the US and was a bit shocked at the claims they were making for specific exercises. It was overdone and many of the benefits were overstated.
I would be interested to get more of Charlie’s thoughts on this as I know he has been doing work with tennis athletes.
sprinting enhances the (rapid) recruitment of muscle fibers and increases in acceleration/speed beautifully transfer to other actions specific to the sport (in tennis the shots, in soccer kicking the ball).
it contributes to teaching relaxation, other big advantage.
A few specific comments on the video.
she’s a very good athlete
-sprinting form and posture seems generally very good
it seems that feet tend a little bit to collapse
with push-up starts there is no full triple-extension, more general strength needed?
Good to see some graphic representation of the transfer of effect. As for the athlete involved in the film, you have someone gaining the benefits NOW but not throughout a career so there will be issues typical of traditional training (feet etc) - but if she’d had this all along, things would have been better throughout.
Tennis training, which I have seen in my experience, defiantly needs to be improved. Sprint training for tennis is on the right track and hopefully more coaches will really see the value sprinting has on tennis. I was a competitive tennis player, and off-court training consisted of running miles and more based on endurance work. Tennis is not an endurance sport. Even some professional tennis players that I have meet are not focusing on the right type of off-court training. Hopefully we can get the message across how sprinting has a positive effect on improving the tennis player’s game.
NumberTwo, a couple of questions: how much time is dedicated to drills starting from a side position vs. a front one? And overall is there any other lateral work involved either on the track or in the gym (e.g., side lunges, etc)? Thanks! Nice clip!
I would say we do a small proportion of lateral work with our overall speed work. It is done once-in-a-while. There would be some lunge work done in the weight room, and perhaps some variations on jumps/plyos from different start positions and landing positions (front vs lateral or back).
Most of the time is spent working at near maximal effort with linear work. This is assuming that they are still working on tennis specific skills on the court.
I’d say the warm-up routine would also include some lateral work for general coordination and flexibility. But this would all be sub-max work.
OK, it makes sense. And what about if they are not heavily involved with on court tennis work? How would you adjust your plan, if at all? Thanks again!
Likely expand the volume of sprint work, but also incorporate more work with plyometrics (including lateral work - bounds, hops, etc.). But also incorporate more medicine ball throws rounding out the explosive work.
I’m not a big fan of “simulating” on court tennis movements, as most tennis movement is based on anticipatory and reactive movement patterns that are specific to tennis.
I’d spend more time on strengthening lower leg/foot reactive strength and power, as well as torso rotation.
Endurance work would be tempo based with strength endurance circuits interspersed.
This is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard.
If you would watch any amount of tennis you would be able to tell that fatigue plays one of the biggest roles in a match’s outcome.
I picture tennis players similar to 800 runners, you must have great explosive ability, but also the ability to last.
I have worked in tennis academy here in Belgrade and we did very similar if not the same program
General Strength training
Hill sprints and flat sprint from different positions
Explosive medball throws and jumps
Tempo and MB/Plate/DB circuits and sometimes intensive tempo for older athletes
Playing tennis
I remember going into a debate with one tennis coach regarding ‘simulating’ some tennis moves in conditioning workout [he was especially negative regarding ‘plyo-step’ when starting to sprint from parallel tall position], but I didn’t managed to tell him it is context-dependent [read: tennis situation]. There is a great school in psychology called ecological psychology that goes into this perception-movement coupling that you CANNOT and MUST NOT split artificially.
Special Endurace and General Endurance (aeribic etc) are not the same thing. The is, of course a strong need for general endurnce but no role for Special Endurance- which would be a maximal continuous burst for 15 sec or more, not continuous action with short bursts intersperced as in tennis. The significance of this is that general fitness and pure speed coexist very nicely together while Speed and SE compete against each other for the same limited CNS resources.
I was ‘playing’ one day, trying to make some new ideas I learned more ‘visual’ and made this picture:
Basically, it is a energy system continuum in running, although it could be used in other sports as well with little modification.
So, the goal for energy system training for most team sports would be to
increase ATP/CP engine or maximum potential (strength, speed, plyos, etc)
Increase the vVO2max or the aerobic power
The lactic threshold will improve as the VO2max improves too, without the need to do ‘threshold runs’ (runs at vLT for 20-40mins) without the making FT fibers more ST.
Another point I would love to make is that tempo is not enough for the development of aerobic power. Intervals or sport-specific drills or games of 90-100% HR for 2-5 mins can and should be utilized to improve vVO2max. Tempo fits nicely as the tool to make FT fibers more vascular, same as enduracne runners use ‘strides’ or speed-reps. Both tempo and VO2max intervals should be conducred in aerobic block of training. This won’t make you ‘slow down’, but the lack of maintenance of speed/power/strength work will.
One workout I use now with volleyball players, for a short block of 4 wks, is 15/15s shuttle runs at vVO2max and 50% of vVO2max (and vVO2max is the minimal velocity at VO2max - I extrapolate this speed from yoyo-test or 6min run test and create the shuttles, i.e. around 2x32m for 15km/h vVO2max) done 4x4mins with 3min rest. We do tempo also and they feel tempo much more easier. Aerobic training has got bad rap today, but it doesn’t deserve it. As Hegel noticed, everything goes from thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis phases. There is time and place for aerobic workouts.
Since the usual technical skill training falls under the middle-aerobic zone (13-150HR) and it is done for prolonged period of time, there is no need for threshold runs and medium/low aerobic runs in conditioning sessions. Tempo and vVO2max training should suffice.
Watching tennis certainly is an endurance event. Can’t say I’ve ever watched a match start to finish. Call me when it gets to a fifth straight tie-breaker!
I used to run track but now have shifted my focus to basketball. I have felt that my basketball mobility improved the most using 30m flying sprints as opposed to accelerations. I think that max speed runs are much more plyometric than starts even though they don’t generate the same muscular power. I feel that strength should come from weights and the ability to display muscular strength quickly can come from the sport itself. The only reason I can think of to do accelerations instead of max velocity sprints would be if the CNS demand was perhaps too great given the other elements in the training program. Anybody else have an opinion on this?
This is a good one.
Top speed work increases recruitment velocity and it transfers well to 1-leg jumps and this is one of the reasons 200 meters have (in general) a higher 1-leg jump than 100 meters.
There is a good transfer from acc work to two leg jumps. I think that top speed work has a role for team sports. Just consider that top speed is reached much earlier in a non-sprinter, probably after 30 meters, 40 tops, so no need to go longer. Yes, CNS stress can be high, balance among elements is required. EMS work is another option.
That’s just a fabulous production NumberTwo.
I worked with 1983 Wimbledon (losing) finalist Chris Lewis of NZ for quite a while (post his Wimbledon moment) on different ideas for improving his speed, power, agility etc because he had been hired to do the same for Ivan Lendl. Greats guys both of them btw.
Chris did the usual sprint warmup drills, prone starts, some max velocity stuff but mostly simple plyos (hopping double-foot, then single foot over small cones, some box jump combos but very low). But I really like how you took the twist of the service motion and applied it to your starts. Wish I had thought of that 20 years ago…
Sounds like you had the right idea KK. I just stay with two foot hops since everything direction change related is already covered by the huge number of court hours required (hence, I’m not as concerned with the change start, though I’m not against it either). You can see almost an immediate improvement in deceleration and direction change from the box jumps etc.
