Introduction to Conditioning Today's High Performance Tennis Player

After my discussion of Tennismetrics 101, I think that this is a good time to begin a discussion of my current thoughts about the fundamental principles of conditioning the modern, high performance tennis player.

Let’s start by considering what physical skills need to be emphasized to help today’s tennis athletes perform their best.

First, players need to demonstrate the ability to run hundreds of short sprints with an explosive “first step” toward each of their opponent’s returns as well as an explosive “first step” to recover court position after each of their own.

Second, players need to have high levels of speed(-specific) endurance because they may need to move explosively for the two or three hours required to complete a competitive singles match.

Third, they need to demonstrate the ability to move explosively in all directions: forward, backwards, sideways, and upward to respond to the types of shots that are encountered in tennis.

Fourth, players need to demonstrate considerable arm/shoulder/upper body power and endurance to consistently generate high racket speeds over a period of several hours.

And fifth, tennis players do not have to develop large amounts of muscle mass associated with protecting athletes who compete in sports that involve physical contact—impact, if you like—with their opponents.

I am specifically mentioning the fact that tennis isn’t a contact sport because it provides me with an easy transition to the heart of this discussion... Which is to raise your awareness of the fundamental inferiority of the methods used to condition the majority of high performance tennis players here in the US.

This fundamental inferiority in tennis conditioning know-how is most plainly apparent in collegiate tennis where one of two typical scenarios occur:

a) There is a football-focused conditioning coach who tries to adapt conditioning ideas and methods developed specifically for football to tennis, OR

b) If the tennis team has no access to the department conditioning specialist, the tennis coaching staff themselves will employ their anecdotal, and outdated understanding of conditioning methods for tennis that is typically based on the conditioning drills and exercises they did themselves as active players “back in the day”.

So, the typical collegiate tennis player is either trained in the image of a football player who happens to hold a tennis racket while chasing tennis balls or is trained using archaic and largely ineffective exercises that have become irrelevant to the current demands of today’s tennis.

How could this situation be remedied in the short term?

First of all, I would recommend to the vast majority of collegiate conditioning coaches that they should acknowledge that football-specific conditioning methods have only a very general application to tennis players, and football methods fail to completely address the most important performance requirements of tennis.

Second, they need to understand that tennis is a unique composite sport that requires the development and training of diverse athletic skills and attributes, well beyond that of any single sport. By definition, they need to look beyond football and begin examining conditioning methods and philosophies from sports that require similar, if not identical physical attributes as tennis.

For example…

1) To develop the ability to perform short sprints over extended periods, I would look closely at conditioning methods from:

Basketball, Soccer, Rugby, and Aussie Rules Football

2) To develop the ability to move explosively in all directions, I would look closely at conditioning methods from:

Basketball, Soccer, Badminton, and Squash

3) To develop the overhand and sidearm throwing power and endurance required for serves and groundstrokes, I would look closely at conditioning methods from:

Baseball pitching, Football passing, Javelin, Handball, and Volleyball spiking & jump serving

Bottom line is, the majority of conditioning programs for tennis at the collegiate level today are designed and implemented by football conditioning specialists and does not adequately prepare players for the actual demands of today’s high performance tennis.

All of the conditioning programs I’ve designed and implemented for my own players only scarcely resembles what college tennis players are currently doing. The programs I’ve designed for my own players address the specific demands of today's high performance tennis and generally follow the guidelines below:

a. We do extensive assessments of relevant, individual athletic attributes to determine individual strengths and weaknesses that impact tennis performance.

b. We educate players about the performance standards they need to meet or exceed to perform at an elite (“world class”) level in tennis.

c. We fully customize all training activities to address the specific needs of individual players.

d. We periodize all training activities according to individual player performance goals.

e. We focus primarily on variations on interval training for general endurance training and development.

f. We perform specific drills and exercises to increase first-step explosiveness.

g. We perform strength training that addresses stabilization, deceleration and muscle endurance.

h. We perform speedchain training (using the Tennis SpeedChain and the Torsoburner) to increase racket speed, explosiveness of the core muscles and lateral movement
acceleration.

What I’ve described here is a very basic framework that I use to evaluate, design and implement an appropriate conditioning program for individual players. The initial evaluation of fundamental athletic attributes (#1 above) itself takes 2 to 3 full days alone. The results of those evaluations are then integrated with the information I obtain through extensive conversations with the player about their goals, injury history, etc. to develop the initial program.

Developing an effective conditioning program for high performance tennis players is a very time-consuming, involved process, so don’t be fooled by coaches and trainers who claim that they can just hand you a rote program to follow without doing the legwork to determine what’s really necessary for you to maximize your physical performance on court. If your conditioning program is not customized to your specific needs, you will end up wasting valuable time doing things that aren't going to help you improve your ability to perform.

Conditioning today’s tennis athletes given the demands of the current—and future—high performance game is inherently complex, and it’s not surprising that there are only maybe a handful of players, coaches and fitness trainers in the US who truly understand the true physical basis of high performance tennis.

And until the majority of so-called conditioning coaches improve their understanding of how to properly train today’s players to meet or exceed the actual demands of the sport today, the vast majority of high performance tennis players won’t be fully prepared to confront the challenges that await them on the tennis court.

TTFN!

How to increase your racket speed-Part 3 The dawn of a new era in conditioning for tennis

In my last post, I started to talk about whether it’s possible to increase your racket speed by some form of off-court training. And I mentioned that the answer to this question depends on WHEN you asked me this question.

If you asked me if there were any exercises I could do to increase my racket speed before February 2006, the answer would be NO.

If you asked me the same question after February 2006, the answer would be YES.

THERE ARE EXERCISES YOU CAN DO TO INCREASE YOUR RACKET SPEED!

Someone has invented a revolutionary training aid and training program that actually enables athletes in various sports to increase the speed of their golf swings, hockey slapshots, baseball swings, soccer kicks...

And after February 2006, tennis serves, forehands, and backhands.

Why do I seem to know so much about this innovation in conditioning for tennis?

That’s because I have had the privilege of partnering with the inventor of this ground-breaking invention to design, develop and test a tennis-specific training program and together we have created a business venture to bring both this breakthrough, one-of-a-kind training aid and training program to the tennis world.

So, what’s the name of this revolutionary tennis training aid?

It’s called the SpeedChain…

And with it comes the dawn of a new era in conditioning for tennis.

Maybe you’ve heard rumors about the SpeedChain and how training with it increases your serve and groundstroke speeds. I recall that some of the regulars from Tennis Warehouse’s “Talk Tennis” forum started a thread or two about the SpeedChain a while ago (end of 2005, as I recall)…

So, how much speed improvement are we talking about? We are talking about an immediate 5 to 15 MPH increase after the very first time you train with it.

The actual training program takes only about 15 minutes to complete and you see an immediate result. In the long run, the more you train with it, the more you improve your speed…

After that initial 5 to 15 MPH burst forward, players typically continue increasing their racket speeds at a rate of 1 to 3 MPH per week for up to 10 weeks. I’ve personally seen players improve their serve speed almost 30 MPH after 10 weeks of training.

Oh yeah, and I should mention that training with the SpeedChain only takes about 30 minutes per week total (i.e. twice a week for 15 minutes).

And, if you’re wondering why I am so certain about the effectiveness of SpeedChain training for tennis, it’s because I helped create the training program. I have personally trained with and tested the SpeedChain and its tennis-specific training exercises with an ever-growing number of high-performance players from Top 5 sectional juniors to NCAA D1 collegiate players to ITF Futures and ATP Challenger players. The training exercises are simple to do, and it turns out that SpeedChain training for tennis delivers training benefits far beyond increased racket speed (e.g. better speed endurance, stronger rotator cuff muscles, accelerated learning of stroke movements, etc.).

SPEEDCHAIN TRAINING INCREASES YOUR RACKET SPEED, PERIOD.

THE RADAR GUN DOES NOT LIE!

Are you beginning to wonder if you’re missing out on something?

We’ll talk in more detail about how and why the SpeedChain increases your serve and groundstroke speeds when conventional off-court training methods (weights, medicine balls, rubber tubing and bands, plyometrics, etc.) haven’t.

We’ll get into the nitty-gritty about this new era in tennis training—and in speed training in general—next time!

TTFN!

How to increase your racket speed-Part 2 The stark truth about physical conditioning for tennis

Sorry about the long hiatus from the last post... I just got caught up in all the holiday madness, and some new business leads appeared with the new year and I am just getting back into things.

OK, last time I gave you a rundown on the conventional approach taken by today’s tennis establishment regarding the quest for increasing your racket speed.

Developing optimal stroking technique IS the conventional way to increase your racket speed.

However, I also mentioned that there might be other methods or approaches to increasing your racket speed…. Well, at least there’s one now proven option that I know about.

So, what’s the other option, you say?

Friends, the answer to this question depends on WHEN you asked it…

What I mean is if you asked this question BEFORE February 2006, the answer would be:

THERE IS NO OTHER OPTION!

Why?

There’s no other option because there are NO known conditioning exercises that have been shown to definitively increase racket speed in tennis players.

There is no proof that performing conditioning exercises such as weights, tubing exercises, plyometrics, stretching, yoga, etc. help you to swing your racket faster.

In fact, sports scientists have shown time and time again that known conditioning exercises have NO IMPACT on the speed at which complex athletic movements—i.e. multi-plane movements that involve the simultaneous coordination of multiple muscle groups in a complex sequence such as golf and baseball swings, hockey slapshots, tennis strokes, soccer kicks, baseball and softball pitching, etc.—are executed.

Are you surprised at the answer? I’ll bet you are!

All the weight training, plyometrics, and stretching performed by competitive tennis players as staples of their off-court conditioning programs have no significant effect on their racket speed.

On foot speed maybe, but racket speed, no.

So what’s all this business about off-court conditioning being so important to competitive tennis? Proper conditioning is critical to performing at an elite level in any sport without a doubt…

BUT…

Have you noticed that the vast majority of tennis-specific conditioning information is focused almost solely on three areas:

1) Overall general fitness (general strength and endurance)

2) Improving court movement (foot speed and quickness)

3) Injury prevention (flexibility and body balancing)

Have you also noticed that there is no specific information about how to swing your racket faster beyond modifying and optimizing your stroke technique?

Take a moment to reflect on what I’ve said here… Because now it’s time to connect some dots!

Has it dawned on anyone that there isn’t a single shred of off-court conditioning instruction in books, magazines, videos, or on the Web that tells you EXACTLY how to achieve more racket speed?

Why?

Because no one knows how to do it using methods outside of the modification of stroke technique!

Remember, even the most decorated and knowledgeable sports scientists and strength and conditioning experts in the world haven’t come up with a viable solution to this problem of increasing the speed of complex, sports-specific movements such as tennis serves and groundstrokes!

So, am I telling you that there’s no real, viable way to increase your racket speed?

No, I am not telling you that at all…

If you recall, I said that the answer to the original question posed at the beginning of this entry depends on WHEN you asked me the question.

Oh, sorry to interrupt this broadcast, but I have to run ...

I'll reveal the answer to this burning question next time!

TTFN!