I recently shared a post about how to ‘level out’ the drive forehand.
It’s a shot primarily used during attacking situations. Or at the very least, when a player wants to put some additional pressure on their opponent.
The thing is, I still see a ton of players struggling here. And the majority of the time, it’s not because they lack the skill of hitting the ball more direct and with more pace, but because their ability to decide when to hit the drive forehand just doesn’t add up.
Below are 6 training modalities that I believe should never leave a tennis player’s off-court training program.
Whether a player is has a period without tournaments - or they’re in-between events - I believe the inclusion of these training types (in some form), is imperative to remain healthy and to perform at peak levels.
Let’s explore each in a little detail:
1 - Plyometric Training - If you only had to choose one training type to add to your off-court program, it would be plyometrics.
Have you ever received a soft, floating ball that landed around the 3/4 court area. You know the one. It makes your eyes pop open as you aim to take advantage of the situation, either by hitting a big winner or putting your opponent under serious pressure.
But as the ball leaves your racquet, it doesn’t quite have the pace you want. And it’s got too much topspin (and shape to it) or maybe it doesn’t have enough pace. Whatever the case may be, your opponent now has more time to track down that ball with ease, completely neutralizing your attacking position.
I don’t believe that medicine ball training does much in terms of ‘power’ development. There it is, I said it.
My opinion has changed on this topic. I once thought that throwing med balls would develop rotational or overhead power and that this would lead to an increase in groundstroke or serve speed.
I held this belief for a number of reasons.
Novak Djokovic is arguably the best tennis player of all time. It’s no secret he possesses an array of talents and skills. From his technique, to his mental toughness and everything in between.
His physical abilities aren’t too shabby either. Flexibility, stamina and movement are merely a few that come to mind.
While Novak is unquestionably a physical specimen, he’s not the fastest tennis player I’ve ever seen. It’s obvious he’s not the strongest. And I’d say he’s probably not one of the most powerful out there either.
Finally, after more than 15 years, I can hit a powerful serve. I always wanted to hit a big serve. The problem was…my timing wasn’t great, I couldn’t generate any power and I often had an achy shoulder.
That’s all changed now. I went from a 100mph serve to consistently hitting between 110-120mph.
What’s also interesting is that I never intentionally altered my serve technique. But my mechanics got better. On top of all that, my shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore.
Have you ever hit a serve where everything just seemed to come together? You felt coordinated. Powerful. The ball came off your racquet like a rocket.
On the flip side, we’ve all hit serves that felt off-balanced. Off-centered. Lacked pop. And landed everywhere but the service box.
I recently started working with a young 19 year old. As I always do when starting to coach a new player, I took him through some testing (both formal and informal). Part of this process is simply me asking players what type of training they’ve been doing of late, what they like doing and so on.
Funny enough, this player mentioned that explosiveness is a priority of his. That it’s something he feels has been lacking in his game - he came to the right place ;).
Many in tennis associate shoulder health with resistance band exercises. Listen to coaches and trainers talk about shoulder strength or injury prevention with their players and you’ll surely hear things like “are you using your bands daily?” or “make sure to do ‘x’ or ‘y’ band exercise”. But do band exercises work in the manner that they’re spoken about?
I’d like to offer my take on the matter and suggest 2 other strength training methods - light weight and moderate/heavy strength exercises.
There are countless ways that tennis players can get into shape. From running workouts to weight training, on-court drills and more.
All have their pros and cons. And all can be utilized at different times of the year + at different stages of a player’s development.
Recently, plyometric and jump training has resurfaced as a popular training modality amongst tennis players. You’ll see many performing hurdles, line hops and other types of jumping variations.
Wimbledon is around the corner and it’s going to be the first time in over 20 years that Roger Federer isn’t competing.
While Rafa Nadal has been my favorite of the Big 3 since I can remember, part of me would still like to see Roger make a run at another Wimbledon title.
I’m confident that Roger will make a final push to be back on tour (he and his team understand the rehab process better than anyone I’ve seen in tennis). So good luck to Rog!
But that’s not why I’m mentioning Mr. Federer. The reason I bring him up is because of a video I recently saw of him hitting a few balls. Here it is:
t’s no surprise that I’m a fan of strength training (as long time readers of Mattspoint would know).
But strength training is an more of an umbrella term than just one type of training modality. Because there's just so many different ways that we can lift weights. Here are a few examples:
Lift light weights fast - explosive (or speed) strength. Lift heavy weights slow (with a fast/explosive intention) - maximum strength. Lift moderate weights fast - strength speed (or rate of force development).
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again - the most specific form of training for tennis is playing tennis! Thus, tennis training - which includes on-court drills, live ball hitting, practice sets (and even tournament matches) - is the truest form of ‘sport-specific physical training’ for tennis.
So if you hear someone talk about ‘sport-specific training’ and they’re jumping on a bosu ball, performing shadow swings on the beach or some other random exercise, that is NOT sport specificity.
A little while back, I wrote a post highlighting the need to serve earlier in practices - check out that article here.
I also discussed this on the BTS podcast with PhD in Sport Science, Jaime Fernandez, who recently published a research paper on this exact topic. His conclusion - serving should happen at some point in the first half of a tennis practice AND NOT at the very end of a session. This will benefit players both from a development standpoint and from an injury mitigation point of view.
If you’ve read my blog in the past, you’ve likely seen my post on attentional focus cues - and the research + implementation that goes along with it.
You may have also read my take on the importance of cueing in general. And why the right cue - given at the correct time - is often more impactful than the perfect drill (although combining the right cue with a great drill is a recipe of success).
Whether you’re a tennis player or a tennis coach, if most of your practice time is spent hitting balls from a basket or hand feed, you might need to rethink your strategy.
Before I dive into this argument, let’s set the stage. There are essentially 2 types of practice balls that a player can receive. A live ball and a dead ball.
A lot of instruction in tennis is coach-directed. And a lot of that is simply the addition of information. Whether positive or negative, this often includes verbal feedback, praise and prompting. There’s also non-verbal feedback like gesturing or modeling - in other words, the coach uses a bodily action to demonstrate what they are seeking from the player.
My take on this - it’s critical… but (and it’s a BIG but), it’s overdone….
In this episode, I welcome PhD in Sport Science - Jaime Fernandez - one of the top tennis researchers out there.
Jaime and I tackle a number of sport science topics including best (and easiest) practices for monitoring on-court training loads, where to fit the serve into the practice schedule and what really matters when it comes to keeping the tennis shoulder healthy.
Martin also coaches athletes from other sports and shares his insights on using the Bondarchuk system to classify + organize training, where various tennis activities would fit into this categorization and the how + why behind mircodosing certain workouts.
Have you ever incurred an injury and been told to take time off to ‘rest’ that particular structure? While I don’t discredit rest from being an integral part of the healing process, I will say this - it’s not enough.
In this episode, creator of Hmmr Media - Martin Bingisser - joins me to talk about choosing exercises that are the most 'bang for your buck' in terms of training transfer.
As a former hammer throwing athlete (and now coach), Martin has an extensive background in trunk development and describes his approach - using bodyweight, weights and med balls - to target this quality.
Martin also coaches athletes from other sports and shares his insights on using the Bondarchuk system to classify + organize training, where various tennis activities would fit into this categorization and the how + why behind mircodosing certain workouts.
