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med ball training
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.
One of those ways is to use med balls for non-throwing scenarios. I know, for the most part, med balls are used for throwing purposes (and made for this reason as well). Throwing allows us to have a shorter deceleration phase and extend the propulsion phase - akin to doing a jump squat instead of a barbell squat for the development of lower-body power.
This past weekend, I had several players message me looking for a training program they could do for the next few weeks (or perhaps longer) - one that wouldn’t require any gym equipment. And in light of recent events, I’m guessing they aren’t the only tennis players (and athletes in general), in this scenario.
Because of this, I’ve taken some time to create what I’ve called, The ‘No Gym’ Program. So if you’re in the same situation as many (and don’t have access to gym equipment), just scroll to the end of this page and enter your email address - you’ll receive the program for free.
Have you ever been working on a player's forehand and thought "they're just not getting it". And instead of talking the player's ear off with detailed mechanics or trying every cue in the book, you decide to get them to throw a med ball.
All of a sudden, after just 1 or 2 cues - something like “thrust your rear hip” or “turn your torso, then release the ball” - they found the correct movement. You then return to hitting forehands and voila, they finally ‘get it’.
Medicine ball training is a widely popular training modality amongst tennis players at all ages and levels. More specifically, med ball (MB) training is primarily used to augment rotational power. For a review of the underpinning science and theory on this topic, please take a look at a previous post on this topic. Why augment rotational power though? Today's game is classified as power based - players are hitting the felt off the ball. The rationale from a training perspective is as follows: increase rotational power and you'll increase hitting speeds - whether that's groundstroke or serve speeds.
Many coaches and players often speak of the importance of power in tennis. From movement characteristics to its development during the execution of groundstrokes, serves and so forth. But power in and of itself simply means the rate at which work is performed. When you’re running at a steady sub-max pace, you’re still producing power - but I don’t think that’s the power a tennis player is after, do you? What we’re more concerned with is MAXIMUM POWER - this is the quality that helps when exploding into a big forehand or going for an all out first serve. In this post, we'll briefly outline max power and it's relationship to force output and velocity. We'll also provide video examples of a number of general & specific exercises for the development of max power in tennis and to conclude, a general framework will be outlined so that coaches and players can program/implement med ball exercises into their training regimes.
