Viewing entries tagged
recovery
For the majority of tennis players, traditional ‘aerobic training’ is useless. That’s a pretty bold statement, I know. But hear me out.
In tennis, successful players need to be skillful. They must possess technical mastery across a number of strokes. They require a strategy. And tactics to implement said strategy.
Even though I have a bias towards being very prepared from a physical standpoint (as long time readers of Mattspoint would know), technique and tactics are still top priority.
Before we dive into this post, understand that playing tennis actually improves the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). In essence, there are many ‘sister’ and ‘brother’ movements in tennis that utilize the SSC.
Here's the typical trainer's concern; it's believed that players outside of the top 100 have worries that a guy like Federer doesn't - i.e. travel expenses, points to defend and so on. Many of these players perform a concentrated physical prep block for 4-6 weeks in Dec/Jan (just prior to the start of the new season) and then a number of 1-2 week blocks during the course of the year. These same trainers will also agree that this isn't enough - performing one 4-6 week block along with 2-3 smaller blocks during the year is an insufficient amount of time to develop a quality like explosive power, for instance.
This past summer, we saw an influx of tennis players join our fitness programs. Many tennis players simply play tennis during the summer months - so having them join our off-court sessions was a good thing. A typical schedule for these players would see them hitting for about 1.5-2 hours per day and spending another 3-4 days with us in the gym.
While it’s great to see tennis players getting after it in the weight room, we spotted an unwanted trend amongst the group. Fatigue. But not the fatigue you’d normally encounter after 2 hours of tennis or a gruelling match. No, this was more of a general type of fatigue. One that’s typical amongst tennis players (especially juniors) but isn’t always easy to pinpoint it’s root cause.
A few weeks back, I had the privilege of working alongside coach Marcel du Coudray. We were coaching his pupil - ATP player Marc Polmans - at the Rogers Cup in my hometown of Montreal. Marc was accepted as the last entry into qualifying and got his first top 50 win against Andrey Rublev where he came back from 3-5 down in the 3rd set and save 3 match points at 3-6 down in the breaker (Rublev was ranked #49 in the world at the time of the match).
’ve received many questions of late and thought it might be interesting to share some of them in a post, along with my thoughts on some key topics. These queries come from players, coaches and even tennis parents.
As you read along, keep in mind that a lot of scenarios are circumstantial, so there could be more than one answer to a particular query. That being said, I will give the most direct, evidence backed response, that I possibly can.
There was a time, not too long ago, that everyone was advocating the use of sports drinks to aid hydration, electrolyte replenishment and overall sporting performance. I saw it with my own eyes. As a performance coach in an academy setting, I would travel the junior circuit, going from tournament to tournament. Youngsters would be gulping down neon coloured Gatorades yet could barely see over the net.
But then, a wave of anti-sugar marketing ads began coming to light. And all of a sudden, sugar-free sports drinks became the norm (if you were seen with a ‘regular’ Gatorade, you’d receive a long, evil stare from coaches, parents and other players).
Last week I presented in front of the BTV (Bavarian Tennis Verband) - it’s one of the biggest associations in Germany and many of the top junior tennis coaches were in attendance. The topic - how we can use off-court training strategies to accelerate on-court development. I had 3 young junior players helping me during the practical component - going through a series of jumps, bounds, throws, bodyweight exercises and so on. They were 12-13 years old and apparently, some of the best young talents in the country (I never met them previously and had never seen them play or train).
How many players on tour do we hear referring to ‘health’ as being a big part of their success? Many of the top players on both the women’s tour and men’s tour exclaim that being healthy and fit is a big part of their success. But the reverse is also true. How many players have inconsistent results when they aren’t in top form? Obviously it’s impossible to be in top form all the time, but when the balance tilts the other way, that’s usually when injury/illness could be lurking around the corner.
Last week, we looked at the importance of a post-match recovery routine for the tennis shoulder. This is based on a couple key factors. First, the current trend of modern tennis is heavily reliant on successful serving. And second, scientific evidence points to losses in both range of motion (ROM) and strength, along with shoulder/arm soreness, post matchplay. If you haven't read that post, take a look at it here as it helps provide the framework for this week's follow-up article.
Picture this, you just got off court after a long 3-set battle. You’re tired, exhausted, fatigued (insert any other word you wish). The last thing you want to do is spend another 30 minutes or more recovering from the match. But guess what, if you’re a junior who’s playing another match the same day or a pro playing a match the following day, you’ve got no other choice. Well that’s not entirely true, you do have another choice and that’s to do nothing at all and basically just show up for your next match.
There’s no secret that tennis is demanding but how demanding, we don’t always know. What I mean is, how do we measure on-court training load? Traditionally, time on court has been the go to method - but does this sole metric give us enough info? On the other side of the training spectrum we find physical preparation. Off-court training is arguably easier to manage than on-court training as specific loads, reps and sets are prescribed based on an athlete’s maximum abilities. But what about a 3-set tennis match? How do we measure the stress that has on a player? Many of us would assume that a 3-set match is taxing. But what if the scoreline was 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 and finished in about 1.5 hours? While another scoreline looks something like this - 6-4, 6-7, 7-6 and lasts for over 3 hours? Surely these 2 scenarios aren’t the same. We have a similar dilemma in practice settings. What if player A is playing all out during a session while player B brings the intensity down a notch?
