sports
conditioning
conditioning SPORTS SERIES Serving for Success
How does today’s pro tennis player keep up with the increasing physical demands of the game, and what opportunities are available for tennis enthusiasts to access their own sport-specifi c conditioning programmes? Lauren Applegarth investigates
A
ccording to the latest figures from the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), tennis is the fourth largest sport in
terms of commercial value in the UK; it’s currently a £1.3bn industry in this market alone. With over 23,000 courts nationwide and more than one million adults playing tennis every month, the demand for facilities and coaching programmes is only set to increase as summer draws ever nearer. As the fastest-growing sport both at
school and club level, and with the LTA already providing a number of schemes to increase participation, tennis certainly has an appeal to all ages and abilities. But how can health clubs replicate the specifi c training and conditioning
programmes that are so vital to the success of today’s tennis professionals?
GETTING TECHNICAL Tennis is one of the most accessible technical sports, but physical conditioning is essential to the success of elite athletes. At the top level, every player will already have mastered a winning technique, so what is it that makes the difference between a Grand Slam winner and a runner-up? The physicality of the player undoubtedly has a huge impact on their overall achievements – an undeniably demanding sport, tennis pushes players physically and mentally and requires the technical skills to stand up to these stresses. Indeed, while all elite athletes will require tailored programmes based
around their physiology and the sport in which they compete, tennis is particularly technical and requires good physical strength in a number of parts of the body. When a tennis player takes a shot, the movement starts at the bottom – the power comes from the movement and positioning of the feet and ankles, up through the legs and hips, through the muscles in the back and up into the shoulder and arm. Tennis players therefore require strength and conditioning programmes that maximise strength and power in all of these areas. Additionally, agility and fl exibility
training ensure optimal movement throughout a match, and coaching programmes combine cardiovascular training with a focus on footwork and lateral movement to replicate the demands of the tennis court. In the professional game, the average
point will only last for around eight seconds, so the ability to inject short, intense bursts of speed and strength are fundamental to the success of any tennis player. But players require high levels of both power and muscular endurance to ensure that they are able to apply a high proportion of strength very quickly and over a prolonged period of time as matches can go on for several hours, so training should be based around this. Julia Dalgleish, master trainer for
Cybex UK, works with individuals in sport-specifi c coaching and emphasises the importance of training for the physical demands of the game: “Tennis is a game of repeated bouts of high intensity activity, so a periodised and balanced conditioning programme would need to incorporate the key elements of fi tness: solid aerobic endurance, coupled with anaerobic endurance, strength, power and the agility necessary for the rallies.”
Sport-specifi c: Cybex works with tennis players to improve strength, power, endurance and agility
46 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital may 2011 © cybertrek 2011
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