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Movement for Tennis

Source file: Movement-for-Tennis.pdf.txt

Domain: coaching / movement

Tier: reports/tier-3-niche-specialty

Used in artifact: artifacts/reports/tier-3-niche-specialty.md

Abstract

Movement patterns and perception-action coupling in tennis. Frameworks for open-skill pedagogy.

Key points

  • Movement is perception-action coupling, not isolated footwork.
  • Split-step is the timing reset, not a starting trigger.
  • Open-skill perception includes opponent cues, ball trajectory, and court position.
  • Reading the opponent's body is a trainable skill.
  • Movement training should mimic match demands.

Raw dump (first ~1000 words)

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232108291 Movement for Tennis: The Importance of Lateral Training Article in Strength and conditioning journal � July 2009 Impact Factor: 0.6 � DOI: 10.1519/SSC.0b013e3181afe806 CITATIONS 11 1 author: Mark Kovacs Life University 30 PUBLICATIONS 426 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE READS 556 All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. Available from: Mark Kovacs Retrieved on: 09 May 2016 Movement for Tennis: The Importance of Lateral Training Mark S. Kovacs, PhD, CSCS Player Development, United States Tennis Association, Boca Raton, Florida SUMMARY TENNIS IS A SPORT THAT REQUIRES HUNDREDS OF DIRECTIONAL MOVEMENT CHANGES DURING EVERY MATCH AND PRACTICE. THE MAJORITY OF MOVEMENTS IN TENNIS ARE IN A LATERAL DIRECTION, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MUSCLES, MOVEMENTS, AND NEURAL RESPONSES NEEDS TO BE A FOCUS OF ALL TENNIS TRAINING PROGRAMS. THIS ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS THE TYPICAL MOVEMENTS DURING TENNIS PLAY, WHICH IN MANY RESPECTS ARE UNIQUE TO TENNIS, AND PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF EXERCISES TO HELP TRAIN LATERAL MOVEMENTS ARE PROVIDED. INTRODUCTION I mproving an athlete's tennisspecific movement requires the coach or trainer to understand the movement patterns that occur during play, as tennis movement is highly situation specific and is performed in a reactive environment (14). This irregularity of movement and the need to continually respond to situations require the coach to spend time understanding the athlete's game style, strategy, movement strengths, and weakness, which will help aid the development of a tennis-specific movement training program. Although tennis movement has some consistent traits among all athletes, it is highly specific to the position the athletes are in on the court and what type of shot their opponent has just made. Therefore, it is vastly different than teaching a wide receiver how to break from the line of scrimmage or a track sprinter starting from the blocks. Tennis is a highly reactive sport, and movement training needs to progress from a simple closed skill environment to an open skill environment using visual stimuli. It is important for coaches and trainers to understand the role of cognition and decision making in an athlete's ability to react to a stimulus (tennis ball). This ability to react will have a direct effect on the perceived speed and agility of tennis players. As the purpose of this article is to examine the physical aspects of lateral specific movement for tennis, limited discussion will be on the important area of cognition and decision making. More in-depth discussion and review of cognition and decision making can be found in the literature (32). TYPICAL MOVEMENT DEMANDS In competitive tennis, the average point length is less than 10 seconds (11,12) with the recovery between points usually between 20 and 25 seconds depending on certain rules. After every 2 games (minimum of 8 points), the athlete has a 90-second break before the next point is played. Although every tennis point is vastly different, it is helpful for the coach to understand the movement requirements of competitive tennis. Tennis players make an average of 4 directional changes per point (15,27) but can range from a single movement to more than 15 directional changes on a very long point. In a competitive match, it is common for players to have more than 1,000 direction changes. At the French Open (one of the 4 major professional tournaments, also known as Grand Slam events), which is played on a clay surface, a study was undertaken on 1,540 strokes to determine the typical distances covered. Researchers found that 80% of all strokes were played with less than 2.5 m and fewer than 5% of strokes were played requiring more than 4.5 m between strokes (24). Other similar studies have found movement distances on average to be approximately 4 m per change of direction (25). Relatively short distances that a player covers on each stroke are typically less than 2.0 m, yet under higher time pressure (increased running demand), athletes can run on average about 4 m (maximum of between 8 and 12 m) (33). It is interesting to note that tennis players can cover about 0.25 to 0.50 m more on their forehand side than their backhand side (33). These are important findings, as most speed and quickness programs for other sports focus on distances that are longer where a full traditional acceleration position may be reached. In tennis, it is rare that distances are achieved where KEY WORDS: tennis; lateral; movement; agility; change of direction; speed; quickness Copyright � National Strength and Conditioning Association Strength and Conditioning Journal | www.nsca-lift.org 77 Movement for Tennis: The Importance of Lateral Training a traditional acceleration technique will be experienced by the athlete. Furthermore, the majority of tennis movements are lateral. In a study of professional players' movement, it was found that more than 70% of movements were side to side with less than 20% of movements in a forward direction and less than 8% of movements in a backward direction (33). This is a vitally important statistic for coaches and trainers because the development of lateral acceleration and deceleration in the distances described above are the major determining factors in great tennis movement. It is known that linear acceleration, linear maximum velocity, and agility are all separate and distinct biomotor skills that need to be trained separately (36), as training one will not directly impact the improvement of the other. Therefore, preferred training recommendations for tennis should be to focus training between 60 to 80% of the time on lateral movements, 10 to 30% of the time on linear forward movements, and only about 10% of the time on linear backward movement. HOW DIFFERENT SURFACES INFLUENCE TENNIS MOVEMENT Ten