|
TennisOne Lessons 
Off-Season Training for a Better On-SeasonDavid W. Smith, Senior Editor TennisOne So, it's the off-season, and if you're like most of us, you stuffed your racquet bag away in the hallway closet next to the golf clubs and croquet set, sat back on the sofa with a couple of beers, and settled in to watch football until your eyes get bloodshot. Or if that's not your cup of tea, maybe you'll use this time to catch up on the latest season of Weeds. However, it is in the off-season that players can make substantial gains in their games just like the pros do. So maybe it's time to commit to making some real changes in your game, you just might surprise yourself. Training without Competition As a teaching pro for over 35 years, I’ve found that one of the primary reason players can’t or don’t make significant progress in their skill-development is because of competition. I know, I know…many of you are shaking your heads in disagreement, believing that it is competition that breeds our competitive spirit and mental toughness. And I would agree if we were saying that competitive spirit and mental toughness are completely separate from stroke development as it relates to skilled play. While skilled players also develop mental aspects of the game, the acquisition of skilled stroke patterns or skilled stroke elements is not a “mental” issue. However, it is an “educational” issue that I will talk about in a moment. During competition, players play to win. In doing so, they will use the strokes and strategies they are most comfortable with or strokes and strategies that have produced perceived success in the past. We must be careful when we play within this criterion. If we are playing against our fellow 3.0 level players, the strokes and strategies that may win us matches today may very well be the same patterns of play that will get us killed against 3.5, 4.0 or above opponents on any other day. It is very difficult for players to employ stroke elements and strategies that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable in competition…even when we know such strokes or strategy patterns are the means in which we will advance to more highly skilled levels of play. It is this inherent discomfort that ultimately causes players to revert back to more rudimentary strokes when they compete. Discomfort usually feels like losing. The off-season is the perfect time to work on or learn new stroke elements that are not currently familiar or comfortable. Everyone must realize that through proper training, we can overcome discomfort and unfamiliarity in almost any stroke. The problem, of course, is that with any new stroke, failure is inevitable, at least at first. And the common response by players trying new strokes is, “Hey, coach. This new grip, (stroke, footwork, etc.), isn’t working!” This is usually followed by the player going back to the old patterns. Obviously, this type of behavior will result in players staying at or near the same levels for life. Honestly, how many of the players you've been playing with for years have advanced even one level? There are many ways to build your game up through training and practice routines that can help you move out of more rudimentary patterns of play (those that are currently comfortable or reliable within a certain NTRP level of competitive play) and help you reach your true tennis potential. Decide What You Want Before any changes in your game can take place, you must understand the limitations of your current stroke elements (including grip, swing path, and footwork) and understand what new stroke elements you need to master. Today, we have resources such as TennisOne that provide visual, auditory, and text lessons that can clearly outline and define the patterns of play and stroke development that you can see with your own eyes. Computer technology and slow-motion video can isolate nearly every component of a skilled stroke. Players no longer need to blindly trust the advice that anyone may offer them. This is important because the learning and the mastery of more advanced skills relative to tennis are not only sped up for the student, but the learning is usually more permanent when the student has taken responsibility for understanding the game. This is an area that I see which is very weak among those who take lessons. It is in the off-season that players should invest in tennis lessons. But The “Why” as well as the “How” is critically important to the learning of any tennis element. Too often, students rely so much on their pros that they can’t figure anything out on their own. Pros for decades have taught the “How” of a stroke, but the permanent mastery of that stroke is when the student also understands the “Why” of the stroke components. Why we use a specific grip; why we turn a certain way; why we finish the stroke in a certain manner, etc. Understanding these elements will greatly help the student grasp a concept faster and with long-term mastery. Competition without Outcome The off-season is a great time to employ the new stroke techniques within different competitive formats…but formats that don’t necessarily identify a winner or loser. Anytime we play to win matches or points, we nearly always revert back to patterns we are most comfortable with. In other words, the more importance we place on the outcome, the more likely we are to regress. We often hear players say, “Oh, I’ll work on the new stuff next time. Right now, I want to beat this guy.”People seldom feel they will win matches or points using a stroke pattern or strategy that is new to them. Confidence in such foreign methods is never going to be very high. Players will consciously or unconsciously move back to old habits within competition. Players must learn to work new stroke patterns and resist the temptation to move back. In fact, I often recommend to my students to pretend that the only way they now know how to play is the way they are learning today. Increasing Tennis Intelligence In the off-season, players can learn more about the game through books, DVD’s, and websites that promote learning. TennisOne alone has over a thousand articles and lessons on everything from stroke production to footwork to strategies to rules. It is still amazing to me to see the ignorance that many players possess about the game–even players that have been around the game for decades! A better understanding of the game from an intellectual standpoint can give you an edge in your on-court performance. The simple aspect of knowing more about the game can help! Most top players and certainly most top teaching pros all possess a library of books from a variety of authors. I personally have 117 books on tennis (in addition to Tennis Mastery and Coaching Mastery, the two books I’ve written over the past six years!). Every book has trinkets of tennis advice; you never know when the wording of one phrase or concept can really make a difference in your game! Physical Training Pros use the off-season to improve their physical conditioning and you should too. What a difference shedding a few pounds can make in your quickness, endurance, and overall movement on the court. At the club level, more shots are missed because players fail to get into proper position than anything to do with technique. In fact, you can improve your on-court performance by as much as fifteen percent without changing a single stroke component. So, let the off-season be a confidence builder – focus on a few training regiments that can and will produce improved play. Footwork and Foot speed There are two areas of on-court movement that can be addressed and improved upon. The first one is footwork. Footwork can be broken down into two additional criteria: Agility and Positioning. Agility: We have had several articles about the number of steps a professional player takes between each shot compared to a recreational or club level player. The average for pros is 10 to 12 steps between hits. The club player averages about 4 to 6 steps. I’ve seen where players who didn’t change any other part of their game improve the quality of their play by simply addressing, training, and employing more steps between shots. You can improve this part of your game by working with a pro, ball machine, or hitting partner and consciously count the number of steps you can fit in between shots. At first, this conscious training often produces more mistakes because the player is not used to taking so many steps nor are they concentrating on the shot at hand. But, in a relatively short period of time, the player will automatically start moving to shots, allowing the feet to put him in better position and in better balance for each shot. One caveat here, these additional steps can be fatiguing even for just a few games, let alone an entire match. So use the off-season to work on your anaerobic conditioning. The pros make this look easy but don't be deceived, they are in absolutely incredible shape. Positioning: One analogy I’ve used over the years for this type of footwork is the old radio dials (for those of us old enough to remember). When a station on those old radios was on the other side of the bandwidth, you had to first turn the tuner dial using big turns to get the register near the station. After that, you would adjust or “fine tune” the station by using little back and forth turns to find the best fit the station would be received from. This analogy can very accurately describe how good tennis players move: They first take large steps to cover as much ground as fast as possible, then as they approach the incoming ball to make contact, they take several small, “fine tuning,” steps until they are in the optimal position (distance to the ball, position to the ball, and timing to swing at the optimal time) to hit the ball in what we commonly call the “Strike Zone.” Because players can be lazy and reach out for many shots without necessarily having to take a lot of steps (and often make such poorly positioned shots!), we often fall prey to not moving for more and more shots. The pros work many drills to train the footwork so that this ideal positioning comes natural and without conscious thought. Foot Speed Taking many more steps to insure best positioning is one thing. The speed in which one can take those steps—and overall speed of movement—is another area of footwork training. Sprints, acceleration training, strength training all can be improved in the off season. A growing sports-training area is “High Performance” training facilities, usually associated with nearby hospitals or clinics. For a price, you can have a professional work with you on training this aspect of your movement. However, you don’t necessarily need a professional to train foot speed. Something as simple as "running lines" before or after any hitting session can address this in part. Ply metric exercises that use stationary objects such as steps and resistance bands can help players improve foot speed also. Flexibility Anyone who has ever watched Kim Clijsters play should be aware of the importance of flexibility training as it relates to the game. Although most of us will never achieve the kind of on-court flexibility Kim displays, it is an area often neglected, especially among senior players, and can be improved upon. Stretching before and after hitting sessions can help here as well as the aforementioned high performance training programs that usually include flexibility training. Strength Training Everyone could improve their overall strength capacity. Upper body strength including core strength as well as upper arms and even hand and finger strength can offer players an edge when they start playing again. While the best tennis players are efficient in their use of strength and in stroke production, it is no surprise that we now see players in far better physical shape than in generations past. The pros have recognized that developing overall better body strength gives them a physical as well as mental edge in today’s game. The same can be said about recreational players. Women especially can improve their serve, overhead, and overall power through developing upper body strength. Pull ups, push-ups, and a variety of weight machine exercises all can address and help players develop this part of their physical strength. Anaerobic versus Aerobic Training
It should come as no surprise that tennis is generally an anaerobic activity with intermittent periods of aerobic needs. In other words, most tennis points are short bursts of speed, quickness, and short durations of movement. While I argue that aerobic training is a key component of tennis, most students tend to train the aerobic elements more–if not at the expense of–anaerobic training. There are many players who will gladly run several miles or do some aerobic workout such as Zumba or other aerobic-type class. Yet, few include sprints or footwork drills (like those mentioned above) to improve this aspect of their game. There are two training concerns I recommend players addressing: 1) Initial movement speed and endurance; 2) Recovery time. Creating a great first step, being able to include multiple steps during each shot and during longer rallies, maintaining balance within each subsequent stroke is all part of the first concern. Being able to recover quickly especially after longer rallies or where shots move a player over a large area of court, is extremely important. If you're still breathing hard from the last point, you're not going to be able to play your best tennis. There are many footwork drills in the Lesson Library, especially those offered by the footwork gurus Pat Etcheberry and Jim McLennan that will give readers a foundation of exercises and drills that address these elements of training. Conclusion Use the off-season to work on patterns you know you need to develop and master. Recognize your weaknesses, faults, habits, and detrimental tendencies. (Here again, the use of an experienced pro can be helpful.) Also, communicate to your pro what you want to do. Many pros assume you don’t want to make major changes in your game. (The common joke among pros is the student who says, “Here is my $50 bucks, now don’t change a thing.) Once you have a handle on the proper stroke technique that will lead to more advanced play, then you will want to work these patterns in competitive situations. But, don’t rush into match play. Work instead on just playing points, or playing short games to 21 points or such. Most important, when you are playing any match, work on manufacturing points rather than thinking about winning and losing. So act like the pros, use the off-season to work on weaknesses and get yourself into better shape. You'll be amazed at the results.
Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Dave Smith's article by emailing us here at TennisOne .
HIDDEN MICKEY 
If you are a fan of anything DISNEY, Dave Smith (better known as Senior Editor for TennisOne and author of two prolific tennis books TENNIS MASTERY & COACHING MASTERY), has just published an exciting and compelling novel, HIDDEN MICKEY. This Action-Adventure story centers around three friends who discover a secret journal penned by the master storyteller himself, Walt Disney. The diary hints at hidden treasure and sends the three friends on a wild cross-country search, following intriguing clue after clue and finding incredible discoveries about the great man, his life...and about themselves. For anyone who loves Disneyland or all things Disney, Hidden Mickey is a MUST READ. Limited First Edition, signed and numbered copies, available.
David has taught over 3000 players including many top national and world ranked players. He can be reached at acrpres1@email.msn.com. |
Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about this article by