Training Loads in Tennis. How much is enough?
Reading journals such as the British Journal of Sports Medicine or other journals of Sports research etc there are lots of articles or studies on the physiological effects of playing tennis. From HR data to lactate and RPE anlaysis there is heaps of info to provide some background to the impact of tennis.
Players in Australia seem to just train and train. That doesn’t seem to be the problem. Yet often their fitness tests are very poor. Doesn’t make sense.
Everyone seems to say it is different and yet no one seems to want to draw a line in the sand and say ..”hey, this exists an optimal load for a training block and an optimal load for a competitive block.”
Players seem to me to train at low intensity or use huge volumes.
I use perceived exertion data to get some feel for the loadings needed in tennis. I think players go into tournamants at 80/90% optimal states quite often. If they are lucky to win a match they then just freshen up a bit.
Coaches in general in Australia will not accept Sports Science. That is an opinion. They say they do then say a player is mentally weak and train them for another 2 hours if they lose. Some just go back to the old days of OZ tennis.
I was lucky to evolve with Track and Field from the early 70’s till now and see the whole specificity of loadings and relationship to performance. Then in AFL I went from the VFL to the AFL and from HR monitors to RPE data to GPS data and saw clubs evolve to accept loading dogma. HA! Why? because they won more if they did and CEO’s said whoa you coaches, adapt or perish!
Tennis is weird. It is one BIG IMBROGLIO…….I call it the AAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH principle of training. Condiitoning staff seem scared of coaches and everyone just does their own thing.
So as a result we have players doing massive loads who lose in RD 1 of qualifyings.
Intensity and Volume. There must exist some optimal loads in tennis.
Forget the studies on the impact of tennis on physiology!
How much is enough to win matches given all things ( Skills etc) being equal.
Invite your feedback
loris bertolacci 