It was an honor for me to be on the master of speed Lee Taft’s tennis specific podcast this past week. Check it out!
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Category Archives: Speed & Agility
The 2nd Most Important Shot
If you follow the stats or Craig O’Shannessy you know that somewhere around 65% of the points played in tennis are 3 shots or less. That is a serve, return and one shot after. And no that is not a made up statistic and it is true for Men, Women and Junior players.
The serve is by far the most important shot in tennis. And I am going to venture out and say the ability to turn backhands into forehands is the second most important shot. By doing so as a server you are often able to hit an outright winner, force an error, or put your opponent in a defensive position on the 3rd shot of a point. If you are a returner it allows you to be offensive on second serve opportunities by turning those weaker serves often aimed at your backhand and make it a powerful forehand. Here is a video showing the footwork patterns of the cross-behind and cross-front needed to turn backhands into forehands.
If you were wondering what makes up the other 35% of points played here it is. About 30% of the points played are 4 total shots and just around 5% are 5 or more shots. Listen to Craig O’Shannessy and practice like the game is played. Work on the serve, return and turning backhands into forehands.
Driveway Conditioning Workout
Need some conditioning in quarantine? Set an exercise timer for 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds rest for 8 consecutive rounds.
- Round 1-2 open stance forehands/closed stance backhands
- Round 3-4 closed stance forehands/open stance backhands
- Round 5-6 wide open stance forehands and backhands
- Round 7-8 closed stance forehands and backhands
- Rest for one minute between rounds and during the rest shadow swing serves.
Repeat for 2,3,4 or 5 rounds depending on your fitness level.
Low Box Exercises
If you have an aerobic step at home here are some great exercises you can use to work on the ability to load and explode with the legs. And don’t forget to do your shadow swings and cover some ground laterally. This quick accelerations and decelerations are easy to practice at home and something that gets missed without playing points and sets.
Volley Movement Patterns
One of the easiest ways to practice at home right now is to volley off a wall or piece of plywood. The wall never misses and you get a ton of contacts in a very short amount of time. Even Federer is doing it!
Here is a video explaining the basic footwork patterns for volleys and overheads. Another great way to practice is to shadow them exactly like I am doing here in the video. In a future video I’ll explain the upper body technique for volleys but with most of you not being able to get on the court right now shadowing the footwork can really be beneficial and a good workout.
And I have to give credit where credit is due. My fellow coaching friend Ashley Hobson at Inspiration Academy in Bradenton, FL shared it with me long before.
Forehand Lateral Footwork Patterns
In tennis you can have perfect strokes but it you cannot get to the ball that technique is useless. Efficient movement patterns are becoming more an more important as the game continues to speed up and I wrote about why movement is paramount way back in 2014.
Here is a video I put together explaining the lateral (sideways) footwork patterns for the forehand.
I realize that there are variations and there must be. Each ball that comes to your side of the court and where you are positioned to receive it at that moment are unique. Sometimes you have more time and will make small adjustment steps, sometimes you are pressured on time and simply have to do something athletic to get the ball back. These are the basics and when basic concepts are understood and practiced it aids players in moving better.
In teaching footwork I find that the best way is to really let the human body figure it out. After all we are pre-programmed to move. No one teaches a baby with slow motion footage and words how to roll, walk, and run. If you put a child into a game of tag they immediately find angles to push off the ground and accelerate, create angles to decelerate and stop, and then reaccelerate to avoid getting tagged. And the more they are in that tag environment the better they become at it. The same thing happens on a tennis court, once a student understands the stroke techniques/concepts the best thing to do is get out there and move while hitting the ball.
Two Hand Backhand Lateral Footwork Patterns
In tennis you can have perfect strokes but it you cannot get to the ball that technique is useless. Efficient movement patterns are becoming more an more important as the game continues to speed up and I wrote about why movement is paramount way back in 2014.
Here is a video I put together explaining the lateral (sideways) footwork patterns for a two handed backhand.
I realize that there are variations and there must be. Each ball that comes to your side of the court and where you are positioned to receive it at that moment are unique. Sometimes you have more time and will make small adjustment steps, sometimes you are pressured on time and simply have to do something athletic to get the ball back. These are the basics and when basic concepts are understood and practiced it aids players in moving better.
In teaching footwork I find that that best way is to really let the human body figure it out. After all we are pre-programmed to move. No one teaches a baby with slow motion footage and words how to roll, walk, and run. If you put a child into a game of tag they immediately find angles to push off the ground and accelerate, create angles to decelerate and stop, and then reaccelerate to avoid getting tagged. And the more they are in that tag environment the better they become at it. The same thing happens on a tennis court, once a student understands the stroke techniques/concepts the best thing to do is get out there and move while hitting the ball.
One Hand Backhand Lateral Footwork Patterns
In tennis you can have perfect strokes but it you cannot get to the ball that technique is useless. Efficient movement patterns are becoming more an more important as the game continues to speed up and I wrote about why movement is paramount way back in 2014.
Here is a video I put together explaining the lateral (sideways) footwork patterns for a one hand backhand.
I realize that there are variations and there must be. Each ball that comes to your side of the court and where you are positioned to receive it at that moment are unique. Sometimes you have more time and will make small adjustment steps, sometimes you are pressured on time and simply have to do something athletic to get the ball back. These are the basics and when basic concepts are understood and practiced it aids players in moving better.
In teaching footwork I find that the best way is to really let the human body figure it out. After all we are pre-programmed to move. No one teaches a baby with slow motion footage and words how to roll, walk, and run. If you put a child into a game of tag they immediately find angles to push off the ground and accelerate, create angles to decelerate and stop, and then reaccelerate to avoid getting tagged. And the more they are in that tag environment the better they become at it. The same thing happens on a tennis court, once a student understands the stroke techniques/concepts the best thing to do is get out there and move while hitting the ball.
Split Step
I was listening to a podcast with Lee Taft while riding the spin bike the other day. I was introduced to the Lee Taft’s work over a decade ago and he changed my coaching life showing me what really happens in multi-directional movement. Footwork in tennis is essential because you have to both get to and recover quickly from every shot you make. The podcast inspired me to make a video on the importance of the split step. It it critical to understand the use of elastic energy (stretch-shortening cycle), the angles of force that are applied into the ground, and the directional step. One of the best ways you can improve your split step at home right now is simply jumping rope.
Off-Season Training for In-Season Performance
This is an article I wrote for a sports publication that is set to go out over the summer. Even though it is not tennis-specific its worth a read…
“The more you sweat in times of peace, the less you bleed in times of war,” is a saying that is certainly full of wisdom. Training in the off-season is one area where athletes can get a tremendous bang for their buck. This article aims to provide wisdom, based on knowledge and experience, for training in the off-season.
Coach & Mrs. Slezak’s Home Gym
Before we get into specifics we have to define what the off-season actually is. The off-season is a period of time when an athlete is not participating competitively in their sport. Team sports like football, basketball, and baseball have a clearly defined off-season. Other sports, such as tennis, have a much harder time defining one. And with the oftentimes overly intense youth sports industry, many young athletes jump from travel to all-star and then varsity high school teams hoping to get ahead and never actually have any off-season.
It is critical for all athletes, professional to youth, to have some sort of off-season built into the year. Playing sports at competitive maximums is taxing on the human body. It does not take much searching to find a sharp increase in overuse injuries for young athletes recently. High school pitchers having Tommy John’s elbow surgery, tennis players with wrist and rotator cuff issues, and knee/ankle problems from the stress of jumping and landing 100+ times on the basketball or volleyball court. It is common sense, you cannot race a car hard every single day at the track without something eventually breaking down and the human body is the same way.
If you cannot play your sport in the off-season then what can you do? First, I am not going to tell you that you cannot play your sport in the off-season. What I will tell you is that you should not be competing in your sport in the off-season. In fact, competing in your sport is the definition of being in-season. This downtime is an opportunity to perform technical skill work or practice but at a much lower intensity and volume then during your competitive season. For example, this would be the time a basketball player could improve dribbling skills or a tennis player technical stroke work. The key take away here is you are not playing your sport at competitive max or “racing speed.”
The off-season is also the time to improve foundational movement patterns, general strength and conditioning. In fact, this should be the bulk of the work done in the off-season. This work done in the off-season builds the base for the future. Improving fundamental movement patterns like squatting, hinging at the hip, pushing, and pulling all improve overall athleticism. The conditioning work done to the aerobic system in the off-season provides the base for the higher-intensity demands to come in the pre and competitive seasons. The improvement of general strength will allow for the athlete to sprint faster, jump higher, and throw harder during the competitive season. You simply cannot build these qualities in the middle of a competitive season. You must build these qualities in the off-season so they can be expressed during the competitive season.
Each sport and athlete has specific needs and if you are serious about getting the most out of the off-season time I would hire a knowledgeable and experienced trainer. The gold-standard for anyone working with youth is to be certified by the International Youth Conditioning Association (IYCA) but the bottom line is do your homework and find someone who thinks long-term and has your best interest in mind. With that being said in a 6-8 week off-season 3 of the most common goals are to develop the aerobic energy system, improve general strength, and clean up fundamental movement patterns.
Regardless of the sport a well-conditioned aerobic system is essential. Obviously a well-conditioned aerobic system will benefit someone like a distance runner or soccer player. However, what most people do not understand is that a fine-tuned aerobic system provides benefits in almost all sports. This is because the aerobic system (energy with oxygen) is responsible for replenishing the fuel for the anaerobic energy system (energy without oxygen). That means football and tennis players need their aerobic system to replenish the anaerobic systems that allow them to perform bursts of high-intensity performance intervals. This is a tremendous advantage late in the game during the competitive season and it can only be accomplished by doing some work dedicated to improving the ability of the lungs, heart and circulatory system to deliver oxygen to working muscle.
Anyone Serious About Training Needs a Heart Rate Monitor
Another benefit of aerobic training in the off-season, which would include long runs, swimming, or biking at a heart rate of 130-150 beats per minute, is that it promotes recovery. Delivering oxygen rich blood throughout the body aids in rebuilding tissues that take a beating during the competitive season. In addition, it is relatively easy on the nervous system. The nervous system takes a beating during the competitive season with all the quick movements and maximal muscle contractions and aerobic training gives it time to de-load and recover.
The off-season is also the time to lift heavy things and put on some muscle mass. The force a muscle is able to produce is directly related to its cross-sectional size. If you want to be able to run, jump, and throw harder next season then strength training is essential. Strength training simply means you are going to stress the muscle by lifting something heavy and your body will respond by making it bigger and stronger. An athlete does not have to go to the weight room or have access to fancy equipment to strength train. In fact, for most youth athletes bodyweight is the best place to start. After all if you cannot move your own body weight appropriately adding 50lbs on top of your back is asking for an injury.
When strength training the focus should be on movement patterns not on specific muscles. For example, you want to improve strength in fundamental movement patterns such as squatting, hip hinging, pushing, pulling, and core stability. This is easily done with body weight, free weights, sandbags, and resistance bands. It is not easily done with the machines you find in most gyms that isolate specific muscles and joints.
Building a solid foundation of strength in the off-season is then followed up with learning how to expressing that new found strength during the pre-season and then fully in the competitive season. The key here is to understand that to focus on improving general strength in the off-season and then working during the pre and competitive season to apply it.
Figure 1 – Pyramid of Athletic Development
The final objective of the off-season is to clean up fundamental movement patterns. This is the time to make sure you can squat fully, hip hinge correctly, and have good posture. This aspect of training is becoming even more important in today’s society. Think about the amount of time children spend sitting on the computer, texting on their phone, and sitting in classrooms. It is causing an epidemic of bad posture and moving in those compromised positions or even worse training and competing in them is a major contributing factor to youth sports injuries such as spondylolysis (stress fracture in the lower back) and shoulder injuries. It is common sense, when you spend all day hunched over and your lower back is in excessive curvature you develop poor posture as your default. Look at the pyramid of athletic development (figure 1) and it is clear to see the base for all of sport is movement. You cannot layer fitness and sports skills on top of dysfunctional movement without eventually paying the price.
It is impossible to prescribe a general workout for the off-season because the needs of each athlete and sport are unique. Some athletes may need to spend more time on developing strength and others improving conditioning. However, below is a very general yet insightful look at the typical week of training in the off-season. Planning training or periodization is a science in and of itself, but one of the biggest things to notice below is how the training is spaced out. An athlete cannot work hard 3 or 4 days in a row and then take 3 or 4 days off. Training is nothing more than applying stress to the body. The body then adapts to the stresses placed on it during rest and recovery. The real physical changes happen between workouts, not during them. Understanding the importance of rest and proper nutrition between workouts will maximize success and allow you to train both hard and smart.
Sample Week of Off-Season Training
If you look at everything I presented about off-season training and put it in the context of the bigger picture it becomes clear how important it is when thinking long-term. If you understand that, then I will let you in on a little secret about developing champion athletes. Most parents and coaches are only concerned with the short-term. They want to win the big game next week, the tournament this weekend, or make the U12 all-star soccer team. They may achieve those things but they take shortcuts to get them, such as skipping the off-season. Those shortcuts eventually catch up. On the other hand the true champion athletes are focused on the long-term from the very beginning and they never take shortcuts. They do the work in the off-season and over the course of years develop outstanding conditioning, strength, and stay injury free. They also are the ones who may have missed out on winning the championship in 7th grade but eventually end up with scholarship offers and notable accomplishments when it counts.
To conclude, I hope this article sheds some light on just how important off-season training really is to in-season performance. If you pay the price of time and sweat during the off-season you certainly will reap the benefits during the heat of the battle in-season.