The ABCs of Smart Training

Carl Petersen

When designing your training program, it is wise to follow the concepts outlined in the ABCs of smart training. Apply the ABCs of smart training during all off-and on-court training and all daily activities, including school and travel. Following the ABCs will increase training potential, improve skills, improve recovery time, and decrease injury potential.

A1–Athletic Stance and Alignment

Proper athletic stance means being prepared for the sports activity ahead. Think of keeping the knees soft (slightly bent), switch on your core (pelvic tension like a dimmer switch), and keep your shoulders relaxed and down and head neutral. Correct anatomical alignment must be attained and maintained to allow for proper force distribution upon the weight-bearing structures during activity. This can be facilitated by:

• Actively stretching muscles that are usually short and stiff (e.g., hamstrings, hip flexors, calves, and pectorals).

• Actively strengthening muscles that are usually long and weak (e.g., lower abdominals, upper back and posterior shoulder girdle muscles [infraspinatus], and hip external rotators [gluteal muscles]).

Proper alignment starts with excellent spinal alignment. To align your spine:

• Imagine someone pulling you by the top of your head, lengthening out your spine.

• The neck should be long and the shoulders relaxed, back, and down.

Checks on proper alignment include these:

• During movement emphasize correct knee alignment, with knees always tracking over the toes but not going past them.

• When doing lunges or split squats, keep the line of gravity through the pubic bone of the pelvis to avoid shear forces on the pelvic joints.

A2–Adaptive Training

High performance and superior levels of fitness are the result of many months or years of well-planned training. Adaptations occur to the body's systems when they are challenged by new stresses. If the workload is not high enough, no adaptation will occur. If the workload is too high, maladaptation occurs, possibly leading to over-training, overuse, and injury. The following are some principles of adaptive training:

• When designing a training program, one must respect the time frames for anatomical, physiological, and psychological adaptation to occur.

• Regular participation — at least 4-6 days per week — in a planned activity outside of tennis.

• Overload:

* The training load must be high enough to tax the body's systems during a training session.

* Overload encourages physical change and promotes adaptation.

* To achieve overload, the duration of the activity must be long enough to produce a training effect and the intensity of the workouts must increase in a gradual and progressive manner.

* A good rule of thumb is to increase intensity 10 percent per week.

• Regularly scheduling rest or recovery days (at least one per week):

* Helps tissues such as muscle, tendon, ligament, and bone to adapt to the new stresses being placed on them through training and sports.

* Helps prevent staleness or over-training.

A3–Agility Training and Acceleration (quickness) Drills

Playing and training for tennis often find you off balance and in a uncontrolled environment such as wind, playing surfaces, and unpredictable opponents. Tennis requires stops and starts, lateral movements, backpedaling, crossover turns, and pivots. But with the decreased physical education in schools and lack of multi-sport involvement due to early sport specialization, many young players do not get the agility training needed. So, some form of agility and coordination training should be included as part of your daily sessions; you do not want to be an athlete who can play but cannot move. Points to remember when training for agility are these:

• Always start with an athletic stance.

• Agility and acceleration (quickness) drills must be structured so the muscles learn to fire quickly and in a coordinated manner.

• Quickness within two steps in all directions is key in tennis.

• Straight line sprinting may serve a conditioning purpose and helps fire the CNS (central nervous system), but it has little use in tennis.

• Agility and acceleration allow smaller players to be able to compete well and give larger players another weapon in their game.

• Agility can be gained by playing other sports and dynamic games that involve lateral movement and quick stops and starts, or by doing circuit drills that incorporate different exercises.

• Explosive first step side shuffle and crossover steps are essential to tennis quickness.

• You must give your body the opportunity to practice and play with changed and strengthened muscles.

See Chapter 4 for more ideas.

B1–Balanced Training

Balanced training means a correct ratio of time spent on the different components of fitness and performance: flexibility, stamina (aerobic and anaerobic), strength, speed, coordination, and tennis-specific skill exercises. All are important components of fitness and should be included in your program, depending on the phase of training you are in. Obviously, different activities have different demands and will require more emphasis on one type of training than...