Training Programme - Tennis

GCSE Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

Training Programme – Tennis

The sport I have chosen to focus on and create a training programme for is Tennis. I regularly attend training sessions twice a week. Each week we tend to focus on a particular aspect of the game such as the serve. I then carry out activities in order to improve my serve such serving into the corner of the box 4 times then I’d do the same aiming for an ace.

Fitness plays a vital role in Tennis, and in this programme I will be working mainly on the endurance side. However I am pretty active as I d either run or cycle every night. I usually do high intensity cycling which I do for 45 minutes keeping the rate at which I am cycling at around 80 – 85 rpm.

I would like to work on the fitness section of Tennis, as a good level of it is very important to have in a tennis match. The fitness aspect also involves agility and power. The agility plays an important part in Tennis as you are constantly changing direction in order to reach the ball, so you need to be able to do this very quickly. Power is also very important, as you need this to drive the ball hard over the net.

I have chosen to train for competition season, as that is the time that you should be at he peak of both general and specific fitness where you aim to perform to a high standard. Competition season usually lasts about 32 weeks and both aerobic and anaerobic methods of training are used.

General fitness

To have general fitness means that you are in good health and are able to cope with the demands of everyday life without fatigue. There are 4 factors, which make up general fitness, these are: -

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General fitness

To have general fitness means that you are in good health and are able to cope with the demands of everyday life without fatigue. There are 4 factors, which make up general fitness, these are: -

Speed
Strength
Stamina
Suppleness

This also includes aerobic fitness so your muscles have sufficient oxygen reaching the muscles. Muscular endurance is also included in general fitness so your muscles don’t get too tired quickly. Finally body composition is important, so you’re not too fat or too thin and therefore are able to cope with physical activity. A club level performer usually has good general fitness and some specific fitness according to their sport.

Specific fitness

Specific fitness is needed by international level performers and includes having a good level of general fitness. The components of specific fitness consist of: -

Agility
Balance
Co-ordination
Reaction time
Power
Endurance

In competition time these components need to be almost perfect according to your sport.

Principles of training

The point of training is to work towards a certain level of fitness in order to perform well in your sport. There are four principles of training, these are: -

Specificity – The training programme is suited to the person and training the right parts of the body and at the right level such as a marathon runner would train to run several miles they would start at say 5 miles then build up.
Progression- Steadily increase the amount of training that’s done when your body has adapted to the previous training.
Overload – Make your body work harder than it normally would to increase fitness. You can overload by either increasing 1. Intensity 2. Frequency 3.Duration
Reversibility – Your fitness level changes over time, it will decrease if you stop training. It takes longer to gain fitness than loose it.

In my training programme I will be taking into consideration the 4 principles of training and will demonstrate them relating to tennis.

Specificity – To make my training relevant to Tennis I will work on the skills used in a match. These consist of lunges to reach the ball, usually for a drop shot or a drive. Also I will be practising serves to get the movement right and will do little activities such as tossing the ball up and aiming it to bounce on the racket head. I will also set up courses that involve changing direction in order to increase agility.

Also I will train aerobically, to do this I will use the Fartlek method as when you change direction you are constantly changing speed to reach a fast or slow ball.

Progression – I will steadily increase the amount of training after a period of time.

Overload – I am going to increase the duration of my training session in order to get fitter and improve on my skills.

Reversibility – If for whatever reason I was to stop training I would start working my body below my maximum and steadily increase the duration as before. I would also not stretch as far on the lunges to prevent injury.