by Doug Eng EdD PhD CSCS CTPS MTPS
PART I – CHANGING PHYSIOLOGY, DEMANDS OF MOVEMENT AND THE CASE STUDY OF NADAL
Traditional tennis movement has been taught as involving quick, small, shuffle and adjustment steps. The traditional clay court game has been taught with additional sliding movement involving long, grinding points. However, today’s matches don’t involve as many long rallies as 40 years ago. Research on modern tennis movement shows today’s game has some different characteristics. Points are shorter and faster creating greater demands on speed, agility and quickness.
Tennis-specific movement is generally regarded as 70% lateral, 20% forward and less than 10% backwards movement (Weber et al 2006, Kovacs 2009). That is, most movement occurs laterally on the baseline, with some movement forward or backwards. Forward movement may be slightly in front of the baseline or up to close to the net. Studies show that the average tennis point lasts 6-11 seconds and as much as 15.7 sec during the average baseline rally (Bernardi et al 1998). Playing style was a major factor in the length of rallies as shown in Table 1.
For full article, click HERE.
PART I – CHANGING PHYSIOLOGY, DEMANDS OF MOVEMENT AND THE CASE STUDY OF NADAL
Traditional tennis movement has been taught as involving quick, small, shuffle and adjustment steps. The traditional clay court game has been taught with additional sliding movement involving long, grinding points. However, today’s matches don’t involve as many long rallies as 40 years ago. Research on modern tennis movement shows today’s game has some different characteristics. Points are shorter and faster creating greater demands on speed, agility and quickness.
Tennis-specific movement is generally regarded as 70% lateral, 20% forward and less than 10% backwards movement (Weber et al 2006, Kovacs 2009). That is, most movement occurs laterally on the baseline, with some movement forward or backwards. Forward movement may be slightly in front of the baseline or up to close to the net. Studies show that the average tennis point lasts 6-11 seconds and as much as 15.7 sec during the average baseline rally (Bernardi et al 1998). Playing style was a major factor in the length of rallies as shown in Table 1.
For full article, click HERE.
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