SuperMovers Coordination Series - Adaptability 

This week we are taking a look at adaptability as a key coordination skill. Adaptability is 'the player's modification of an action sequence upon observing or anticipating novel or changing conditions and situations'.

Tennis is one of a few sports where players must adapt to several different surfaces and environmental conditions, for example, hard court, grass, clay, AstroTurf, indoor, outdoor, wind, heat, humidity and altitude. This exposure to multiple surfaces and conditions will have a large impact on a player’s adaptability. If the player were to only train on a fast-indoor court, then their ability to react and deflect pace may be well developed, but if they never train on a clay court, then they will have low skill ability of generating pace from slow balls and controlling their balance on the reactive surface.

The way in which the player moves on each surface is slightly different. The way in which the surface...

SuperMovers Coordination Series - Rhythm

Rhythm is best thought of as the ability to execute tasks using different tempos and speeds. This could be achieved via observation to capture information from an external source and use dynamic motion to reproduce, for example the change in rally tempo from the opponent, or copying a flashing light.

Think of the different speed and tempo of movement to the net under two separate situations – chasing down a tough drop shot versus transition movement towards the net after an effective shot. One is more of an emergency situation in which a rapid footwork rhythm would be required, whilst the latter would be a much more flowing footwork pattern, as you are dictating the rhythm of the rally.

One of my favourite ways to develop rhythm is to use different types of hops, jumps and leaps, as when they are execute efficiently, they will follow a natural tempo. I get players to do tennis exercises in all different directions- forward, backward,...

Blog post - December 2021

Balance

Arguably balance is one of the most important factors in tennis, this quality underpins all movement. It is the management of equilibrium in both static and dynamic situations. Think of how wide the top players can be stretched off the court, yet can maintain dynamic balance, to not only get themselves out of trouble, but hurt their opponent. The best players look so fluid in their on-court movement due to exceptional levels of balance.

The benefits of improving your or your player's balance include reducing the risk of injury and improving performance via enhanced proprioception. Proprioception underpins balance, it is both a conscious and unconscious process. The sensory information of the position and movement of the limbs without looking is more unconscious, whereas kinaesthetic awareness is more conscious, for example, the player adjusting to balancing on one leg. Players with great proprioception perform more effectively and efficiently via...

Blog post - December 2021

SuperMovers Footwork Challenge 

Welcome to the December challenge!

Each month some of the top tennis fitness coaches in the world will set a new challenge.

For December it is the 4 Cone Drill from me - Howard Green!

How to:

• Set up a cone 2 metres from the net and on each singles/service line.
• Scroll through the video for the explanation of how to complete the drill.
• The time starts and stops on the baseline. I have used electronic timing gates from but you can use a stopwatch.

Some times recorded already are:

Under 12 - 8.9sec
Under 14 - 8.12sec
Under 16 - 8.32sec

What time have you got!!?

Take a video of you or your players in action and tag in @howardgreensupermovers on Instagram and use the hashtag

#SuperMoversFootworkChallenge

Good luck!

SuperMovers Coordination Series

When I have asked tennis coaches and parents what fitness topic they are most interested in and would like to learn more about, the answer is always coordination.

I wrote an article that has been reposted on other websites for tennis fitenss and strength and conditioning - you can read it here Part 1 and Part 2

Firstly, when identifying the different components of coordination, you can use the mnemonic RB RADIO - here are the different areas:

• Reaction
• Balance 
• Rhythm
• Adaptability
• Differentiation 
• Interoperability 
• Orientation 

In this first part of the SuperMovers Coordination Series we will look at - Reactions

Reaction is linked to reducing the time between reading the most relevant stimulus and creating action - visualise a great returner reading a subtle indication in the opponent's serve mechanics to give them information on where to return from.

In addition to the physical components, perceptual-cognitive...

Blog - November 2021

Here is a video of a discovery session with some U10 and U8 players.

They were given a selection of equipment and had to come up with some drills for:

• Coordination
• Speed / Movement
• Tennis Ready Position
• Strength

There were some awesome drills that they created that I will use with them in future sessions.

Enabling some discovery and free play is really important to avoid over structuring their programme.

It also gets them to be more creative and lateral thinking.

I was really impressed with these SuperMovers!

Next take a look at 4 awesome steps to improve tennis agility!

Exercise of the Week - 24

Ok - so the title of this post may be a little tongue in cheek, but in terms of interaction and popularity on my Instagram account, this post has had by far the most attention of all my posts...EVER.

It has reached 153,000 accounts and has been saved by 2,370 people!

Now, I'm not sure why this one went so crazy, but it is a solid set of exercises.

The context of the selection of drills was a request from a coach to develop the readiness and shapes required to deal with deep balls hit straight at the player, for example, a return drilled straight back at the server.

My coaching process when it comes to this situation is to consider the key tennis shapes required, then progress the drills from simple to complex, from coordination to speed, building in intensity.

For example, in the above series of exercises, the drills follow this continuum:

Drill 1 - This is a SuperMovers Level 1 Stability exercise 'Rotations' - here the player works on...

Blog Post - November 2021

Some of the top mistakes I see from coaches aiming to improve agility, is ignoring the core elements required to optimise movement. You see, in order for a drill to be considered an agility drill, there must be a reactive component. But before hitting these high intensity movements, players must first prepare the body through a specific sequence of exercises.

When discussing Agility Development I use the following terminology:

• FMS - Fundamental Movement Skills
• TT - Technical Training 
• PR - Pattern Running 
• RAT - Reactive Agility Training

In this blog I will touch on the first two - FMS and TT

Fundamental Movement Skills

These are the foundational movement patterns and shapes that underpin on-court movement and agility and would cover exercises such as squats, lunges, jumps, bounds and hops. They would effectively create the warm-up or 'performance preparation' for the forthcoming session.

This is where the SuperMovers concept of...

Blog Post - October 2021

Hi SuperMovers,

I want to share some exciting news with you....we have set up a new community group on Facebook just for Tennis SuperMovers members! As you know, I am passionate about helping people, and this, for me, comes in the form of coaching, mentoring or educating.

At SuperMovers we want to engage education and empower tennis players, parents and coaches, and I feel bringing people together in this group will be a great way to connect and help achieve this.

The goals of the group are:

* Allow me to answer any of your questions about the SuperMovers programme

* Help you with any areas you need to progress your athlete journey

* Connect like-minded people who are interested in athlete development for young tennis players

* For us to provide on-going eduction on long-term athlete development 

* Allow us to ask you ways on which we can improve the programme

* Hear first about and receive special offers on any new SuperMovers...

Exercise of the Week 

At the core of my coaching philosophy are the Integrated Tennis Shapes.

These are the fundamental shapes that lay the foundations of on-court movement.

These provide the right footwork and body work to build efficient and effective racket work.

With the shapes at the centre, the goal is to develop:

Common language when speaking about on-court movement

Observation skills - so everyone can view through a similar lens

Intervention - If there is an issue, there is an agreement on what the root cause is, what needs to be done, how long it will take and who’s responsibility is it

In this example, we see the player not effectively rotating. She does not get deep enough with the leg and collapses forward - therefore presenting a ‘broken shape’.

Tactically you are trying to force your opponent into these broken shapes, to force an error or get a short ball to attack.

With a simple intervention of coaching the movement pattern, she is able to...