Exercise of the Week - Agility - Movement into the court
How often do you get frustrated with your players about only moving side-to-side along the baseline? Not cutting diagonally in towards shorter balls, or orienting themselves to move to deep balls (to see an exercise to work on moving deep click here).
The impact of only moving sideways is that the player can have issue with their contact point, with the ball either dropping too low or bouncing too high. This week's drill develops the player's ability to cut inside the court to deal with short balls.
The video gives you a tutorial on how to execute the drill, then challenges you to follow-along and complete the drill as different speeds. This gives you the option to set the screen up and allow the player to follow the video as part of a session or circuit.
I want to explain where this particular drill fits within our Tennis SuperMovers programme - this exercise is a preview of an Agility drill from Level 3. The product came about due to the unprecedented times of the Covid-19 lockdown, where young tennis players were unable to train for the sport they love so much.
We created a player-focused platform to help them really work on the physical qualities they would need when getting back on the court. The goal was not just to 'tick-over' but instead make a positive out of the negative and look to enhance their Strength, Movement, Agility, Stability and Coordination.
The SuperMovers programme not only works on the physical qualities, it also helps young players take ownership of their tennis fitness, by creating the habit of completing the work in and around their technical/tactical development. The sport is becoming more and more physical every year, all players devote a considerable amount of time enhancing their on-court physicality with targeted off-court training.
The SuperMovers Agility drills have three main movement patterns - Forward and Back, Side-to-Side and Multi-direction. In Levels 1 and 2 the movement patterns are possible to be done in a small space at the tennis centre or at home. From Level 3 onwards, the movement patterns become more intense and need a larger space to get the most out of them, making half a court an ideal size to develop the needed challenges on acceleration, deceleration and change of direction.
We are getting some amazing feedback from the coaches who are using the programme not just in the UK but worldwide, including Brazil, USA, Australia and New Zealand.
If you would like to get further information on this awesome programme to build you tennis fitness, then click here.
Check out last week's exercise - Exercise of the Week 16 - Agility - Lateral Speed Drill
Also, if you have any questions or requests for another Exercise of the Week then email me at [email protected]