The Launch of the Tennis SuperMovers Footwork Challenge

Each month we will be bringing you a footwork challenge to test your players. We will be posting it here on our blog as well as across our social media platforms Instagram YouTube and Twitter

The goal is to create a simple drill that can be completed on the tennis court and be easily timed to test yourself or your players. Then over the coming weeks, add this drill to  players' warm-ups and fitness sessions, then re-time them to see the improvement they have made.

This month's drill combines sprinting, backpedalling and change of direction, all to maintain the on-court speed. 

Set-Up

Place a marker 1m back from the baseline/doubles line.

Sprint diagonally to the service line/singles line

Backpedal to the baseline

Sprint to the opposite service line/single line

Backpedal through the baseline where you started

Timing

The time started when the passes through the baseline

the time is stopped...

Blog Post - October 2021

I am going to be presenting at the upcoming TBD Tennis Innovation Week online conference - https://www.tbdtennisinnovationweek.com 

Throughout my career I've been lucky to present at a number of conferences both online and in-person, as well as running my own annual events, with a highlight being presenting at the Grand Slam coaches conference in Australia.

Fernando Segal Alem, who is running the TBD event, is bringing together innovators, creators and developers who are producing products and services that are transforming the tennis industry.

In my presentations I will always touch on my professional experiences, coaching and programming philosophies and the underpinning 'why' of Tennis SuperMovers. However, within this blog, I also want to outline to you what it is we want to achieve with SuperMovers and how we will be going about it. Below, I outline our 'MOST' business plan - which stands for Mission, Objectives,...

Exercise of the Week

This week's Exercise of the Week is an exercise direct from the Tennis SuperMovers at Home programme. It falls into the Honing Coordination exercise stream, which is one part of the SMASH Curriculum, which includes:

Strength, Movement, Agility, Stability, Honing Coordination - to go into a bit more detail on these elements, check out the blog on the 5 building blocks to tennis fitness success - here

The above video show a small group of under 10 players using a wall at the side of the court. The goal of the exercise is to work on sending and receiving skills. You have to accurately feed the ball, while tracking the ball to adjust your movement, to allow the ball to roll between the legs.

Then you will get a sneak peek at what this exercises looks like within the SuperMovers at Home content. You will see how each exercise is thoroughly explained and coached, before completing the exercise together in a follow-along workout format.

We've had so many awesome...

Blog Post - September 2021

Within the SuperMovers training programme is the SMASH Curriculum, which includes:

Strength, Movement, Agility, Stability, Honing Coordination - to go into a bit more detail on these elements, check out the blog on the 5 building blocks to tennis fitness success - here

Today's post will focus on the Strength component. There are 6 Foundational Levels within the SuperMovers programme, within each level are 3 sessions based on movement needed on the court - Forward and Back, Side to Side and Multi-Direction. Within each session there are exercises from the SMASH Curriculum as mentioned above, these exercises will complement the type of session. For example, in a Forward and Back session, the Agility drill will develop footwork patterns need to move forward into the court, as well as acceleration and deceleration.

This is the same for the Strength component, each session will variations of:

• Squat Pattern
• Lunge Pattern
• Core Bracing
• Dynamic Core

So if we...

Exercise of the Week 

This week's Exercise of the Week is the humble Squat. Here's an example of two under 10 tennis players practising their Grand Slam shapes using the Tennis SuperMovers 'At Home' programme.

The Squat is a fundamental movement shape that rehearses the ability of a player to deal with low balls. The image shows recent US Open Champion Emma Radacanu dropping down into an athletic position to execute the most optimal shot possible. 

Emma has been working on her strength for years, and a recent training video shows her back squatting with 80kg. Within our tennis S&C training programme, this all starts with perfecting the movement pattern at a young age; starting with body weight only (SuperMovers 'At Home' programme), progressing to soft resistance (medicine balls, bands and broomsticks), then introducing true resistance training with dumbbells and barbells.

For more on the Tennis SuperMovers programme, click here, or feel free to...

Blog Post - September 2021

We had the pleasure of watching Emma Raducanu successfully make her way to the US Open final via qualifying and win the tournament without even dropping a set! But as well as the lights-out tennis, we got to witness a tennis athlete in action. I am going to take this opportunity to say congratulations to her S&C coach, who is a good friend, on developing a truly awesome athlete who has proved she can take on the world.

But here at Tennis SuperMovers, we look at players’ performances with a slight twist. Many tennis coaches focus on the technical and tactical elements of tennis, be this the professionals or the players they work with. When observing the pictures of players in action below, a tennis coach may focus mainly the racket work:

But what we would like for everyone - player, tennis coach, physical coach and parent - is to see the underpinning physical shapes (highlighted by the yellow lines) that are needed to create the...

This week's Exercise of the Week is a super simple one - it's called Circle Tag.

I use this drill to work on rapid lateral movement - players will use either shuffle steps or cross-over steps for a fast change of direction.

Here I have used rings to create the circle, but you could use cones, spots or throw down lines.

I'll add this exercise in after working on footwork as a separate closed drill (no race or reaction), then I challenge the footwork in a high intensity competitive situation.

These type of closed drills make up a key component of the Tennis SuperMovers programme. We ensure that players master the fundamentals of tennis footwork - check it out here.

Have a great week, if you have any questions, or suggestions for Exercise of the Week, please email me direct at [email protected]

Check out last week's exercise - Exercise of the Week 19 - Hexagon Hopscotch

Blog Post - September 2021 

I will start by saying that in my experience there are far fewer ‘problem parents’ than many coaches make out. In my opinion, if you are having any issues with parents, more often than not, it is down to two things:

1. Lack of, or poor, communication.

2. Lack of education.

These issues can be improved easily by taking ownership. We, as coaches, must take extreme ownership over any issues we have with our tennis parent and the players too – be that nutrition or tennis tactics. It is the coach's responsibility to address these areas, it is our fault.

Let me give you a real-life example from my own academy. Each year in September we run a physical training block, in which there is an increased emphasis on the strength and conditioning (S&C) element over the tennis. For example, a normal squad would start with a 15min warm-up, then 1hr 45min tennis, into 60min of S&C. In September, this adjusts to...

Blog Post - September 2021

At the start of each new academic year at Bolton Arena tennis academy where I work, we run a short period in which the physical training takes more of an emphasis. For the players, this will see a reduction in tennis volume (minutes per squad) and intensity (difficulty of the content) and an increase in physical volume and intensity.

In its simplist form, what we do is is add either an extended warm up or cool down, each of these last 40-45 minutes. Each squad at the academy consists of 2hr tennis and 1hr fitness. Some squads begin with tennis and then come to fitness afterwards, so these players will complete the extended warm-up, which is planned by the S&C coaches and can be delivered by the tennis coaches. The reminaing 75-90min tennis will have a focus more on lighter technical work, rather than intense drilling, meaning when players come to the S&C session, they are fresher which means we can push them a little...

This week's Exercise of the Week credit goes to Rob Brandsma. Head to his Instagram for some more great drills and ideas for tennis training - @rob_brandsma

This exercise can take a bit of time to master, so the easiest way to teach it is to really slow things down and perform a short pause between each movement, holding the hop and split.

The areas this drill works on are:

• Rhythm
• Dynamic Balance
• Coordination
• Reactiveness

It can be beneficial for the split-step and hop steps moving forward, sideways or backwards while hitting the ball.

We need to do a high volume of these types of exercerises to develop the positive stiffness needed for a sharp and fast split step. Other drills, such as ankling, hopping and bounding, at a low intensity but high volume, helps develop this physical quality, as well as preparing players for higher intensity explosive exercises, which are known as plyometrics.

More creative versions of these exercises can be done to music or using a metronome....