Apply sport science basics

Tennis Players & Coaches – Apply Sport Science Basics to Tennis Specific Training. How do different athletic qualities fit into the program of a tennis player? This is a complex question but one that deserves an answer. With information being so readily accessible, there are countless videos of players doing all kinds of things off the tennis court. But just because a top 100 or 50 player is doing X or Y, does it mean it’s effective? Is it driven by some underlying scientific basis? Often times, it’s not. It’s a regurgitation of someone else’s training or a drill that was once seen before. If you’re a player, and someone is telling you to do squats on a stability ball…or ladder drills to develop footwork and speed…seek alternatives as these are merely gimmicks that have little transfer to elevated sporting performance. Apply sport science basics weiterlesen

How to get a better coach

„… a broad range of methods of development across the coaches, such as coaching courses, academic qualifications, playing and coaching experience, reading, and so on, and that there was a genuine desire among all of the coaches to become better and continually improve.“ (Andy Abraham, Developing expert coaches requires expert coach development: Replacing serendipity with orchestration. Research Gate 2009)

Security and inertia

“Instead of allowing in new thoughts and trying something different they do what all the others do. Then they feel that they cannot be wrong. The Swedish words for security and inertia (trygghet och tröghet) sound very alike and what is reassuring is often too slow and difficult to change. This is often reinforced by players who become coaches and coaches who become managers. So it is often people with the same experiences that control operations in our football clubs”. (Per-Göran Fahlström, Footblogball interview January 2016)

Practical implications

Miguel Crespo et al. made the practical implication from their study about „Skill acquisation in tennis: Research and current practice“ from 2007 that, „…as compared to overly prescriptive coaching, indications are that tennis players would benefit from earlier introduction to aviable and random practice designs and the accompanying increased opportunity to intrinsically evaluate their own performance.“

Miguel Crespo und andere kommen in ihrer Studie „Technikerwerb im Tennis: Forschung und gegenwärtige Praxis“ aus dem Jahre 2007 zu der Schlußfolgerung, dass es im Vergleich mit streng auf die Technik festgelegtem Training Hinweise gibt, dass Spieler*innen von einer frühzeitigen Hinführung zu variablem und „zufälligen“ (random) Trainingsgestaltung und intrinsischen Entwicklung ihrer Performance profitieren.

The frames of implicit skill acquisation

In 2007 Machar Reid, Miguel Crespo and Brandon Lay wrote an article on the acquisition of tennis skills in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, in which they reviewed the state of research and current practice. They come to the conclusion, that implicit learning brings better results but a differential view on the implicit approach is necessary. This is in one point due to the fact that there can be no pure implicit learning. To rely exclusively on liberate play leads in the long term to unfavorable skills and limited tactical creativity. The frames of implicit skill acquisation weiterlesen

Why „evidence based“?

Why „evidence based coaching“?

The term is derived from medicine. It describes the attempt to ask what are intuitive training methods derived from coaches‘ learning experience in tennis and how to conduct a scientific review. At the same time, „New paths in tennis learning“ are to be developed.

Evidence-based medicine

„Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM)“ is a recent developmental trend Why „evidence based“? weiterlesen