Archive for September, 2009
Tennis Tips : Play Better Tennis by Incorporating Both Aerobic and Anaerobic Workout Routines
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, one of the factors that has helped me and my wife the most in improving our tennis is by making sure we have regular workout sessions. We have fitness trainer at our local gym who uses many of the exercises in the book ‘Complete Conditioning for Tennis’ by E. Paul Roetert and Todd S. Ellenbecker. The book emphasizes the need to do both aerobic and anaerobic exercises and so in this article, I wanted to explain these terms in more detail and explain why it is important to incorporate both forms of exercises in a workout routine if you want to be a more successful tennis player.
In its simplest form, aerobic and anaerobic refer to the presence or absence of oxygen, respectively.
Aerobic Exercise
During aerobic exercise, glycogen (which is stored in our body mainly in our muscles and liver) is converted first by our bodies into glucose. If the glycogen stores in our body run low (through extensive long-term exercise, like running a marathon, for example) then our bodies begin to use fat as a fuel. But for a typical tennis game, the predominant energy source will be glycogen and not fat.
During aerobic exercise, oxygen is taken in through the lungs and carried to the tissues in our body through the blood stream. Glucose is then broken down with the aid of oxygen into a chemical called ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Aerobic exercise is a highly efficient producer of ATP and is the main energy system needed for sports where long term endurance is required (long distance running or moderate tennis activity, for example).
Anaerobic Exercise
During high intensity workouts (such as very fast sprinting or intense weight lifting) the main energy term used by the body is called anaerobic glycolysis, which also produces ATP, but without using oxygen. A by-product of anaerobic glycolysis is lactic acid, which begins to accumulate in the muscles after continued high intensity workouts. This build up of lactic acid is the reason for the burning sensation felt in the muscles and will eventually force the person to stop the activity until the lactic acid can be removed from the body. Anaerobic glycolysis is only effective as an energy source for about 2-3 minutes after which the person must cease activity or slow down to allow the aerobic energy system to “kick-in”.
If you are still unclear about the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise, try this. Do push-ups as fast as you can and keep the level of activity as high as possible. Alternatively, sprint as fast as you can along a track or road. After a very short time, you will find you “hit a wall” and you have to stop or slow down because you are physically very fatigue. You may also have a burning sensation in your muscles (lactic acid build up). This is anaerobic exercise. Now try a moderate jog around the block or moderate work-out where your heart rate and breathing rate increases, but you can still maintain the activity level over a relatively extended period of time (30min or longer). This is aerobic exercise.
How Does This Relate to Tennis?
Depending on your level as a player, your game will probably include both anaerobic (fast sprinting for side to side or front to back where your heart rate increases rapidly and you are out of breath) and aerobic (moderate activity level) activity. Therefore, to improve your overall fitness level and success rate in tennis matches (especially in tournaments and competitive tennis games), you need to incorporate a work-our routine that incorporates both aerobic and anaerobic fitness conditioning. That’s why one of my favorite tennis tips (and the subject of my very first blog) is for you to increase your fitness to play tennis rather than playing tennis to keep fit. Besides increasing your success rate as a player, you will also dramatically decrease your chances of injury.
Tennis Tips : Preparation for a Tournament – Part 2
In part 1, I covered the essential preparation leading up to the day of the tournament and covered issues such as work-outs, tennis practice sessions and optimum nutrition. In this tennis tips article, I will cover the actual day of the tournament.
So you ate a carbohydrate rich meal about 2-3 hours ago and you are feeling fit and ready to go. Here is a check-list of items to include in your tennis bag.
- - Spare racket – ideally one that is matched (same weight, balance, strings, string tension, grip size) to your primary racket
- - Spare tennis shirt. It’s nice to be able to change into a dry shirt when you have split sets or between games.
- - Spares socks – same reason as above
- - Spare hat
- - 2 towels. It’s good to have two because the first can get very wet especially on a very hot day.
- - Some lotion to treat cramp.
- - Sun block. Don’t forget this or you could really suffer during a long, hot tournament.
- - Cold pack – just in case of sprain or muscle injury
- - Plastic bags – good to hold ice (from your water container) in case of sprains/injuries
- - Band aids
- - Ankle supports, knee supports. Just in case something unexpected happens.
- - A few bananas and energy bars. To top up between sets or matches.
- - Spare balls for warm-up sessions.
- - Large canister of water with ice. The ice can be used to help with injuries, if necessary
- - Several bottles of your favorite sports drink. This is necessary to top up on electrolytes lost through sweating that you can’t get from water alone.
- - CD or mp3 player with your favorite music to keep you relaxed during breaks between matches.
Try to arrive at the even early enough to give yourself time to calm yourself and focus on the match. Remember that your opponent’s ranking has no relevance at all to the match you will play today (see previous article). Just focus on your own game. Usually, for tournaments, the official warm-up time is 10 minutes but if you arrive early enough, you might be able to find a hitting partner who will help you warm up your strokes. Don’t go crazy! The idea is just to warm up and get your footwork and timing in order.
In the actual warm-up before your match, use the ten minutes wisely not only to warm up, but to study your opponent’s strength and weaknesses. During the warm-up, try to at least know the following about your partner:
- Are they right or left handed?- Yes we’ve all been guilty of this one. We are 3 or 4 games into the match before we suddenly realize that we are playing a left-hander !
- How do they handle deep forehands or backhands, especially one that bounce high?
- Which side is stronger?
- Are they good at volleying?
- Do they move well from side to side and front to back?
- How do they handle spin, both top spin and back spin? Many hard hitting players hate low back-spin shots which keep low over the net, so try a few during the warm-ups.
- How do they handle overheads?
- How well do they serve?
Knowing these strengths and weaknesses from the warm-up session will give you a real advantage going into the match itself. Hopefully, these simple tennis tips will help you next time you prepare for a tournament.
Tennis Tips: Preparation for a Tennis Tournament – Part 1
Depending on whether you play tennis just fun, or whether you are very competitive, you may consider entering a tournament at some stage. Tournaments can be a great way to meet new people and gauge your standard against other tennis players.
Here are a few tennis tips to help you prepare for a tournament that should help you be more successful. First of all, take into account your overall fitness level before you decide how many events (singles/doubles/mixed doubles) to enter. Usually, tournaments are held over an extended weekend period and if you enter more than one event, you could find yourself playing back to back matches. If you are fit and prepared, then this OK but don’t try back to back matches over several days when you are only an occasional player and not very fit. You will probably end up injuring yourself.
To give yourself the best chance of success, try increasing your work-outs and tennis matches several weeks before the event to build up your stamina, endurance and fitness level. In your work-outs, a good idea would be to incorporate many of the tennis specific exercises in the “Complete Conditioning for Tennis” book by E. Paul Roetert and Todd S. Ellenbecker (see original blog post). In your tennis matches and practice sessions, make sure you include players with lots of different styles such as back-boarders and left-handers, so that you are not surprised if you encounter this situation in the tournament. Make sure that you are doing regular stretches each day (see dynamic and static stretching article). As you get closer to the to the tournament (within a week), you can gradual decrease the amount of exercise to avoid the risk of strains and injuries, but still maintain a moderate amount of tennis practice sessions so that your timing and footwork remain good.
During the last week before the event, start reducing the amount of fat and increasing the amount of carbohydrate (oat-meal, pasta, bread, potatoes, rice) in your diet. You should aim to obtain about 50-60% of your total calorie intake from carbs during the last few days. This is to increase your ‘glycogen’ store which your muscles use to convert to energy to work effectively (more about this in an upcoming article). Eating a few bananas a day about 2-3 days before the event is also good to increase your potassium levels. This is important, because potassium can be lost from the body when you sweat during a tennis match and excessive losses (together with other electrolytes such as sodium) may lead to muscle cramping. Try also to drink as much water as possible to fully hydrate yourself. In this last week, you also want to aim for 7-8 hours sleep per night and you should avoid any alcohol in the last 3 days because alcohol can lead to dehydration of the body. Remember, you can always party after the tournament!
On the night before the tournament, you can eat a pasta meal to stock up on your carbohydrate levels and in the morning, you can have a breakfast such as oatmeal (also a good source of carbs) with skimmed milk. Try to avoid eating anything 2-3 hours before the match so that your stomach does not contain partially digested food. In Part 2 of this tennis tips article, I will cover the items you should take with you to the tournament.
