Category Archives: Training

by Dominic King, CTPS, MTPS, ASCC, PES

I love to look around at many different sports and consider the transferable qualities that each sport can bring to tennis and how we can improve our training as a result. I believe that if you stay within the confines of a single sport, it is easy to get ‘blinkered’ and miss loads of great information that is out there and can be used. As a coach or S&C coach, to develop both ourselves and the players we work with, it is vital to learn from wherever we can.

An area I’ve liked to look towards is that of combat sports. I have always considered tennis to have many similarities to combat sports, both in terms of its ‘gladiatorial’ nature of being a battle most often fought 1 on 1, and also due to the fact that the tennis player must ‘strike’, though obviously in their case, a ball rather than someone else! As a result, looking at articles/literature related to combat sports is something I’ve always liked to do.

One such article I came across was, ‘Assessment and Contributors of Punching Forces in Combat Sport Athletes: Implications for Strength and Conditioning’, Seth Lenetsky, Nigel Harris, Matt Brughelli.
NSCA Strength & Conditioning Journal (Vol 35, Number 2)

The article looked to explore potential S&C strategies to improve punching force and so I thought if we substitute ‘ball strike’ for ‘punching force’, it may be possible to get a few ideas that could relate to tennis.

3 primary contributors to punching force were identified:

1) contribution of arm musculature
2) rotation of the trunk
3) drive off the ground by the legs.

I’d say that the above would correspond very closely with contributors to tennis strokes, perhaps groundstrokes especially.
The article wanted to look primarily at the research relating to lower limb involvement in punching. It is however important to consider the other contributors too.

It presented a couple of key points for me:

– In one study (Filimonov at al), of 120 boxers analysed, boxers with more experience/elite level had a greater contribution from their legs to the punch when compared with the other contributors (arms and trunk)
– A further study (Smith at al) concluded that elite boxers produced a greater punching force.
Together, the above studies would suggest that the greater the contribution from the legs, the greater the force.

Fighting Style vs Playing Style

Interestingly, Filimonov broke this down further into fighting styles and concluded that ‘knockout artists’ had a higher leg drive contribution than ‘players’ or ‘speedsters’. I would suggest there could be a certain carry-over into relative playing styles in tennis…. would it perhaps stand to reason that the Aggressive Baseliner for example would display a greater contribution from the legs in the shot than a Counterpuncher might….?

The article also makes note of studies relating to other sports, such as shot-put, javelin, even overhead throwing in children, which also support the conclusions of Filimonov regarding the importance of leg drive. The image below, taken from the ITPA CTPS workbook, ties in the concept nicely regarding the kinetic chain and the importance of the legs in order to generate force up the chain, ultimately ending with the racket.