HOW IMPORTANT IS FITNESS TESTING FOR TENNIS PLAYERS

A tennis player must have plenty of components to be successful. The main components are 2 general categories. The first is the technical and tactical approach off the player, as how good technique he has, the tactic that he use, if he is better at forehand or backhand, if he plays mostly on the baseline or if he is aggressive, how good serve he has all over components that are in this part. The second categorie is physical fitness of the athlete. It is important to realize if he is a power athlete or an aerobic athlete, how strong he is, if he is fast the flexibility and range of motion of his joints. The second category can affect the first. As paradigm if he is very good at cardio he probably play mostly at baseline and if he is more power he can probably play more aggressive near the file. So it is important to categorize our athlete to more aerobic or strength — power so can affect

tactic

of the play. There are various tests for athletes, and we can use most off them to understand the physical performance of the player. The most important from my opinion is to protect the athlete from injuries and after that to train him on power, strength, aerobic, anaerobic characteristics. So one off the most important tests that we should do is overhead squat. After that we can do sit & rich and to test the range of motion of the most joins. We must understand in what condition is his muscles and if he needs stretching or strength training on specific muscles to prevent injuries. After that we have to categorise as aerobic or anaerobic athlete and create the proper program and periodization. So the first thing a program for elite athletes must have is to keep or improve the range of motion of all joins. Second is to improve the not good physical performances of the athlete. One of the important characteristics is the way to improve jump height and power. Most trainers using mostly plyometrics to improve lower body power. The problem is that in many cases you need strength or balance training. So you must check the ssc (strength shortening cycle). It is the difference in percentage between cmj (countermovement jump) and sj (squat jump). If the difference is around 10% it means that the athlete is in good shape. If the difference is over 10% the athlete needs plyometric training and if it is under 10% then the athlete needs strength training. These are some paradigms of how important is fitness testing for tennis athletes. There are many other components of fitness that we can test and find significant data for the athlete that we train. The most important thing is that there is no magic programs and fast programs who match for everyone. Every athlete is very different and needs specific and customized plan.