Since 2012, we have operated inside of a Tennis club in Narberth, Pa and during this time we have coached multiple State Champion athletes, top 30 USA players, and many #1 in Middle States tennis players spanning multiple age groups. We have also coached athletes who started strength training too late (came in with many unnecessary injuries) and athletes who trained 1-2x a month with us while practicing 3-6x a week for tennis. What's wrong with this? The injured athlete and the 1-2x a month athlete completely missed out on achieving success and building a long-term and HEALTHY athletic career.
Tennis is not much different than any other sport when it comes to training. During the peak of your season, you may need to step back from hitting the weights a little bit but NEVER completely. During the slow/less competitive times during the year, it's GO TIME and you better be hitting the weights as often as possible. Every movement you are spending hours and hours working on when you're with your coach on the court could drastically be sped up if you were stronger, more powerful, and had better control of your body. AKA, you'll save time and money by hitting the weights.
Using a 1:1 or 2:1 ration is key. This means, you either lift 1x for every tennis lesson (1:1), or you lift 1 time for every 2 tennis lessons (2:1). Sadly, many athletes stick with the 5:1 or lean more towards the ZERO strength based training method. What happens with these athletes? The following:
Injury
lack of improvement
decreased motivation
bumped down in team rankings/state and national rankings
finally, they just quit
How we train athletes:
Once a week athletes: typically we will focus on weak areas while also attempting to hit all the body parts so the athlete can become a well rounded athlete
Twice a week athletes: Those who come twice a week can benefit by doing a 2day split. Cover half the body on day 1 and the other half on day 2. Any time leftover in the workout allows us to really focus on the weak sports the athlete may have.
Three times a week: This is where they really start to succeed. At 3x a week, we can really start to add in more focused training, overly target the weak areas, and add in a lot of higher level movements that require too much time to teach a once a week client.
It might sound crazy, but sometimes the best way to improve in your sport is to cut back on the sport itself, and work on the areas that will make you a stronger, faster, more powerful athlete.
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