Sports Conditioning Secrets They Don't Want You to Know (Part 2): Specificity is the Key to Training Success

Let’s pick up our discussion of ideas and concepts that the sports training “experts” in our fair US of A really don’t want you to know about, much less understand with a discussion of the impact of “specificity” on training for tennis (or any sport, for that matter).

I’ll start off by recounting a conversation I had with a former American pro athlete who decided to pursue a career in the fitness and sports conditioning business by establishing his own “speed training/sports performance center” near my home.

The most interesting and revealing part of our conversation came at the very end when this ex-pro athlete now “certified strength and conditioning specialist”, we’ll call “Fred” (not his real name, of course) asked me this question:

“So what do you do differently from what we do here at XXX?”

On the surface, Fred’s question is a fair question.

What is different about what I do from what they’re doing?

Before I reveal my response, I should mention that the time, I remember taking a short pause before answering Fred so I could find a “diplomatic response”. I did this because at the time, I wanted to leave open the possibility of being allowed to use their really nice, new indoor facility to train my own players.

*To see my “real” response that appeared first in my brain before being filtered out by my better judgement at the time, please see the postscript at the end.

Anyway, my polite, diplomatic answer was this: what’s different about how I train players is that I focus on solely on tennis-specific training for competitive players.

What this means is that I ask my athletes to solely perform training exercises that are identical to the exact performance demands (i.e. the exact type of movements, the exact speed of movement, the exact sequence of movement, the exact nerve and muscle firing patterns, etc.) they encounter on the tennis court.

It’s not important or relevant to me if my athletes run the 40 under 4.5 seconds, bench press 2X their body weight, or have a 35+ inch vertical jump.

What is important is having my athletes improving their physical (and mental) performance on the tennis court as rapidly as possible.

What this means is that I want to train players who are capable of executing their maximum tennis performance level every time they compete.

In order to achieve this, I am training players who will be capable of serving consistently over 125 MPH, retrieving 90 MPH groundstrokes with full control after sprinting 3 yards in 0.4 seconds, and having the functional strength in their lower body to decelerate from a full sprint, then form a hitting stance, then make an explosive first (recovery) step to prepare for what could be a series of 10 to 15 returns from their opponent…

Among other extreme physical (and mental) challenges faced on the court (i.e. having 0.4 seconds to return today’s power serves, etc.).

Fred’s response in return was his own pregnant pause followed by this exact question:

“So how is what you just described different from what we do here again?”

At that point, finding another facility to host my training program was clearly the “action step” I needed to take after this meeting.

What you need to learn from my experience with Fred and virtually everyone else who’s in the “strength and conditioning” business here in the USA whether they’re a “certified personal trainer" in the local gym, a “certified strength and conditioning specialist” in the local “speed school”, “sports performance center” or collegiate weight room is this:

1. They all believe that improving the general conditioning level of the athlete is all that is sufficient and necessary to increase the competitive performance level of any and all athletes, regardless of the actual demands of the sport the athlete wants to excel at may actually be.

2. They all believe that increasing general athletic attributes such as strength, endurance and straight-ahead speed alone will make any and every athlete a higher performer in any sport.

3. They all believe that trying to design a training program that meets the specific demands of a particular sport is solely reserved for athletes who have already clearly demonstrated world-class or professional-level athletic ability and performance levels in their chosen sport.

For everyone else, even those who may eventually achieve world-class performance levels in their sport, general training is “good enough”.

The proof of their belief in general training being both the ”best” and “right” path to higher athletic performance is clearly demonstrated by the fact that regardless of the actual nature of the sports, the same body of training exercises (i.e. weight lifting, plyometrics, stretching, medicine ball throwing, sprinting form drills, etc.) are used for virtually all athletes from tennis players to golfers as well as baseball and football players.

They assume that a general increase or improvement in general athletic attributes translates directly into higher performance in any sport, as if swinging a golf club is identical to swinging a baseball bat or tennis racket.

Heck, what does specificity mean anyway?

It’s just another 50-cent word/idea thrown around by those “sports scientists” who don’t leave their “ivory tower” to venture into the so-called “real world”.

Specificity is a really simple idea: it means that sports training should be relevant and appropriate to the sport for which the individual is training in order to produce a training effect (= “improvement”).

When you apply specificity to tennis training, this means that whatever training exercises you do for tennis should probably closely match the actual physical demands and challenges you face when playing tennis.

For example…

Is running 5 miles continuously at a medium pace (a common endurance exercise) the same as sprinting 3 yards after an explosive split-step at least 10 times per point, for 65 points per set (on average)?

Is accelerating your 11 to 12 ounce racket to 75 MPH at contact in 0.12 seconds (or less) for every forehand the same as throwing a 10 pound medicine ball sideways (a commonly recommended exercise to add power to your groundstrokes)?

Are the exact same muscles used in your forehand used at the same speed and same muscle contraction pattern and sequence as that side throw with the heavy med ball?

The answer in both cases is a resounding “NO”, yet virtually every conditioning coach and personal trainer will make you do exactly those types of general exercises to help you “improve” your tennis-specific skills.

It’s just not logical, is it?

Maybe there’s something to this specificity idea? Just maybe?

The importance of specificity may now be clear enough to all of you out there, so why isn’t it clear to all the so-called, brand-name sports training experts out there?

Another “fair” question, right?

TTFN!


*PS: The real answer to Fred’s question went something like this:

“(T)he difference between me and XXX Sports is that what I do, what I ask my athletes to do, essentially begins where your training ideas and systems end. I am the one that your athletes have to come to when they hit that proverbial “wall” and stop improving using your overly general and inherently limited training philosophies, principles and methods. By definition, I, and the precious handful of others like me, are the only ones who can help aspiring elite athletes achieve their maximum performance level.”

Sound self-righteous and overly confident?

Maybe a little…

Yet, these words directly reflect the dilemma faced by all American athletes.

Doing general exercises might work, but if you’re really a world-class performer, general training takes you only so far, and then what?

Well, that is where people like myself come in... To help you continue to improve in a territory where the “inches are miles”.

The questions I would ask you next are:

Why wait so long to get to the real answers?

Why not begin with the best information and know-how?

Why compromise if you’re seeking ultimate performance?

Why waste your precious time?

These are also all “fair” questions, no?

Memo to American College and Junior Players: Find another 30 MPH ASAP!

Several posts ago, I summarized the serve speeds I measured for male and female National junior competitors at the Easter Bowl Championships in Palm Springs in April. I was able to measure serve speeds from players in every age group represented at that event, except for the players in the 18-and-under Boys event, so I have been looking for an opportunity to gather some serve speed numbers from that age division.

Recently, a National Open Junior event was held in Denver for the Boys 18s division, and I used that opportunity to measure the serve speeds (first and second) of the participants there. The tournament field was reasonably strong for a National Open event as the Top 8 seeds in the tournament were all ranked inside the Top 120 nationally, and the Top 5 seeds were ranked inside the Top 60 nationally. There were players ranked as high as #11 in the National 18s and players ranked in the 1500s as well. So there was a wide range of competitive, 18-and-under American junior players represented in this event.

I measured the serve speeds of 34 of the 64 participants during live matchplay, and the results I found were interesting to say the least.

The fastest first serve was 118 MPH, and the fastest second serve was 94 MPH (both by the same player).

The slowest first serve was 63 MPH and the slowest second serve was 60 MPH.

The average first serve speed of the 34 players surveyed was 91 MPH.

The average second serve speed of the 34 players surveyed was 71 MPH.

30% of the total number of first serves measured (200+) exceeded 100 MPH.

70% of the players hit a first serve over 100 MPH.

15% of the players hit a first serve over 110 MPH.

33% of the players hit a second serve over 80 MPH.

What to make of these speed measurements?

The “good news” is… If I were to compare these to the serve speeds I measured at this National Open tournament to those I have measured at the NCAA Division 1 level, these serve speeds of the 34 juniors are directly comparable in terms of both average first and second serve speed. Even the fastest and slowest serves are very similar, if not identical those of D1 players. And, it isn’t too surprising that these junior players share the same serve speed characteristics as the D1 players, as the vast majority of players who are Top 6 or Top 8 in D1 men’s tennis programs are recruited from the players who have high national singles rankings and typically participate in high-level USTA National Junior tournaments such as this National Open.

The "bad news" is… If you compare the serve speeds of these typical US college and junior players to those at the ATP level, the difference is stunning. The typical US college or junior player serves, on average, around 30 MPH SLOWER than a successful ATP player.

For a quick and dirty comparison to the ATP pros, I compiled the serve stats for 16 of the 32 players who made it to the 3^rd round of the Men’s Singles at Wimbledon (upper half of the draw including Federer, Roddick and Gasquet). This is what I found:

The average first serve speed of these 16 male pros was 119 MPH (compared to 91 MPH for our sample of nationally-ranked under 18 boys).

The average second serve speed of these 16 male pros was 99 MPH (compared to 71 MPH for our sample of nationally-ranked under 18 boys).

On average, the ATP men serve around 30 MPH faster, on average for both first and second serves, than the typical American male high-performance (college or nationally-ranked junior) player.

30 MPH!! On average!! Which means that the difference in serve speed could be as much as 40 MPH faster in some cases.

Given this astonishing difference in serve speed capability between the established ATP players and the typical American college or junior player, is it truly realistic for the great majority of young competitive tennis players here in the US to be competitive at the pro level when they are giving away at least 30 MPH on serves alone? Are their pro dreams even reachable?

At the very least, what can they do about closing the speed gap?

If you ask the tennis coaching and conditioning establishment (USTA, USPTA, PTR, etc.) here in the US how to increase your serve speed, they’ll tell you that you have only two alternatives: 1) improve your technique and/or 2) lift weights, pull rubber bands, and throw medicine balls to increase your strength. Well, the former alternative (changing technique) simply takes too long, and the overwhelming evidence from the sports science realm is that the latter (conventional, strength-focused conditioning exercises) simply doesn’t increase your racket, therefore, serve speed.

What now?

If you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity, you already know what the solution to the “I want/need more serve speed problem" is: train with the Tennis SpeedChain.

TTFN!