Conditioning Made Simple for the Competitive Tennis Athlete

Tennis is a repeat power endurance sport that requires multiple changes of directions per point with a limited to recover between points before having to go out and do it again.

Conditioning hard through various drills and playing hard sets on the court is no problem in the game of tennis, but there might be too much of a focus on that, and not on the aspect of being able to recover from those hard efforts.

Now I am not saying that you do not need to do hard conditioning. You actually should do quite a bit of it since high intense repeat efforts are the name of the game, but let us not lose the forest through the trees.

If you are struggling to catch your breath or do not feel recovered after a long rally then a simple form of conditioning could be your answer to improve your recovery and fitness.

This can be accomplished by incorporating tempo sessions 1-2 times per week into your training.

Now What Exactly is Tempo Running?

Tempo, commonly used in the track and field space represents an interval based running session in which sub-maximal efforts are used to accumulate volume and improve our aerobic capacity. Since it is aerobic work in nature we do not want intensities to rise above 75% of an athlete's speed. Now since most of you reading this are not in the track and field world we are going to use a subjective scale to determine the intensity of runs.

If 10 is the hardest thing you have done and 1 is the easiest, we are aiming for a 6-7 RPE. This is an intensity that allows us to move at a decent pace, but is not too difficult that we are not able to repeat it.

Where Do I Them?

The easiest way to regulate speed and perform all of them is by doing it on a motorized treadmill. You will set up a speed that is fast, but do able. If the first 5-10 reps feel easy then you are on the right track. Halfway through you might start sweating buckets. However if you do have access to a field then you will run at a comfortable fast pace for the time prescribed.

A 4 week example is down below.

What Does a Session Look Like?

There are a couple of ways to do it, but I will show you how I set my up in my own training. With it being aerobic I want to run my reps continuously uninterrupted. Here is a sample of a 4 week tempo running session:

• Week 1: 20 reps 15 seconds On 45 seconds Off RPE 6-7

• Week 1: 25 reps 15 seconds On 45 seconds Off RPE 6-7

• Week 1: 30 reps 15 seconds On 45 seconds Off RPE 6-7

• Week 1: 20 reps 20 seconds On 40 seconds Off RPE 6-7

Once you find your speed stick with it for the training and do not go up or down. Implement this at the end of your training or do on an off day. Do this and you will notice quite a difference in your recovery!