October 19th  saw APA hosting it’s first guest speaker, Gil Stevenson for a thoroughly enjoyable morning discussing Gil’s  philosophy on speed and power development in the context of the sport of Tennis.

 

 

Aside from the UKSCA annual conference (which I will discuss my thoughts on in another blog post!!) it’s difficult to get the whole team out to see other coaches talk about what they do so this was a great CPD opportunity.

 

 

At the start of the presentation the audience were asked by Gil for their ‘burning questions.’  Below were a few:

 

 

1.  How much weight should a tennis player lift?

 

2.  What would you prioritise in a typical 6-8 week training block for a professional player who maybe only has one opportunity a year like this to work on their physical qualities?

 

3.  How much rotational work would you put into a tennis player’s S&C programme?

 

4.  How important is single leg work to your S&C programme for a tennis player?

 

5.  How would you deal with a tennis coach who believes their player should not be lifting heavy weights.  It will slow them down and could injure their back.

 

6.  What is starting strength and how do you train it?

 

7.  How do you organise speed, plyometrics and strength/olympic weight lifting into a microcycle?

 

 

I will attempt to give some of the answers that Gil came up with over the next few posts!!  But before getting to the answers I will summarise some of the theory that underpinned Gil’s presentation in what I am going to call my Workshop Lessons series.  Stand by for Lesson 1