I am in the middle of a six week structured improvement program inspired by one of Dennis Ralston’s books, Six Weeks to a Better Level of Tennis. During this time, I am publishing a status update on the effort every Sunday. The two previous posts on this topic are summarized below in case anyone is interested in a refresher.
- Week Zero: Introduction of the inspiration and arc of the project.
- Week One: How the “Davis Court Circuit” hobbled me for a few days.
- Week Two: You’re reading it!
This project has brought me to the realization that my tennis training has been suffering under the tyranny of the calendar. Due to my age and geographic good fortune, I have a lot of opportunities to play both league and tournament tennis. I habitually fill my calendar with those opportunities. Consequently I am perpetually heading into some sort of match that matters.
Always having a meaningful match on the horizon reduces my appetite for making significant changes to my stroke mechanics. Additionally, strength and conditioning training also takes a hit. I an usually tapering down toward some sort of competition. Unfortunately, most of the time it is just tapering down from one tournament to the next.
If the fact that I have a book on tennis that was published in 1977 casually sitting on my bookshelf didn’t make it obvious, I own A LOT of tennis books. With a nod to Marie Kondo, they genuinely spark joy. I love them all.
“Fit to Play Tennis: High Performance Training Tips” is a book in my collection that I frequently consult as a part my tennis journey. It has a lot of great information, presented in an extremely well organized and accessible manner. Part two of that book is “Structured Yearly Planning & Periodization.”
The reason “Fit to Play” was visited this week is because I had the dawning realization that the six week time span promoted in Ralston’s book is really just an early form of the currently stylish training term “periodization.” I wanted to bounce that idea off a slightly more current resource.
My experimentation with Ralston’s book coupled with the COVID-19 total eclipse of meaningful competition, has made me look through the periodization section in “Fit to Play” through an entirely different lens. For example, I have always created a yearly plan, but now I realize that my yearly plan has focused way too much on events that would be played and not nearly enough on training cycles building toward competition.
As my work through the plan designed to improve my overall court mobility that I distilled from Ralston’s book, improvement is strinkingly apparent. I am most definitely getting to more balls during my practice matches.
There are also some discouraging side effects. For example, my serve went to hell because I started dropping my head in an attempt to quickly recognize the trajectory of the return. Additionally, I have been losing some points due to overrunning balls. That is a completely new experience for me.
I also experienced a recent day of “dead feet” and low energy. Unfortunately, that day intersected with a practice match. I have suddenly found sluggish footwork to be intolerable. More intentional rest days should probably be injected into my training plan going forward.
With four weeks remaining in the “Six Weeks” project, I am still encouraged my the early gains and enjoy creating and refining the training plan. I think that the focus and clarity brought on by the ideas presented in Ralston’s book are making a positive difference.
It also makes me wonder… what other tennis wisdom is languishing on my bookshelf.
- Ralston, Dennis, & Tarshis, Barry, 1977, Six Weeks to a Better Level of Tennis, Simon and Schuster, New York, New York.
- Petersen, Carl, & Nittinger, Nina, 2006, Fit to Play Tennis, High Performance Training Tips, Racquet Tech Publishing, Vista, California
