It’s great to have aspirations. However, desire has to advance beyond the “wish” stage for any chance of actually happening. Turning your dreams into reality demands an action plan. This Friday brings us to the last “gift” for transforming your tennis life in 2022. Becoming the best player that you can be requires a tennis development roadmap.
The professional tour calendars are largely dormant in December. You will occasionally hear the time between now and the start of the Australian Open series in January referred to as the “off-season” by the media. At the same time, if you listen closely, many of the top players speak in terms of “training blocks” and “periodization” during this time of the year.
In my non-professional tennis circles, tennis improvement goals are most likely to be set as a part of New Year’s Resolutions. While that is a very natural time to do advanced planning, December is even better. There is nothing that says you cannot continue what you have already started as New Year’s Resolutions at the end of this month.
An off-season training block is an optimum time to work on developmental needs that might interfere with on-court performance once the calendar is cluttered with League and tournament matches that matter again next year. This is the time to overhaul your technique on a stroke that has been problematic or needs to be transformed into a weapon. It is also a great opportunity to “level up” your cardio fitness.
If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to outline your tennis competition calendar for the coming year. Chances are that exercise will reveal that the next time you want to be playing at your peak competitive level is somewhere between March and June. Visualizing your future self competing in those events is a great tool to identify the focus areas for your off-season training block. What will your future self thank you for doing now?
Once you define those focus areas, you need to build a detailed plan for making it happen. If you have fitness or strength training goals, this is the time to map out specifically when you are going to go to the gym along with exactly what you are going to do in each of those sessions. Similarly, set up the training sessions needed for your targeted on-court performance improvements.
The key to success this off-season is identifying exactly what it is you are going to do and locking it into your calendar and task list. Additionally, it is prudent to make advanced contingency plans should the weather disrupts outdoor court time. For example, make the commitment to yourself that if it rains, you are going to the gym for functional training that aligns with that disrupted tennis session.
Life is a journey, not a destination. The same can be said of your tennis life as well. A development roadmap is a great tool for getting everything you can out of the voyage.
Wise words! Thx for sharing!