Needs analysis

Evaluation of Sport:

During tennis all major muscle groups are involved in actions such as serving, running, swinging and changing direction, muscles contract concentrically and eccentrically for acceleration and deceleration, and the required equipment are tennis balls and a tennis racket. Competitions are played on multiple surfaces: grass, clay, hard and indoor. The physical requirements are cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance, strength, power, flexibility, and agility. Aerobic and anaerobic energy systems are utilised as tennis requires repeated bouts of moderate to high intensity work. Matches last between 45 minutes and 5 hours, with rest periods of 20-25 seconds between points and 60-90 seconds between every change of ends, an exercise to rest ratio of between 1:2 and 1:4 (USTA, 2010). Players play competitively weekly with little off season and play  in 15-30 tournaments annually (USTA, 2010).The common injuries in tennis are lateral epicondylitis, this is due to various factors such as premature trunk rotation as well as leading with the elbow and repeatedly extending the wrist for backhand strokes, impingement syndrome, which is due to the repetitive nature of the game including high velocity stress on the shoulder, and damage to ligaments via inversion injury is the most common type of ankle sprain in tennis (Perkins & Davis 2006).

Evaluation of athlete:
The athlete is a professional right hand dominant singles tennis player at the start of the off season. He has 3 years experience of structured resistance training. The latest movement assessment has identified good basic strength and reasonable technique on agility drills. It also identified the need to improve his footwork speed, core stability, stamina/ muscular endurance and overall strength. The athlete has previously suffered from tennis elbow in his dominant arm as a teenager but has been free of any symptoms for the past three years; he is currently injury free.

The athletes’ primary training goal for resistance training is to continue to develop the existing foundations of strength and improve core stability. Secondary goals of training have been identified as improvement of footwork speed, improvement of muscular endurance and stamina as well on the flexibility and speed components required for the sport.