Coaching “Topic of the Week” Tips

Got a coaching tip to share? Please send it to me! (wayne@publictennis.org)

For more comprehensive coaching tips, take a look HERE. And for some useful videos, take a look HERE.
Make it fun out there!!

Positive Motivation is Best

The best motivation for continued engagement and improvement is rooted in positive achievement. Better skills means better points, better games, and more fun! Encouragement and praise for good (more like that! you can do it! great to see how that skill works for you…) beats negative incentive (run laps if…) any day. The most powerful and productive motivation comes from within based on each individual’s interest in accomplishment, knowledge, mastery, and enjoyment of the sport.

It’s a Game and it’s Fun!

As a coach, especially if you’re playing skills are high-level and you’re competitive, it’s easy to forget that the experience of learning and adopting tennis as a sport, for many children, has more to do with simple gameplay and fun than skills and advancement. Stop drilling and start playing games!

Tennis Videos on the Web … One size may not fit all

The web is an amazing resource, but also a potential source of conflicting information and confusion. As coaches, we should encourage inquisitive minds to learn from available resource, but we should anticipate questions and confusion which may arise from information our players are exposed to the web. For example, not all published tennis videos and training articles are responsibly done in many are not up to date. Also, teaching techniques are all over the map — for example, some coaches break things down and work on the parts before putting it all together (preferred), while others may suggest that there is a right way and a wrong way in a sort of “sink or swim” approach to learning in “one big gulp” (not preferred). It’s important to recognize with your players the diversity of coaching approaches so they will not be surprised or confused by what they’re doing when they work with you!

Slow Down, you move to fast!

While we find ourselves frequently urging players to move faster, we also need to remember when it’s time to slow down, learn the patterns of tennis footwork and stroke-work, and process visually what goo technique looks like and feels like. Not only does it make sense to demonstrate footwork and stroke-work slowly so players can process it, but also it makes sense for players to “shadow” your demo slowly, so you can correct them as needed, and so you they can both see and feel (and remember and repeat) what they are doing!

Something for Everyone

When we’re coaching groups, and especially groups with a range of skills, the absolute minimum requirement is that every participant “connects” at some point (and hopefully, at various points) in the session. As coaches, we must keep observing our lesson groups, even if they are arranged across courts by level, and asking ourselves, “is each individual connecting with something we’re doing today”? Will each participant go home today and say, “I had fun today… I learned x, y, z…”? If not, we must make real-time adjustments to drills, activities, and lesson plans.

The importance of Fun

Really interesting “Play into Competition” conference today from USTA — speaker after speaker reinforcing how sport science supports diversity of sport training for our young athletes AND the importance of creating activities and sport environments which are “fun”! Fun is the key to success, adoption, and advancement — and yet, most interesting to me is that “outcome” (winning) is a relatively unimportant part of truly having fun. Offering engaging activities is key. Training activities must be interesting, varied, challenging, and creative. Lots of play is essential, but the true fun of playing the game depends less on winning and much more on effort (trying hard), skills development and teamwork!

More Injury Prevention: Strength

The essential complement to flexibility in injury prevention is strength. Introduce your athletes to weekly routine exercises which build strength in critical muscles and around critical joints which are prone to injury in tennis, and can be protected (and perform better!) through strengthening exercises. Examples are core exercises, shoulder (rotator cuff) exercises, and calf muscle strengthening exercises.

Injury Prevention: Flexibility

While children tend to be more flexible in their joints and muscles than adults, ALL tennis players should have a warm-up routine (however minimal), to lengthen muscles, get blood flowing, and prepare the body for more vigorous exercise. This is particularly true as weather turns colder in Fall and Winter.

5 C’s and ABC’s

It’s easy to fall into a coaching trap and think that coaching is essentially about technical competence and readiness for competition. The USTA website mentioned in the October 11 tip centers on the 5 C’s of youth Development and the ABC’s of Athleticism:
5 C’s of Youth Development: Competence, Confidence, Character, Connection, Creativity
ABCs of Athleticism: Agility, Balance, Coordination, speed, endurance, and strength
There are so many dimensions to coaching!
If you haven’t visited the American Development Model website, please do some exploring HERE.

Coaching Resources, Sport Science

Consistent with the previous topics and themes mentioned here regarding the importance of holistic, multi-sport, multi-disciplinary training of total athletes, all coaches should spend some time with this resource: https://www.usta.com/en/home/play/american-development-model.html
The American Development Model is a modern athlete development framework with a solid sport science research foundation, and it is absolutely consistent with our NJTL mission.

Off-court Goals

Athletic development and achievement of individual potential depend on off-court, non-tennis cross-training and fitness work. The best tennis players are the best athletes. Encourage multi-sport play — “what other sports are you playing?” Encourage an at-home, daily/weekly, fitness regimen — “what core work did you do this week? What aerobic work did you do?”. If words like “core” and “aerobic” are not meaningful to your players, educate them! Think of fitness level as the “clay” players bring to the court to “mold” into tennis form!

Celebrate Progress

Both group and individual progress matter, and both should be opportunities for celebration. Look for milestones in learned skills, fitness, attitude, and effort and mark them with celebration!

Raise the bar!

While repetition is beneficial, coaching is a continuous resetting of goals. “Optimal challenge” is a moving target as groups and individuals learn and grow. Raise the expectation bar with every lesson!

Make it Real

It’s easy as a coach to over-praise or to praise so generally that the praise is actually disingenuous. “YES” to celebrating achievement and effort, but be sure your words are group- and player-specific so your athletes know it’s real!

Player Engagement is not “one size fits all”!

For new players, the process of “engagement” usually look something like this:
1. the player discovers tennis (“looks like fun”)
2. the player is entertained by tennis (“this is fun”)
3. the player develops some skills (“I need skills to play”)
4. the player uses skills to play the game (“I can play”)
5. the player adopts tennis as a sport (“this is my sport”)
As coaches, we need to realize that what ‘adoption’ means varies by player … for some, tennis is more recreational and for others it is more competitive … there’s a wide spectrum! even as we’re trying to get the best out of each player, the key for coaches is to allow tennis to fit the player — the common denominator is lifelong fun!

Balance

Roger Federer’s long term success has brought a lot of attention to the importance of stability and balance in tennis. As a skilled player moves, tracks the ball, and sets up, his/her head is steady, and he/she remains in balance. To train and tune balance more effectively, it’s useful to understand what balance is and what makes it possible. Informally, balance is our ability to maintain stability over our feet and legs as the supporting base. Human balance involves the proprioceptive, visual, and vestibular systems. Proprioceptive refers to the feedback loop for “feel” involving muscles, joints, soft tissues, and skin receptors. Visual is sight which provides a sense of orientation relative to the ground and other objects. And vestibular provides inner-ear-organ-based feedback which conveys a sense of motion, equilibrium, and spatial orientation. All three work together and reinforce each other, so one way to train 2 out of three is to do drills which isolate 1 or 2 systems — for example, closing one or both eyes while balancing on one foot. Videos are coming soon which illustrate how to train balance.

Training “total athletes”

Overall fitness is what it’s all about! The best athletes cross-train and train on court with and without racquets. Tennis-specific skills and technique are only part of what we’re teaching. Make sure your lesson plans include adequate emphasis, time, drills and games for aerobic fitness, agility, balance, strength, flexibility, and coordination. Put the racquets down periodically for elements of fitness training. A great example which works on the court is an “obstacle course” using accessories like agility ladders, cones, and spots. Another example is throwing and catching activities which can be geared to develop flexibility, hand-eye coordination, and balance. Bring some soccer balls to the court, bring footballs… get creative!

Groups with Diverse Skill Levels: Inclusion

A big part of success in coaching groups is creating a sense of “group identity”. As a player/participant, regardless of skill level, it’s motivating and simply feels good to know that all players are peers and goals are shared. While lesson plans and activities are designed to optimally challenge players at their respective levels, lesson themes (as previously described) are an opportunity to invite all players in a group to participate in a shared experience — especially if coaches call on their groups to “shout out” or otherwise reinforce and repeat the theme from wherever they are on court, and especially at the end of a session (cheer). It’s also great for group identity, interaction, and inclusion to create activities which break up levelled sub-groups for team activities and competition involving a range of skills (“team challenge”).

Covid Note: Safety first! Inclusive activities must be planned with current Covid protocols in mind. Creativity may be required to incorporate rules for spacing and congregating in group activities.

Work on Footwork Speed & Agility

It’s easy to spend too much time hitting balls, and too little time on non-racquet skills such as footwork speed and agility. Use your imagination and a few props (spots, cones, balls, court lines, court chalk, etc.) to set up drills, race your players, time your players, do an obstacle course, … Be sure to include plenty of side-to-side movement in your drills as the majority of tennis footwork is lateral.

Work on Deceleration Footwork

It’s easy to focus on acceleration and spend less time on deceleration footwork in tennis. Essentials of deceleration are anticipating the setup for the type and direction of the next shot, taking progressively smaller steps, and gaining as much balance as possible to support weight transfer and clean swing technique.

Another Lesson Theme Example

As described in previous weeks (6/28, 7/5), lesson themes are great for focusing and reinforcing learning, and calling out thematic phrases celebrates the theme and makes it memorable. For example, in a session focused on footwork, have your players call out their split steps … “split!”. Or, to reinforce essential footwork during volleys, call out “volley with your feet!”.

Biomechanics and Leverage, Part 2 (Plyometric Exercises)

Read about plyometrics (Google) and spend some time exploring two-footed vertical jumping (for example, jump up to a platform). Try applying a similar plyometric exercise to shadow box serving, by starting in the “full racquet drop” position (elbow up, racquet head down) and executing the “up swing” while executing a vertical jump (by flexing and extending at knees and hips). Feel how force from the ground is translated to upward racquet force.

Biomechanics and Leverage, Part 1

Q: Where does most tennis swing power come from?
A: The ground.
Q: How do muscles engage power from the ground?
A: Through angular movements which create directional force, and by storing and releasing energy through “stretch-shorten” muscle contractions (eccentric contraction followed by concentric contraction).
If this is all new to you, this is a good time for some google searches!

Lesson Theme Example

Based on coach feedback/questions about last week’s topic “themes” topic, a thematic lesson plan example follows (pretty simple). This is just an idea … put your own “spin” on it, make it meaningful, and make it fun!

  • “Spin it to win it” lesson theme
    • Theme introduction — today’s lesson
      • (A) Spin production mechanics
      • (B) Situational use of spin (consistency of depth, short angles, lobs, etc.)
    • Drills involving A and B
    • Games involving A and B
    • Summary review (all together now … “Spin it to Win it!”)

Lesson “Themes”

A previous topic on lesson structure mentioned “themes”. Every lesson is an opportunity to go beyond skills and add both sport and life context. While it might be “good enough” to send coaches out to each court to do a routine (groundstrokes, then volleys, then serves, then …), even better is starting and ending with a lesson theme, making sure any new vocabulary is understood by all, and reinforcing the theme during each phase of the lesson. The theme can relate to specific technique, to the game, to a life skill … just about anything which relates to athletic pursuits, the sport of tennis, to learning and/or to training as a group. Examples: why depth of shot matters, spin and how to use it, how to use angles, teamwork, cooperative practice, coordination, balance, agility, leadership, strategy, tactics, strength and flexibility, muscle groups and fitness, nutrition prior to practice/play, hydration, etc.. (many, many topics!)

Teaching (a little!) Technique to Beginners

Sometimes less is more! Beginners typically get the hang of tennis better with less technical instruction and more simple reinforcement of success. YES to swing demos, learning by visual example, games with goals, and fun. NO to long-winded descriptions of technique.

Progression Options

Most experienced coaches vary the challenge level naturally without thinking about it. But when it comes to mentoring inexperienced coaches, you might need to convey a more specific list of progression options. For example, short vs. long court, soft vs. hard, low vs. high, feeding/playing to vs. away from the athlete, varying frequency of balls or pace of drill, less vs. more movement/footwork, flat vs. spin vs. slice, slow vs. fast balls, static vs. dynamic play, feeding vs. live ball drills, one stroke vs. multi-stroke sequences, static vs. dynamic targets, simple drill vs. strategic game play, simplified complex stroke (serve) breakdown vs. complete sequence, etc.

Coaches are…

  • Professional, with one-way focus on developing players
  • Enthusiastic but at arms length, not friends
  • Role models
  • Skill builders and enablers of the discovery process

Defining Group Success

A couple of thoughts about group coaching success…
1. Players advance at varying rates, so skills and advancement are important, but the real challenge is to involve everyone equally and support multiple paths toward sport adoption (key coaching tools: optimal challenge, progressions/variations, inclusive group games).
2. Build respect for success!  The basis for coaching effectiveness is building player respect for the coaching team, player respect for other players, player respect for the sport, and enthusiastic cooperative partnering.

Optimal Challenge

Related to last week’s topic, progressions, is the concept of optimal challenge. ‘Optimal’, in this context, means the right balance of challenge and success to support engagement and learning! Too much failure? Too much success? Use progressions effectively to adjust the level of challenge!

Using Progressions Effectively

It’s hard to learn in one big step! We teach by breaking skills down into smaller pieces and smaller steps. One step is the foundation for the next — explore and learn step one, add step two, three, four… Recognize that players learn in different ways and at different rates, and offer alternate paths toward mastery.
Example: Partner progression to teach cooperative rallying VIDEO

Tennis Lesson Structure

  1. Set-Up, Check-In
  2. Introduce a lesson theme
  3. Warm-up activities
  4. Theme-reinforcing Skill & Drill activities
  5. Theme-reinforcing Games
  6. Review & Celebrate what the group learned

Note: “Themes” can be skill-based (e.g. stroke, technique, footwork), fitness-based, learning principle-based (e.g. “practice makes perfect”, “walk before you run”), life skill-based (teamwork, respect, decision-making, listening, negotiating), or simply fun (dancing, acting, celebrating a holiday or a tradition or an event)