Long Term Development

What is the role of long term development in creating champions?

What does it take to create a junior or a professional champion? The answer is complex, but one factor that has been generally overlooked in tennis coaching is what we call long-term athletic development.

To maximize a player's potential, coaching methodology should be based on a long-term philosophy. This philosophy takes into account the development of the athlete over time, not just short term competitive results. Long-term development is the basis for training in Olympic sports. Unfortunately, as in so many areas of coaching, tennis is lagging far behind when it comes to recognizing or implementing this critical principle.

Scientific research has concluded that it takes approximately 10 years of dedicated of training for an athlete to reach elite levels. This is called the ten-year or 10,000 hour rule. For the athlete, coach, and parents, this translates into slightly about three hours of deliberate practice a day, for a period of ten years.

It takes 10,000 hours of dedicated training to reach your potential.

Unfortunately, too many coaches still approach training with an attitude best characterized as "Win Today". Too often, the long-term interests of a player are sacrificed for short-term tournament results and rankings. Coaches with this attitude develop players who are over-coached but under-developed.

Many junior players trained with this approach reach the 16s or 18s age divisions without a clearly defined style of play. They may be successful in their age group, but they often have significant technical, tactical, mental, or physical limitations. These limitations will prevent them from achieving their real potential. Tragically at this point it's too late to reverse the damage. The player's potential has been permanently stunted through a lack planning.

That's why a long term plan is so important. A specific, well-planned training regime ensures optimum development throughout an athlete's career. This means developing every aspect of the game and helping a player meld his skills into a personal playing style. Developing a personal playing style is critical to long term success, and much more important than short term competitive results. This overriding goal must be kept in mind on an ongoing basis. All results, wins, losses, progress, set backs, should be seen in the context of how they relate to personal playing style and the long term plan to develop and optimize the player's potential.

Developing a personal playing style is the key long term goal.

A long term development plan also gives coaches the ability understand and to control another critical factor in training. This the stress-recovery cycle. If the stress-recovery cycle is not properly understood and addressed, it can lead to overtraining, burn out, and major injuries. As with playing style, developing the proper training cycles for the long term is far more important than winning matches, rankings, etc. Players, coaches, and parents are frequently guilty of creating too much stress without proper recovery. They do this by training too much and too hard for the short term. The results can be disastrous for the player and are a primary cause of burn out.

It's critical to understand that tennis is a late specialization sport. All sports can be classified as either early specialization or late specialization. Early specialization sports include gymnastics, figure skating, diving, and swimming. These sports require early recruitment of athletes and early sport specific training.

Years 9 to 12: the golden age for developing athletic skills.

Late specialization sports include golf, ball games, cycling, combat sports - and all racket sports, including tennis. These require the opposite approach. Here a generalized approach to early training is key. The early emphasis should be on general athletic development and fundamental motor skills.

These facts dictate the foundations of a long term tennis training program, a program that so often goes against conventional coaching wisdom. A common misconception is that the sooner a young player focuses exclusively on tennis, the better. Actually in the long run, the reverse could be true. Remember that John McEnroe was a stand out high school soccer player, and never played tennis year round until going to the semi-finals of Wimbledon at a 17 year old! Remember that Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish played varsity basketball together throughout their high school careers.

Because tennis is a late specialization sport, I don't recommend that coaches, parents, and children adopt a "tennis only" regime too early, even if a child appears to show great promise. The ages of 9 to 12, often called "Golden Age," are one of the most important periods of motor development for children. It is during this period that children develop the fundamental movement skills that are the cornerstones of all athletic development.

A positive and fun environment is the basis for development.

These fundamental skills include running, hopping, bounding, throwing, and jumping. The introduction of the ABC's of athleticism (agility, balance, coordination, speed) during this period lays the foundation for later years. The fundamental skills must be mastered before higher level sport specific skills can be successfully learned. This is why at a young age we encourage participation in a wide variety of sports.

The emphasis on motor skill development in a positive, supportive, and fun environment will yield athletes who have better physical potential for long-term tennis specific development. Research indicates that if general motor skills are not developed between the ages of 9-12, this loss cannot be recaptured at a later time. If a young tennis player misses out on his overall athletic development by focusing too much on tennis too soon, he can actually create the reverse effect than he and his coaches may intend. By playing too much tennis he will limit his potential to be the best tennis player he can be.

In order to maximize the development of players over the long run, the best plan is to adopt a four stage training model developed by Dr. Istvan Balyi. The four stages are:

1 - FUNdamental Stage
2 - Training to Train Stage
3 - Training To Compete Stage
4 - Training to Win Stage

The FUNdamental stage should be well structured and fun! The emphasis is on the overall development of an athlete's physical capacities, and fundamental movement skills (The ABC's - Agility, Balance, Coordination and Speed).

From the ages of 5 to 10 the emphasis is on structure and fun.

Participation in as many sports as possible is encouraged. Speed, power, and endurance are developed using FUN games. Correct running, jumping, and throwing techniques are taught.

The use of 'own body weight' games, medicine ball and Swiss ball exercises are encouraged and athletes are introduced to the simple rules and ethics of sports. No periodization training takes place, but all programs are structured and monitored.

Tennis is part of this overall program. But again the structure and emphasis is on playing games, having fun, and physical development. Age appropriate racket and balls are important.

Modifying the court size will ensure activities are geared for success and optimize the time spent 'playing' tennis. Too often, coaches and parents are eager to accelerate the player through this stage thinking they can "get ahead." Remember, the rate of development is predominantly determined by the physical and motor co-ordination capacities of the player, not how many 'lessons' or 'clinics' are paid for.

Modifying the court size is one way to help optimize development.

This stage is similar to the bamboo tree. In the first four years, the bamboo tree grows three feet and develops it root structure. In the fifth year, it grows 30 feet! Adopt the mindset of maximizing this developmental stage. Go slow, expose the player to a wide range of athletic experiences and build a sense of joy and adventure in everything you do. During the Training to Train stage, young athletes learn how to train systematically. They are formally introduced to the basic tennis skills as well as technical/tactical skills, and ancillary capacities such as: warming up and cooling down, stretching, hydration and nutrition, recovery and regeneration, relaxation and focusing, taper and peaking for competition.

Build a sense of joy and adventure into everything you do.

During this stage they can begin tournament play. During competition athletes definitely should try to win and to do their best, however, the focus of training is on learning the basics. Competing is secondary and it is important not to put too much importance on results, whether good results or bad.

Training and competition ratios are important. Too many competitions will waste valuable training time. Conversely, not enough competition will inhibit the practice of technical skills and the ability to face the physical and mental challenges presented during competition. A ratio of 75% training to 25% competition is recommended by experts during the Training to Train stage. But these percentages will vary according to a players individual needs.

The focus is on skill development not outcome.

The underlying attitude of the coach, parent and player during this stage is to focus on the process (training and performing to one's actual best capacity) rather than the outcome (winning). We believe that athletes undertaking this type of preparation are better prepared for competition in both the short and long-term than athletes who focus solely on the rankings and tournament wins during these years. It is important to note that the 25% competition ratio refers to actual tournament play. Players in this stage still compete daily, in the form of practice matches and competitive games and drills.

The Training to Train stage addresses the critical period of physical and skill development. If an athlete misses this stage of training, they may never reach their full potential. The reason we see so many athletes plateau during the later stage of their careers is primarily due to an over emphasis on competition instead of training during this critical period in their athletic development.

In this stage you can institute a single annual periodization training framework with one major competition (a sectional or national tournament) for every 10 to 23 weeks of development. By the age of 13-14, two distinctive competitive seasons are planned and implemented.

In Stage 3 introduce high intensity tennis specific training.

This phase of development is introduced only after the goals and objectives of the Training to Train stage have been achieved. During the Training to Compete Stage, high intensity, tennis specific training is introduced on a year round basis. Athletes learn how to perform skills under a variety of conditions and are exposed to all possible competitive situations during training.

Fitness programs, recovery programs, psychological preparation and technical development should now be individually tailored to a greater degree. These activities are organized above and beyond group preparation to address each player's individual weaknesses.

The training to competition ratio now changes to 50:50. But this will again vary according specific needs. During this phase, you can adopt a double periodization framework. This means 2 competitive seasons for every 14-16 weeks of development.

In Stage 4 the shift is to optimizing competitive performance.

At ages 17-18, this can shift to a triple periodization framework that allows players to compete at the highest level and still address continuing development needs. This is the final stage of athletic preparation. All of the athlete's physical, technical, tactical, mental, and ancillary capacities are now fully established with the focus of training shifting to the optimization of performance. Athletes are trained to peak for major competitions. The training to competition ratio shifts again in this stage to 25% training to 75%. Included now in the 75% are a wide variety of competition specific training activities. A multiple periodized framework (3 or more competitive seasons) is adopted for an athlete's playing calendar.

When it is all said and done, there are no short cuts to long-term athlete development. Optimizing the technical, tactical, mental and physical development of our athletes is the best investment we can make in their future as tennis players and as outstanding citizens in the community long after they leave our care.

Special thanks for help with the filming for this article goes to the staff at Alpine Hills Swim and Tennis Club in Portola Valley, Ca: Chris Bradley, Tennis Director, Steve Beggelman, Head Pro, and Terry Roundtree, Junior Player Director.

Long Term Development

Peter McCraw