This is a blog series that we’ve put together in partnership with human performance experts, Edge10.
In part one, we discussed two ways to test your players’ speed and power. In part two below, we will show you how a tennis academy in Oregon improved the explosiveness, speed, and power of 17 of their players by as much as 17.8% in 8 weeks.
Learn More & Enroll in the Edge10 Speed & Power Training Program here.
Enrollment Ends June 6.
In the spring of 2020, Olympic record holder, Ian Campbell from Edge10, reached out to Mike Nakajima. With the pandemic putting a halt to in-person training, Ian wanted to find a way to train people virtually. He had been working on a new online program to help athletes become more explosive, faster, and stronger.
Mike is the former director of tennis for Nike where he helped identify and manage talent. He’s worked with McEnroe, Courier, Sampras, Agassi, Davenport, Serena, Federer, and Nadal. He’s seen them all train first-hand.
Ian asked Mike if they could try this new program with tennis players. Mike knew the perfect place to start.
17 Juniors. 8 Weeks. 2 Goals.
In Beaverton Oregon, you can find former Grand Slam Champion and world #1 doubles player, Jonathan Stark. He is the director at Oregon Elite Tennis. They train high-level juniors, sending many students to division I college programs throughout the country. Mike’s son was a student at the academy.
Before this program, Oregon Elite Tennis was like most other academies, the juniors spent most of their time on the court hitting balls. The kids were certainly in “good shape” but they didn’t train a lot for fitness specifically.
This 8-week training program would give them structured off-court training for the first time. The program had two very simple goals.
- Improve the players’ time in the 20-meter sprint.
- Improve the players’ distance in the standing long jump.
Using these two basic tests, Ian thought, will give us a way to quantify improvement for athletes in terms of both speed and power.
What he may not have realized, is that making this data quantifiable, would motivate the athletes to work harder during their off-court training sessions.
Mike Nakajima said of his son “he’s absolutely bought into the fact that off-court training helped him get to where he is.”
Mike and Jonathan started the 8-week training program last summer not sure what to expect.
Results Before The Training
When the 17 players in Oregon started their initial test, they recorded the results. Here are some real numbers from three of the players.
| Standing Long Jump | Distance (ft) |
|---|---|
| Player 1 | 7.3 |
| Player 2 | 4.85 |
| Player 3 | 5.4 |
You can see a wide variety of abilities here in terms of explosiveness and leg power.
| 20 Meter Sprint | Time (seconds) |
|---|---|
| Player 1 | 3.46 |
| Player 2 | 3.68 |
| Player 3 | 3.39 |
For the initial sprint times, the variance was not quite as high.
Learn More & Enroll in the Edge10 Speed & Power Training Program here.
Enrollment Ends June 6.
Training Begins…
The program designed by Ian requires 45 minutes of warmup and training on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with tests on Sundays to monitor improvement.
Mike and Jonathan took 17 juniors through the 8-week program. During this time, Mike noticed that the kids actually enjoyed their off-court training time. They especially looked forward to Sundays when they could try to beat their previous numbers or beat a friend’s personal record.
The training program created a competitive atmosphere that made motivation and improvement easy.
Week after week, the players continued to feel better. It seemed like they were a bit faster, and crucially, their stamina had improved. They could more easily play with the same footwork, intensity, and explosiveness late in a third set that they had started with right out of the gates.
Too often when we do off-court training, we don’t have the numbers to prove that it worked. That’s exactly what makes this new program different.
8 Weeks Later Every Single Player Was More Explosive, Stronger, & Faster
After the 8 weeks, all 17 players were better at both the standing long jump and the 20 meter spring.
Here were the numbers for the three players from above.
| Standing Long Jump | Before (ft) | After 8 Weeks | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player 1 | 7.3 | 7.5 | 0.2 ft | 2.67% |
| Player 2 | 4.85 | 5.9 | 1.05 ft | 17.8% |
| Player 3 | 5.4 | 6.3 | 0.9 ft | 14.29% |
You can see that player one who already had a good long jump, saw the least improvement while the players who weren’t as explosive initially saw more gains.
| 20 Meter Sprint | Before (sec) | After 8 Weeks | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player 1 | 3.46 | 3.15 | 0.31s | 9.84% |
| Player 2 | 3.68 | 3.39 | 0.29s | 8.55% |
| Player 3 | 3.39 | 2.98 | 0.41s | 13.76% |
For the sprint, all players became significantly faster.
Learn More & Enroll in the Edge10 Speed & Power Training Program here.
Enrollment Ends June 6.
This program, offered in 6 and 8-week packages, delivers a new proven way to make tennis players better. Tennis Analytics and Edge10 bring this to you in a simple online format.
- When? Initial tests begin Sunday, June 13
- Where? The online program comes with Edge10’s proven system including videos and content for you or your players to easily follow along. Specific instructions are released every Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the program.
- How? Enroll below before June 6 and get the lowest price.
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