Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the acute and delayed effects of medicine ball throws and resistance training in ball velocity and accuracy of serve, forehand and backhand in young competition tennis players. A crossover-randomized design was used with 10 competition tennis players (6 girls and 4 boys between 14 and 18 years old). The subjects performed 6 stroke test sessions, 3 for each strength protocol. The velocity and accuracy of strokes were measured before (basal situation), 3 minutes, 24 and 48 hours after the protocol. Medicine ball throws protocol was performed by accomplishing 3 sets of 6 repetitions using a 2 kg ball, throwing it at maximal speed. Resistance training protocol was performed by accomplishing 3 sets of 6 repetitions at 75% one-repetition maximum, lifting the load at maximal speed of bench press, dead lift, one hand row and half squat. There were no significant (p > 0.05) differences in all strokes, regarding ball velocity and accuracy after each method and each recovery time, compared to the basal situation. These results suggest that medicine ball throws and resistance training methods have no acute and delayed detrimental effects on stroke velocity and accuracy in young competition tennis players.
Highlights
In tennis, like many sports, strength training is essential for a high tennis performance, to develop strength and power, and to prevent injuries [1,2,3]
The ability to produce a high ball velocity is a key point for tennis players performance [7, 8], because serve has been positively correlated with the proportion of points won [9] and forehand and backhand groundstrokes ball velocity seems to be the determining factor that separates elite from sub-elite tennis players [10]
The mean peak ball velocity and accuracy, effect size, mean change and percentage of changes of serve, forehand and backhand after the training protocols are shown in Table 3 for velocity and Table 4 for accuracy
Summary
Like many sports, strength training is essential for a high tennis performance, to develop strength and power, and to prevent injuries [1,2,3]. The ability to produce a high ball velocity is a key point for tennis players performance [7, 8], because serve has been positively correlated with the proportion of points won [9] and forehand and backhand groundstrokes ball velocity seems to be the determining factor that separates elite from sub-elite tennis players [10]. Accuracy is important in a successful play [2, 5], even a higher ball velocity and accuracy forehand has been associated with a higher experience of players [11]. It has been observed a negative correlation between serve velocity and the proportion of serve.
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