The association begins to be direct and we will see its consequences. Preparing a Grand Slam locked up for 14 days in a room is very complicated and can seriously increase the risk of injury. Says one of the best physical trainers of the men’s circuit, Matt LittleAndy Murray’s longtime physical guide. This is how he explains, on the pages of ‘Metro’, what it means to be standing and training in these conditions.
The first thing is to differentiate the elite athlete from the conventional human being. Standing for a tennis player is a sentence. “Elite tennis players are the opposite of the rest of us. We all get stiff and sore when we start to do some exercise, while they get stiff and sore when they stop and don’t keep exercising. It’s like a sports car that It’s not used, it just starts to paralyze. Their bodies are so finely tuned and they put so much training into preparing for these tournaments that if they stop moving and stop doing what they do, that’s when a lot of problems can arise. Actually, it’s a disaster for them in these types of tournaments. They will adapt quickly to most things from a tactical and tennis perspective, but it is the exposure of the body to competition, after a two week period of forced rest, that is more dangerous for them. “
Within this lack of preparation or change in the conditions of the same, are the blows, and the gesture that is made when arming them. For Little, the issue of the serve is especially worrying. “The hit that is risky when you don’t do it for a few weeks is the serve. I hope not, but I expect a lot of pain in the shoulders of the tennis players. The players are the ball against the wall, but it’s not really as important as being able to land some serves against the wall, even if it’s on their knees, they need to expose their shoulder to that speed of movement and that specific action because most players will hit. 30-40 serves in a set, which means that if they play five sets they will be hitting 150 serves at high speed with their shoulder. Even with a week off at home, it takes forever for your shoulders to get used to that serving action again. “
“What causes the damage is the deceleration of the arm. So when you throw your arm fast on serve, you have to slow down. The small muscles at the back of the shoulder joint have to pull quite hard to do that. This It hurts quite a bit and can cause problems when the players start serving again. “
Little advises a series of exercises that simulate as much as possible the type of movement to be performed within a match. “I would encourage players to move as often as possible, as fast as possible, and to brake as hard as possible in their rooms. So either clearing their beds out of the way and doing a little agility work. For them, it will just be 10 meters if they’re lucky to have that in the room. But most of these moves in a match are three to five meters, so they can train quite specifically with that. “
“What they have to do once they get out of those rooms is build up physical load gently for at least two or three days, increasing the volume a little bit more. I’d say most of them will want to go out and hit for four or five. hours a day, but that’s really the last thing they should be doing. “
Can you, therefore, win a Grand Slam with this preparation?
“Great players can always do the impossible. The fact that they are so good allows them to use the early rounds of the tournament to catch up on a lot of things while they win. It may sound a bit harsh, but I would look at the list of injured players at the end. of the tournament compared to other tournaments. Players who are training are much less likely to be injured than players who have been sitting in a room and not doing this for two weeks. “
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