Fitness and a 10 year old

[gplracer]

How much improvement in fitness can a 10 year who is already pretty fit make in a month?

[ollinger]

Ummm, what possible reason could there be to rapidly improve the fitness of a 10 year old in just one month --- and is it child abuse to try??

[WildVolley]

How do you define fitness?

I think 10-year-olds should stay active but not be overly pushed in training.

As a 14-year-old track athlete, my times in the sprints all declined over the track season because the coaches were encouraging me to overtrain.

[gplracer]

Originally Posted by ollinger

Ummm, what possible reason could there be to rapidly improve the fitness of a 10 year old in just one month --- and is it child abuse to try??

Ummm what are you talking about? Child abuse? My son loves playing sports and he loves to go running. I never make him do it if he does not want to. I am also aware that age appropriate exercise is very important. My son is very tall for his age and needs to work on his fitness. He plays in the 12s. At the last USTA RTC he recently attended they said he needed to work on core strength and agility. The next camp is about 4 weeks away. I just wondered if in 4 weeks it is possible to see a difference. That is of course without over training.

[r2473]

Just have him copy Djokovic, Murray, or Federer's training program. Heck, why not do all 3?

[r2473]

Originally Posted by WildVolley

How do you define fitness?

I think 10-year-olds should stay active but not be overly pushed in training.

As a 14-year-old track athlete, my times in the sprints all declined over the track season because the coaches were encouraging me to overtrain.

wimp!!

I bet your dad was disappointed in you.

[gplracer]

This is worthless.

[maverick66]

Originally Posted by gplracer

This is worthless.

kid is ten.

This is the time to improve motor skills and ingraine stroke mechanics into his game. Running and doing sit ups at his level are not gonna make him great but grooving quality strokes will.

Spend your time teaching him to play the game worry about the fitness side of it when he is older and is moving onto competition more than learning. Right now court time is more important than anything.

[gplracer]

Marerick66 thanks for your post. It is appreciated. He does a lot of that too. It just seems that some time be spent on getting more fit. Right now we have not really put any emphasis in that area. Recently he as been doing baseball as well. Always good to have another sport going in the background at this age.

[themitchmann]

Agility drills and footwork patterns will be helpful for fitness as well as technique.

[maverick66]

Originally Posted by themitchmann

Agility drills and footwork patterns will be helpful for fitness as well as technique.

This is a good idea.

If you wanna focus on his fitness at this point use it as part of learning the game.

There is a tennis lesson thread in the tips section where TennisBalla shows a pretty good drill where he moves his student and yet is teaching at the same time. These are the kind of things I would do with a younger player so that they learn to efficiently move around the court.

Try to incorporate as much tennis movement or skills into it. Hitting the gym just isnt gonna really do much for a 10 yo. Let him grow a little than you can worry about things like core strength.

[Mick3391]

Originally Posted by gplracer

How much improvement in fitness can a 10 year who is already pretty fit make in a month?

My son just turned 12, played on the Tennis Team at school.

All I can say is that most of the kids, JV and Varsity were in horrible shape, like 25 kids, the coach hated it. They did wind sprints, but were still not in shape, taking huge gasps of air in simply ralleys.

A few however were in incredible shape, just unbounded energy. I have my son physically working only on wind sprints, running backwards, and working up gradually general jogging distance. I thought about getting leg weights and all kinds of things, but I understand that may not be right at this stage. When I was that age we worked out like crazy, different time. Now you talk about getting in shape and people bring up child abuse, just ignore them.

He played his first USTA tourney and was destroyed physically by a 10 year old and a 13 year old. We work on catching the ball, throwing it up, eye-hand coodanation things, and of course shots and playing.

I say if he wants it, if he wants to get in shape,work him until he is dead tired, they recover so quick.

[themitchmann]

Agility is about body control and coordination. If you get an agility ladder (there's a skilz brand one for $25 on amazon), you can make it challenging in terms of fitness and coordination.

Another good drill is a adjusting step drill in a figure 8 pattern (make figure 8s around 2 obstacles - I use comes, but have seen water bottle and ball cans used as well). Start with an easy work to rest ratio, then make it more difficult as his fitness improves (10 secs work, 20 rest...20 work, 20 rest...you get the idea).

[maggmaster]

Jump rope, it is fun, teaches foot placement and builds a cardio base.

[themitchmann]

Originally Posted by maggmaster

Jump rope, it is fun, teaches foot placement and builds a cardio base.

It also helps teach landing mechanics and how to be "bouncy" with your legs. Great exercise.

[charliefedererer]

Tennis demands quick stopping, starting and changes in direction.

While agility drills can help with this, playing basketball and soccer are great.

To play defense the player has to learn to keep the center of gravity low to zig when their opponent zigs, and zag when their opponent zags.

USTA agility drills: http://assets.usta.com/assets/1/USTA...oc_437_269.pdf

The spider drills and horizontal repeaters are favorites as they mimic the extent of movement on court for those unlikely to rush the net.
Swing the racquet before each change in direction.

Doing agility exercises can be tricky because it needs to stay fun for a ten year old.
Some will like to beat their best time to go through 2-3 sets of these exercises - many will feel like they are being over worked.

[SystemicAnomaly]

Originally Posted by gplracer

... My son loves playing sports and he loves to go running. I never make him do it if he does not want to. I am also aware that age appropriate exercise is very important. My son is very tall for his age and needs to work on his fitness. He plays in the 12s. At the last USTA RTC he recently attended they said he needed to work on core strength and agility. The next camp is about 4 weeks away. I just wondered if in 4 weeks it is possible to see a difference. That is of course without over training.

Is he only doing aerobic running? It is ok for him to do some of that but he also needs anaerobic fitness -- wind sprints / interval training.

For his core strength he might perform a bit of medicine ball work -- but not too much. At his age it is probably not wise to engage in too much plyometric training. Jumping rope is another good idea -- it is considered a low-level plyomentric exercise. It should help somewhat with his footwork/agility and hit overall fitness. He can incorporate skipping rope with his interval training. Jump (high intensity) for 20-30 seconds and then walk (low intensity) for 30-40 seconds. Rinse and repeat for 10 minutes or more.

[gplracer]

He is 5'2" at 10 and 5 months. He gets most of his fitness from playing tennis and going to tennis clinic. He did recently play baseball and now is looking forward to playing soccer.

[charliefedererer]

My kids at 10 did play tennis, but local tennis options emphasized strokes, with minimal emphasis on fitness.

They both enjoyed soccer and basketball though, playing on school teams starting in the fourth grade.

Every summer they went to two weeks of basketball camp where they were run ragged playing full court games.

I am sure they got much more conditioning, learned how to play always in a balanced state, and were not afraid of playing to the point of being short of breath from playing basketball or soccer than from playing tennis.



Likewise, I'll bet your son gets a lot more conditioning playing soccer than playing tennis.

And soccer forces him to stay in the "athletic posture" of always keeping his body in balance for changes in direction.

Just keep a look out, and give him guidance if it looks like he is too often "standing tall", rather than in a balanced position when the ball is not near him. And keeping his feet in constant motion with many small adjusting steps, especially on defense. And knowing when to break out of a run to a sprint when the situation demands it.

You won't need the AP belt to teach your kid the athletic posture and won't need other conditioning if he embraces soccer played full out.
Athletic Foundation Intensity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERo21...feature=relmfu


[I really think the main reason American tennis is in decline is that American kids don't play soccer like kids elsewhere in the world. And by the time kids would be old enough to have decent basketball skills to benefit from the conditioning, they quit the sport to concentrate full time on tennis.]

[maverick66]

Originally Posted by charliefedererer

[I really think the main reason American tennis is in decline is that American kids don't play soccer like kids elsewhere in the world. And by the time kids would be old enough to have decent basketball skills to benefit from the conditioning, they quit the sport to concentrate full time on tennis.]

One of the worst things we do is specialize our kids when it comes to sports. The positives of playing other sports is really quite good and we rob them of it when they have to play only tennis. The coordination required to play soccer, basketball, and almost any other sport they wish to play will carry over quite well.

Almost everyone i knew that came in late to the sport as a JR and did good enough to play college tennis came over from soccer so I agree with you that the movement aspect of the sport translates very well. I would think that would work however for any sport that requires you to be athletic and stop and go all the time. Its a shame we discourage it so much as other countries use it to their benefit.