Advanced cardio classes
come with own criteria
by Eric Alexon, USPTA
December 2006 -- I am one of 35-plus
teaching professionals at Midtown Tennis
Club in Chicago and a member of the National
Cardio Tennis Speakers Team. I average 35
hours of teaching a week and 12 of those
hours are Cardio Tennis classes. Midtown
Tennis Club has been an official Cardio
Tennis site for about a year and because we
are a mature site offering almost 20 cardio
classes per week we have the flexibility of
segmenting ability levels. We offer original
cardio as well as beginner cardio and now
advanced cardio classes on Wednesday and
Friday mornings from 6 to 8 a.m. Advanced
Cardio Tennis is for players who are rated 4.5
and above and are in excellent physical
condition. The Friday advanced cardio has
grown to 12 students so we run it on two
courts with two pros. Certain elements are
necessary for an advanced cardio class to be
successful.
Be strict in requiring students to
be at least at a 4.5 playing level
This is important to maintain the integrity of
the class and keep people motivated. This
class raises the bar and gives members an
“ultimate goal.” What a great motivating force
as it gives players in the club something to
strive for. Interestingly, we offer original
cardio classes at the same time as our
advanced cardio classes. These classes are
taught side by side so the players in original
cardio can be inspired. In fact, two of the
students from the original cardio class have
worked hard for four or five months to finally
be good enough skill-wise and fitness-wise to
move up to the advanced cardio classes.
Keeping the group homogenous will capture
those advanced players because they will have
confidence the playing level will be
consistently high and lesser-skilled players
will not be a factor in potentially obstructing
their workout. The students who participate in
advanced Cardio Tennis need to be in great
physical condition as well. Just because you
are a 4.5 tennis player doesn‘t mean you are
ready from a fitness standpoint for an
advanced cardio class. Your students will need
to handle the demands of the drill-based
portion that will challenge their fitness with
more advanced sideline activities like squat
jumps, ski-jumpers and two-court sprints, etc.
Some of the games and rotations in the gamesbased portion are more taxing as well, like
running around the second court during the
“desperate housewives” segment or playing
“intense.” Both portions of the advanced
cardio class, drill-based and play-based, are
more challenging and require a better cardio
fitness level. There is no benefit in taking an
advanced cardio class because you are a 4.5plus player if you have to sit out every five
minutes because you are not in good enough
cardiovascular shape. So stress to your
potential student the increased cardio demands
of the advanced cardio class.
Class size should be limited to
six students per court and pro
Keep the numbers lower than in original
cardio or classes for beginners. When the
ability level and fitness level is this high, the
group must be challenged and if more players
are on the court they will probably not be in
their heart rate range for extended periods of
time. Advanced cardio students are the type of
people who essentially want their “butts
kicked.” Keep rotations quick and play your
games so they are like a never-ending point.
As I always like to say, “There is no sleeping
or daydreaming in Cardio Tennis.” Six is a
great number for advanced cardio classes
because you have perfect numbers for teams
during warm-up/cool-down and for the gamesbased part of class.
I highly encourage you to focus at least 60
percent of your advanced cardio class on playbased exercises. Drill-based is great, but I look
at it as an extended warm-up. I quickly cover
the repertoire of shots they’ll need for the
games-based portion and incorporate some
fierce sideline activities here. The meat and
potatoes of my class is games because
advanced players love to compete and I will
ensure those players get a great workout
because great cardio games really kick up the
heart rate. In fact, you will often find the
players getting above their desired zone.
Use advanced feeding skills
Teaching an advanced cardio class requires
challenging the students with the feed.
Advanced players are looking for some
underspin feeds, some bounce-hit feeds that
must be taken out of the air and some heavytopspin feeds when playing games like
“Rotating Doubles.”
Change the pace, height and spin as frequently
as possible to keep them on their toes and to
mimic the types of balls they will hit when
playing against advanced tennis players. Your
advanced students won’t get much out of
being fed the perfect ball. Push them to work
on returning the “noncooperative” feed. These
players are needing to practice quick decisionmaking skills when it comes to shot selection
and whether or not to take the ball on the rise
or when to hit slice as well as what types of
shots they should be hitting when receiving
different types of spins and bounces. Keep
them guessing!
Be creative, competitive and mix
things up frequently
One of the biggest obstacles in teaching
advanced Cardio Tennis is keeping your
students interested. You have to show them a
reason to keep coming back. Be creative! Be
specific with your sideline activities and
change the patterns frequently. Every time I
change the drill or the game I change the
sideline activity. If you are one pro with the
maximum of six students then be resourceful
and use all the space you can and feed three
balls across two courts as one of your drillbased exercises. Use two footwork ladders or
one footwork ladder and throw lines or cones
for your sideline activity when the students are
coming back to the line. Use a second court to
send students around the far net post of that
court when playing games like “desperate
housewives.” All levels like to compete, but
especially your advanced players. Keep score
whenever possible and challenge them with
new games and new dynamic sideline
activities.
Lastly, I recommend putting yourself in when
the drills and/or numbers present the
opportunity. I do a dead-ball drill called “cooperative/competitive.” In this drill the
player hits one cooperative volley back to me.
I hit that ball to the open court, where they
move across and poach that ball to a target for
a winner. I send them through some cones and
a ladder, then they return to the end of the line.
The point is that the students in the advanced
class like to hit balls that the pro is hitting,
even if it is a friendly volley to the open court
that they are going to poach for a winner! I
also play in when I have five students in a drill
I call “rotating doubles with serve.” I put three
players on the returning side of the net and
two students plus me on the serving side. You
set up doubles style and play a point as the
server. You rotate similar to “rotating
doubles” so after you play a serve point your
next point will be played as the server’s
partner at net. After those two points you
rotate out and go to the back of the court for
some type of sideline activity like jumping
jacks, lunges, running in place, volleyball
blocks, etc. The idea is students love to return
your serve and you can affect play by
poaching and shaking things up. I find that
playing in as the pro helps affect play/intensity
and students love trying to hit a winner against
the pro, just like I did when I was taking
lessons.
Keep in mind players of advanced
ability/fitness level make up a much smaller
portion of a typical club membership so this
opportunity might not be there for everyone.
The majority of your cardio classes will be
geared toward beginners and those of mixed
ability.
Be creative
when launching your advanced cardio classes
at your club and you will be on your way to a
fun, energetic and successful advanced cardio
class! *
For more information on running successful
advanced cardio classes, please e-mail me at
ericalexon@hotmail.com.
Types of Players at Waikoloa
5%
30%
65%
Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced
Another suggestion I have is if you are already
doing a form of this class and calling it boot
camp, wanna workout or guerilla tennis,
consider changing the name to advanced
cardio or extreme cardio. Cardio Tennis is
being marketed on a national level and I know
there are no print advertisements in Men’s
Health magazine promoting “guerilla tennis.”
The logos for advanced and extreme have
already been created for you and you can find
them under marketing and media on
www.partners.cardiotennis.com. Please visit
this Web site as well to view the drills
mentioned in this article.
Remember the following key elements,
Be strict
Limit class sizes
Use advanced feeding skills
*
This article can be found at the ADDvantage Website.
BREAKAWAY
By, Tiffany Akiyama
Don’t you love to see an unspoiled draw?
For this brief moment, no one has been
upset, torn a muscle, had a brain cramp,
suffered heat stroke, or otherwise let
us down. Everything is potential. We're
free to look at names and play out
upcoming matches in our heads. BlakeMoya, Safin-Roddick, GasquetBaghdatis, Mauresmo-Vaidisova: sounds
like a fun couple of weeks, doesn’t it?
All that will be ruined by Monday
morning, of course, when the first
results come in and bring the inevitable
bad news. Safin lost to who? Jankovic
tripped over what? But for this
weekend, anyway, we can imagine
whatever we want and keep our dream
match-ups alive.
be an achievement. Djokovic would get
the first shot at him in the round of 16,
then the winner of Gasquet-Baghdatis
(we can dream, right?) would play him in
the quarters. You’d think this would be
a nice surface for Gasquet to make a
breakthrough on, but I’d take Baghdatis
in their match based on his confidence
from last year and continued
enthusiasm for the Aussie courts.
Sleeper: Juan Carlos Ferrero. He’s been
to the semis here and showed signs of
life in 2006.
Semifinalist: Roger Federer
The Men
First Quarter
The problem with Roger Federer is that
there are few dream matches that
involve him—he’s so good right now that
I can’t imagine, hard as I might try,
anyone giving him a serious run for his
money. Even the three young guns in his
quarter, Gasquet, Baghdatis, and
Djokovic, will be hard-pressed to do any
damage if they face him. It’s not
impossible, certainly, but just getting a
set—forget three—from Federer will
Second Quarter
Ivan Ljubicic is the big dog in this
section (he’s the No. 4 seed in the
tournament), but he’s got a test right
off the bat against Mardy Fish, who has
played some decent tennis Down Under
this year and is never an easy guy to
break. The match to hope for, of
course, is a third-rounder between
Roddick and Safin. Roddick showed up
ready to play in Kooyong this week. He
must sense a good chance to make his
second straight Slam semi; this may be
the softest section of the draw, and he
has a winning record against Ljubicic.
We all know Safin can play on Rebound
Ace, and he finished 2006 on his first
high note in two years by clinching the
Davis Cup. Which means he’ll go down in
straights to Benjamin Becker in the
first round. No, he won’t. I hope.
Sleeper: Joachim Johannson. He hit a
world-record 51 aces in a loss to Andre
Agassi down here one year. He’ll
probably win if he does that again.
Semifinalist: Andy Roddick
Third Quarter
This is the aficionado’s section, where
Nikolay Davydenko and David
Nalbandian have been set up for a quiet
quarterfinal showdown. In between are
a few landmines, however. Nalbandian
may have to face down two former
Melbourne Semifinalists, Sebastien
Grosjean and Tommy Haas. If the
German is ever going to reach another
Slam semi, it’s probably right here,
right now. On Davydenko’s side, there’s
a shorn Xavier Malisse, who already has
a tournament win in 2007, as well as two
monster hitters in Dmitry Tursunov and
Tomas Berdych, whose likely thirdround encounter will be blast-and-mope
tennis at its finest. Tough call here:
Both Davydenko and Nalbandian have
been hurt recently, but nobody else
seems like a good bet to step up his
mental game at the right moment.
Sleeper: Luis Horna. He won two rounds
last year. (I would give this honor to
Chris Guccione, the giant left-handed
Australian, but he’s got a tough matchup in the first round against the
veteran Olivier Rochus.)
Semifinalist: David Nalbandian
Fourth Quarter
The bottom of the draw will hopefully
end in a duel between second seed
Rafael Nadal and fifth seed James
Blake, who has upset Nadal all three
times they’ve played. But we’re a long
way from there right now. First Nadal
has to get past American Robert
Kendrick, who led the Spaniard two sets
to love at Wimbledon in 2006 (it was
one of the best matches of the year).
Blake has an even tougher opener with
Carlos Moya, who he’s also playing in the
final in Sydney (brutal!). In between
there’s Fernando Gonzalez, Lleyton
Hewitt, Andy Murray, and a curious and
completely unpredictable first-round
encounter between Robby Ginepri and
Nicolas Almagro.
Sleeper: Kristof Vliegen. The tall,
smooth-hitting Belgian could be a tough
second-round test for Nadal.
match is scheduled to be against Patty
Schynder, who has had her best Slam
results Down Under; she’s 26-10 overall
in Melbourne and has reached at least
the quarters the last three years.
Sleeper: Alicia Molik. Home-country
favorite and wild card will try to start a
comeback.
Semifinalist: Maria Sharapova
Semifinalist: Rafael Nadal
Second Quarter
The Women
First Quarter
With Henin-Hardenne out, Maria
Sharapova has moved to the pole
position in the draw. Her first
interesting match may come in the
fourth round, against the talented but
inconsistent teenager Ana Ivanovic. But
I’ll be curious to see the Serb’s firstrounder, against diminutive American
youngster Vania King, who showed a
surprising amount of game late last year.
Also lurking in that vicinity is a third
skilled teen, Poland’s Agnieszka
Radwanska. Sharapova’s quarterfinal
Kim Clijsters and Martina Hingis are
the top seeds here, though Hingis may
have to get past Dinara Safina, who
beat her last week, in the fourth round.
This may be Clijsters' last best shot at
a second Grand Slam. She should be
match tough after pulling out threesetters in the semis and final in Sydney
this week, and she must be loving the
absence of Henin-Hardenne, who beat
her in two majors last year. There’s
really no one here to challenge Clijsters
until the quarters, and Hingis has
already been overpowered twice in
2007 by players who don’t hit as big as
the Belgian. Clijsters' likely showdown
with Sharapova in the semis is looking
like the match of the tournament.
Sleeper: Li Na. The top Chinese player
is constantly improving and had chances
to beat Clijsters in Sydney.
Semifinalist: Kim Clijsters
Third Quarter
On paper, Russians Nadia Petrova and
Svetlana Kuznetsova are set to duke it
out in the quarters. The trendy pick
here is Jelena Jankovic, who won her
opening tournament of 2007, then beat
Hingis and Mauresmo and had a match
point against Clijsters in Sydney. I
think losing that final may have helped
her, though; now the expectations won’t
be quite as sky high (just high).
Remember how Petrova came into the
French Open last year on a long winning
streak and went out in about 45 minutes
in the first round? Jankovic has already
had the reality check. Still, while
Kuznetsova has been injured recently,
she beat Jankovic twice at the close of
2006.
Sleeper: Serena Williams. Remember
her? If the two-time Aussie champ can
navigate her way past Italy’s bizarre
Mara Santangelo in the first round,
she’ll probably get Petrova in the third,
and she’s 5-1 against the Russian.
Semifinalist: Jelena Jankovic*
*
A Serbian tennis player with 4 career titles.
Fourth Quarter
This section features a potentially
intriguing quarterfinal, between second
seed and defending champ Amelie
Mauresmo and long-limbed Czech teen
Nicole Vaidisova, who ousted Mauresmo
at the French Open in 2006. Vaidisova
looked good despite losing to Jankovic
in Sydney; she dictated the action and
had chances to win. This could be a
second breakout major for her, if she
can keep her temper in check and get
past Elena Dementieva in the round of
16 (the Russian won their only
encounter). Mauresmo was bageled in
the second set by Jankovic last week,
which is not an auspicious way to go into
a title defense. But the nice thing about
the women’s draw is that she should
have a couple rounds to play her way
into the tournament. That’s what she
did at the year-end championships in
Madrid last November, and that’s what
I think she’ll do to make it to the semis
here. Being the defending champion will
give her extra motivation.
Sleeper: Francesca Schiavone. The
Italian has beaten Mauresmo the last
two times they’ve played. They’re
scheduled to face off in the fourth
round.
Semifinalist: Amelie Mauresmo
Enjoy the tennis; it starts Sunday
evening on ESPN. But remember to fit
in some sleep this week (time to get a
DVR!). I’ll try to post every other day
or so; in between, check out our friend
Kamakshi Tandon’s blog from Melbourne
on TENNIS.com. Pete Bodo joins her
there for the second week.
I played it pretty straight with the
picks. Anybody willing to go out on a few
limbs?
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