10 Minutes of Tennis: Can HIGH PERFORMANCE Help the Club Tennis Player?

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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast,

we are here with Justin Yeo, Australian Tennis Pro in Puerto Rico,

and we are our host, Justin Yo, Australian Tennis Pro in Puerto Rico.

We are our host, Justin Yo, Australian Tennis Pro in Puerto Rico,

and we are our host, Justin Yo, Australian Tennis Pro in Puerto Rico.

We are our host, Justin Yo, Australian Tennis Pro in Puerto Rico,

and we are our host, Justin Yo, Australian Tennis Pro in Puerto Rico.

And we are on the 10 minutes of tennis, which is slightly different

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So today, 10 minutes of tennis, Justin Yeo, we are asking the question.

And I've called around a little bit this week.

I'll admit it wasn't an exhaustive search,

but I've called around and this doesn't seem to be as common as you want it to be.

I'll just put it that way.

You think this should be a more common thing because it works.

And you're going to give us some information on how it works and why it works.

But the question is, how can high performance tennis help the adult club player?

Let's say I'm a member of a club, and I'm a three-o guy,

and I've got some time, and I'm thinking about working out.

I could lose a few pounds to get fitter, and I go to Justin and I say,

"Hey, man, get me fit. Get me playing. What's the program?"

Is it a high-profile?"

Am I going to look like those kids over there in Academy?

Is that really what it's going to look like, Justin?

Uh, no.

Oh, come on.

Those kids starting at a young age get the luck of having that swimming very soon.

Different thing, right?

Yeah, totally different thing.

When you're talking to an adult, probably the first thing I would find that is exactly what sporting background he has.

When you find out what sporting background he has, you can start to utilize some of the muscle memories he already had.

And that's a bit of a high performance mentality.

This suggests someone, "Oh, let me see your swing."

Okay, let's get this grip right, and let's get this right, and let's get that right.

Let's take ten weeks to finally hit a ball over the net.

I come in a totally different perspective.

I will do a 10 minute, 15 minute review of Fiend and Balls.

Let them just hit ball the way they see it.

And you start to identify the things they already have.

They have the perception, they have the footwork, they're contactable in front already.

They have the rack of pace open or closed, but understand what that means.

There's so many things you can do to make it very simple for them to start learning how to hit the ball back and forth,

and start to rally, and then build things around the rally.

When you know what restrictive positions they have, and they're not good at going side to side,

you know, then you can start to understand, "Are they going to have a short swing, or they're going to have a big swing?"

There's so many, what you claim, high performance elements that you can look for

to make the amateur player accelerate their growth a lot quicker, and become a tennis player, then taking a slow way.

And then I'm like, "Alright, I'll say it. I'm so sick of hearing it. Rack of back.

There is no more rack of back. So a high performance boat will turn it to about a unit turn,

show them how to use their body, show them how to move to the ball, and hit the ball.

You don't stand in one position. You don't take your rack of back.

You take your rack of back, you're always going to have a late contact.

It's a guarantee every single time, finishing for a 3-0 then.

There's no turn, there's no party, the shoulder starts to hurt, the wrist starts to hurt.

"Come on, so there is an important element of high performance in club level tennis."

It is a very much on the player, to be open-minded too.

What I've understood too very quickly is to understand, are they an analytical person,

or they're very visual and they're demos and it's very simple.

If you go very simple and the guy comes to you, you guys can go on this grip.

I'm talking about this string tension.

Is this rack at the right weight? Is this the right headlight?

Okay, this guy has a lot of details that I have to shut down and try to simplify,

for him to just play tennis.

The other way, so you have to work away with the player and work with them.

Again, to me, that's a bit of a high performance background.

It's a high performance when you're in the trenches, you tend to learn a ton on how to teach tennis.

And that means it's just a little fine element.

That's not putting down a club pro.

Club pro is a very, very, very good at communication.

They're very, very good at working with people.

They're very, very good at working with numbers.

But if you've seen, I'd have to say in the last 10, 20 years,

at least when you go to these conferences, there's a very big element around high performance.

And teaching pro has taught you the new ways versus the old ways.

And so a lot of pro's are interested in that.

Even tennis directors, they're very much interested in that,

because if they've got the knowledge they're passing it down to their pro's,

or they keep it an eye on things, they're more new age, new models for their program.

And so in the long that line, there are different types of coaches out there.

And I don't remember if we've talked about that specifically.

Maybe we need to add that to our 10 minutes of tennis.

It's different coaching types.

I'm a director of tennis type.

He's going to be more political.

It's going to be less like you use the term in the trenches, coaching tennis, teaching tennis.

And I'm a beginner type.

I like the zero to one conversation with players, especially children.

But there's also the high performance type.

So I've worked in an academy, but I've never done high performance.

That's a very specific specialty that not everybody has.

Now, when I asked the first question, I said, all right,

is it going to look like those junior players in the high performance academy?

I didn't mean am I ever going to look like them because no, you're an adult, get over.

You didn't learn when you were seven.

Never going to happen.

Now, depending on how athletic you are, like you say, you've worked with some volleyball,

some D1 players, those people are going to get close to that.

My question for the coach, someone like me, a director of tennis type,

someone without the high performance background, what does this lesson look like?

What does this hitting session look like?

Where you've got an adult, you're not going to have 30 adults,

and they're all going to drop and do 10 push-ups and do the running,

and the academy style high performance hitting.

What does this hour look like?

Am I really doing the push-ups like the kids, and I'm going to do the sprinting,

and I'm going to do the squatting?

What's it look like?

It looks like trying to get you hit the ball as quick as possible and running out of play.

But there's anything I've gathered from my Braille system in the last probably 15, 20 years

is just the whole concept of getting someone to play and getting them to back and forth,

you can build so many things around that.

You can start to work grip, you can start to work direction of the ball,

you can work depth, but the advantages of that is when they go to play,

they'll be focusing on playing, they'll be focusing on tacking,

they'll be focusing on what it's like to win,

versus being so technically minded about hitting a ball perfectly correct,

that they won't be able to play, especially not at a three-o-level.

And then they'll learn the lessons that they'll do great,

and they'll go play and they'll be like, "Gabby, you know?"

So you have to be able to create that scene in the lessons,

so their repetition becomes better and better and better at playing.

And hopefully you want to come back to and say,

"Oh man, I hit some awesome shots down lines today, it's like great."

So let's hit some cross-gorts today and let's keep improving the other way.

So then you can then, "I'm going to hit cross-gort,

you're going to try to hit down line with a changing direction,

because you might have been able to break down line,

because the ball's only coming down a lot."

So, you know, varying the ball every time I teach,

I never hit the ball or something.

Mix it up all the time.

You have to throw variation in all the time and learn,

teach and learn and read it.

And that's very different from the Country Club Pro,

where we're taught to make you look good.

And we've got to hit that ball right to you in this drag zone

and make you look good.

You're talking about making a player work.

You're talking about making a player figure it out.

Yep.

You've been done.

Yep.

We're talking about fitness as well.

Again, I'm just trying to picture what this looks like.

If I'm a coach and I want to add a little bit of this mentality to some of my lessons.

Yep.

What does it look like?

What's the lesson plan that's different?

The other lesson plan is coming with a small basket of balls.

I've done the mass on this.

It's amazing how many balls that were the small basket balls.

How many can you get in a live format rallying with a three other?

Right?

Because you're the ones who can keep the ball going so that they can keep getting more balls.

But when you go small amount of balls, the ball will pick up as quicker.

So they're back into it again.

There's not 300 balls.

Long break, which is not in the tennis anyway.

The only long break is when they go to the bathroom and get a complete change of clothes.

But leaves needs to pass out of this.

Believe most of the modern players out there, they're definitely all doing it.

That's true.

They're all doing it.

All right, Justin.

10 minutes of tennis.

You got one more for us on this topic specifically.

No, just like I just said, expand your mind.

Think of things differently.

Think about changing.

Honestly, it's probably biggest of both.

It's moved the basket around and keep feeding in different directions.

I like it.

And I like the small basket idea where we like to come out with a ton of tennis balls.

We only have to do one ball, pick up less balls.

You know what?

It gets in the mindset of, I got to keep the ball going because we're going to have the last ball happens a lot more often.

Right.

Right.

Less feeding in your hitting.

And the hitting is only going to grow the player because they're getting a perception of your hitting the ball.

Well, there you have it.

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