[tennisbiz] Re: Pre-tournament players

Thomas-

I would recommend two articles concerning the subject you are referring.
The first is, "Long-Term Athlete Development: Trainability in Childhood and
Adolescence", by Istvan Balyi, Ph.D. Let me give you just a couple quotes
from this article that may help.

"Unfortunately, parents and coaches in many sports still approach training
with an attitude best characterized as "peaking by Friday", where a
short-term approach is taken in training and performance with an
over-emphasis on immediate results."

"Overemphasizing competition in the early phases of training will always
cause shortcomings in athletic abilities later in an athlete's career".

Tennis is considered a late specialization sport. Gymnastics is an early
specialization sport. "For late specialization sports, specialization prior
to age ten is not recommended since this contributes to early athlete
burn-out, drop out and retirement from training and competition".

The second article, "Coaching Children To Embrace A "Love of the Game", by
Maureen R. Weiss, Ph.D. at the University of Virginia.

I hope this helps with developing your yearly program.

Alan Chandronnait

  
Received on Fri Apr 09 2004 - 10:36:52 CDT