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Fernandez-Fernandez. Comparison of The Activity Profile and Physiological Demands Between Advanced and Recreational
Fernandez-Fernandez. Comparison of The Activity Profile and Physiological Demands Between Advanced and Recreational
1
Tennis Performance Research Group, Spanish Tennis Federation (RFET), Barcelona, Spain; 2Faculty of Physical Activity and
Sport Sciences, University of Granada, Granada, Spain; 3Royal Netherlands Lawn Tennis Association, Amersfoort,
The Netherlands; 4Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and 5ASPIRE, Academy for Sports Excellence,
Doha, Qatar
T
ennis is one of the most popular sports worldwide;
44.8 6 4.7 years) veteran men’s tennis players participated in
however, relatively few studies have investigated
4 experimental sessions: (1) an ITN on-court assessment, (2) the activity profile and physical demands during
a laboratory incremental treadmill test, (3) an hour of simulated play (2,4,6,28,31). A better understanding of the
tennis match play, and (4) 30 minutes of tennis match play physiological demands and movement profile of tennis is
using a portable gas analyzer. Subjects’ V_ O2 and heart rate (HR) important, to develop optimal practice drills and to give
were recorded by portable analyzers. Moreover, energy expen- sound training recommendations. In addition, knowledge
diture was evaluated by indirect calorimetry. Temporal structure of the intensity, volume of work involved, and estimation
and distance covered were determined from video recordings. of energy expenditure in playing tennis enables a comparison
Subjects’ V_ O2 (24.5 6 4.1 vs. 23.3 6 3 mlkg21min21), HR to be made between tennis and other forms of physical activ-
(148.3 6 11.5 vs. 149.8 6 8.4 bpm), duration of rallies (DR) ity from a health perspective, which may lead professional
tennis organizations (e.g., International Tennis federation
(6.3 6 4.1 vs. 7.6 6 5.5 seconds), and effective playing time
[ITF]) to espouse health benefits of tennis participation on
(EPT) (21.7 6 5.0 vs. 23.6 6 5.4%), HR (148.3 6 11.5 vs.
the basis of experimental interventions (13,24).
149.8 6 8.4 bpm), and energy expenditure (263.1 6 49.4 and
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), to
281.3 6 61.8 kcalmin21) during play did not differ significantly promote and maintain health in healthy adults, recommends
(p . 0.05) between advanced and recreational players. The engaging in moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity (i.e.,
advanced players covered significantly more meters than the intensities of 40–60% of V_ O2max; 60–75% of maximum heart
recreational players during their 1-hour tennis matches (mean 6 rate [HRmax]) for a minimum of 30 mind21, 5 dwk21 or
SD: 3568.8 6 532.2 vs. 3173.8 6 226 m, p , 0.01) at lower vigorous-intensity aerobic activity (i.e., 60% of V_ O2max; 75%
HRmax) for a minimum of 20 mind21, 3 dwk21 (1,13).
Previous studies on the physiological demands of tennis have
Address correspondence to Jaime Fernandez-Fernandez, jauma_fernandez@ focused on activity profile (2,8,15,19,20,23,26,28), heart rate
hotmail.com. (HR) (2,8,15,15,20), blood lactate concentrations (2,4,8,24,28,30),
23(2)/604–610 and V_ O2 (9,28,29) during tennis play. Mean HR during singles
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research play ranged from 140 to 180 bpm, equating to 70–90%
Ó 2009 National Strength and Conditioning Association HRmax, and mean V_ O2 during play ranged from 23 to
the TM
Activity Profile. Each player was individually videotaped for 0.80 or higher was considered reliable (27). The differences
the entire duration of the match. A match protocol developed between the group mean values of the variables measured
by Smekal et al. (31), which has been shown to be reliable with the treadmill test and the on-court assessments were
(20), was used to monitor and record the duration of each tested by unpaired Student t-tests. Data were checked for
game and each rally, the duration of the rest intervals normality (Shapiro-Wilk test), and, in cases of nonnormality,
between games and changeover breaks, and the number of nonparametric Wilcoxon signed rank tests were performed.
shots per rally. From these data, the following variables were Values of p # 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
calculated for each game: 1) the duration of rallies (DR in Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software (version
seconds), 2) the rest times (RT in seconds), 3) the work:rest 13.0; SPSS Inc., Chicago, Ill).
ratio (W:R; the ratio of duration of rallies to rest times), 4)
effective playing time (EPT; expressed as a percentage of the RESULTS
total time of play in a game), and 5) strokes per rally (SR).
Subjects’ characteristics and the results of the laboratory
The EPT was determined by dividing the entire playing time
treadmill test are shown in Table 1. Both groups were com-
of a game (from the beginning of the first rally until the end of
parable with regard to age, height, weight, and fat percentage.
the last rally) by the real playing time (sum of the single
In addition, there were no statistically significant differences
duration of rallies) performed in a specific game.
in the mean V_ O2max (p = 0.64) and HRmax (p = 0.25) values
Distance Covered and Running Speed. The distance covered (m) that advanced and recreational players achieved during the
during the entire match by each individual player and the time treadmill test.
spent (seconds) in various speed categories were measured
using the software Winanalyze V1.4 (Mikromak, Berlin, Activity Profile
Germany) (6,7,24,25). This automated software tracks a visual The variables describing the characteristics of the matches for
marker frame-by-frame in the video files taken during the both groups are shown in Table 2. The results show that
matches. The visual marker was set afterward and was placed differences between the advanced and recreational players in
on the right hip of each tennis player. This position was DR (p = 0.98), RT (p = 0.94), SR (p = 1.00), and EPT (p =
chosen because during the analysis it became apparent that 0.80) were not statistically significant. Figure 1 shows the
the visual marker kept best track on the right hip compared mean distribution of work (i.e., DR) and recovery (i.e., RT)
with all other body parts. In case the visual marker lost track, periods at given time intervals during the 166 games
the marker position was reset manually by one experimenter. analyzed. For both groups, most of the rallies (about 55%)
Final marker positions were analyzed using Matlab 6.5 (The were performed at time intervals between 1 and 6 seconds
Mathworks, Natick, Mass) to calculate distance covered and (p , 0.05); when combined with rallies between 6 and
running speed (by differentiation). Five different speed 9 seconds (about 20%), this represents 70–80% of the total
categories were defined according to a study by Burgess points performed during the matches in groups A and B.
et al. (3): 0–7, 7–12, 12–18, 18–24, and .24 kmh21. More than 70% of the RT was between 9 and 18 seconds.
Test-retest reliability of the method was assessed within More than 60% of all rallies demanded players to execute
1 tennis match. between 1 and 2 strokes (p , 0.05). When combined with
rallies demanding 3–4 strokes, this accounted for more than
Physiological Demands 90% of the total rallies.
V_ O2 Measurement During Match Play. A week after the singles
match play, 13 players (group A, n = 7, group B, n = 6) played
singles for 30 minutes, using a Cosmed K4 portable gas
analyzer to measure V_ O2 and to estimate the quantity of TABLE 1. Subject characteristics.
energy expended during tennis play. Subjects’ V_ O2 and HR
were determined at 5-second intervals. Energy expenditure Advanced Recreational
was calculated from the V_ O2 values using 5 kcalL21 O2 players players
(n = 10) (n = 10)
as the caloric equivalent. Values were averaged for the
30 minutes of each tennis match to obtain the total energy Age (y) 44.3 6 5.1 44.8 6 4.7
expenditure (31). Weight (kg) 75.9 6 7.9 79 6 3.9
Height (cm) 176.1 6 4 177 6 3.6
Statistical Analyses Fat (%) 21.6 6 3.2 21.9 6 4.8
Mean and SD were calculated for all specified outcome HRmax (bpm) 180.3 6 6.5 185.3 6 5.3
measures in groups A and B. Differences in rally duration, rest V_ O2max 44.9 6 4.3 44.1 6 3
times, and strokes per rally were evaluated using 2-factor (mlkg21min21)
analysis of variance. To test the test-retest reliability of the Values are mean 6 SD. HRmax = maximum heart rate.
Winanalyze system, we assessed the intraclass correlation
coefficient for single measures. An intraclass coefficient of
the TM
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