As the NCAA's traditional top school, UCLA's professional training facilities are also among the top on the West Coast. The campus in Westwood, Los Angeles alone has six professional gyms - these are just places where professional sports teams conduct daily training. If you add the gym for ordinary students, it will be even more.
Different gyms are provided for use by different teams. Under special circumstances, they can also be borrowed from each other to ensure that players can start training at any time.
Team sports like rugby have their own independent gyms; while individual sports like tennis share a gym with other sports. The gym in front of you is the common space for the tennis team and the swimming team.
Tennis and swimming are both sports that emphasize both strength and skill. Practical exercises and gym training go hand in hand. The gym is very busy every day. However, it is the final exam period recently and everyone needs to return to their duties as students. The noise in the gym has calmed down and it is even a little empty. .
"Beep!"
Gao Wen and MacDonald arrived at their destination skillfully, swiped their cards to enter, and had just changed their clothes when they came out. At a glance, they could see Giron pushing the barbell.
Judging from the sweat seeping from his forehead and his slightly flushed cheeks, Jilong must have been here for a while.
As if he was aware of his gaze, after finishing this pressing movement, Jiron looked over, gently nodded his head towards Gawain and Macdonald, and then devoted himself to his training again, with meticulous concentration in his eyes. Deep, sparkling.
Well……
Um……
ah……
With each exertion of force, Jilong uncontrollably let out a low, macho moan/moan, as if he could imagine the weight of the barbell from the sound.
However, it is very conspicuous and prominent in the slightly empty gym, but it gives a sense of joy.
Macdonald bumped Gawain's shoulder lightly, his eyes showing a hint of joking——
Obviously, not only Thompson, but also Giron should have felt the pressure and trained harder, all because of Gawain's high fighting spirit.
Young players are like this. They are prone to being impassioned and easy to lose their temper. The ups and downs of their emotions are often difficult to control. It is precisely because of this that Martin is very satisfied with the start of this year's winter training. The good mental outlook shown by Gao Wen is driving the training spirit of the entire team.
Gawain didn't say much, just showed a smile, "What are you going to start training from?"
Including McDonald and Giron, strength is also a relatively weak part of them. The training plan developed by the coach for them includes strength training, which is also a common goal of this winter training.
Gao Wen's initiative stimulated Thompson and Giron's training enthusiasm, which in turn made Gao Wen more fully committed. Healthy competition can always bring out everyone's potential and ultimately bring more positive impacts. Maybe they can really achieve better results this year?
Macdonald is no exception. He has already developed his abdominal muscles early. "For lower body strength, every time I push my backhand, I can't step on the ground properly. The coach said it's due to lack of strength. I'm going to strengthen my practice in winter training. What about you?" "
"Let's start with core strength. I need to train in more than one event." Gao Wen joked in a self-deprecating tone, then patted MacDonald on the shoulder, "Then let's roll some iron."
The premise of strength training in tennis is to avoid adding useless muscle mass and affecting the movement of the steps as much as possible. This has already put forward strict requirements, but if you delve deeper into strength training, you will find that the complexity is far more than that.
In tennis, strength training should be subdivided into three parts: upper body strength, lower body strength and core strength. Each part needs to be trained separately, and then linked training is carried out. All are indispensable.
First, lower body strength.
As the name suggests, it means thigh strength, calf strength, and gluteal strength.
In the batting action of tennis, every technical batting action must make full use of the strength of the lower limbs, stand firm in the first step, and exert force in the second step.
What's the meaning?
You can simply look at the difference between hitting the ball standing still and hitting the ball while moving.
The former's steps are to stand firm and exert full force, so the ball will naturally be more solid and full; the latter's steps continue to sway and must find the best point of force in a swaying state, and the strength of the lower limbs cannot provide more support. The hitting power doesn’t come together perfectly either.
Therefore, standing firm and exerting force are fundamental to tennis hitting. In strong confrontations, tennis players try their best to mobilize their opponents, forcing them to hit the ball while running and destroying the stability of their shots. This is the reason why.
Serve, return, forehand, backhand, flat shot, spin, etc. This is true for every shot. The power comes from the lower limbs, and the trilogy of standing firmly and pushing on the ground to exert force runs throughout.
Even when it comes to unloading cutting returns, the stability of the strength of the lower limbs is also very important - only with sufficient support from the lower limbs can the cutting rotation be sufficient and the cutting line deep, without giving the opponent a chance to attack.
Once the strength of the lower limbs declines and you cannot push off the ground, it will be like a big tree uprooting, and all subsequent power transmission will be cut off.
In addition, the solid strength of the lower limbs also determines the flexibility of moving steps. Starting, braking, sudden turns and stops, etc., all come from the strength of the lower limbs.
Secondly, upper body strength.
The subdivision is much more complicated. The strength of the arms, forearms, and wrists, as well as the strength of the shoulders, back, and chest, are all part of the upper body strength.
Taking the serving action as an example, the body needs to mobilize a series of muscles in the back, shoulders, and arms to ultimately create a whip-lashing effect to complete the serve.
In fact, many top professional players have relatively weak lower limb strength. They basically rely entirely on upper limb strength when serving. This is also feasible, especially female professional players, even the top ten players. However, the disadvantage of this approach is that The serve is unstable and prone to mistakes.
But it also proves the importance of upper body strength. When entering the anxious stage of the game, facing the limit of physical strength and unable to push off the ground with lower body strength, players can only rely on upper body strength to complete the batting action. This goes for hands, backhands, etc.
Ultimately, tennis is a sport of hitting the ball with a hand-held racket, and upper body strength is more direct and more prominent.
Just like football focuses on lower body strength and basketball focuses on confrontational strength, there is still more or less emphasis. Of course, after competitive sports develop to the top level, the test is all about comprehensive strength. It is very difficult to open up the situation with just one trick.
What's more, the particularity of tennis also determines that the training of upper limb strength needs to be subdivided in very detail, especially the training of small muscle groups, which also means that training of upper limb strength is not that easy.
The arms and shoulders are just part of it; the forearms and wrists are the difficult part.
