The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers! Click Here to Order
QUESTION: What causes my son’s game day emotional train wrecks?
Frank: All too often, it’s the little preparation failures such as a lack of routines and rituals that cause catastrophic game day failures. To understand preparation failures, let’s sneak a peek into my friend John’s world:
John needs to lose weight- but he can’t seem to find consistent success. His weight goes up and down and it’s a direct result of his of routines and rituals. One week he scheduled morning breakfast at IHOP with a “Grand Slam Breakfast” and then returned home and sat in front of the computer for four hours, then broke for a fast food lunch followed by four more hours of sitting behind a computer and then met friends for dinner…John preset weight loss failure with excessive calories and no physical activity. With those behaviors in place, weight gain was sure to follow.
Now let’s look at the routines and rituals of a different week. In this week John woke up and drank a green veggie concoction for breakfast, hit the gym and ate a salad for lunch, followed by four hours of training on the tennis court and a healthy dinner. These are weight loss behaviors and these daily mini successes will result in consistent weight loss. It is not rocket science…it is just hard work.
The same type of scenario plays out with most junior athletes. Unfortunately, many juniors believe they’re doing everything right but under closer inspection, they’re almost always “way off” target. In sports, match day failures stem from the dozens of smaller preparation failures.
NOTE: Keep in mind that losses are not necessarily failures. If a player is performing in the manner in which they have been trained, they may have just been outplayed.
As an example of poor rituals and routines, let’s look at a comment from a tennis parent prior to our Customized Evaluation Session with her daughter Jenny. Mrs. Clements complained, “My daughter, Jenny, can’t beat a top-level retriever. Those pushers drive her crazy!”
Now let’s look at what we discovered about Jenny’s actual training schedule and developmental plan:
- She only grooves stationary fundamentals.
- She perfects her primary strokes for 10 hours a week.
- She doesn’t focus on the development of her secondary strokes.
- She doesn’t focus on the aerobic fitness needed to play 15 tough sets in a singular event or a 3-hour moonball battle.
- She doesn’t focus on developing the actual patterns needed to take a retriever out of their comfort zone.
- She doesn’t focus on patience or the emotional demands required to withstand the emotional trauma that comes with playing someone who doesn’t miss.
After Jenny’s assessment, it was clear to her and her parents that she needs to re-vamps her deliberate, customized developmental plan. So, parents and coaches, if your talented athlete isn’t getting the results they’re capable of, it may prove wise to raise their preparation standards.
Here’s a story about my dog Moses. He’s a gifted, highly intelligent English White Golden Retriever. He and I have spent hours upon hours in the yard playing catch. He’s talented and we’ve played catch A-LOT for 6 years. So, if talent and repetition make a champion, it’s safe to assume that Moses should win every United States Dog Agility Association National Event, right?
Well…no. Moses and I don’t practice in the manner he’s expected to perform. I enjoy the quality of time we spend playing together but we are not spending our time together applying deliberate, customized training.
