Effectiveness of Speed and Plyometric Training on Agility in Lawn Tennis Players

Abstract

Introduction: Lawn tennis a high intensity sport requiring rapid change in speed and direction to hit the ball is played on three different courts. physical fitness which has various components like agility, balance and coordination & strength determine how efficiently an athlete can perform during the game. Two of these few parameters are enhanced by speed training and plyometric training.

Methodology: The method of data collection used for this study was a primary method. The sample size of 31 tennis players of both the genders from Garkheda tennis academy were taken. Out of them 24 were males and 7 were females. The main outcome measures were T-test and Illinois test. All the players received the speed and plyometric training for 3 weeks given on alternate days and after each week agility was tested using T-test and Illinois test. The total session was of one hour including warm-up and rest of ten minutes between tests and rest of 3 minutes between reps of training. The intensity of each exercise was increased day by day.

Result: Pre-training mean T-test was 12.37±1.86 post-training means for 1^st week-11.4±1.21, 2^nd week-10.69±1.03 and 3^rd week-9.61±0.83, pre-training mean Illinois test was 20.10±2.14 whereas post-training mean for 1^st week-18.93±1.98, 2^nd week-18.02±1.98 and 3^rd week-16.51±1.17, T test and Illinois test scores revealed statistically significant improvement in agility, done using paired t-test where p-value of pre-training for 1^st,2^nd and 3^rd week are <0.0001.

Conclusion: This study concluded that 3 weeks plyometric and speed training are effective in improving agility in lawn tennis players without any significant age and gender difference.