Green is a physical conditioning specialist with 20+ years of experience on the ATP & WTA Tours. He has worked with Tomas Berdych, Alexander Zverev, and is most known for his success with Andy Murray.
Before working on improving tennis speed and agility, I look at mobility and stability of the joints first. Ensuring that the athlete can control the joints before attempting to put force through them is important for achieving real speed improvement and better results in a speed training block. Transcript: "Yes. I tend to start looking at mobility and stability of the joints before. Looking at real tennis Speed and Agility. I think you can work on specific movement and stability, fairly simple, taneous lie. But if you're talking about real code speed and really acceleration and deceleration maybe more importantly deceleration, then the joints have got to be in line and they've got to be stable. And the player has got to be able to control the The Joint in kind of like a perfect athletic posture before trying to put Force through through the major muscles and the joints themselves. So, you know, as also, you know, about speed speed is a really a factor of strength and how fast you can fire those muscles. So I like to make sure that the joints are stable and muscles are really activated. Eating properly before trying to really put Force through them. Obviously in time, the more stability a joint has and the more force a muscle can create and how fast it can create that Force, then you really are on a much faster path to, to be able to train, you know, real speed and see a real Improvement after a speed training block. So that's kind of what I think. I kind of think there's a real Continuum of Mobility. The strength and then speed. But I do differentiate movement and speed stability of the joints and specific tennis movement and movement patterns can be done almost together, but as a question was speed, that is also a factor of force. So just make sure in the posture is really lined up and the athlete can control the joints. Before I put forced to it, and try and improve speed."
Long distance running can be beneficial and detrimental for tennis players. It can help build an aerobic base, but too much running is not necessary as tennis is more of a neuromuscular sport. However, some long interval runs and longer runs can be useful for mental and physical preparation for matches that last for long points and sets. Transcript: "Hi, I think it can be advantageous and detrimental for tennis players, long distance running. It's in my program. I do in preseason which is the the month where tennis players do their real hard work. I'll do one long one, a week, you know, somewhere around 10K. And I think that's very useful for, you know, the mentality of holding speed and focus for, you know, 4050 minutes and obviously builds a very good aerobic base which is very useful for tennis players they recover aerobically between points and games. So you'll always find top players. Have a very good aerobic base and long-distance running helps that the other side of the coin is that too much, long distance running, I think is unnecessary, it is not a aerobic sport, it's more of a neuromuscular, an aerobic sport. So So more short, Sprints and shuttles, and specific moves are going to be much more beneficial for a tennis player. But I, you know, I do do longer intervals, I do 200 and 400 on the track, you know, that 400 take a good tennis player about 70 75 seconds so that's, you know, that's kind of Fairly long interval and obviously male players play five sets, I think it's very mentally and physically, logically useful to be able to feel that you can last Long Point too. Matches. So there's longer intervals and longer runs are both physiologically useful and mentally useful for a player. But yeah, I don't do them all the way through the. I reckon I do probably between 10 and 15 long runs a year, something like that, you know, and only in really strong training blocks. Obviously if there's other issues like a player is really not good error. Go Berkeley or has to lean out a little bit, then longest-running closer be useful. But as a training mode it's useful to a point. A certain amount of running long is very useful but not too much."
The three biggest breakthrough moments in my career were when I was entrusted with a top 150 player, when I got a phone call from Andy Murray, and when I moved to Miami. Transcript: "Breakthrough moments in my career you know if you're lucky enough to be involved in lead sport, you've had a couple probably three standout one. Is your first ever job out of University? 22, a coach entrusted, me with a player who was ranked about 150 in the world and, and got to third round at Wimbledon that year, which was obviously, He not to do with my training more to do with the coaches skill and a player skill but it was also a great moment to be able to play train a player that good getting a phone call from an 18 year old. Andy Murray, that is a huge breakthrough, moment in the career where you ever get someone who that Talent level and that potential, and you get to build them is incredible honor and and, and a huge Moment. And now they can make you look very good as a trainer, you know, when they win big tournaments. So that was huge. A geographical breakthrough, was when I moved at 30 years old to the states and I moved to Miami from the UK. And I lived there for about 10 years to geographically, move and work out of Miami with all the tennis players that lived and trained. There was a big was a big move for for my career and and the players I had access to. So those are the kind of the three big moments."