Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of implementing motor imagery (MI) dur- ing specific tennis high intensity intermittent training (HIIT) sessions on groundstroke perfor- mance in young elite tennis players. Stroke accuracy and ball velocity of forehand and backhand drives were evaluated in ten young tennis players, immediately before and after having randomly performed two HIIT sessions. One session included MI exercises during the recovery phases, while the other included verbal encouragements for physical efforts and served as control condition. Results revealed that similar cardiac demand was observed during both sessions, while implementing MI maintained groundstroke accuracy. Embedding MI during HIIT enabled the development of physical fitness and the preserva- tion of stroke performance. These findings bring new insight to tennis and conditioning coaches in order to fulfil the benefits of specific playing HIIT sessions, and therefore to opti- mise the training time.
Description
This study explores the impact of motor imagery on tennis training performance.