Today we are going to show you some speed ladder exercises that you can do with your athletes. Alexander is going to perform them and I'm going to give you some information about the drill, how they are called and what they are for and so forth so you have an understanding of what you are doing and you can emulate that with your athletes at home. Ok? Here we go.
First exercise we are going to do is the Fast Feet forward and reverse. Alexander is going to demonstrate. We are going to do it so that each leg and each square as fast as possible going through the ladder. So you are going to do it forward and you are going to do the same thing in reverse. That's good.
So after you do that you take a little break, 10 - 20 seconds, and then you want to make sure you start with the other leg. So you on the first time if you started with the right leg, second time you want to start with the left leg. That's it. When you do the reverse part make sure the upper body leans forward so you don't fall back if you are going really fast. Ok? It's just a quick pointer and the exercise is very good for the quick step sequence moving forward or if you have to hit an overhead and need quick feet - that's the reason why we would do this exercise. Ok, next we are going to have the Lateral Fast Feet.
So you are facing sideways as Alexander does and same thing: you want to hit the squares really quickly. This basically emulates your footwork when you move along the baseline. Same thing here, you can take a little break in between and then you turn around and do it the other way. Just make sure that the hips stay square.
So you always want to make sure the hips are square and there is no hip rotation in the movement. Also, if you are a beginner it is fine if you are looking down to the ground to see the squares. As a beginner that's fine. Since in tennis you look forward while moving you eventually want to get to you looking forward while moving through the speed ladder.
That would be level 2. For level 3 we move through the speed ladder looking forward or while looking at the coach tracking an object. That would be level 3, the professional level because that's what you have to do on the tennis court. You have to move forward, backwards, sideways while tracking an opponent and the tennis ball. So that's what you want to eventually emulate when you are doing the speed ladder exercises. Ok, next one we have the Jump Over Fast Feet. We are going to do that first. So you jump over...no, no. Ok? So you jump over the 1st square and then you move back.
We are doing it later on a little bit slower. It's a great exercise for the 1st step sequence when you have to rush forward or if you play serve and volley...things of that nature. So you want to make sure you do it leading with the right side first. If you have done that then you come back and you do it with the left foot first. So you always want to make sure you do it on both sides so that you are equally fast in the starting sequence. That's it. Very good. You can also do these drills while holding a tennis racquet because that's what you are actually doing in the sport. Of course, if you are involved with other sports.
Where you don't hold anything in your hands you also want to make sure that the upper body mechanics are insync with lower body mechanics but since in the sport of tennis we are holding a tennis racquet upper body mechanics become less important. They are rather secondary and so when you are doing the exercises you can kind of neglect what happens with the upper body since you are holding a racquet in your hand. Ok, next exercise we are going to do the Slalom.