Train Like a Pro (Part 3)
by Yuri in Train Like a Pro
Here’s the finale to our 3-part “train like a pro” interview with tennis pro, Jeff Salzenstein.
Enjoy and be sure to check out Jeff’s site at www.JeffSalzenstein.com .
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Yuri: That’s great. Just a couple more questions here. Looking at the competitive season for tennis—obviously, there’s four major slams and a bunch of, you know, smaller tournaments throughout—what does, what do most players do? I mean, if they’re competing, I guess, in the smaller tournaments, they’re playing, you know, in most cases, every day sometimes and in the slams every day, every other day.
How do they work in their training schedule around that? Are they still training in the gym, doing stuff before their games, on the off days? How does all that work? And maybe comparing that to the off season as well.
Jeff: Yeah, that is the art, that’s the science; it’s all wrapped into one. I mean, there’s no easy answer to that. I mean, tennis players are playing twelve months out of the year. I think it’s pretty funny that, you know, the season ends maybe mid-November, November 1, they take a few weeks off, and they have this off season, it’s like six weeks, to get ready for Australia.
There’s really not much of a break, like in other sports, to really build up your reserves and get a lot stronger. So, I’ve kind of adopted the approach or believe it’s more of a kind of a grease-to-groove theory.
There is a strength coach out there named Pavel, who talks a lot about that; you do a little bit every day instead of really organizing a periodization schedule.
Now, Roger Federer, he’s number one in the world—number two now, actually—Rafa Nadal, number one. These guys can afford to take segmented breaks where their trainers can really organize their schedule, but if you’re a hundred in the world or two hundred in the world and you’re trying to survive out there, you really have to keep training throughout the year, and you have to be smart about it.
So, on days that you play matches, you know, you might do a few corrective exercises. And then as soon as you lose in that tournament, if you know you have seven days off, that’s when you might need to hit the gym hard for a couple days. Maybe you need to get to the track, depending on how you feel.
But there’s a huge challenge of overtraining because you’re always having to work on your skills and playing matches. So, I’ve felt that you really need to focus on injury prevention, keeping the body balanced, keeping the tissue soft—you know, the massages and the foam roller and all the things that can open up the body—stretching, when I talked about static stretching.
I believe, again, you should only hold a stretch for two seconds and then you release and then you move into the stretch again, so you’re always keeping the body moving. But I think just a consistent daily dose—it could be two minutes, it could be ten minutes, it could be a half hour some days—of just opening up the body, doing your corrective exercises, and focusing on recovery and nutrition.
And then if you can get some maximal strength work in when you’re not playing matches, when you’re recovering a little bit, then you wanna hit that. If you can get some intervals and get to the track or do some burpees or do something in a confined space where you can get your heart rate elevated to burn fat and to get stronger, by all means, you need to do that. But just changing the approach to more of injury prevention, diet, nutrition, recovery, I think that needs to be the foundation first.
So the concept of really focusing on injury prevention, rest and recovery, and nutrition instead of, you know, running yourself into the ground if you’re a pro tennis player because you’re just, you’re playing and you’re practicing so much that it’s really hard to top that off, like going to the track and killing yourself out there, so you’ve gotta be really smart about your training and when you do it.
Pick your off times to get your interval training in and get your strength work in. But with maximal strength, for example, I mean, I like to keep the reps really low. I saw one top woman tennis player at the U.S. Open one year. She had her trainer with her and she was on a physio ball and she was doing kind of dumbbell press exercises, like eight pounds on each side and I’m thinking to myself, Okay, this is a pro athlete, and she’s lifting sixteen total pounds off a physio ball.
I’m trying to think what’s the carryover for her to help build her forehand or serve. There isn’t any. I mean, she should be busting out maybe push-ups with a weight vest on, you know, something like that, to be able to build up to that level.
I think there is a shift moving in that direction, but there’s still more, too many, I think too many athletes still doing, you know, your machines and your dumbbells and your sets of, you know, three sets of fifteen because somebody told you to do three sets of fifteen.
I think it should be more of an intuitive approach about what you feel. And, certainly, if you’re interested in finding a trainer for your own improvement and your skill development, you wanna look for someone that has that approach, rather than that, again, that machine approach, the long, slow cardio approach, the three sets of fifteen approach.
Everybody is different, everybody has a different way of doing things, but the more organic, holistic approach is the way that sport is moving.
Yuri: Yeah, totally, couldn’t agree more. And along those lines, what lessons can you impart with people from the world of pro tennis to training for fat loss, just getting fit, building a bit of strength? What kinda lessons can anyone take from what you went through with some of the pro athletes or are doing?
Jeff: I think it’s a great concept that, you know, again, a lot of people are trying to make all of this really complicated, and what we can learn from these pro athletes, number one is consistency. I mean, they have a goal, they’re focused on achieving a certain ranking or winning a certain tournament or whatever it is; they have a specific tangible goal.
And so, if you have a goal to lose fat or to build muscle or strength, you gotta start there; you gotta have that goal, you gotta have that mind-set. And these guys just show up and these girls show up every day. There’s a consistency to it, so every day you wanna do something that moves you closer to your goal instead of away from your goal.
And just having a clear plan on, ‘Okay, what exercises am I gonna do? What am I gonna eat?’ And just increasing overall awareness.
I think just, you know, are you gonna grab that cupcake or are you gonna grab the oatmeal raisin cookie when, you know, maybe you don’t need that or are you gonna eat more vegetables? I mean, just simple, basic guidelines of, you know, high-quality protein, good fats, increase your vegetable intake.
As far as the training goes, two to three times a week of, you know, interval training, tobadas, where you go twenty seconds on and then ten seconds off. If you can’t do that yet, start with twenty seconds on and then maybe thirty or forty seconds off, and you do a series of six or eight reps of that and then you do that two or three days later, but just a consistent program where you’re working on your strength levels and your endurance with the intervals a couple times a week, and then you’re just aware of what fuel you’re putting in your body.
And that’s what these pro athletes are doing; it’s just consistency day in and day out. And they also have a team supporting them usually around; you know, coaches, if it’s a girlfriend or wife, somebody is there supporting them maybe when they have their down moments.
So, if you’re wanting to achieve a certain goal by losing fat or building strength or muscle, it’s important to surround yourself with likeminded people that are going after the same goals.
Yuri: Awesome. That was some great pieces of advice. Well, it’s been a very insightful and informative interview so far. Just before we end, what’s the best place for people to get a hold of you, Jeff, and follow some of the stuff that you’re doing?
Jeff: Yeah, I started a blog, and we’re actually in the process of creating an instructional tennis DVD because we find that there’s just a lot of misinformation out there, so we have a lot of cool project in the work. You can go to JeffSalzenstein.com.
It’s a tennis Web site, but there’s a huge spin on health and nutrition and really with optimal performance. So, even if you’re not a tennis player, we’re gonna be providing great information there, you know, lots of content that can help you improve your tennis and your life. Certainly, if you’re tennis fan, we would like you to check it out, but that’s the best place to find us.
Yuri: Awesome, buddy. Well, that’s great. We’ll definitely make sure people get there and follow your stuff ’cause you’re definitely doing some great stuff. Yeah, anything else you wanna finish with before we end our interview today?
Jeff: No, Yuri, I actually just wanna thank you for having me on this call. It was awesome to be able to talk to you, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for what you’re doing and how you’re helping people and I learn a ton from you too, so thanks again for having me.
Yuri: Definitely, definitely, anytime. All right, well, on that note, again, thanks, Jeff, and thanks everyone who’s listening to this or reading this interview, and remember, guys, check out Jeff Salzenstein’s blog and, in the meantime, we’ll speak to you later. Thanks again, talk to you soon.
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