Implementation of Motor Imagery during Specific Aerobic Training Session in Young Tennis Players.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26580804.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0143331 and PMC identifier 4651510.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of implementing motor imagery (MI) during specific tennis high intensity intermittent training (HIIT) sessions on groundstroke performance 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 preservation 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 optimise the training time.
Medical subject headings
- Athletic Performance
- Imagination
- Physical Education and Training
- Tennis