Training Camp Starts - Sam Nicholson

When I last talked to Sam Nicholson, a tennis player ranked 100 in Division 1 NCAA, he had mentioned that he wanted to come to Yulee, FL to train with Maximus Pisani and myself.

When I woke up on Saturday morning at 5:30 am to walk our fun loving dog Cayde, I noticed a familiar white sedan parked in my driveway.

Judging by the North Carolina plates, Sam had arrived early to the Title Town Tennis training camp.

Day 1 started off with a bang!

We discussed how we would approach this week's training, as next week had a PTT Pro Tournament in Bonita Springs, FL.

The idea is to get his large 6 ft 5 frame stronger, faster, and more durable.

Maximus would be his hitting partner for the week and we would work on tennis specific patterns on the court, some specific movement and had fed drills, as well as, lots of point play between the two of them.

Our first session was on the court. Maximus and Sam did pattern specific drills and played some points. Happy to say that Maximus was hanging nicely with Sam, and I could definitely see a huge improvement from last summer, when the two had trained together.

This session wasn't about volume, but it was more about clarity, and seeing what we needed to focus on.

Groundstroke movement and efficiency, net play and overheads, and serve fundamentals.

The bike has always been an integral part of my training of tennis players and now that we have the use of the incredible cycling software Zwift, it is almost as though we are cheating.

Getting him dialed into the exact wattage for interval training, and seeing all the data effortlessly, gives us a BIG advantage.

Just like weight lifting, I can manually change to watts and the duration of each interval to the tee.

I chose to test him out with 1 minute on and 3 minutes off for the intervals.

1 min @375 watts, then 3 mins at 140 watts. This was a great starting point as it showed me that he had a good base, and I will be able to push him in the upcoming week even harder.

After the on court session, and bike workout, we then shifted focus to the gym where we kept it very simple.

Bench press - 3 sets of 15 @95 pounds

Reverse Crunch - 3 sets at 25 reps per set

We covered cardio, upper body, core and legs, simply and effectively.

What this week is all Really About

• This isn;t just training for a tournament - it's training with purpose.

  
  

• Preparing the body without overloading it.

  
  

• Refining patterns that hold up under pressure

  
  

• Building confidence thourgh execution, not hype.

Sunday morning blog is now complete, and, well, it's time to get after it once again!

Cheers,

Your humble coach,

Pauly P