Internal and external load in competitive tennis: comparison of three types of training

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to quantify the external load and the internal load in three types of training (buckets with the hand, buckets with racket and rallies) most used in the field of tennis and compare them to each other. Six tennis players participated (four male and two female players) with an average age of 16.67 (± 2.73) years.To quantify the loads, POLAR +M400 heart rate monitors were used to collect the data related to heart rate, distance covered, average and maximum speed, and ZEPP TENNIS sensors were used to collect the data related to type of stroke, number of strokes and racket speed for each of the strokes made. In addition, the Borg CR-10 Scale (Borg, 1982) has been used to record the rate of perceived exertion, in each task performed and at the end of each training session. Nine training sessions were carried out in pairs: three for drive training, three for backhand training and three for drive and backhand training together, one for each type of training.The results obtained show that bucket training with the hand has a greater internal load in terms of the number of strokes and average racket speed, with racket training having the greatest external load in relation to speed and distance travelled.