I am addicted to planning. It doesn’t matter whether it is my personal life or coaching career I have to know what I am going to do today, in a weak, in 3 months. From time to time it is a good balance to come up with something unexpected but it is an exception – not the rule for me. Quality is the most important factor of any work so if you are a tennis player you need quality practice sessions. They come with planning…
All great coaches have plans for their players. They understand that they are responsible for results so the basic step to get more wins is to plan how to do it. Planning is helpful not only on the tennis courts but it is crucial in all life areas. Are you going on vacation? Great, let’s plan where you go, how to get there and what you would like to see. Buying a house? You need a plan – estimate your budget, decide what is important for you and give yourself time to compare all the offers. Going to tennis tournament? Plan your transportation, accomodation and don’t forget to plan strategy for your match.
As you can see without having a plan our life can be much more difficult. If we always base our decisions on our feelings we can expect some great unexpected moments but most of the time we will have to deal with many unpleasant obstacles. Spending some time while being relaxed and thinking about your future activities is more effective than getting to the point where you have to decide in split-seconds. If you apply this rule to tennis you will see that planning can make your development much faster and it will reflect in good results that you achieve during tournaments. From time to time remember to look back and assess your effectiveness. Here are the checkpoints of analyzing quality that you can use to make your plan more effective.
Why is it planning necessary? Let’s look at this formula
Plan – Execute – Analyze
Successful people repeat this formula all over again. They plan actions with all the details, they put these steps into action and they learn from these experiences. After that they do it again and again. They constantly improve their plans because they are smarter every time they finish the cycle. The same happens to tennis coaches. If you have a plan and it works you know you have to continue it. On the other hand if you are not happy with results you know that some changes are needed in your plan. How can you make these decisions without knowing what you were doing 3 weeks ago? Can you help your player’s diet if you are not aware what he was eating for the last 5 days? Is it possible to say that your player’s injury is related to overtraining if you are not aware how many reps she was doing every Tuesday? I don’t think so.
It is time to plan. If you really care about player’s development consider these areas while preparing for success:
- Strengths and weaknesses – If you plan always try to continue to work on player’s strengths and don’t forget about areas that are weak. Some coaches spend time just on one side (strengths of weaknesses) and that is why their players struggle to reach higher level. You have to find balance and plan how and when to work both on skills that can win you points as well on abilities that cost you too many points.
- Look at all factors – Planning has to cover all details that have impact on player’s game. We all know that we should plan improvements in technical, tactical, physical and mental abilities but what about others? Do you plan nutritional improvements? Does your player get better with recovery techniques? Do you change practice intensity and volume according to tournaments, school exams and day of the week? Make sure you find ways to improve more than just general skills and your player will get a huge advantage over rivals.
- Have short and long-term goals – Priority for successful planning is to have short and long-term targets. If you are looking just for today’s result it can result in many injuries because of overtraining. If your eyes are directed toward the next year you can forget that player’s motivation is mostly based on wins so if they don’t happen your plan doesn’t work. As in any aspect of life try to balance these both extremes. Have goals for the next weeks which will be part of a bigger development that will result in huge transformation next year. This approach will guarantee wins to maintain motivation and development to constantly get better.
- Be flexible – Many people think that because they have a plan they should stick to it. The reality is brutal. Many times you will be forced to change your plans because of different factors. Bad weather, tournament schedule, injury or school’s trip will force you to make some adjustments. Remember it is not a bad thing – it happens all the time. You have a plan so it is great but small changes won’t change the big picture. Be flexible and continue to work hard even when sometimes it will take a little bit more time. Nobody is perfect and your plan won’t be too!
If you already don’t plan your development I hope this article will motivate you to start. If you plan your sessions every day I believe that these little insights can make your work even better. Planning is important and without it you make your job’s results really unexpected. Would you like to change it? OK – let’s plan it!
Do you have any questions about planning? Would you like to make your career more detailed and planned? Ask question in the comments box below.
Marcin Bieniek is a professional tennis coach. You can contact Marcin through his personal coaching website http://marcinbieniek.info. Marcin has been working with USTA, top 50 ITF and WTA/ATP players. Author of tennis book “Tenisowy Olimp” and frequent contributor to TennisPro and TenisKlub magazines. He was a speaker at International Coaching Tennis Symposium 2016 at Hilton Head Island, USA.
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