Effects of Carbohydrate Loading With Agility Training on Performance in Tennis Players

Tennis is a popular sport with tens of millions of players participating worldwide. This popularity was one factor leading to the reappearance of tennis as a medal sport at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. The volume of play, combined with the physical demands of the sports, can lead to injuries of the musculoskeletal system. Overall, injury incidence and prevalence in tennis has been reported in a number of investigations. The sport creates specific demands on the musculoskeletal system, with acute injuries, such as ankle sprains, being more frequent in the lower extremity while chronic overuse injuries, such as lateral epicondylitis, are more common in the upper extremity in the recreational player and shoulder pain more common in the high-level player.

Tennis tournaments are quite complex due to their variability in terms of exercise duration and the type of effort required. One feature of competitive tennis is that the season is relatively long and that the ranking system pushes players to compete all year long. During a competition, players must sometimes play one or two matches a day on consecutive days. For many reasons the duration and intensity of these matches are highly variable, but it is not uncommon to see matches continue beyond three hours and various studies have shown a drop in high-level tennis performance during extended matches. Under these conditions, optimum recovery methods are needed to maintain a high level of performance over the duration of a match. Among the strategies used, nutrition appears to be an important element to consider.

The majority of studies on the impact of nutritional strategies on tennis performance have been conducted by taking measurements during or at the end of long matches. Some studies have suggested a beneficial effect of carbohydrates during prolonged tennis matches. However, it is increasingly common for competitive athletes to use sports drinks before, during and after matches to help maintain their performance over the duration of a tournament. Different types of commercial beverages, specifically formulated to meet the needs of athletes before, during or after exercise, have been developed and introduced into the market in recent years.

Performance in most sports is determined by the athlete's technical, physiological and psychological characteristics. The physical aspect will be evaluated with a focus on what limits performance, and how training can be conducted to improve performance. Increasing the amount of aerobic high-intensity training, affects physiological adaptations and performance of trained athlete.

Carbohydrate loading regimens is that 2 to 6 days are required for the attainment of supra normal muscle glycogen levels. Because high rates of glycogen re-synthesis are reported during recovery from exercise of near-maximal intensity and that these rates could in theory allow muscle to attain supra normal glycogen levels in less than 24 hours.