Fitness and recovery.

ZeroTheHero

ZeroTheHero

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I want to take advantage of the forum hive mind to answer a question that has always nagged at me.

Andy Murray has just played a four hour game of tennis. He has a day's rest and then has to go again.

Footballers play for a couple of hours, but it seems to take them at least three days to recover.

I'm not dissing footballers or holding tennis players up as examples, but I'd have thought that Murray would have expended more energy as a solo athlete in 4 hours than a member of a football team does in two. Is it different *kind* of exertion? Or is the truth that Murray would really need three days to recover properly?
 
ZeroTheHero said:
I want to take advantage of the forum hive mind to answer a question that has always nagged at me.

Andy Murray has just played a four hour game of tennis. He has a day's rest and then has to go again.

Footballers play for a couple of hours, but it seems to take them at least three days to recover.

I'm not dissing footballers or holding tennis players up as examples, but I'd have thought that Murray would have expended more energy as a solo athlete in 4 hours than a member of a football team does in two. Is it different *kind* of exertion? Or is the truth that Murray would really need three days to recover properly?
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That’s a good question! I guess he wouldn’t cover as much ground, and no one is kicking him, but he certainly stops, starts, and turns a lot.
 
It would be interesting to see the stats on distance covered and intensity of effort. Whilst it's only short distances during each point, over 4 hours it's probably in the same range as some footballers. But there are also frequent breaks and they're probably only active for around 50% of the total playing time.
 
Interesting thought. Our new head of Sports Science, Harry Routledge, has worked with football and tennis players so should know a thing or two about this.
 
As well as the physical impact, there is also the emotional affect. But this is easier for tennis players because, for them, love means nothing!!!
 
Tennis players are just tougher.

Imagine a fight between Tim Henman and Billy Whitehurst if you need proof of this
 
Murray will train in a block, then not at all during a tournament where it is play and recover. Footballers need to train and play for an 8 month season with matches at regular intervals. It is a very different routine. Rest days are important, and footballers can do two games a week for quite a while as we found out last season. Not ideal though if you want to be at your best.
 
Tennis players also get the opportunity to eat bananas and drink squash and I think this likely makes quite a difference too.
 
Given the length of rallies nowadays I wouldn’t be too surprised if a modern day sweeper keeper covers more distance in ninety minutes than a tennis player over four hours.

Football players are constantly moving and their sprints are always going to be further than the width of a tennis court.
 
It's a different form of exercise and thus exertion/required physique for me. A fit person will always be fit, but not necessarily when outside their "zone". I can't imagine a footballer or tennis player being able to cycle 200 km up mountains every day for three weeks with two one-day breaks...similarly a cyclist would be in trouble with the sprints and movement required in football.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I found a few stats here - https://livehealthy.chron.com/average-running-distance-tennis-player-5441.html
Obviously I can't vouch for their accuracy.

It claims a 'soccer' player will run about 7 miles in a match (I can think of a few who probably ran about half a mile!) and a tennis player 3 miles in a two set match. Murray's match was five sets, so that actually makes about 7 miles as well. (this is *very* approximate of course!).

So it may well be that really Murray would need three days to recover after a five set match, but the number of competitors in a tennis tournament would make that impractical as three days between matches would make it last for months!
 
Different type/sort of fitness I would suggest.
Kind of like the difference between marathon runners and sprinters.

Here endeth by knowledge of "fitness" barring knowing an old fat bloke over 55 can break 30 minutes for a 5k fairly consistently. :ROFLMAO:
 
Essexyellows said:
Different type/sort of fitness I would suggest.
Kind of like the difference between marathon runners and sprinters.

Here endeth by knowledge of "fitness" barring knowing an old fat bloke over 55 can break 30 minutes for a 5k fairly consistently. :ROFLMAO:
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92-sophie-rolls-down-a-hill-english-bulldog-puppy.gif

Easy if it's downhill... 😁
 
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