Critical Loading During Serve: Modeling Stress-Induced Bone Growth in Performance Tennis Players

On September 27, 2004 Andy Roddick hit the current world record 155 mph serve in his Davis Cup match against Belarus, which set him up with three match points against Vladimir Voltchkov. By that time, at 22 years of age, Roddick had broken his own speed record for the third time. In tennis, like in almost all other high performance sports, professional athletes tend to reach their peak performance at a much younger age than they used to several decades ago. Accordingly, athletes have to start full-time practice in their early childhood that strongly overlaps with the period of skeletal and muscular development. It is the responsibility of their coaches and physicians to design efficient training programs targeted at maximal performance and minimal risk of injury. Biomechanics can play a crucial role in supporting the design of these training strategies. By predicting the functional adaptation of bones and muscles, biomechanics simulation can help to explain and eventually prevent common forms of injuries caused by chronic overuse.