Josh Davis has been working with Penn State Athletics since 2000. As an assistant strength and conditioning coach of Olympic sports, Davis and the other coaches in his office work with a number of sports.

But it was only last year when Dawna Prevette took over the Penn State women's tennis team that Davis worked a lot with the team.

"This is our second year fully working with them," Davis said. "When Dawna, the new coach started last year, she started implementing them coming in and working with us.

"Prior to that, the old coach didn't really utilize our staff and require them to be lifting and working out all the time."

And in her two years as coach, Prevette has constantly emphasized the importance of conditioning, which is why her team meets with Davis three times a week for five hours.

"Josh is incredible, he does a great job with the team," Prevette said. "We're very happy to have him on board. He's definitely helped the girls with a lot of their strengthening and quickness, and we just appreciate what's he doing over there because he works extremely hard."

The athletes spend an hour on Monday in the gym doing weight training, Davis said. Then Wednesday and Friday, at the break of dawn, it's conditioning and weight training.

Two hours each day -- from 7 to 9 a.m. -- Davis and the team will work on improving endurance in Holuba Hall on a set routine of exercises.

"They'll usually do a warm-up of some sort, which takes about 15 minutes," Davis said. "A dynamic warm-up where they're moving and stretching in the middle of all that."

Davis then moves on to agility drills to improve footwork and some sliding and side-to-side drills. Then it's on to the sprints, or if it's Friday, sometimes a distance run to improve endurance, Davis said.

"They'll do 110's, or they'll do 60-yard shuttles or 300-yard shuttles," Davis said. "We'll just progress that every week. So if they do three one week, they'll do four next week. Or we'll make the time shorter that they have to get it in, just so that we're always pushing them to get better."

So far, the increased focus has payed off for the, which has not had injury concerns so far this year and the team has seen a difference in its play. The biggest change has come with endurance, especially for Denisa Zobeideh, who struggled with sprints before the practice sessions.

"I've been getting to more balls on court," Zobeideh said. "A lot of the things we do are long distance-type sprints, going across the field. So it helps with endurance."

And so far, Prevette is not regretting her decision at all to make conditioning play a bigger role in her team's weekly routine.

"One of our goals is to be explosive," Prevette said. "I feel like the girls are more explosive with the quickness, able to have stronger endurance. We have a good endurance base. We're just stronger overall."