With Wimbledon currently all over our screens and with the heatwave we are currently in I thought I introduce you to a few tips for tennis you could do in the gym or outside. This will hopefully benefit your tennis skills and get your heart rate up, burning unwanted fat for the summer.
For tennis the main focus are powerful legs along with strong shoulders. The recruitment of fast twitch muscles are crucial in tennis as every movement is of a explosive form. As a tennis player though you still want to remain light on your feet, great aerobic capacity for long rally's with flexibility to stretch for the short drop shots. Stability for when playing power shots and the ability to get to the shots along with pin point footwork are also aspects which are needed. However, firstly I'm going to start by how to improve the recruitment of fast twitch muscles.
Much like my recent blog on football the recruitment of fast twitch muscles are crucial to gain the explosive power to generate through the shots. Beginning with a compound exercise to recruit these muscle fibres in a high weight, low rep, explosive manner. Back squat is where I would begin. Warm up to a weight where you would normally perform 8-10 reps with. Use this weight to perform 3x5 of pause squats, pausing for a 6 second count at the bottom of the rep. Superset this with jump squats to failure. Next moving on to the posterior chain through deadlifts. Unlike the pause with the squats the attention needs to be paid to the eccentric phase, with the lowering of the weight and exploding out of the bottom. I read a recent article on Laura Robson's training and this is one of her favourite exercises. Perform 5x5 superset with 8 tuck jumps. Both of these are aiming to increase your recruitment of fast twitch muscle fibres.
Mentioned in the article was how Laura uses a lot of pull ups in her routine to build up her upper strength. These can be performed assisted, normally or weighted all to improve strength. If you can't perform a pull up unassisted then jump up and lower yourself down under control, this will just build up the strength in the area. Press ups is the king of exercises to build the strength in the upper body. Clap press ups will suit tennis more due to the explosive manner in which they are performed. Lowering yourself down under control with a explosive press generating power, emulating an action when performing a shot. With these you can go as far as bring your whole body of the ground.
Movement around the court is the last aspect I'm going to address which is one of the most important. Movement can't just be backwards and forwards to and from the net as the game is mostly played across court meaning lateral movement must be efficient as well. This is often improved through drills, such a shuttle runs, or death runs like in basketball but there are certain exercises which can help. Ice skaters where you jump laterally from one leg to the other will increase the single leg power on the plane of movement. All different types of sprints will aid with movement. Move laterally and then after 8-12 strides sprint forward. Jump 180 degrees then sprint forward. Move laterally, then backwards and sprint forwards. All these slight adjustments to just basic sprint will all help, read my football entry for more tips and advice.
Gym based workout
1) Squats - 15,12.10,8 then 3x5 pause squats. Superset with jump squats.
2) Deadlifts - 15,12,10,8 then 5x5 deadlifts, focus on eccentric phases. Superset tuck jumps.
3) Pull ups 3 sets till failure. If exceeding 10 reps add additional weight.
4) Clap press ups, aim for 6-8 reps.
5) Plank, 4x45 seconds.
Outdoors
1) 5 burpees, 8 press ups, 10 jump squats. As many rounds in 20 minutes.
2) 10 Ice skaters, 5 broad jumps. 5 sets.
3) 50 m sprint
180 degree turn into sprint x5
Lateral, backwards into sprint x5
There we have a few little points that you could use to improve you strength and conditioning for when your next on the court, or you just fancy a different workout.
Jack
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