No matter what level of tennis you play at it’s necessary to work on your overall fitness. Playing on various court surfaces and using powerful strokes and stances make it vital that you are in decent shape. The nature of the game is repetitive and without doing proper tennis workouts players can wind up getting injured.
When you watch professional tennis you will notice that players such as Andy Murray or Serena Williams are hitting the ball just as hard in the final game of the third set as they were in the first game of a match. That is because professional tennis players use strength training exercises and workout plans that help them increase their energy and endurance. If you hope to perform well and for an extended period of time then you’ll need to find tennis workouts and training programs that work for you.
The first step to building a tennis workout and training program is to analyze your specific needs. Take into account your age, body type and general health and fitness status. Furthermore, it’s important to identify your strengths and weaknesses and take into consideration any previous or current injuries.
Strength training is only one part of the conditioning. Things such as power, agility, speed, and flexibility are all equally important. By improving each of these elements you can also improve your game.
Tennis workouts involve sets and repetitions just like any other fitness routine. A set is a group of repetitions and most workouts include anywhere from two to six sets of a specific exercise. It’s usually recommended that tennis players perform two to four sets of exercise. For players to develop it’s important that they are using multiple sets that include resistance training exercises. Repetitions are the number of times an exercise is repeated within a set. Repetitions determine the amount of weight lifted and work done which directly affects the intensity of an exercise. The higher the number of repetitions the lighter the weights that are used. The optimal number of repetitions in a set for a tennis player is 10 to 15. Repetitions provide athletes with not only strength training but also muscular endurance which tennis requires.
Lower body strength of high performing tennis players has been researched and shows that elite players have the same strength on both their left and right sides. Leg exercises for tennis players include leg presses, front and partial squats, lunges, hamstring curls, and calf raises. Upper body tennis exercises that help train the nondominant arm includes seated rows, lat pulldowns, bicep curls, and core chests presses. Playing tennis develops muscles such as the internal rotators, biceps, triceps, and forearms. However, the most important muscles to train are on the dominant arm and include rotator cuffs and scapular stabilizers.
For a breakdown of workouts for tennis players visit this website.
