I have a new client that has just enlisted my help. She will start this fall at a D-III college, where she will play varsity tennis. I just got back from watching her play this morning, and from what my untrained tennis eye was that her biggest weakness is that she did not move especially well around the court. She always seemed like she was just a step slow and had poor reaction time. In the past, I have mainly worked with football players, I am a bit out of my realm. I have looked through my limited library and have had little luck finding appropriate drills and schemes to use with a tennis player. Has anyone had any experience training athletes for tennis?
Tennis requires strength, speed, and aerobic fitness so you will need total body workouts. Strength training should involve both upper and lower body workouts with emphasis on shoulders, back, arms, legs, abdominals, and hips. Lat-pull downs, bench presses, upright rows, upper-back flies, lunges, squats, ab crunches, and lying hyperextensions are some core exercises. Use 2 sets of high reps (12 to 15) for each exercise. Shoulder and back injuries are the most common tennis injuries. Strengthening muscles around smaller joints - knees, ankles, and elbows is also important. Some other exercises - Hopping: Tape a six-sided figure to the court 24 inches per side. Stand in the middle. Jump with both feet over one side of the hexagon and then jump back to the middle. Continue facing the same direction while working your way around the hexagon Complete 3 rotations. This exercise will help stabilize the body during quick changes of direction.
20 Yard Dash: The baseline to the service line on the opposite side is 20 yards. Work on accelerating and maintaining maxium speed.
Medicine Ball: Play catch with a medicine ball. Allow only the upper body to rotate. All tennis shots require twisting so strong abdominals are important.
I have worked with DI tennis players for 4 years now. Think about what and why you do things for football and apply that to the tennis situation. Hopping on two feet seems alright, but in tennis most movement is lateral off of one foot at a time. This is where your football drills will come in handy. 3 and 4 cone drills will work awesome, they have for me. As far as high rep sets, count them out. There body gets enough endurance training in practice. What they need in the weight room is strength and strength. We are not talking about 1 and 2 rms but more like 3-6. Protect her knees and elbows. This is where the most problems occur. Use stabalization drills like the medball catch on one foot, balance squats, etc. Good luck.
I’m a tennis pro at a club here in Vero Bch. Fl. The athlete has to make gains in strenght all over; sprinting, weights, medicine ball, hindu everything. There’s many quickness/agility drills that can be done. A great one is the dot drill. Bigger Faster Stronger uses it as part of their program. You can use many other exercises from other sports to get quicker/ better agility. I got some great drills from some Pete Maravich b-ball videos! They’re awesome! It’s endless! Good luck.
Speed footwork drills should be done every practice. In school, my girlfriends and I played tennis in the spring and field hockey in the fall. Ironically, it was the hockey coach that made us faster on the tennis court. In hockey, if the ball hits you, they call a foul against the girl hit. One day, a bunch of us were fouled because we got hit. The coach figured she would correct that. Play with no shin guards. What a sadist. After getting hit in the shins/ankles with a couple of line drives and hockey sticks, we learned to move our feet real quick.
Hey Riley, I just answered a GPP question by you. I just explained to a top-10 NCAA football program to first attack agility training you must consider the body as a moving in “harmony”. The chain of development must start at flexibility and I dont mean simply stretching but functional flexibility. Progressing beyond that the functional nature of her training must be the priority. If you can provide more specifics I will be pleased to discuss.