Improve Your Game With These Exercises Articles | Tennis

By: Joe Dively

Playing your best on the tennis court requires strength, endurance, flexibility and coordination.  All of these things can be approved upon with the right exercises, thus making you stronger, faster and able to play harder and longer sets.

There are a lot of things you can do to increase your overall playing ability:

·    Practice slow bursts of exercise like sprinting, jumping and fiercely swinging the racket.
·    Allowing yourself minimal recovery periods during exercise.  Tennis is a fast-paced game that lends itself to very little downtime on the court.
·    Run using a lot of lateral movement.
·    Work on increasing your endurance for longer playing times

There are two main categories of fitness needed for improving your tennis game:

1.    Physical – your fitness level, flexibility capabilities and strength are all important in order to play the best possible game.
2.    Mental – coordination skills, and tactical ability are both needed in order to play tennis well.

So, what types of exercises should you be doing in order to play better and ward off injuries on the court?  Try a few of these to both improve your play and your endurance:

Shuttle Sprints:
Run from the baseline to serving barrier and back again as fast as you can.

Ball Retrieval:
Place a line of balls along the fence, then run as fast as you can, picking one up at a time and running back to place it in the basket.  Time yourself to see how fast you can do it.

Ball Drops: 
Have a partner hold balls and drop them without notice while you try and grab them before they bounce on the ground.

Balloon and Foot Balance: 
Blow up two balloons and try and keep them in the air by either hitting them with your racket or by using your foot.  It may sound easy, but it isn’t!

Ball and Shoulder Catch: 
While looking straight ahead, have a partner drop balls over your shoulder as you try and hit them with your racket into the net.

Improving your tennis game requires a strong upper and lower body.  To strengthen your lower body, try a few of these easy exercises:

·    High knee run.
·    Leg squats.
·    Front and rear lunges and walking squats.

For a great upper body workout try these simple strengthening exercises:

·    Punching.
·    Three-quarter presses.
·    Speedball.
·    Swinging.
·    Tricep dips.

Before attempting any of these exercises, be sure to stretch properly both before and after your workout to avoid injuries, pace yourself.  Remember, it takes time to build up your body strength and endurance.  Start with a 30 minute cardio workout three times a week, then when comfortable, add a day or two of strength training in addition to your regular exercise routine and watch your game on the court improve!