When it comes to stepping up your athletic game with strength training, your focus will want to be on building and maintaining a foundation that is functionally strong, powerful, and
injury-free.
It doesn't get much more sport-specific than actually practicing your sport, therefore, when it comes to form and technique, save that for the court! As a trainer, I would recommend you focus on strengthening the 7 functional movement patterns of the body to build an unbreakable body armor.
More muscle = More strength = More power = Better game
Here's how you can structure an effective workout to enhance your tennis game on the strength floor...
Warm Up
Think movement. Save the static strengthening for when the muscles are warm and elastic. Warm ups should focus on prepping the body to move similarly to the exercises in your workout. Bodyweight movements mimicking your exercises, rotations of the major joints like shoulders, hips, and ankles. Light core exercises to activate those muscles so they are ready to go for heavier lifting.
Beginning Sets
Wake up your nervous system! Think light and fast. Box jumps, ball slams, lateral hops, vertical jumps, skipping, are all fantastic ways to activate fast twitch muscles and to tell your brain "hey, it's go time!"
Middle Sets
Think functional and heavy! Squats, hip hinges, lunges, horizontal push/pull, vertical push/pull, rotational core, anti-rotational core. Choosing an exercise from each of these movement patterns makes sure you hit all the essential areas of the body. Choose a weight that you can do 10-12 reps, leaving 1-2 "in the tank" (meaning doing 1 or 2 more reps would result in complete failure of the movement).
Finisher
If you want to leave it all on the floor, I highly suggest adding in some conditioning or ESD (Energy System Development) at the end. My favourite way to do this is 5 minutes total, 30 seconds all out sprint, 30 seconds rest. Choose any cardio machine that you can do sprints on and leave the rest of your energy there! My favourite is the Tower or Assault Bike. This will exhaust the lungs, work fast twitch muscle fibers, and leave your body burning extra calories throughout the day to make up for the oxygen deficit. That being said, you have to try to push yourself HARD for 30 seconds x5.
YOU GOT THIS!
Contact our fitness department to help you level up your game!
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