The world’s best tennis players are back in town! The San Diego Open take place at Barnes Tennis Center in Point Loma this week. An incredible 16 out of the World Tennis Association (WTA)’s top 20 players in the world participate in the tournament. Iga Swiatek, US Open Champion and number one in the world, will compete against top American players in San Diego, including Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff, Madison Keys, and Danielle Collins. This will be a tough competition at the end of a long season. A structured strength and conditioning training throughout the year will still give them fresh legs, a powerful serve, and keep injuries away.
How does Strength And Conditioning work?
The starting point with every exercise program is: What am I conditioning for? Rallies in professional tennis take five to ten seconds, depending on the tennis court’s surface. During a rally, a player performs four sprints on average, with distances between five to ten yards, mostly followed by a change of direction (COD). After a rally, players usually have a break of about 20 seconds until the next point is played. Considering these characteristics of the game is crucial for designing a strength and conditioning program for a tennis player.
According to these parameters, one can argue that tennis is a power sport with short bouts of intensive actions. In a study, Turner describes the Repeated Sprint Ability (RSA) as “the ability of an athlete to recover and maintain maximal effort during subsequent sprints” throughout an entire match. To improve an athlete’s RSA and anaerobic capacity, she/he must practice those high intensities interspersed by game-like breaks of 10-30 seconds.
Furthermore, a tennis player can improve power in the gym. It is well-known that tennis performance is influenced by a strong upper body. Starting from cocking phase during the serve high concentric loads are put on the deltoids and biceps. High eccentric loads are put on an athlete’s rotator cuff, especially after hitting the ball. The triple extension in the ankles, knees, and hips, as well as a powerful trunk flexion and rotation, also contribute to a serve’s performance.
All these components can be worked on in the gym. However, the foundation of a proper strength training is built as a young athlete. By the age of ten, players can start strengthening core, upper and lower limbs with bodyweight exercises. This will be the foundation to start learning fundamental strength exercises, like squats or deadlifts, with only minimal loading. The adolescent and adult athlete will benefit from this preparation because they will be more capable of higher loading and better power development later in their career. A tennis player can benefit from hypertrophy training, high load power training, low-load fast-velocity power training, and plyometrics depending on the phase of her/his career and the period of season.
Since a tennis match can take up to 2+ hours, a player’s aerobic capacity is also vital to success. The better your maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) is, the better you will recover during the points. However, extensive runs or several hours of cycling should not be the focus of a Tennis strength and conditioning program. The best way to increase your aerobic capacity is simply playing tennis.
Tennis is a unilateral sport with a wide range of motion (ROM) in certain joints. Everybody comprehends the huge mobility necessary in the shoulder joint, but also think about how much impact Novak gets on his hip joints and thighs while splitting. A routine to improve a tennis player’s flexibility has exercises for the shoulder, elbow, wrist, spine, trunk, hips, knees, and ankles. Due to certain movement patterns, such as unilateral play or a lower center of mass position during the return, flexibility also deteriorates. Therefore, flexibility must be part of a structured conditioning routine for tennis players.
Up to this paragraph, the focus of strength and conditioning training for tennis players was performance enhancement. The second, and maybe more important, reason tennis players should do strength and conditioning is injury prevention. Only a fit and healthy athlete will become number one. This is true because you can make more ranking points, practice more, recover faster, and focus better. Year after year. The most common injuries in tennis players are (surprise, surprise) lower limb injuries, including the hip, knee, ankle, and soft tissue. Next in line are injuries of the spine, shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Strength and conditioning training for tennis players can reduce the risk of injuries significantly.
Conditioning and strength training for tennis players can be very beneficial. A proper fitness regime can improve power development and lead to a faster serve. Improving aerobic and anaerobic capacity can enhance the athlete’s performance. Strength and conditioning training benefits a tennis player’s injury prevention and health.
If you are looking for a strength and conditioning coach, I’d be happy to help you. Text or mail me and get a free consultation.