How to stay healthy and enjoy playing tennis for life. 

One thing that I love about tennis, is that it brings people together, it is a game for life.  Studies have shown, that people who play tennis live longer, so why would you ever quit?  People quit when the game is no longer fun.  Suffering from an injury is not fun!  I have had the privilege of working with the Rogers Cup WTA tour over the past twenty years. By far the most common reason that the pros retire from the tour is the emotional fatigue that comes from dealing with injury after injury. It’s not just the pros that are plagued by injury, just look around the courts and notice how many people have a strap on their elbow, or compression sleeve on their knee or ankle.  So why are injuries so common in tennis?

Two types of common tennis injury:

First of all, there are two types of tennis injuries, acute and chronic.  An example of an acute injury is when you fall on the court...

The one word that changes everything – ‘WHY’

If you want maximum gains, if you want to be the best you can be, if you want to know a little secret – Keep reading.

We learned years ago that doing fancy exercises and training really hard didn’t always get the best results unless you know why you are doing them.

Training effectively always comes down to purpose.  Knowing - Why am I doing this training block, why am I doing this exercise, why do this amount of reps, etc. What is the purpose of your training regime, your exercises, and the variables around them?

These are the questions you need to ask yourself all the time. It is especially important for coaches and trainers to know the “why” in what they do.

I trained Lleyton Hewitt for 8 preseasons in a row and although Lleyton was never the guy to ask, “why are we doing this” or “why has this changed”. We would speak about the benefits of the training phase we...

 Try these Speed Drills for 2 weeks and see the difference.

Benefits of Speed Training Programs :

• You will feel lighter on your feet, have a more explosive first step, and be more efficient on court.
• Limit the times you are wrong-footed and feel confident to run down more balls.
• Also, help you decelerate into each shot, so have more time for preparation of shot, having more time for your shot, will improve your decision-making.
  
  

 Tennis Speed Training Video 

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Our passion is to help tennis players of all levels. For additional help from Tennis Fitness please complete the contact us form below.

Today we want to give you 3 FREE Tennis Fitness Tests and a practical aerobic training program to compliment it! These are some tests we do with our tennis players.

1 Mobility Test
2 Change of Direction Test
3 Aerobic Test (MAS)

You will have access to the free specific tennis aerobic program after you have completed your free tests.

At tennis fitness we believe it is very important to assess an athlete and measure where they are at. This gives us the ability to know their current level and establish what level they need to be at (their goal) We firmly believe, if we put all our athletes through a movement analysis, whether that analysis is agility based, speed-based, aerobic-based, or all three. Then incorporate a strength tennis fitness test, we then get a clear cut starting point and an end goal. This is how you educate and motivate an athlete. Check out the tests and give them a go.

If you are lacking motivation this is your starting point. 

"What Gets Measured, Gets...

I have been guilty in the past of being up and down with my training and I'm a tennis trainer! So I know how hard it can be. Staying disciplined and focused is tough, but it is what it takes for players to be tennis pros.

What is important is to keep changing what you do, progressing your tennis program, continually challenging yourself.

This not only adds variety, but it is needed to allow your body to continually adapt and improve.

When done correctly it adds serious physical progress, who doesn’t want that!

I’ve admitted I’ve been slack a few times with my tennis fitness training, I’m human, I really had no excuse.

I know what to do and when to do it, on the rare occasion I’ve slipped it’s been a case of I’m too busy, no excuse. Others on the other hand, maybe even you have an excuse – You don’t know what to do and when to do it.

Maybe you think you do, but is it really working for you? I hope so!

Over the last couple of...

Having a fast and responsive movement is what every tennis player should be aiming for.

Getting yourself set up for shots, getting too short balls, and having the ability to feel like you can attack from anywhere on the court is important.

To achieve this every tennis player needs to be performing an effective and specific tennis speed program.

It's not just about getting down the park to do a couple of 50m sprints. You need to be performing specific speed components with the intention of progressing the program to prevent a plateau.

There are three different speed components you need to focus on; Acceleration, Deceleration, and High-end speed.

There are also three key points you need to concentrate on when performing these speed components; Power, Position, and Pattern.

Concentrating on these three points in the speed drills will help improve your overall tennis speed and movement balance.

Check out this video for your free speed drills, plus a tempo speed program. Give them a go...

We can't answer that for you… but we can tell you why we as tennis fitness trainers, devote so much time working with and helping tennis players be the best they can be……

1. Tennis players are a special breed. They get addicted to the great game and cannot get enough of it. As tennis fitness trainers this motivates us so much, when we see the passion there, we want to add to it. We have found it to be a good life lesson "find your passion, pursue it and people will add to it"
2. We love the complexity of tennis. Physically it challenges not only your physical structure (muscle, organs, tendons etc) but also works the different energy systems (Aerobic, anaerobic) the body has at its disposal……. To be constantly improving you need to work on your tennis speed as well as, strength, agility, flexibility, recovery, nutrition, hydration, power and aerobic endurance, there is a lot of bloody things you can do. Finding the starting point or the priorities to...

How important it is to periodize your training for tennis?
Periodization is simply, structuring on and off-court tennis training into phases or blocks of time.

The basic phases include:
• Preparation (general and specific)
• Competition (pre-competition and competition)
• Transition (offseason)

Each phase focuses on different aspects of tennis fitness and tennis conditioning (cardio endurance, strength, power, tennis speed, agility, and recuperation) in conjunction with on-court work, specifically for the phase.

Here is a brief explanation of each phase.

Preparation (General and Specific)

General: High training volume/ low intensity. The focus is on tennis endurance and strength. Training can be general and non-tennis specific at the start of the phase (cross-training) a good time to work on tennis technique. Ratio 30:70.on court : off-court training Phase length: 4-6 weeks.

Specific: Low volume/High intensity. Focus on more specific tennis training ...

Agility training is a key component for all successful tennis players. Agility is the ability to rapidly change direction, whilst losing minimal tennis speed, balance, or body control. It is normal that some players are more agile and naturally faster than others.

However it is proven that players can improve agility, the key is the right type of tennis training, doing tennis exercises. Your neuromuscular system, which controls your ability to accelerate, decelerate, quickly change direction, and move efficiently, is highly trainable. If you train the way you play and do it with purpose and structure you are guaranteed to improve your tennis fitness and agility.

Tennis Agility Drills

These 2 Tennis Fitness Agility drills are some of our favorites. Watch this video now

For more tennis tips and cool new tennis exercises follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Our passion is to help tennis players of all levels. For additional help from Tennis Fitness...