So I just got back from training one of my clients and I felt inspired to share another video with you on a couple fantastic tennis fitness exercises that will benefit any tennis player as they relate to strengthening your core (remember by core we’re referencing the area between mid chest to mid thigh on the front and back of your body)…the area where all force production begins.

So it’s at this point that you might find yourself asking…”What are they?”

Drum roll please….

The answer is 1. Mountain Climbers and 2. Chase The Rabbits.
These babies rock! In them you get shoulder stability, abdominal activity and hip mobility/stability. These are the type of exercises which are hopefully replacing things like crunches in your workouts! If you’re still doing crunches on the ground to work on your abs by the way, it’s time to MoveOn.com…at the very least get up and do them on a swiss ball or bosu.

The mountain climber and chase the rabbits are far more effective for not only working your abs but so many other muscle groups and areas of the body that it’s a no brainer.

If you haven’t been doing this type of work, start slowly and focus on form. Build the speed in as it is appropriate…where the is no reduction of the quality/integrity of the exercise. Begin with doing 10-15 reps (right/left being 1 rep) or 20-30 movements depending on how you count. Do 1 set for the first 2 weeks, then add a second set for weeks 3 and on. Make sure to give yourself about a 30-60 second rest between sets.

Have fun and keep training with passion! Adam

Happy Tuesday to you…it’s Adam here! Let’s face it, to play the game of tennis well, you must move well and to move well you need as a foundation, strong legs.

Today I put together a video for you which demonstrates two simple moves, the Static Linear Lunge (sometimes called the Split Squat) and the Static Lateral Lunge which will act as the foundation for building stronger legs. Even though both legs are working in these moves, they are still referred to as single leg exercises…the lead leg bearing about 70% of your weight with the trail leg getting about 30%.

Far too often I come across people doing dynamic lunges with such bad form that it almost pains me to watch…for I know that they will soon be feeling the PAIN, in particular in their knees. Before we take any basic exercise, in this case static lunges, and move it in the direction of making it more active, the dynamic lunge, we first need to make sure we are doing it correctly…in short we want to establish strength and stability before we move to power and mobility.

To that end, that’s what this video is devoted to…showing you the finer points of the movement. Your goal is to master these techniques and spend at least 1 month doing them, before you start the dynamic lunges (Part 2).

When doing these 2 exercises, for the first 2 weeks, start with 1-2 sets of each about 10-15 reps. For weeks 3-4, do 2- 3 sets of each for about 16-30 reps of each. Once you hit month 2, you should have built up the baseline strength and stability to progress to dynamic lunges. So get to it! Check out the video below…

Tennis Players,

Welcome to another tennis exercise video. This one involves the Hip Flexors or as Physical Therapist Gary Gray would say, “our front butt”. Hip Flexors are extremely important in multi-planar movement (Check our post on Rotational Hamstring stretching to see a picture of the 3 Planes of Motion).
The primary “hip flexors” are the Psoas Major/Minor and the Illacus.

While playing tennis the Hip Flexors will go through all 3 planes of motion during every movement on the court, hundreds of times. In the video, we will show you how to dynamically stretch the Hip Flexors in all 3 Planes of Motion.

Here is a picture of the Hip Flexors as well as other muscles of the hip/pelvis:

The exercise progression is:

10 pulses with the arms moving in the Sagital Plane (foreward-backward)
10 pulses with the arms moving in the Frontal Plane (side-to-side)
10 pulses with the arms moving in the Transverse Plane (rotating)

After mobilizing the Hip Flexors, make sure you integrate the new mobility by playing tennis or moving the body. Having mobile and functional Hip Flexors will allow the tennis player to not only move better but get more power!

Check back often. We will be posting lot’s more on functional movement!

Everyone,

Here is a tennis exercise showing how to perform a dynamic transverse plane (rotational) hamstrings stretch. Understanding functional anatomy and movement, the hamstrings are extremely powerful in the transverse plane (rotation) and unfortunately we tend to only mobilize/stretch the hamstrings in the sagital plane (forward and backward) and to top it off, we tend to stretch statically instead of dynamically. An example of a static sagital plane hamstrings stretch would be placing the leg up on a bench and leaning forward. In tennis, we move dynamically in all 3 planes of motion and the hamstrings functionally work by decelerating the multi-planar movement, so to perform our best we better mobilize the hamstrings just like we really move on the court and in life.

Here is a picture of all 3 Planes of Motion

As always, leave any comments and enjoy playing!

Hey everybody,

Here is the third tennis training video in the sequence of healing shoulder and “tennis elbow” pain.  In this video, we focus on getting stronger hands both in flexion (gripping) and in extension (opening the hand).  These two fundamental exercises will really improve your shoulder and elbow pain and enhance your tennis game.

Here are the two exercises:

2. Fingertip Push-ups

Hanging: Hold on to a bar in an overhand grip.  At first try to hold 10-20 sec and then increase time as this becomes easier.  Ultimately try to get 1 minute holds.  In the video I show a couple progressions for the super strong.