Exercise Tips for Tennis
As you can imagine, tennis is a very strenuous sport that requires a lot of energy as well as a really good physical condition in order to play successfully. This does not mean that you need to be a professional athlete to play well though. Of course the professionals have a physical trainer to help them, but you can achieve some of the same benefits by simply ensuring that you are doing exercises that will help you improve your game. How long you devote to exercise depends entirely on you, but you will be very glad you invested the time.
Running is one of the best things you can do. Whether you run at a full run or you choose to just jog does not matter as much. However the fact that you are running is phenomenal. If you stop and think a lot of tennis involves running back and forth across the court. If you have the energy to do this and do it without running out of breath then you are well onto the right track to ensure that you are in good physical shape. Running from one end of the court to the other and losing your breath in between will make it much harder for you to successfully play.
You are also going to need to work on strengthening your abdominal muscles. Having a good strong core with toned abs will help you achieve a powerful swing. While you do not need washboard abs you do need to ensure that you can control your abdominal muscles while you are playing. This means you are going to have to resort to some sit-ups and crunches to ensure that your stomach muscles are toned.
The muscles in your back cannot be ignored either. Using various workout equipment you can generally tone these in just a few minutes a day or however often you work out. Taking some small weights and focusing heavily upon repetitions rather than the actual weight amount is quite helpful in order to improve your overall back strength. Remember, many of the racquets that are used are quite heavy, so having the strength to lift them is important.
The arms and legs need to be toned as well. To do this some leg curls, arm curls and a bit of lifting weights can help. Once again you need to focus on repetitions since this is going to help you greatly while you are playing. The pure muscle mass is not as important as the ability to maintain your energy and strength during a match. You should strive to work towards higher numbers of reps regardless of which workout method you chose rather than pushing to bench press 300 pounds.
The final thing you need to work at is stretching. If you are doing proper stretches before any workout and before actually playing you are going to ensure that your muscles are in top shape. This will allow you to be a little bit looser in your playing without always being injured if you step slightly wrong. If your muscles are able to bend, flex and stretch without tearing or pulling immediately you will be able to avoid a lot of injuries. Make sure that you are always stretching as part of any exercise routine that you engage in to make sure your muscles are in top condition.
