Strength Training For Tennis

Strengthening exercises will help to condition and tone up our muscles. High load muscular strength training will enhance tennis players’ explosive performances and aerobic endurance. These are 2 important elements of a decent tennis player.

Muscular strength could be improved by 2 means – muscular hypertrophy and neural adaptation (Wong, Chaouachi, Chamari and Alexandre, 2010). Muscular hypertrophy enlarges the cross-sectional area of the muscle through an increase in the size of its component cells, thus resulting in a greater body mass. This is not appropriate in tennis players as these extra kilos will affect their overall performance. On the other hand, neural adaptation increases muscle strength by recruiting more fast twitch muscle fibers without affecting the body mass. Hence, to get the most out of strength gains without increasing in body mass, the training program should consist of high load and short repetition sets (4-6RM) for 3-4 sets with 2-5 minutes of rest between sets. This recommendation is made in the assumption that the athlete has sufficient muscle mass. Intensity will be kept at about 75%.

Exercises using equipment that will be implemented for the athlete would be free weights, pull-ups, leg press and leg curls machines. Other exercises to improve the strength of the athlete could be push-ups, squats and lunges.

(PS. As weights used are relatively heavy, ensure that there is a partner to assist)

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