Physical Demands of Tennis
Proper movement skills are critical for successful
tennis. A successful tennis player must be able to
get to the ball early and set up properly. Typically,
this requires quite a few adjustment steps as you
recognize the path, spin, and pace of the incoming
ball. In fact, tennis often has been characterized as
a game of emergencies. It involves constant movement,
short sprints, and frequent directional
changes. On average, 3 to 5 directional changes are
required per point, and it is not uncommon for players
to perform more than 500 directional changes
during a single match or practice. Matches can last
several hours, which requires aerobic fitness, but the
short sprints, explosive movements, and directional
changes are clearly anaerobic. Therefore, both the
cardiorespiratory and muscular systems should be
trained using movement patterns representative of
those seen during tennis play.
A big focus of the United States Tennis Association
(USTA) Player Development training program
is good movement and positioning. It is clear
that if you can’t get to the ball and set up properly,
you won’t hit the ball in the most balanced way
to produce a forceful stroke. The legs are the first
link in transferring forces from the lower to the upper
body. This is part of the kinetic link, or kinetic
chain, system. Newton’s third law states that for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
When you hit a tennis ball, your feet push against
the ground, and the ground pushes back. This allows
you to transfer force from one body part to the next,
through the legs, hips, trunk, and arm all the way
to the racket. The key is to do this in the most efficient
and effective manner by timing the segments
correctly, not leaving out any segments, and preparing
your body to be strong and flexible enough to
handle the stresses imposed. Proper technique and
preparation of the muscular system should go hand
in hand. The lower body, midsection (the core or
torso), and upper body are important in tennis, but
each segment has different needs and training requirements.
Training the legs is vital for efficient movement
on the court. Research shows that the muscles in
both legs are stressed equally in tennis, so training
programs should reflect this. Since the vast majority
of tennis movements are side to side, it is important
to focus 60 to 80 percent of training on these movement
patterns. In other words, working on lateral
movements incorporating the abductors, the
muscles that move the leg away from the center of
the body, and the adductors, the muscles that bring
the leg toward the center of the body, is at least as
important as training the other muscle groups of the
legs.
Think of the midsection of the body as a cylinder
when it comes to training. Exercises should be designed
to move the front, back, and side of the torso
through multiple planes of motion. Tennis strokes
require rotational movements as well as flexion and
extension, frequently all in one stroke.
The dominant side of the upper body is much
more involved in each stroke than the nondominant
side. Therefore, in addition to training the dominant
side for performance purposes, you need to train
the nondominant side for balance and injury prevention.
Since the game tends to be dominated by
serves and forehands that involve the muscles of
the front of the shoulders and the chest, be sure
to train the muscles in the rear of the shoulders
and the back. During forehands and serves, these
muscles experience eccentric, or lengthening, contractions
and shorten during the backhand stroke
through concentric contractions.
When designing a training program for tennis
players, it is important to balance upper and lower
body, left and right sides, and front and back. Tennis
Anatomy takes you through each of the body parts
and provides you with appropriate exercises for optimal
performance.