Tennis training and conditioning can no longer be separated from tennis players who want to reach their full potential. Every good facility that teaches tennis now has a strength and conditioning coach in order to improve the practice as much as possible.
Tennis training and conditioning must be incorporated into your workout if you want to get the best results from your practice. For a beginner, 25% of the training time should be conditioning and at a higher level 1/3 of the total amount isn’t much.
Conditioning training includes everything from coordination and balance to strength training. The best tennis players are complete athletes. In order to compete at a high level, players need to be fast, agile, strong, powerful, explosive and flexible, and of course they need to have good aerobic capacity.
Players who follow a good training will be more efficient on the tennis court while practicing or playing matches. The best tennis players have the most powerful strokes but are also the fittest on the court.
Adaptive training can be done on the field or off the field. It should be fully integrated into tennis training. Agility training can be done every day on the field, during, before and after practice. This will help players to improve their footwork and thus become much faster on the field. Once players start moving well, they will have more time to prepare their shots, and then they will be more efficient. Having great shots but not being able to move well or set up well isn’t going to help a tennis player once they get into a match situation. This is why conditioning training on the court with agility drills can be so beneficial for tennis players.
Off the field, once or twice a week, some cardio training will help the players stay in shape. A good aerobic level allows players to be more intense while training or playing matches. Tennis is a very intense activity and we often see players who get tired very quickly or who don’t recover well. Continuous cardio training such as cycling or jogging for 30 minutes will really help a lot in avoiding this type of situation.
Another very important part of conditioning is strength training. Strength training must be fully integrated into the program because players are stronger and more powerful and to keep up with your opponents you have to be just as strong as they are. Strength training is also the best way to prevent injuries that often happen to tennis players.
Flexibility is also important for injury prevention, which is why a good daily stretching routine will be so beneficial to a tennis player.
The key word in conditioning training is consistency on a weekly basis at least. If a player goes to the gym for 3 weeks and then stops completely for a few weeks, his physical level will drop. It is very important to continue conditioning at least to maintain the players fitness level. When a player does not hit the balls for a long time, it will be difficult to return to his previous level again. The exact same thing happens in adaptive training.
Tennis training and conditioning should be done together and regularly. This is the key to becoming a great tennis player and this is why it is so hard to reach the top level in this sport. Professional tennis players are complete athletes who work hard on and off the court by following specific conditioning programs for tennis. It must be done at any age and level in order for the player to reach their full potential.