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Smart Tennis Exercises
- Overview to tennis exercises: 1) Tennis is a fast-paced sport making extensive use of both upper and lower body anatomy, 2) the game emphasizes hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness and keen agility, 3) cardiovascular endurance is required for competitive play, and tennis places significant demands on the musculoskeletal system, most particularly, the legs, midsection, upper body, and arms.
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Physical aspects of tennis exercises: 1) Tennis strength and tennis exercises are directed to a number of distinct but interrelated physical aspects of the sport, 2) tennis is primarily a game of short, dynamic bursts of running action and lateral movement, separated by brief recovery intervals, 3) these anaerobic features of the sport are coupled with game and practice situations where the player might be active for two to three hours at a time, a circumstance that requires the promotion of cardiovascular endurance.
Muscles requiring extensive use and therefore, conditioning, include:
1. Leg Muscles, particularly the quadriceps, hamstring and gluteus muscles as well as gastrocnemius and soleus muscles of the lower leg.
2. Chest and upper body muscles, particularly, the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi and deltoid muscles of the torso.
3. Shoulder and arm muscles, including the rotator cuff, shoulder adductor, and biceps and triceps muscles of the racket arm, as well as the rotator muscles: teres minor and infraspinatus and subscapularis muscles.
4. Muscles of the wrist and hand, used during the tennis swing.
5. Lower back muscles, particularly the Spinal Erectors.
6. Abdominal muscles including the Rectus Abdominis, right internal and left external obliques.
7. Neck muscles, in particular the Neck Flexor and Extensor muscles.
Specifics of Tennis Exercises:
· Overall tennis exercises: 1)Tennis exercises will provide strength training and flexibility, targeting all of the above areas essential for competitive players, 2) tennis exercises such as running, cycling, indoor cardiovascular machines, and swimming all achieve the necessary goal for the tennis player, 3) a failure to develop a reasonable level of endurance will limit the ability of the player to recover between rallies and between the sets of a match, 4) where the cardiovascular training takes the form of running, the athlete can also achieve a degree of acclimatization to the heat of outdoor competitive tennis.
· Tennis exercises involving core strength: 1) Such exercises contribute to the effective delivery of a serve and the making of a return, 2) tennis exercises that include the simplicity of sit ups and abdominal crunches, to more involved Swiss ball routines, where the body's own mass is the resistance provided to the muscles, are all effective.
· Tennis exercises involving stretching and the development of maximal joint flexibility: 1) In tennis the body is subjected to a significant range of movement, 2) in a single sequence of shots, a player may be required to run in every direction, lunge from side to side, and to reach up or jump to play overhead shots, 3) thus, tennis exercises involving stretching and the development of maximal joint flexibility are essential to tennis success, 4) of particular importance is the preservation of the range of motion in the shoulder, elbow, and wrist of the player's dominant hand, as these joints in particular are subjected to the repetitive stresses in every swing of the racquet.
· Tennis exercises involving the body: 1) In tennis the body is subjected to a significant range of movement, 2) in a single sequence of shots, a player may be required to run in every direction, lunge from side to side, and to reach up or jump to play overhand shots, 3) thus, tennis exercises involving stretching and the development of maximal joint flexibility is essential to tennis success, 4) of particular importance is the preservation of the range of motion in the shoulder, elbow, and wrist of the player's dominant hand, as these joints in particular are subjected to the repetitive stresses in every swing of the racquet.
· Tennis exercises involving strength training: 1) Tennis players will use strength training to maximize shoulder strength and to ensure that they have a reasonable balance between all muscle groups, 2) circuit training, with the emphasis upon high repetition, low weight routines, is commonly employed to achieve this result.
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