Why should every tennis player follow a strength training program?

There is a misconception that strength training isn’t crucial for tennis performance and can even hinder it. As a current college tennis player and online personal trainer, I can confirm that this myth is bullshit. Every professional tennis player includes strength training in their fitness regimen and most top players have a specific strength training coach.

There are several benefits of strength training for tennis players trying to improve their game.

These include:

1. Injury prevention
2. Increased power and explosiveness
3. Increased muscular endurance
4. Increased court coverage and speed
5. Increased stability dealing with powerful groundstrokes
6. Increased confidence

I will now break down each of these benefits in greater depth.

Injury prevention

Strength training helps strengthen muscles and tendons while increasing the flexibility of the ligaments, decreasing that risk that they become strained or torn. Muscles that have been trained with progressive overload for a long period of time develop greater muscular endurance, preventing overuse injuries. Im simple terms: the stronger a muscle, the more force it can exert without getting injured.

Increased power and explosiveness

Strength training programs for tennis players should have a focus on completing movements in an explosive manner. The difference between explosive sets (that benefit tennis players) and normal sets are explosive sets are performed with a lighter weight, and the concentric part of the movement is performed as fast as possible and the eccentric part is performed slow and controlled. Power is the ability to move force at a fast rate, which is exactly what the focus is with explosive training. A strength training program that is intentionally created to improve power will translate to more powerful groundstrokes and a more powerful serve. Tennis pros implement explosive strength training very often.

Increased muscular endurance

Muscular endurance is achieved when you increase your ability to exert a force for a long period of time. This can be improved in strength training by performing high repetitions. For example: If you incorporate endurance training into your strength training program you would perform an exercise for high reps and increase the overall reps you complete over time. This would translate to your on court performance because tennis matches can last a long time and you need the muscular endurance to hit serves with a great force for over 3 hours. Poor muscular endurance will result in a significantly slower serve at the end of a long match and good muscular endurance will result in a serve that is consistently powerful no matter how long the match is.

Increased court coverage and speed

Implementing explosive and strength training will increase the rate of which your muscles can contract. Training your quads and hamstrings effectively will lead to more powerful and explosive strides on court and a greater max speed. Exercises such as squats and romain deadlift are great for developing speed and increasing your court coverage.

Increased stability dealing with powerful groundstrokes

When dealing with a powerful groundstroke, whether you are at the baseline or at net requires greater muscle strength. This is especially important when you are at net dealing with a powerful passing shot. Your wrist and forearm must be stable and strong at contact. Training your forearms regularly will allow you to deal with powerful shots with greater stability.

Increased confidence

Improving your body composition (gaining muscle and losing fat) comes with an increase in confidence off the court, this will translate to your confidence on court. Confidence plays a huge role on court. A confident tennis player is more dangerous than one who is unsure of themselves. Improve your confidence on and off the court by implementing a strength training regimen.

Hopefully I have convinced you of the importance of strength training as a tennis player. If you would like further guidance DM me on twitter @mahtani_suraj I’m happy to help :)