Tennis Cross Training-XFIT

Many tennis players get their cardio benefits, but choose not to address their exercises to strengthen and stretch their muscles, joints, tendons, and bones by going to the gym. With a little extra work, tennis players could improve their level of play, help recover from injuries or prevent them from happening in the first place. It doesn't take that much time, maybe, 20 minutes to just do basic maintenance. Beyond that, 40 minutes could be allotted toward improving hand-eye-foot coordination, agility (footwork), explosive movement (plyometrics), anaerobic/aerobic capacity (cross-training), reaction time, and stroke production.I'd like to impart my experience from tournament tennis and martial arts in a way that is both interesting, exciting, and enriching for all players by addressing the attack and defence tactics that both disciplines have in common. I suggest that players looking to improve their athletic performance combine their current fitness regimens with sports specific techniques. These techniques include work outs that practice their strokes in between sets of conventional push-ups, crunches, squat-thrusts (burpees), squats, lunges, and jumping jacks. Stroking on forehand and backhand sides high, middle, and low with topspin, backspin, or side spin, using open stances, closed stances, and front stances for ground strokes, volleys, overheads and serves could be implemented with one's hand. A table tennis paddle can be used in a crowded space and progression to added resistance can be accomplished by utilizing a paddle ball racquet. Depending on space considerations, racquetball racquets and tennis racquets could be used as well. Consider using both right-handed and left-handed sides and eventually simulating short points in shadow-boxing or in this case shadow-stroking solo routines as a martial artist practices their martial routines (known as kata,kuen, abakada, or Pyrrhic). Remember that although functional core training exercises are in vogue right now, I feel that if you really want to make an exercise sports specific with tennis in mind then combine these and other exercises with your tennis racquet while doing your strokes and footwork between sets or within the set...just ask some of my former clients:Ivan Lendl,and John McEnroe. posted by: Spencer Gee

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Does tennis racquet grip size matter? Maybe not.

Tennis players often fret about the type of racquet they should get and the grip size that they should order for their new racquet. Often times they will test out several different frames, and thanks to the web it’s as easy as going to a website and getting a front door delivery the next day. Racquets come in different shapes and colors, varying in weight and balance, all of which are in part marketing schemes but also attempts by manufacturers to involve studies and come up with different racquets that fit the needs of different types of players. Players usually end up picking the ones that feel the best, the ones that give them the best power or control, or whatever they are seeking and then they move onto ordering grip size.

Does grip size matter as much as your racquet choice? Tennis magazines always say that the wrong grip size can lead to tennis elbow and other overuse injuries, but is that really the reason? In order to find out more, I looked in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. I came upon the following study by George Hatch et. al (Jul, 2006) “The Effect of Tennis Racket Grip Size on Forearm Muscle Firing Patterns”. Now that is too scientific for us, but in short, these scientists hypothesized that ¼ of an inch change in either direction from the recommended grip size won’t affect the forearm. Keep in the mind the notion of the correct grip size was developed by a guy named Nirschl who believed that depending on the grip size being bigger or smaller a player would have to squeeze their hand around it harder or looser and overwork or under work their forearm. Nirschl then recommended measuring grip size by determining the distance from the tip of the player’s ring finger to their proximal hand crease, and the resulting distance was to be the grip size, which would have been neither too big nor too small. This idea was then adopted by racquet manufacturers.

In this particular study, these scientists took a group of D1 and D2 college players and had them hit one handed backhands with 3 different grip sizes while connected to these little wires that gave a reading of how their forearm muscles reacted to the sizes. They concluded that the forearm muscles didn’t show a difference in reaction to 3 different grip sizes and that it really doesn’t matter what grip size you use as long as you can grip the racquet. By extension, they also don’t think grip size can be blamed for injuries like tennis elbow since the muscles work the same regardless of size. Now as a player, you know that grip size matters in terms of comfort, so having read this, and taken all risks aside, just like you evaluate your new frame, in the end, its best to choose whatever is most comfortable.

This is also good news for people that do not have the option of being selective about racquets and grips, as is the case of people using Tennis Racquets for Kids, if grip size doesn’t matter and you can get your hands on a frame, you’re half way there!