Weakness and Injury Risk in Tennis

Strength and conditioning play a pivotal role in injury prevention. Unfortunately, the tennis athlete is not always prepared to handle the demands of their sport. Poor posture, weak cores, limited range of motion in joints, and strength imbalances exhibited throughout their bodies are a few liabilities linked to injury.

A strength imbalance means that one group of muscles acting at a joint is considerably stronger or weaker than the other muscle groups that work at that joint. For example, due to the combination of sitting, electronics, and tennis itself, the muscles that internally rotate the shoulder are usually extremely strong, and the external rotators are weak in comparison. This imbalance may cause the shoulder joint to move abnormally, which could lead to injury. Training all of the muscle groups around the joint instead of just the “functional” tennis muscles will help reduce injury, promote proper joint function, and keep the athlete on the court longer.

Core strength is another key element that should be in every tennis player’s strength program. Our core includes all of the muscles in our midsections, including the front, back and sides. The core also includes the traverse abdominis, erector spinae, obliques, and your lower lats. These muscles work as stabilizers for the entire body. If they are too weak, it may result in lower back pain and tendonitis. Ten years ago, tendonitis presented itself as the primary injury in tennis players, but we now realize that it is just a symptom of muscular instability in the shoulder, or weakness in the core of the body. Keeping these core muscles strong can do wonders for your posture and help give you more strength in other exercises.

Our bodies are made up of a series of successively arranged joints and segments that have an effect on one another during movement. When one is in motion, it creates a chain of events that affects the movement of neighboring joints and segments constituting a kinetic chain.

In tennis, this chain allows power to be transferred through the body and into the racquet. Our core is an important link in this movement chain, since it is one of the main force transfer points between your hips and the racquet. If that link breaks, or becomes weaker over the course of a practice or a match, the other links in the chain will be forced to handle the extra stressors that the core couldn’t handle. To be effective, tennis players must consistently train the core of the body to be able to generate the power and balance that is needed . Next time you watch Andy Murray hit a baseline forehand, watch how he uses his entire body to generate power rather than just his arms.

Mobility Concerns for Tennis

The third area that players typically need to develop is mobility. One of the areas commonly identified as a weakness in today’s players is lack of mobility, predominantly in the shoulders, hips and lower back. Lack of mobility will cause forces to concentrate at specific points in their joints during a swing instead of moving through a complete range of motion. This places added stress on the other structures around the joint, possibly leading to injury.

Mobility training should be a part of any proper strength and conditioning program. Static stretching is no longer the gold standard, and hasn’t been for quite some time. Proper mobility programs involve performing dynamic movements, in which players stretch while moving in ways they might on the court. This allows the athlete to warm up while improving mobility. The hip flow or something similar should be included in every athlete’s training plan.

Training for a Stronger Tennis Game

Injuries can be very damaging to a player’s season. An injury occurring at the wrong time can result in a loss of practice time or even cost them their season. Consequently, every coach and player should seek out all possible methods to minimize the risk of injury.

Proper conditioning, core strength, and mobility are the three main areas that should be the focus of a tennis strength program. Making sure to strengthen all muscles of the body and not just those that make sense for tennis will allow the athlete to maintain relatively normal ranges of motion and reduce the risk of injury. Unfortunately, not all injuries can be eliminated, but by following these basic points, their incidence can be diminished.

Below is a five-week training program that I have written for you to use as a guide.

Click Here to Download the Program

And here are some demonstrations of the ab complexes in the program. Have fun and play hard!

How full is your range of motion?

Grade Your Mobility With Kettlebell Overhead Squats

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Study Design

The researchers chose tennis due to its variability and long, grueling season. Tennis matches could be either short and intense or prolonged beyond three hours. It’s not uncommon for a player to have more than one match a day for several days in a row.

In this study, each athlete performed several tests to see how both tennis play and beverage choice impacted performance. They were tested for grip strength, power, fatigue, sprinting speed, and anaerobic endurance via a repeated sprint ability test.

The players also engaged in three full tennis matches of about two hours each. All three matches took place over the course of a day and a half. There were three total conditions the researchers used:

1. In one of the trials, each player drank a sports drink before, during, and after the matches.
2. In another trial, the players drank a placebo instead, but in the same amounts and at the same times as the sport drink.
3. In the final condition, they didn’t play any tennis and only engaged in the tests.

Results

The only significant difference between taking a sports drink and drinking the placebo was in upper body fatigue. Only the lateral head of the triceps was more fatigued when not consuming the sports drink.

Although it wasn’t significant, there was a trend toward improved but less consistent sprinting ability without the sports drink. In the 10m, 20m, and repeated sprint ability tests, performance was best in condition number two, the placebo condition. Since sprint performance was even better in the placebo condition than it was in condition number three, when the athletes didn’t play tennis at all, the tennis game may have potentiated the sprinting.

For whatever reason, during the sports drink condition the athletes clocked slower times. Performance varied more in the non-sports-drink group, indicating that the drink may have had a stabilizing effect on performance.

The researchers concluded the study with an important consideration for all athletes. Even in a game situation as rigorous as these study conditions, with six hours of competitive play spread out over a day and a half, the sports drinks weren’t particularly important. So long as the athletes remained hydrated and ate healthy, balanced meals when they were able, it seems they took care of all of their nutritional needs.

References:

1. Thibault Brink-Elfegoun, et. al., “Effects of sports drinks on the maintenance of physical performance during 3 tennis matches: a randomized controlled study,” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2014, 11:46

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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In tennis, the grunting phenomenon has been present for decades, but the idea that loud noise affects performance applies to other sports as well. In weight lifting the Valsalva maneuver, a forced suppression of breath during exhalation, has long been known to improve an athlete’s strength, and is often attended by a loud audible noise. In martial arts, a kiai is a sort of battle cry made during an attack to increase power, startle opponents, and maintain good breathing rhythm.

In the new tennis study, researchers found that grunting actually did increase ball velocity, to the tune of 3.8% faster speeds on average. At elite levels in sports, every percentage point counts, so this was a valuable contribution. The researchers reckoned it was enough to actually reduce the accuracy and power of the return shot.

Nevertheless, although ball velocity went up, it stands to reason there could have also been an associated detriment, such as increased heart rate. If the energy demands related to increased ball velocity became too great, it could make the athlete sluggish and unable to maintain the heightened pace, worsening performance overall. The researchers studied these potential costs of grunting as well. They looked at heart rate, VO2 max, and perceived exertion, and they found none of these factors significantly increased. So the average increase in ball velocity doesn’t require more total effort, just a loud sound.

One limitation of this study was that there may have been a placebo effect. In science, it’s a good idea to avoid the placebo effect when possible. This is done by “blinding” the participants to the key circumstances of the research. Unfortunately, there’s no way to create a blinded condition for grunting versus not. In other words, the tennis players in the study knew whether or not they were grunting, so it is possible that they simply exerted themselves harder when grunting because they believed it made them better.

Despite the inability to eliminate the influence of placebo, the fact remains that ball velocities increased without apparent cost. So long as you believe it works, according to this study, it will work. If you’ve been avoiding the grunt in your tennis matches, or in other sports, for that matter, it’s time to trade in bashfulness for heightened performance.

References:

1. Emily Callison, et. al., “Grunting in Tennis Increases Ball Velocity But Not Oxygen Cost,” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research Publish Ahead of Print, DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000333

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Don’t Be Shy: Grunting Improves Performance in Tennis Players appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Paul has trained American tennis professionals on the ATP and WTA tennis tours. He himself was a competitive tennis player as well as a professional cyclist on the 7-11 national cycling team. Paul has designed this 12-week program exclusively for Breaking Muscle and has based it on years of experience maximizing the potential of his tennis students.

Click here to get started on the first workout!

Do you know about our other workouts?

• Bodyweight Workouts – No equipment needed. Get fit and lean without all the hassle of belonging to a gym.
• Frogman Workouts – Swimming plus strength and conditioning exercises. Written by world-class swimmer Hannah Caldas.
• Mature Athlete Workouts – For athletes aiming toward long-term health and fitness.
• Mommy Workouts – For the expecting mom, new mom or currently pregnant mom. We have different cycles for pre- and post-natal, as well as each trimster.
• Women’s Workout – Designed specifically with women’s bodies and goals in mind.
• RKC Kettlebell Workout – From an RKC II instructor, a great way to get fit and strong.
• Strength & Conditioning Workout – Workouts from our rotating featured coach. Find out what it’s like to train with Dan John, Jon Engum, Erwan Le Corre, Zach Even-Esh and more.
• Awake & Evolve Workouts – These focus on yoga and meditation practices. Take a moment to slow down, breathe, and extend.

The post New Free Sport-Specific Workout: Tennis by Coach Paul Pisani appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I sat in the near-empty stands of a pristine tennis court at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden with a pink umbrella trying to fight off the cruel sun. The Santa Rosa Mountains stood behind the courts, hazy in the one hundred and six degree heat. The cutting song of the cicadas buzzed through the silence. Julio, my husband, was poised to serve. His doubles partner, Mike, crouched near the net. The Floridian opponents across the net wore neon orange shirts and they held their breath anticipating Julio’s nasty kick serve. I held my breath, too, as sweat beaded on my forehead.

It was Friday, day one of the USTA National Championships and Julio and his 5.0 men’s team, after a rigorous qualification and tournament schedule, had earned a spot at the coveted Nationals. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, nor would I have let our daughters miss it, heat and work and school be damned. A teammate asked, “Don’t the girls have school?” I said, “This is important, too, that we be there for each other when something means something to the other. It means something to us, too.”

I’ve spend a lot of time writing and talking about my current athletic surge. Thinking about how my training relates to other everyday athletes often consumes me. I also spend a lot of time thinking and writing about my daughters’ athletic lives, because I think it’s important they know that being athletic is a valuable balance and worthwhile endeavor. What I fail to mention often enough is that my husband is also an athlete. In fact – until either daughter catches up with him – he’s the most successful athlete in our house in terms of accomplishments.

As a young tennis player, Julio was ranked on the east coast tour and he played collegiately. He also does CrossFit, but that is solely to cross train for tennis. Tennis is now his career, too, as a coach for a girls’ high school team and he teaches many private lessons. As a coach, he’s amazing enough to make a solid living, but as a player he’s still equally amazing. Just last year, as underdogs, he and fellow CrossFit LA member, Clint Lee, won the LiveBall Tournament during the UCLA Farmer’s Classic against ex-professional tennis players and top-notch collegiate Division I players.

And this year, here he was again at Nationals for the fourth time in his adult playing career. It’s a huge accomplishment. I couldn’t wait to cheer him on again. I’ve been to all but one of his National Championships cheering him from courtside. In 2006, during Nationals in Kona, Hawaii, I even survived the biggest earthquake of my life – and I’m from California – to support him.

Athletic endeavors are important in our house. Putting yourself on the competitive stage takes a lot of guts, which is why supporting each other during these times is equally important. Just the willingness to put yourself on the line deserves a cheering section. The outcome really doesn’t matter. The fact that Julio trained hard enough to be put to the test by other outstanding peers deserved my full attention. This is where inspiration thrives for me, for our daughters, for his students, and his friends.

Watching our daughters watch Julio during the heat of battle was important. They saw him stay loose and keep it fun under pressure, but when they witnessed how hard he took a particular loss they realized staying loose was just part of the strategy, that it had nothing to do with not caring enough. He cared plenty. We gave him space to mourn the loss, and then he was back, loose and fun again, prepping for the next match. Having us there to ebb and flow with his ups and his downs I know was invaluable. If you can’t share this kind of thing with the ones you love, competition and performance feels flat, devoid of life and love.

During every CrossFit challenge I’ve been in, even when it’s tiny and just includes our gym, Julio has been there to cheer me on. Often, he’d come straight from a lesson still wearing tennis gear to make it just in time. During the 2012 CrossFit Open, he would rush in at the most important times, and it meant the world to me. I know how it feels on the smallest of stages to feel supported. I can only imagine that it feels the same on a larger scale.

The SoCal men’s team did not win this weekend. The competition was amazing and they well deserved their wins. It was great tennis to watch. Julio played some of the best tennis I’ve ever seen him play. I couldn’t have been more proud. Nothing really beats a team bond no matter the level, and certainly nothing can beat the unconditional support of someone in the stands cheering on your efforts no matter the outcome, heat and cicadas and earthquakes be damned. Nothing could have stopped me from cheering him on this weekend.

The post The Good Wife: Supporting an Athletic Spouse appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In the very beginning of my near-perfect fourteen year marriage to a great tennis player/coach, I took three tennis lessons. And that was that. The decision to not take more lessons was an unspoken mutual one. He didn’t have the patience to teach me then. I didn’t have the patience to hear any kind of instruction from him. I remained a devoted fan of the sport as I had been since I was little. He remained a great coach and competitive player. He eventually took our youngest daughter, Mina, under his wing when she showed interest in the game, and now at thirteen she is already a very good player.

But now I want to play tennis after more than a decade of not giving it a second thought.

When I first walked into CrossFit LA a couple years ago, there was a floor-to-ceiling white board covered in the philosophies of CrossFit hand-scrawled in dry erase marker. I remember most distinctly a pyramid mapping out the theoretical hierarchy of fitness development. It started with nutrition as the foundation and narrowed as it went up, covering metabolic conditioning, gymnastics, and weightlifting. What I found interesting was at the apex of the pyramid was the word “sport.” At the beginning of my CrossFit journey the lower foundations were plenty to keep me overwhelmed for a good while, but the idea of sport being at the tip was most definitely noted and tucked away until I could understand better why this was an integral part of CrossFit philosophy.

I can’t say I’ve mastered the lower rungs of the hierarchy pyramid, but what I’ve come to understand more fully is that nutrition, metabolic conditioning, gymnastics (bodyweight movements), and weightlifting are about developing our health and fitness, while sport or playing a sport is more about the expression of this fitness. Now that we’re super fit, let’s have some fun playing something. I love this idea, but I had not been motivated to dive back into the sports I played when I was younger nor was I intrigued enough to test out anything new. I believed CrossFit was my new sport, which in a way it is, but the more comfortable I became training at a certain level, the more I craved the fun of just playing.

I have flirted with tennis without any real commitment most of my life. As a kid, I was handed down a beat up wooden racket, and with found balls I’d try to hit against a brick wall in our alley for hours. The number of times I shanked the ball off the tiny racket head or the number of balls that hit the wrong corner of an uneven brick was countless. My fitness level was top-notch just from retrieving balls.

Last year, Mina started dragging me out to a local court so she could use me as target practice for serving. I was given the crappiest racket in the garage and eventually I would try to return her serve. Then we made a game of it: any time she aced me I had to do burpees or pushups or sprints or sit ups, and anytime I hit a clean winner, she had to do the same. I can only imagine what we looked like from the street – a couple tennis strokes and then a mad dash of calisthenics. Eventually, I became better at returning her serve until Mina accused me of secretly taking lessons from my husband. She was bummed she couldn’t make me do burpees at will any longer. And that got me thinking. Maybe I should just commit already to a sport I’ve loved for most of my life. The obviousness of it all was almost embarrassing.

As sports-adventurous as I’ve been in the past, the thought of taking up something new now that I’m in my forties was admittedly slow going. Couldn’t I just pat myself on the back – again – for attempting to lift heaving bars over my head? But trying new things is arguably a key to happiness. Dr. Todd Kashdan, a psychology professor from George Mason University suggests that trying new things is directly related to our wellbeing. When we move out of our comfort zone to try something new, our brain produces a chemical known as dopamine. Dopamine kicks in whenever we are in an unfamiliar situation. This high level of dopamine generates a feeling of wellbeing and keeps us in a constant high-spirited state. New things can also keep our brains healthy and can actually be linked to slowing cognitive decline. Dr. Kashdan said:

One of the first markers of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s at the neurological level is inability to manage and deal with novelty, an early sign of degeneration. It includes not only an unwillingness to go seek out the unfamiliar and a clinging to the familiar, but an actual aversion when they’re faced with something that they’ve never seen before. Dopamine is linked up with anticipating rewards, and so it’s closely linked to curiosity. Dopamine kicks in when we see that there’s something novel. Dopamine circuits are short-circuited in the early stages of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

I’ve been taking tennis lessons for a month now. My husband is patient when coaching me and as I work as a coach myself now, I’m a much better student. During my first couple lessons, I couldn’t believe how gassed I was learning new strokes and foot work. Doubled over after a few drills, I said, “Man, I thought I was in shape.” My husband said, “Of course you’re in shape. You’re just holding your breath trying to get it right. Also, you have a death grip on the racket. Relax. Enjoy the process.” That’s always good advice.

And honestly, I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I can’t wait to get better and start playing against other people – maybe even kick Mina’s butt once or twice. In the end all I can say is, another round of dopamine, please!

The post Taking Up Tennis In My 40s: My New Sport appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Almost as impressively, after Serena won the singles title where she battled three sets riddled with twenty-plus ball rallies, she went on to win the doubles title later that same day with her sister, Venus.

Welcome to the current state of tennis, where superior fitness now rules.

But it wasn’t always that way. The history of tennis is steeped in aristocracy. Early tennis didn’t scream elite athleticism as it was developed as more of a leisurely activity for blue bloods. The most solid roots of tennis can be traced back to French royalty in the 1800s. Britain’s royals then caught on and soon the game trickled slightly down to the upper class. By 1877, Wimbledon was born, and so was a long tradition of properness and stiff etiquette that still underlies the game today. I am certainly not against tradition, but it perhaps slowed the athletic evolution of the game. Early on, men wore trousers to play and women wore long dresses, which is certainly not conducive to full exertion. The first appearance of shorts didn’t come until nearly sixty years after the introduction of the game, and wearing trousers during a professional match lasted until 1946.

Today’s professional tennis players approach the sport like any world-class athlete. The newest technology is utilized, cutting edge training and recovery methodologies are put into practice, and sports nutrition is well thought out and scientific. Anything is used to gain the slightest edge. And it all shows in today’s game. During this year’s Australian Open, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic battled it out for a record-breaking five hours and fifty-three minutes of tremendous serves, sprints to the net, and pounding the ball from the baseline. An athlete cannot survive this type of effort for such a sustained amount of time without superior fitness.

Ivan Lendl, a former number one and winner of eight singles Grand Slams and now coach to Andy Murray, was asked how he would compete against today’s tennis professionals. “I just start laughing,” he said. “My ass would get kicked so fast and so hard. The fitness, the training, the preparation, and the understanding of the game have all changed since I played 20 years ago. These guys are more complete players. There are few or no weaknesses in their games today. Now you have to be strong, agile, quick, and be able to last longer than the opponent if it comes down to it.”¹

In the early 1980s, Martina Navratilova was one of the first players to notably concentrate on fitness to improve her game. She added a new level of speed, strength, and aggression that had not been seen before. And though her approach was criticized at the time – the sport still struggles with how to market female players – her work paid off as she dominated women’s tennis in the 80s. Between 1982 and 1984, she lost only a mind-boggling six matches, a record that has never been duplicated. She won her last title – mixed doubles at Wimbledon – in 2006, a month before her fiftieth birthday.

The quest for next-level fitness is no longer a trailblazing one; it’s a necessity. Every contending player now has an extended entourage that includes a trainer, a nutritionist, and a body-work specialist. Trainers have become equally important to a player as their tennis coach, and players now spend far more time off the court lifting weights, sprinting, and doing agility training. They work on explosiveness and intensity. Most cross train with a variety of other sports in the off season to maintain endurance.

It used to be believed that if a tennis player developed too much upper body strength, it was hard to control the ball and it was too much weight to carry around, tiring them out quicker. But now, players’ fitness is so next level that the weight in not a hindrance and it allows them to hit harder with more power.

Tennis players also do a tremendous amount of core work now, which makes every shot – their serve especially – much more powerful. Andy Roddick, considered one of the fittest players on the tour, once held the record for fastest serve at 153mph. The record is now held by Aussie Sam Groth who clocked in at 164mph.

Jim Courier, the United States Davis Cup captain and former world number one, who was one of the fittest players in the 1990s, talked about recovery being equally important to today’s game. He said, “Players today have become very scientific about their sweat loss and replacing the minerals very specifically…And I think they’ve really taken the science (of recovery) to the next level.”² And as any athlete now knows, recovery is key. If you can recover faster, you can put in more training than your opponent.

For optimal recovery, Novak Djokovic now uses a cutting-edge device called a CVAC Pod, a pressurized chamber that simulates high altitude and compresses muscles at intervals, which supposedly enhances circulation and boosts the red blood cells that carry oxygen. The Spanish Davis cup team travels with an oxygen tent. And most every player now participates in the dreaded post-workout ice bath. Andy Roddick has gone so far as build an ice bath in his home.

The science of nutrition has been the most current talk in the tennis world. It was highly publicized when Novack Djokovic switched to a gluten-free diet in 2011 after discovering he had an allergy. He then had everyone wondering if cutting out starches in his diet was behind his record breaking forty-three match winning streak that year. After Venus Williams was diagnosed with Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that has left her fatigued and in pain, she switched to a raw vegan diet to help with inflammation and to treat the symptoms of the incurable disorder. Though the future of her tennis career remains uncertain, she still managed to win the 2012 doubles Wimbledon title.

Today’s tennis is amazing to watch. The added elements of tremendous power, stamina for days, and sheer athletic ability are nothing short of incredible. I’ve been a fan of tennis since I was little, and I was always drawn to the more athletic players. I was enamored with Navratilova’s strength and swagger. I was giddy when Boris Becker came on the scene diving for impossible shots. The current evolution of athleticism in tennis only heightens my love of the game.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

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