Strength & Conditioning For Tennis

As you become more serious about your tennis the need to include some strength and conditioning increases. How much you do depends on your goals.

A few specific exercises now can help prevent future injuries due to overuse and muscle imbalances that develop overtime from playing tennis. “Prehab” is a relatively new term to me that encompasses these kind of exercises and points to the importance of them to keep you away from “rehab.”

A more comprehensive program will do the same but also improve your tennis through increased strength (hitting the ball) and speed (getting to the ball). Additional exercises can be used to improve hand-eye coordination that is very important in tennis.

As I have begun putting together a program for my teams I have found some good resources.

• USTA’s Health & Fitness
• Pisani Training: Who doesn’t Paul Pisani work with? Answer: It must be a short list. He works with a number of ATP and WTA tour players as well as many college tennis programs including Princeton, Pepperdine, George Washington, Virginia, and Oklahoma.