Turn It On In The Off-Season
Attention all tennis players.
If you thought the last swing of the racquet during regular season was a signal to lay low until matches heat up again, you might as well hang it up this year.
Experts say it’s actually the off-season where players can build their mobility and flexibility, setting themselves up to remain injury free and stay on the court for game-set-match.
“The off-season is what will make you play better,” says Jonathan Orlando, PT, DPT. Orlando is the Tidewater Physical Therapy Clinical Director of the Red Mill location in Virginia Beach. A tennis player himself, Orlando says he’s treated a multitude of racquet athletes and noted that injuries he’s seen are tied to not training properly in between seasons.
People who don’t train in the off season and go back into the regular season at full force thinking they can play will get themselves into trouble.”
And trouble can look like injuries that take players off the court for match after match.
During this off-season, Orlando encourages players to focus on fine tuning their game, maintaining and improving on their current skill level and preparing their body for the next high-intensity series of matches.
How?
By understanding what injuries they’re most prone to, focusing on a series of key exercises and training wisely.
Common Tennis Injuries
Off-season training makes a big difference during the regular season, namely in decreasing the probability for injury. The most common tennis injuries Orlando notes are:
- Achilles tendonitis. It’s an overuse injury of the band of tissues that connects the calf muscles at the back of the lower leg to the heel bone, known as the Achilles. The repetitive motions of running and jumping that tennis requires makes players more susceptible.
- Knee sprains and strains. A sprain is an injury to a ligament that’s caused by torn fibers of the ligament. A strain is a stretching or tearing of a muscle or tendon. The best treatment for this type of injury includes rest, ice, compression and elevation. Strengthening can help prevent these painful injuries that can land players on the sidelines.
- Rotator cuff tendonitis. It occurs frequently in tennis players thanks to the repeatedly performed overhead motions in their sport. The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons that surround the shoulder joint. The injury can cause a dull ache in the shoulder and make it difficult to progress in the sport.
Exercises to Focus On
As an aerobic and anaerobic sport, training for tennis should include different types of exercises that promote leg strength, improve flexibility and increase speed. These exercises should be performed in gradual increases of intensity to give the body a chance to adapt and build up.
“Simply staying active is much more beneficial than not doing anything until the next season,” Orlando says. “Players will want to maintain a certain level of activity to be successful.”
Exercises should focus on:
- Strength. To enhance performance and decrease the risk of injury, choose exercises that maintain and promote strength in the legs, shoulders, core and ankles. Ankles endure quite a bit of pressure thanks to the acceleration and deceleration of starting and stopping on the court, so being able to control and strengthen ankles will help a player’s game. Think chops and lifts for the upper body. This exercise targets both the core and shoulders in a similar manner that your body moves during a swing. As a tip when working out biceps and triceps, use a thicker sized bar, rope or towel to improve grip and forearm strength that’s needed for improved racquet control.
- Stretching. Flexibility couldn’t be more important. Not only does it help prevent muscles from getting injured in the first place for athletes in all sports, but tennis players benefit by becoming more flexible in that it can increase the power of strokes and help in defensive moves. Work on stretching out legs and arms before and after training and matches. Players will also want to put an emphasis on calf flexibility, which can easily be stretched by putting a foot on the wall while keeping the heel flat.
- Multi-directional exercises. Orlando recommends multi-directional exercises for the ankles, hips and lower extremities. Think agility. Incorporate a few different exercises that promote moving in various directions at a couple levels of intensity. Think ladder drills, sprints and shuffles. If it’s difficult to incorporate these exercises, the most important thing is to simply start somewhere. Improve balance by standing on one foot, or for added difficulty, stand on a pillow or unstable surface and progress to ladder drills. Another simple drill to warm up includes shuffling forwards, backwards and laterally along the singles side line, the service line and center line. Begin at one end of the net, shuffle to the opposite side and return – this should incorporate nearly every motion you would perform during a match.
- Interval Training. Tennis is naturally a game filled with bursts of high intensity followed by rest. Players can incorporate interval run training during off-season workouts to build up endurance, or, if you’re not much of a runner, use an elliptical to perform an interval program because it’s friendlier on your joints.
Train Wisely
It’s imperative that players train wisely. Training in the off-season is the best thing a player can do to improve and prepare for the demands of a competitive season.
Think of the off-season as a time to fine tune, set goals and work towards them.
“My best advice,” Orlando says, “is for players to know their own level and to gradually increase it. Don’t go from zero to 100. The body needs a chance to adapt and heal. And that’s why you train in the off-season.