Tennis Exercises to Improve Court Quickness

          

 

In tennis a lot depends on your speed – both court speed and racket speed.

So let’s talk about court speed.

Quickly getting to the ball and getting setup, being able to get to balls that are just out of reach, approaching the net quickly, and getting yourself positioned are just some advantages of being fast and quick on the court.

Tennis exercises specifically designed to make your leg muscles faster, and not necessarily stronger, will give you the advantage over your opponent. Your opponent will now be the one chasing balls and gasping for breath.

The secret to quickness on the court is to condition the fast twitch fibers in your leg muscles to perform what is called a 'fast twitch response' – which basically means to contract with speed and acceleration.

Fast twitch muscle fibers are the fibers in your muscles responsible for speed and quickness. And contrary to popular thinking, they cannot be conditioned for their natural ability of speed using traditional methods of strength training or running sprints.

Getting your muscles to be faster is not the same as making them stronger and you cannot develop muscle speed the same way you develop muscle strength or muscle endurance.

This is what most coaches, athletes and trainers have not grasped and why most tennis players do not achieve fast foot speed on the court even if they are practicing almost every day and taking lessons.

That's because traditional strength training with weights and repetitions will cause the “fast” fibers in your muscles to ignore their natural ability to contract instantly. In fact, this type of training can actually make you slower.

There are two keys to getting more speed and quickness on the court.

First, is knowing how to condition your muscles for speed.

What we have discovered is that muscles are best conditioned for speed using a strategy of isometric exercises with resistance bands.

Isometrics using the resistance band, the way we teach it and the way we will show you, will unlock the inherent speed and quickness of the fast twitch fibers found in your muscles.

Once you start to exercise your muscles using this type of training, you will likely discover that up until now those muscles have been underdeveloped, and you will notice dramatic increases in your speed in a matter of days.

The second key to court speed is knowing precisely which muscles to condition.

The thigh flexor muscle is the primary muscle group responsible for sprinting speed. Proper conditioning of the thigh flexor muscle will get you to the ball quicker than ever before and allow you to approach the net faster.

Collectively as a group, the thigh flexors are among the strongest muscle groups in the body. They are responsible for performing basic functions such as walking, running, kicking, and jumping and controlling sitting, posture, and standing.

Ironically, in spite of their incredible inherent strength, they are still found to be developed far below their full potential in most athletes. This is simply because many people are unaware of their importance and function.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thigh flexors or hip flexors. (See Arrow)

Main function is to raise your thigh and move it forward.

With weak thigh flexors, your court speed will be dramatically affected. This is easily understood by defining their role in the running process.

The normal running process has two phases:

1) a stance phase when the foot is on the ground and
2) a swing phase when the leg and foot are moving forward. The swing phase can also be further divided into: a) acceleration, b) mid-swing, and c) deceleration.

Believe it or not, It is during the acceleration portion of the swing phase where most of your court speed will be generated. The “acceleration portion of the swing phase” is characterized by the flexing of the thigh upon the pelvis - that is, when your trailing leg is moving forward in preparation to return to the ground. This is the primary function of your thigh flexors.

The faster you can accelerate your thighs forward and upwards into this flexed position, the faster you will be able to run - it’s as simple as that! There is no other movement in the running process that will have as much affect on your running speed.

For this reason, your thigh flexor muscles are considered to be the primary muscle group involved in running.

With weak and slow thigh flexors, your court speed will be significantly affected more than you could ever imagine.

The reality is that a lot of athletes, trainers and coaches are simply unaware of the importance of the thigh flexor muscles.

There can be many reasons why. Maybe it’s because at the gym there is typically not any single weight machine that can effectively condition these muscles and therefore they go unnoticed. Maybe it’s because they are not easily identified because they are located deep in the anterior hip region. Or maybe people think they are not important or that they are training them when they really aren’t. But for whatever reason, the thigh flexors usually go untrained and underdeveloped - especially when it comes to muscle speed.

The only way that I have ever been able to effectively isolate the thigh flexors is with resistance bands. No other method is more effective. The only way I have ever been able to increase their contraction velocity is with isometric training. Again, No other method is more effective. This combination of using the resistance band with an isometric training strategy can be done basically anywhere. You don’t need to go to the gym to do it. You can do these exercises in the privacy of your own home.

The thigh flexor muscles form the foundation for dramatically improving your court speed. Other muscles, specifically those involved in lateral movements from side to side, should be likewise conditioned for speed in the same manner.

Uunless you have applied isometric training to your thigh and leg muscles using the resistance band, you have a huge reservoir of untapped muscular energy just waiting to be released!

By doing the exercises the way we show you, you can’t help but improve your tennis performance.

Dr. Larry Van Such
Muscle Speed Expert

Tennis Speed Exercises
Watch Video of Sample Exercise To Get Faster