Tennis & Warming Up
by Ryan Turner (Director)
Get mentally ready & reduce injury risks with our tennis warm up program
Warming up before playing tennis is an important aspect to reducing the chance for injury and increasing your performance.
Warming up reduces your chance of getting common tennis injuries like tennis elbow, torn rotator cuff, patellar tendonitis and a sore back.
Dynamic stretching and movements are the most efficient way to warm up. dynamic stretching is best described as moderate movements that progressively increase the range of motion in the joints. Previously, people would perform static stretching to warm up but it has been found that dynamic movements are best for the warm up and static stretching is best for cooling down
Here are some examples of some dynamic movements to warm up:
Trunk Rotations: to perform this action, stand straight with your legs slightly bent and hold your arms out straight in front of you. Gently rotate your torso to the left until you feel tightness and then move back in the other direction until you feel tightness in the right side. Repeat this movement for 20-30seconds
Walking Knee Lifts: while slowly walking, pause then lift your left knee straight upwards to your waist, and grab your knee with your hands and hold for 2-3 secs and then release back to the normal position. Take a few more steps before pausing and repeating on the right side. Repeat for 30seconds.
Skipping Rope: using a skipping rope for 30secs doesn’t just warm up the legs, it improves your agility and balance.
Butt kicks: start slowly jogging and maintain a straight body. Try and tap your heels on your bottom
You can also keep things pretty simple and simple do a few 20m run throughs where you alternate skipping, running backwards and movement side to side.
