Endurance

BlackRose101

Hey guys,

i'm a college tennis player and i've gotten a lot better this year. I can hit with more power and accuracy. My issue now is endurance. I know that the best way to get endurance is to play a lot of tennis, but can you give me some workouts I can do? I want something that will enable me to sprint backwards, sideways etc etc.

I would love some court drills and some none court drills. Thanks!

GiddyupTim

I don't know about on court drills. But, I do know how to build endurance by training off the court: Run, run, run.
Andre Agassi's trainer used to have him run hills. Hills, or stairs, are a great way to make your legs stronger and to really build your cardiovascular capability fast.
Ivan Lendl used to run up to seven miles every day (or, every training day).
The only downside to running as additional training is that it increased the amount of pounding your body experiences. But, if you are college age that should not be a problem.
Also, I know I have seen videos of gym workouts that Rafa and Djokovic supposedly do. I do not know what those are designed to do, but I am guessing if you are stronger you will get less gassed on the court.

BlackRose101

Could you tell me of some of their specific workouts?
I've read that running (like jogging) is the wrong thing to do. something about slow or fast fibers. Will running miles teach me how to properly sprint during tennis and not run out of energy?

Thanks!

hairsprayhon

stamina is different from specific skills. you need both. I dont think you want to just jog at a steady pace for miles, but do intervals which involves high intensity spurts. the usta has training links.

cms6300

I'm a big fan of high intensity workouts to increase court conditioning. There are a bunch of them out there - my favorite is Insanity. It's built specifically for athletic conditioning. Heart rate way up and then ease it back down - very similar to what you need to do on the tennis court.

GiddyupTim

Personally, I think too much is made of fast-twitch and slow-twitch training. I think there is a lot of cross over, and you are already doing your fast twitch training when you practice tennis. But, that said, I have always naturally done a lot of both types of training, so maybe I don't notice.
Here's something else though, relative to endurance during matches. The pro at my former club is an incredible strategist. It has been very eye-opening to me, because I tend to just go out and hit my game. He figures out what his opponent does not like, and then just gives him that for the whole match. Might be up and back. Might be high backhands. Whatever. He has to be incredibly frustrating to play. He just goes out of his way to torment his opponent.
Anyway, he sometimes wears a heart rate monitor, and he pays attention to it when he plays. That is, when his heart rate gets too high, he pauses longer between points and plays slowly until it goes down again. He does not always wear the monitor, but by wearing it sometimes he trains himself to recognize when his beats get too high, and when he needs to slow down, to get under control, to not miss serves or shots because his heart is pounding too hard, making him want to rush.
That is one of the great advantages of being in better cardiovascular shape, and why it is so necessary for competition. You can play a strenuous point, and your heart rate does not go up as much, and it comes down faster.
Maybe, if you feel you are not in the best shape you could be in, you could pay attention to your heart rate (take your pulse, recognize when your chest is pounding, etc.) and slow down when it gets high.

BlackRose101

Thank you all so much!

I'm not a fan of HIIT but i'll stop being lazy and i'll do it! I'll go on the USTA website and grab some workouts as suggested and i'll also check my pule (without a monitor) to make sure that i'm under control.

You're all wonderful! Thanks!