PREVENTIVE STRIKES: How to prevent chronic injuries.
Whether you’re one of the world’s top players or a recreational player
hoping to advance in a local tournament, at some point in your
playing career, you’ll probably get a tennis-related injury. It may not
be serious, but it’s virtually impossible to avoid all injuries, all of the time.
But you can take steps that will reduce your chances of being injured.
On the pro tours, much of the physical work the pros do on a
daily basis is to prevent injuries. Here are some guidelines you can use
to help prevent injuries.
Make Sure You Can Move Freely
You want all of your joints to move freely, and all your movement “patterns”
to be able to take place without limitations or restrictions. To help
prevent the aches and pains that can limit your movement, you should:
- Work your joints every day. It’s simple: Choose a joint and move it in
every possible direction. Do this slowly, and repeat every movement 10
times. To help you keep track, start by mobilizing the neck, then the shoulder,
elbow and wrist, going down through the spine, hip, knee and finishing
with the ankle. To get more out of these joint mobilizations, they
should be done in the early morning or before tennis practice.
- Stretch your joints. To stretch a joint, you have to bring it to the limit of
the movement and stay in this position for 15 seconds. Some joints only
move in one or two directions (knee or elbow), but others can move in
multiple directions (shoulder). To stretch the knee, for example, you have
to bring your heel to the butt (flexion), then in another movement bring
the leg up straight (extension). Stretching exercises should be done after
practice or at night. You can even do these when you’re relaxing in front of
the TV.
Keep Muscles Balanced and Firing Strong
Any time you play a sport, your body goes through thousands and thousands
of different biomechanical movements, actions and reactions. In
a training session, a tennis player may practice hitting hundreds of forehands—
and the actions and movements required to do so are all fairly
similar. A slight variation, in the form of a weakness or imbalance in the
arm or shoulder muscles, may have a negative impact on the biomechanical
movement. To help keep your muscles working properly, you should:
- Massage your muscles once a week. Massage is one of the most efficient
tools to keep the muscles healthy. From what I see on the pro tours,
every professional tennis player gets massages—many of them up to four
massages a week. Massage is a good way to clean the muscles and to increase
blood flow and improve circulation. A typical massage session lasts
from 50 to 60 minutes and begins with the legs and finishes with the back,
shoulders and arms.
- Keep the muscles toned with isometric contractions. There are many exercises
where you can activate muscles or muscle groups by simply maintaining
a good posture. These exercises will help muscles to stay sharp
and firing well. Isometric exercises can be done before practice. Some of
the simplest isometric exercises are sitting against the wall or maintaining
the push-up position for 30 seconds.
- Work on “bilateral” strengthening. Tennis is a sport that can create many
imbalances and asymmetries. Muscles from one side of the body will
get strong compared to the muscles from the other side. Just look at the
racquet arms of some of the pro players and compare it with their nonracquet
arms. This is why bilateral strengthening exercises such as pulldowns,
push-ups, chin-ups and squats are important for tennis players.
Warm Up & Cool Down
For the best cardiovascular health, you need to do a gradual warm-up and
cool-down before and after every practice session or match. Biking, running
or rowing for about 10 minutes at a medium intensity, for instance,
are good ways to warm-up before tennis. In the same way, after practice or
a match you need to gradually cool down the cardiovascular system. You
can do the same exercises to cool down, gradually lowering the intensity
over 10 or 15 minutes as you go.
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