By Mike DeMaria, CSCS

Weight training is a staple of any tennis athlete these days who wants to win—and that covers everyone on the pro tour. Many high schools and universities spend millions of dollars developing state-of-the-art strength training centers that are designed to meet the needs of the athlete. Unfortunately, many strength and conditioning coaches still teach methods that aren’t functional, tennis specific, or that enhance stability.

Strength training is extremely important because it builds the foundation for physical performance and muscular contraction. The question is what exactly is a good strength-training program for tennis athletes? Standard muscle-building workouts are simply not specific enough to yield the dynamic strength gains needed for tennis, which requires movements in many planes of motion. For an athlete to enhance his game, he or she needs to duplicate these movements in the strength-training protocol.

So you need to broaden your view of strength training; it is more than just doing bench presses or squats. Although these structural exercises are extremely important and should be included in every athlete’s program, they should not become the only source of strength or resistance training. The use of stability balls, lateral bands, pulleys, medicine balls, and other training props has proven highly effective for the development of functional strength, balance, and core stability. In addition, many equipment manufacturers such as Ground Zero and Hammer Strength are now designing functional strength training equipment to specifically enhance athletic performance.

To read the rest of this article, purchase this issue here.