How to Warm Up Before Playing Tennis
I think many recreational tennis players (and recreational athletes) do not take their warming up very seriously. This is for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one is probably time. You may be rushing to the tennis court from work, taking care of family, or just lost track of time. However, without a proper warm up, you may increase your risk for injury.
Increase your heart rate
Prior to even hitting a tennis ball, it is a good idea to increase your heart rate through some low intensity running drills. Increasing your heart rate helps to improve blood flow to your muscles. This increased blood flow helps the muscles improve their mobility which will help with explosive movements on the tennis court and decrease your risk of injuries.
One of my favorite warm up drills on the tennis court is to run the lines. Here are the steps (or just watch the video here):
Start at the baseline on the deuce side doubles line (top right corner of the court).
Then you will jog up to the net along the line.
Once at the net side shuffle to the singles line.
Backpedal up the singles alley line to the service line.
Side shuffle to the T on the service line.
Jog forward on the T to the net.
Backpedal on the T to service line.
Side shuffle to the advantage singles line.
Jog up the advantage singles line to the net.
Side shuffle to the advantage doubles line.
Back pedal up the advantage doubles line finishing in the upper left hand corner of the baseline.
You can repeat this by starting on the left side of the court and reversing or shuffling all the way to the right side of the court and beginning again. You can repeat this three times as a great way to get your heart rate up. Each repetition, you can increase your speed.
Upper body resistance bands
Now that you have increased your heart rate, in turn getting your muscles warm and mobile, it is now the optimal time to do some low resistance exercises for your shoulder muscles. These muscles are a key component in tennis as they help to stabilize your racket during groundstrokes, serves, volleys and overheads. You can always have a theraband in your tennis bag, which won’t take up too much space and is easy to use on the tennis court.
Grab your theraband and either anchor it to the pole on the net or through the fence. Here are the five exercises I like to use:
Shoulder flexion - grab the band with both hands facing the pole/fence, keeping your arms straight, pull the band over your head from stomach height
Rows - grab the band with both hands facing the pole/fence, keep your elbows bent and pull the band while drawing your shoulder blades together
Shoulder internal rotation - have your one shoulder parallel with the pole/fence, place the band in both hands, the arm further from the pole or fence will stay stable hugging into your body, the opposite arm will have your elbow at your side and you will pull the band in towards your stomach and then back out to your side
Shoulder external rotation - have your one shoulder parallel with the pole/fence, place the band in both hands, the arm closer to the pole or fence will stay stable hugging into your body, the opposite arm will have your elbow at your side and you will pull away from the fence and then back into your body
Triceps - face away from the pole/fence and pull the band over your head, start with your elbow bent and then straighten your elbows towards the sky
These are the major muscles of the shoulder used during tennis. You can do 10 reps of each of these exercises. Make sure to do both sides for the shoulder internal and external rotation. If you need to visualize the exercises, check out this video here.
Lower body warm up
You will next bring your efforts towards your lower body. In tennis there is a lot of rotation happening at the hips. These exercises will focus on that to make sure you are ready to create explosive movements.
Lunge with rotation - starting on the doubles line, take a step forward with your right foot into a lunge, hold your tennis racket out in front of you, rotate your torso to the right keeping your chest upright. Step your left foot to meet your right foot and then step your left foot forward into a lunge, hold your tennis racket out in front of you, rotate your racket to the left. Repeat until you make it to the other doubles line.
Lateral lunges - stand with feet together, step your right foot out to the side and lunge to the side, repeat on the other side. You can repeat this exercise 10 times on each side.
Finally, you are ready to start hitting some tennis balls - and please start short court! Your heart rate should be slightly elevated and you will hopefully be feeling some sweat on your body. Doing this before hitting a ball will help to decrease your risk for injury. Happy playing!
Returning to Tennis After Injury
On the first visit, patients always ask, “When can I go back to playing tennis?” The love for the sport is deep and I find people don’t like to be away from it for too long (myself included). However, if you jump back in too soon, it can delay your play for even longer. The potential for reinjury or create a new injury due to compensation is high.
Criteria to return to playing tennis
Unfortunately, returning to tennis post an injury hasn’t been studied as rigorously as sports such as baseball, soccer and running. There are some specific injuries such as rotator cuff surgery or ACL surgery that can give us some insights into how best to return to sport. And based on other return to sports protocols, we can glean what might be best to return to sport. As always, I really speak to my patient about their specific goals and tailor a solution to fit their needs. These are three things based on the research and my clinical experience that I help my patients return to playing tennis.
Strength Symmetry
During your time at physical therapy, the goal will always be to improve your strength. This will help you better tolerate the load of tennis. The load of tennis can mean how well you absorb the impact of the ball on your racket, the power you create on the ball, or simply absorbing the load of your movement on the court (starting/stopping). As you probably know, tennis is a complex sport, requiring a lot of your body. Before returning to playing tennis, research has found that to decrease risk of injury, it is important for the injured side to have 90-95% strength of the uninjured side.
Pain
If you are still experiencing high levels of pain, it is not time to return to tennis. The goal of physical therapy many times is to get pain to a place where you can manage it. However, returning to the court with 6/10 pain will definitely lead to more problems in the future. It may not be realistic to have 0/10 pain when you return to playing, but my rule of thumb with patients is no higher than 3/10 when stepping back onto the tennis court.
Confidence
One aspect that is being more researched recently is psychological readiness to return to sport. If you are not confident in returning to the sport, this can increase likelihood of reinjury. I try as a physical therapist to help you be your most confident by incorporating exercises that mimic tennis court play so that when you step onto the court you feel prepared.
How to return to tennis
You have now checked the boxes of strength symmetry, pain and confidence. It is time to get back on the court. Depending on how often you like to play and the severity of your injury, it can take anywhere from 4-12 weeks to return to playing matches once you complete physical therapy. If you don’t play matches and just enjoy hitting, then you will be closer to that 4 weeks of being able to play for an hour. If you are someone that is highly competitive, and have a severe injury, you are going to want to ease back into the sport (and I know this can be frustrating!!). I have based my protocol here off of a return to run program from University of Delaware (they also have a tennis agility protocol).
Short Court
When first returning to tennis, I recommend only hitting for 15 minutes from the service line (half court). I get a lot of grumbles about this initially because there is concern for finding someone to hit for only that long. But, we are trying to manage the load when returning. If the next day, you have no soreness (meaning about your injury - you may have body soreness from not playing tennis for awhile), you can play again the following day and repeat playing short court for 15 minutes. I recommend doing this for the first week. The second week, you can play short court for 20-30 minutes. Again, if you have no soreness, continuing hitting every other day (or 3 days/week)
Mid Court
The second week of returning, I recommend moving to mid court which is between the baseline and service line. Again, hitting the third week for 15 minutes and then the fourth week for 30 minutes.
Baseline
The fourth week, I would hit for 20 minutes maximum at the baseline and then the fifth week moving to 45minutes of hitting from the baseline. I would still recommend warming up shortcourt for 10-15minutes prior to moving back.
In your sixth week of returning to tennis, after an hour of hitting, you can go for taking serves at 50% of your normal pace. In your seventh week of returning to sport, you can hit serves at 75% and try for points. I always recommend going for a tie breaker first. The goal is to be getting about 3-4 days of tennis in per week AND hopefully continuing all your strengthening off the court.
This can seem like a really slow and long way to return to tennis. However, if you have been off the tennis court for months, you will need time to build your stamina. If you haven’t been off the court as long or you aren’t recovering from surgery, these steps might be more truncated. It is incredibly important to consult your own physical therapist to determine what is best for you.