When you play tennis, your limbs and minds need to remain sharp during the match. Performing the right stretches and warm-up exercises can help you achieve this and ensure you prevent injury and enjoy better flexibility.
Here are a few basic warm-up exercises for you to try before you play tennis:
- Jump rope: Jumping rope is a great way to work up a sweat while simultaneously increasing agility, speed, coordination and balance. In case you don’t own one, you can jog in place and perform arm circles in another direction to add the shoulder and cardio movement.
- Jumping jacks: This is another exercise where you can run through the entire range of motions that you do in tennis. It also helps in building endurance and increasing the heart rate. You can start with sets of 25.
- Shadowing: This is a great way to get your limbs ready for the actual game. Here, you can mimic the various movements and motions that you perform in an actual game. This can be backhands, forehands, service motions, volleys, and overheads to ensure you’re prepared.
- Knee lifts: Tennis is a game that requires continual full-body movement. Stand in place and raise your arms to hip level and then raise your knees to touch them. You can do this for 15 to 30 seconds at one time.
- Glute kicks: These are another jump-training set of exercises that targets the glutes, quads, hamstring and calf muscles. Stand in place, lift your heel up to the glutes and return to the standing position.
With these exercises, you should be warmed up and ready to start playing a good game. Now, make sure to get some practice shots in!