Perfect Tennis Warm-Up – Do This Routine Before Practice and Matches

A very important aspect before playing tennis, both practice sessions and matches, is to warm up properly.

A good warm-up will help you prepare your body to perform at its best but also greatly reduce the risk of injury.

Too often, tennis players will stroll on the tennis court and start hitting balls with no warm-up, they’ll then end up wasting time trying to get warm but this is also when a lot of injuries occur.

Cold muscles, tendons, and joints are much easier to injure compared to warm ones.

Don’t make the mistake of stepping out on the court and sprinting for a wide ball, only to pull a hamstring and be out of action for weeks, if not months.

Perfect Tennis Warm-Up – Do This Routine Before Practice and Matches

The key goals of a tennis warm-up are: 

1. To raise the body temperature.
2. To get the muscles, tendons, and ligaments warm and ready to use.
3. To raise your heart rate.
4. To help you prepare mentally.
5. To prepare the body for high impact moves.
6. To reduce the risk of injury.

The perfect tennis warm-up will raise your body temperature.

As your temperature increases, oxygen becomes more available to your muscles, allowing them to fire, contract, and relax more easily.

You’ll be able to perform more strenuous motions with ease.

How To Warm Up In Tennis:

Start off your warm-up by jogging from one side of the court to the other. Once you reach the other side, stay facing the same direction, and come back with backpedaling steps.

Now face the net and do side shuffle steps to the other side of the court and return. Always face the net so you do the drill in both directions, to your left, and to your right.

Now do crossover steps with the left foot in front, and return using cross behind steps with the right leg going behind.

Next, you’ll use cross behind steps with your left leg going back and behind and then return using crossover steps with the right leg in front.

For the next drill, alternate between crossover and cross behind steps.

Now, do high knees all the way across the court, followed by bum kicks when returning.

Now roll the arms over by your side, when you get to the end, do the same going backward and change the direction of the rolls.

Hop and split – now do one split-step followed by a hop step.

Rotation and hip opening. Both of these drills are crucial for tennis players. Warming up the core muscles in the first drill and then opening up the hips and increasing the range of motion in the second.