Training For Tennis - The Roddick Way

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It's Grand Slam fever time. It's also time -- whether you’re new to the sport, have some experience or you’re a seasoned veteran -- for you to start training for tennis. Why would you want to get involved in training for tennis? Well, it’s a great sport to add to your repertoire if you’re looking for something new, something that requires endurance and agility, something that you and a buddy can get competitive with, or something that’ll help get you get “physical” with a girl. But if you want to play like Roddick did at Wimbledon 2009, where he participated in and set two Grand Slam records with the longest men's singles final -- with regards to the number of games played -- and the longest fifth set, you'll have to train hard. Though Roddick lost, there's no doubt that his training was a huge factor in his ability to stand up to Federer the way that he did.

Now, a lot of you who already play the sport may think that you know everything there is to know about training for tennis. That may be true according to ATP World Tour player Andy Roddick (whom we chatted with for some expert advice), who told us that: “It’s kind of like anything as far as getting in shape... people probably do know right from wrong... but a lot is discipline and follow through.” We think that it’s that last bit that troubles a lot of guys.

Andy Roddick has had what a lot of analysts have called his best start in his career, and he likely owes that to his 15-pound weight loss in the offseason and his new coach Larry Stefanki -- though we’d like to think it had something to do with his new wife, Brooklyn Decker.

When training for tennis, keep in mind that you want to be light, fast and agile while keeping recovery time to an absolute minimum.

Trimming the fat

When training for tennis, it’s important to consider your body weight. For the same reason that Andy Roddick gave for not wanting too much mass up top, you also don’t want to have an excessive amount of body fat: “Anything you put on (at least as far as a pro) up top, you’re going to have to carry around [on the tennis court] for potentially four or five hours.”

The best way to trim the fat when training for tennis is to do cardio, and in that regard you have two choices: steady-state or high intensity interval training (HIIT). Opinions vary on which is better, but in general steady-state helps you burn more calories after the workout, while HIIT will burn more fat and calories during the workout.

As we stated earlier, Andy Roddick lost 15 pounds in the last offseason, and he credits that to having “had a six-week block where [he] was able to plan out workouts and meals.” For him it was key, and unusual, to be “in one place and being able to map out a day-to-day strategy on how to go about it.”

Most of us don’t have the problems of being on the road as ATP tennis pros does, so what we can take away from this is to establish a training and diet plan -- and stick to it.

Core training

As with all sports, conditioning the core muscles is, as Roddick puts it, “extremely important in tennis.” Core conditioning when training for tennis will improve your stability, balance and the speed of your trunk rotation, which will help you deliver faster, stronger and more accurate serves and returns.

Traditionally, tennis pros use the medicine ball to train their cores, and Andy Roddick is no different. He typically uses a 10-pound ball and does 10 to 15 sets, working out for an hour to an hour and a half. Not one to sit for five minutes before doing another set, Roddick also incorporates “10 to 15 switch exercises to keep it going for a four or five minute circuit.”

Training for tennis, the Roddick way, continues after the jump… Next Page >>