When it comes to selecting the most appropriate exercises for a tennis player, it’s key that we look at it from every angle imaginable. The reason - tennis-play is not only multi-directional, but it’s also multi-planar. On top of that, there are different stances that players not only move through, but strike the ball in. And they do this on different surfaces - which can also make matters more challenging....and have an influence on exercises/drills.
Consider sliding into a forehand on clay. That particular movement will challenge different postures, positions, muscle actions and stances, when compared to decelerating into a forehand set-up position on a hard court. While even on hard courts, players are sliding more now than they were in the past; it’s still not to the same extent as clay. And this is just one small example - many others exist. Which is why programs need to be tailored to the player (do they have the requisite movement abilities), the sport (are they able to withstand on-court demands) AND the playing conditions (can they do it on different surfaces, heat, humidity).
I’d also argue that the order - player, sport, conditions - is how we should look at designing a tennis player’s program (or any athlete’s program for that matter).
But before we can effectively design programs, we need to understand how movement variability can be targeted off the court. In this post, we’ll begin to dissect various fitness parameters by classifying off-court exercises based on the plane of motion, the stance and the primary movement pattern (i.e. hinging, pushing etc).
Planes of Motion
There are 3 planes of motion (figure 1) - sagittal, frontal and transverse. Tennis demands movement in all of these planes - and at times, multiple planes simultaneously. Every time you hit a groundstroke, you’re primarily working the transverse plane (i.e. you’re rotating). When moving laterally, lunging to the side or changing direction, you’re working primarily in the frontal plane. Finally, when moving forward or volleying, you’re primarily moving through the sagittal plane.
These are easy to grasp. But what about when hitting a semi-open stance forehand (photo below)? Notice that during the preparation phase of the swing, the upper-body is more ‘turned’ relative to the lower-body. In essence, it’s moving through the transverse plane. The lower-body is actually performing a ‘stabilizing action’ in the frontal plane - in other words, to be able to maintain this lateral staggered stance position (which we’ll define in detail below), the player must be able to fire the adductors and gluteus medius (both frontal plane muscle/muscle groups).
While it’s not the aim of this post to go through every single stroke and break down the plane of action (this could be a chapter in a book itself), what we should know is this:
The body goes through different planes at different times - this includes hitting, moving and everything in between.
During a specific segment of a movement (like our forehand example), different body parts might be going through different planes (we didn’t even talk about the arms, for instance - which are abducted relative to the axial skeleton - meaning, they are working in the frontal plane).
Our training should satisfy a wide variety of planes so that players can hold and execute a particular position. For example, if I cannot move my thorax efficiently through the transverse plane during a simple med ball exercise, (while keeping my hips/pelvis fixed), how can I expect to do that during a forehand in high-velocity conditions under time/pressure constraints? Many in tennis call this ‘dissociation’ - i.e. can you dissociate the lower body from the upper body? This has to be accomplished under low-level activities first, before it can be done on the tennis court.
Stances
On the tennis court, we often coach players 4 different stances when hitting groundstrokes - closed, neutral, semi-open and open. A player will require the ability to hit in all of these stances, but not only that, they also need the ability to hit with power from these stances.
For example - what if you’re stretched wide and are required to hit an on-the-run-forehand? Depending on how the strike is timed, there might be cases where you’re in a completely closed stance. If so, it’s very difficult to generate power from the lower-body - most of the speed will come from the upper-body. The problem we often see is that players use the arm ONLY, when faced with this scenario. Perhaps it’s because of an inability to sequence the swing appropriately - but I’m not entirely convinced of that. More often than not, players just aren’t able to rotate their thorax effectively through this range.
To achieve this position, it’s best to train this particular movement pattern off the court first. Cable chop activities can be useful here along with variations in lunging patterns. Both of these can accentuate lower-body frontal plane work while simultaneously targeting upper-body transverse plane mechanics.
Before we continue, let me share the main stances that we can train OFF the court:
1 - Bilateral Symmetrical
This is the easy one. Almost everything you do in the weight room falls into this category. Think squat, bench, deadlift - anything that is done with both legs positioned symmetrically. When it comes to plyometric or med ball work, examples include jump squats, box jumps, kneeling MB chest throws and the like. Transfer from these stances have a more direct correlation with things done in the sagittal plane - i.e. moving forward, neutral stance positions etc.
2 - Asymmetrical Staggered Front/Back
Think split-squat stance position (lunging, half-kneeling etc.). This can also be a position where the back leg is elevated (like a Bulgarian/RFE split-squat). But don’t just assume this applies to lower-body activities only. An athlete can stand in a split-squat position and use a cable machine to row (using either the contralateral or ipsilateral arm). On the court, this is mostly seen in a closed stance, when landing off the serve or any running.
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3 - Asymmetrical Lateral
With this stance, think lateral squat, skater jumps, change-of-direction movements. On the court, just look at the photo of Federer again - his semi-open stance forehand reflects this stance. This position, however, is more difficult to target in the weight room - we generally use med ball variations here and specific on-court drills to target this stance.
Note, while I (and many coaches), have trained these stances off the court for years, I was first exposed to this framework (and the progressive sequencing associated with it) from Iordan Krouchev and Dr. Pat Davidson. I would highly recommend following both of these guys.
Movement Patterns
As a starting point, we would first divide the patterns into lower-body and upper-body. From there, as we saw with the stances above, we can have a unilateral, single-leg dominant, stance (either lateral or front/back) or a bilateral stance.
Please note that we usually associate movement patterns with weight room activities...
Lower-Body
There are 2 main categories here - hip-dominant and knee-dominant. On top of that, both can be performed bilaterally and unilaterally. Hip-dominant movements are primarily your hinge type patterns - like an RDL, for example (or a 1-Leg RDL if you’re talking about a unilateral variation).
Note - Bridging movements are primarily hip-dominant with the glutes being the primary driver of this action. Some coaches label these separately but they can also be added under the ‘hip-dominant’ umbrella. Like hinging above, we can further subdivide bridging into bilateral and unilateral variations.
When it comes to knee-dominant exercises, they can also be done in either a bilateral or unilateral stance. Think front squat versus split-squat as the easiest example.
Upper-Body
Similar to the lower-body, there are 2 main movement patterns here, pulling and pushing (or pressing). Again, both can be performed bilaterally or unilaterally. On the pulling side, we have horizontal and vertical actions. Simple examples we’re all familiar with here include a DB 1-arm row (unilateral) and an inverted row (bilateral).
On the vertical pulling side of things, this will be your pull-up exercises (and variations)...mostly for bilateral...although 1-arm pull-ups aren’t completely impossible (but likely not practical for most tennis folks). I prefer 1-arm lat-pulldown variations for unilateral work - which can be performed in different stances as well.
On the pushing side of the coin, we also have horizontal and vertical (both uni and bilateral). Examples here are endless...barbell/dumbbell bench press for horizontal bilateral work, single arm DB work for unilateral horizontal variations.
When it comes to vertical pushing, we can do standing or seated variations of overhead pressing but these are more demanding in terms of keeping the appropriate spinal positions (mainly due to lack of shoulder flexion). In lieu of that, we like to do incline presses, landmine presses (especially for unilateral variations) and using DBs are generally better options for tennis players as they allow for greater ROMs (and hence better scapular movement)…unless the aim is to increase force generating capabilities (in which case barbells still trump dumbbells/kettlebells etc).
Putting it All Together
To give you an idea of how the stances and planes fit into the movement pattern puzzle, let’s look at the DB Split-Squat - FFE ANT in a little more detail. While the pattern is unilateral knee-dominant, it’s also performed in a staggered asymmetrical front/back stance. The FFE (front-foot elevated) variation is unique for individuals who are more ‘compressed’ (when it comes to the axial skeleton)...but more on this in another post. In terms of the plane, while it may seem like a sagittal plane activity, the adductors and glutes are working hard to maintain pelvic positioning (making it frontal plane dominant).
And it’s a movement that should be mastered first prior to progressing to other forms of unilateral work - in particular, forward lunging (which is a more advanced movement requiring rotary stability, deceleration mechanics and more).
When it comes to the upper-body, unilateral variations are also great because we get a lot more ‘transverse’ plane involvement from the thorax, more scapular rotation (anteroposterior, superior etc) and more ROM in general. This is obviously key for overhead athletes like tennis players who depend on the shoulder...and require that it goes through multiple planes, IR/ER, flexion/ext and so on.
But we can go deeper than that. We can position the feet in a bilateral symmetrical stance but perform an upper-body transverse plane movement (check the video below). Another example would be to perform something like a split-jerk. This is a movement that begins with a bilateral stance set-up, but turns into a staggered front/back stance during the catch portion of the lift. It’s a movement that resembles another activity which is most important on the tennis court...do you know what it is?!
When we look at upper-body movements in more detail, a half-kneel 1-arm row (vid below) is a great example of an exercise that satisfies the following:
Horizontal pull
Unilateral
Thorax works through the transverse plane
Arm works through the sagittal plane
The lower-body is stabilizing in the frontal plane (because it’s a staggered front/back stance)
It satisfies a lot of movement conditions (and we haven’t even spoken about it’s effects on the scapula + rotator cuff).
While this provides a general framework for coaches and players to use in their programming, I believe that certain exercise progressions (and movement literacies) exist. Ones that need to be met before moving onto a more complex (or loaded) activity. For instance, when it comes to upper-body pushing, I WOULD NOT generally start an athlete with overhead pressing (vertical push) as they would need to satisfy a lot of prerequisites to get to this point (appropriate shoulder ROM, upward rotation of scapula, core stability etc). Instead, we would likely start with some sort of horizontal press - push-up, bench press etc - then progress to an incline variation as this bridges the gap between horizontal and vertical movement expression.