By this point, if you’re a tennis player, it’s no secret that you’re itching to get on the tennis court. Who wouldn’t be? It’s that time of year. Warmer weather. Flowers blooming. Outdoor tennis is around the corner.
Unfortunately, however, many players go about it the wrong way. Most, after a long layoff, are so eager to get back to the tennis court, they schedule multiple sessions that first week. Not only that, they’re so fired up that they hold nothing back. Running from side to side, hitting with that new found strength they’ve developed over the winter.
We all know what happens next right?
Your shoulder’s a bit achy. Your hamstrings are tight. Your tennis elbow is starting to flare up again.
At this point, you’re asking yourself. Didn’t I prepare myself well enough over the last few months and weeks? I mean, I was training several days a week, making progress on all fronts - strength, power, stability, endurance. So how come I’m already breaking down?
The answer is twofold…
Firstly, the physical demands (and adaptations) of tennis are not the same as the physical demands of training for tennis. Of course it’s important to improve off-court tennis fitness and conditioning. But there’s a spectrum that exists - one that we’ve spoken about before. We can’t just go from all out physical training to all out tennis hitting.
Secondly, you likely increased your hitting volume way too quickly. Whether you’re hitting against a wall or you’re playing against a partner at the local courts, restarting tennis training after a layoff takes some thinking, strategizing and planning. You can’t expect to be in mid-season form right off the bat. That goes for both your skill (feel, timing, mechanics) and from a load tolerance perspective.
Consider this, in a 2017 study (Sombelon et al), 590 WTA female players were analyzed retrospectively to determine upper-limb and trunk injury rates. Researchers found that 39% of those cases represented a trunk or upper limb injury and the biggest factor - serve volume. In other words, as soon as players served more than normal, their chances of injury went up.
So in this post, we’ll tackle a few strategies you might want to employ as you get back onto the tennis court. Whether that’s hitting against the wall or hitting with a partner, both scenarios require certain progressions.
You can also download a free eBook on how to ramp up your tennis hitting after a layoff. Check it out at the end of this post.
If You’re Starting Your Return to Tennis on the Wall
You may think that hitting against the wall is less stressful than hitting against a partner. Sure, you know more or less, which direction the ball is heading. And sure, you’re generally not moving that much. But per minute, you’re hitting more balls against the wall then you are when playing against a partner.
The reason being is this - when hitting against the wall, the distance the ball travels is shorter (you’re standing closer to it), which means it gets back to you quicker. You also don’t generally have to chase after balls and there’s very little time in between rallies.
Given this, a typical scenario ensues. Your footwork isn’t as precise because there’s no urgency to set-up well (you can hit anywhere on the wall so there’s no biofeedback - i.e. was that a good shot or not?). So poor footwork turns into poor setups. Poor setups lead to abbreviated swings. Abbreviated swings lead to suboptimal mechanics.
And in the end, poor mechanics can lead to two things. First, increased hitting volume coupled with a mechanical deficiency is a leading contributor to injuries in tennis (and sport overall). For instance, you might see a player hitting 25 abbreviated forehands in rapid-fire succession - with poor sequencing. This puts the shoulder decelerators under a ton of stress - think posterior cuff.
Second, poor mechanics leads to, well, poor mechanics. If you do something enough times, that movement will become ingrained - so aiming to hit with good postures, positions etc. is really important for skill development.
Here are some general guidelines when it comes to hitting against the wall:
1 - Slow it down
There are plenty of ways to get into better tennis shape. Hitting against the wall is not the most optimal strategy. It can be done (and we’ll outline how below) but using the wall can be better served to tackle other qualities. Like getting your feel back, practicing a technical cue or to achieve a flow-like state (i.e. letting automatic processes take over). Whatever you decide, you’ll have to hit at a much slower place than you’re used to. My suggestion here is starting at around 50% of max hitting and progressing to 70-75% over time - not going over that level of intensity unless…
2 - Use proper work to rest ratios to make wall hitting more ‘tennis-specific’
If you use strategies to make things more specific to what you’d encounter on the tennis court, it’s possible to use the wall for more intense hitting and conditioning. For instance, you might only hit for about 10-15 seconds at a higher intensity, but take the necessary time in between to rest (20-25s). This way, you’re doing what you would normally do on the court anyway, and you’re also going to manage the volume of hitting (because of the rest times).
You could also hit 1 ball at a ‘regular’ pace and then a slow ball on the second one, alternating in that fashion for a certain time period. That way, you have the time and foresight to get set well and early, and then to use proper mechanics (or to work on technique at a faster pace).
I would still use this strategy only after a week or two of slower hitting. This way, you’ll sleep easy knowing that you haven’t ‘overstressed’ certain tissues that may be predisposed to overuse.
3 - Work on weaknesses
Yes, this could be a great time to work on your ability to actually spend some time on things you’re not particularly good at. Remember that slice that keeps popping up? Or that forehand drive that you just haven’t gotten a hang of? Or switching from one grip to another in a seamless manner (see vid below)? There are so many skills a tennis player requires that you could spend a lifetime perfecting them all (and some people do).
If You Have Access to a Tennis Court
If you’re getting back into hitting a tennis ball, either post injury, after a long lay off or in the midst of a global pandemic, and you have access to a tennis court, don’t think of it as a free-for-all.
There’s still lots you have to consider. Yes, you should still adhere to the principles outlined above - hit slower, work on weaknesses and use logical work to rest ratios, but there are other things to consider.
Here’s a typical progression that makes sense for groundstrokes:
Hit up the middle with very little movement
Hit cross-court with very little movement
Hit cross-court with full recovery steps
Perform a spanish drill (vid below)
*both 3 and 4 should adhere to proper work:rest ratios
For a full ‘Return to Tennis’ hitting program, scroll to the bottom of this article and download a copy.
For each of the progressions, we can also add a dimension of intensity - and rightfully so. Keep in mind that adjusting volume and intensity is important, not just one or the other.
As for overhead movements, recall that the serve is the most demanding and stressful action for a tennis player to handle. And when ramping it up, surely we cannot go full out on day 1. Some basic recommendations here include starting at about 50% and ramping up slowly, and not on that day, but on subsequent days and weeks.
A lot of this depends on whether you’re also coming back from injury or not. If not, then making smart progressions in both volume (how long you hit for, how many balls you hit, how much court are you covering per session etc) and intensity (how hard you’re hitting, how much spin you’re trying to generate, how intently are you moving and setting up for the ball) are the most important factors.
If you are coming off an injury, you should ask yourself, based on the site of the injury, what type of progression makes sense. If it was some sort of shoulder tendinopathy, that could mean following a very strict serving/smashing ‘return to play’ protocol. Just like you would add reps, sets and load onto a particular exercise in the gym over the course of a 6 week training block, you’d do the same with your serving progressions.
One little tip here - usually, if you have an upper-body injury, it can be useful to continue playing during rehab but using different types of balls - like sponge or deflated balls. These won’t elicit the same amount of ‘load’ on tissues.
If the injury was more of the lower body nature, then it might mean progressing the intensity of your movements - not only how much you move but at what effort level.
Either way, an interval hitting program is necessary. And research can back us up here. In a 2019 case report (Amrani et al), a collegiate female tennis player underwent arthroscopic surgery for ‘debridement of the frayed infraspinatus muscle’. After 10 weeks of traditional rehab, the coaching team (tennis coach, fitness coach and therapist) decided to take a more aggressive strategy. And in just 6 weeks, using a progressive (and unique) interval hitting program, this athlete was back to full competitive form.
Don’t Forget to Adjust Your Physical Training Volume Too
This is key and often overlooked. Many tennis players put in great work during a long layoff. Some even adhere to a periodized strength & conditioning program, up to 5 days per week. But they get back onto the tennis court and one of two scenarios unfolds...
They either continue with this rigid schedule and add their tennis training on top. Or, they completely cease their physical training altogether. Neither strategy is a good one.
Recall from an earlier post on monitoring (and the acute to chronic workload ratio) - injury risk is at its highest when training volume far exceeds or is well below, what the athlete has been working through in the previous weeks and months. A ‘sweet spot’ as Gabbett (2016) puts it, does exist.
That’s why ramping up certain activities has to coincide with ramping down other activities. It can’t be a sudden increase or a sudden drop. A balancing act exists.
Strategies that one can take here include:
Leaving in 2-3 days of off-court training instead of performing 4-5 days. At the same time, getting onto the court 3-4 times a week instead of daily (or multiple times per day) is concomitantly, important.
Taking out a large portion of the lower body activities - given that tennis-play can be quite intensive on the legs. Also, keeping some upper-body strength exercises in the mix is a good idea for hormonal purposes. Remember, there are many side benefits to certain activities. Testosterone gets upregulated after strength training. The central nervous system is primed after max velocity sprints. The series elastic component in muscle-tendon is more efficient after plyos.
Perform less sets overall compared to pre-season/general preparation periods and during return to play protocols. So instead of doing 5 sets of some ballistic activity, like jump squats, you may only do 2-3 sets. Now, you’re not necessarily looking for gains during this time, but you don’t want performance losses to be drastic. In some cases, some athletes can do a good job of maintaining these abilities but the common trend is downward. So gradual is again, better than a sudden decrease.
If you’re hitting against the wall as a starting point, and adhering to some of the tips presented above, then your off-court training doesn’t have to change a whole lot. The reason being that you’re not moving as much and not going through the same type of volumes of hitting as you would normally do on the court. That said, if your wall hits are intense, and you’re performing them several times a week, adjustments to the physical program are an absolute must.
Auto-regulate your training. With my players, whether I’m programming a return to play schedule or a fitness regime, we always work off of ranges. Because it’s unknown exactly how a player will react to a previous session, or how well they’ve slept the night before or a host of other factors that could contribute to fatigue. So instead of saying, today’s session is super intense, we’re working at 100% effort all the way, we’ll prescribe a range of 80-100%. Sticking to the lower end if we’re a bit fatigued/sluggish. That, in a nutshell, is what autoregulation is about - regulate training based on daily ‘readiness’.
Final Word on Returning to Tennis
Overall, my hope is that these strategies will help you (or if you’re a coach, your tennis players), ramp up tennis hitting volumes appropriately. The last thing you want to happen is go too hard, too often, from the get-go, and incur an injury in the process.