Tennis Exercises, Fitness and Conditioning – Beware Bad Training Advice

If you’re looking for an exercise program to improve your tennis game, and if you’re serious about your game you should be, one of the worst things you can do is blindly follow the strength training advice given in general fitness magazines.

General fitness magazines have to cater to a wide range of fitness enthusiasts. Tennis players have specific needs when it comes to strength exercises, aerobic conditioning, stretching and proper warm-up exercises before your tennis matches. General fitness magazines are filled with great content and exercise plans and resources. They are just not necessarily designed for the special workout needs of tennis.  Some of the advice is perfectly safe and beneficial. But some of it can be very harmful.

Here’s one example of a common exercise that is recommended by many fitness magazines and fitness experts that can cause some serious damage for those who suffer from tennis elbow. The exercise is called the “Upright Row”. Here’s a brief explanation…

The Upright Row Exercise

The “Upright Row” is performed with a pair of dumbbells or barbell. You grab the bar with your hands placed about 5 inches apart and lift it straight up to your body stopping just below the chin. You normally repeat this for 5 – 10 reps. If you’ve been performing this exercise at your local gym and you play a lot of tennis you may have noticed that you have started getting more pain in your elbow. If you already are suffering from tennis elbow, you’ll probably notice that it is getting worse. This exercise could very well be the reason.

The long and short of it is that you should avoid the “Upright Row as part of your strength training workout.  For exercises specific to tennis players this tennis exercise and conditioning program is a much better choice.