Get Flexible for Tennis

BY MARK KOVACS, PHD, CTPS, MTPS, CEO, KOVACS INSTITUTE; EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL TENNIS PERFORMANCE ASSOCIATION

If you have played tennis over the summer or watched any of the great professional tennis in Atlanta and around the country, you would have noticed the need for great flexibility. We talk a lot about getting strong for tennis, having great tennis-specific endurance, good power and moving quickly on court. Unfortunately, many times flexibility and mobility does not get the same attention in most players’ training program. Many of you are aware that Novak Djokovic stretches for many hours every day. He spends a large percentage of his day on the floor stretching. This is like many of the top tennis players in the world. Although you may not have hours each day to stretch, you can still work on certain areas of your body that will help your tennis and overall wellness. Over the two decades that we studied tennis players, we also evaluated thousands of tennis athletes from a flexibility perspective. We know a specific profile that tennis athletes have and how it adapts over many years of training and competition. If you work with a physical trainer, tennis performance specialist or physical therapist, ask that person to evaluate the following areas and make sure you are on a tennis-specific training program to help limit potential problems. Below are some of the common flexibility limitations that we see with most tennis athletes:

Although you may not have hours each day to stretch, you can still work on certain areas of your body that will help your tennis and overall wellness.

Internal Shoulder Rotation

This is one of the most common adaptations that occur with many years of serving and hitting forehands. It is when the ability to internally rotate the shoulder becomes restricted. Some of this can be a positive adaptation to help protect the area, but once the difference between the dominant and non-dominant shoulder is more than 10 percent, we get concerned, as your biomechanics change and is linked with front shoulder related pain and potentially worse.

Internal Hip Rotation

This is a common limitation in tennis players due to how we all move on court. It is the need to get low and the need to stop abruptly and change direction hundreds of times per match. As a result, this puts more strain on other aspects of your body to have to work harder. Many areas around the hip, such as the lower back, glutes, hamstrings and even potentially upper arm can take on more load in different ranges of motion and can have resultant issues such as pain or potential injury.

Thoracic Rotation

This is an area that becomes a major limitation for many tennis players — especially as we age. This is valuable to work on daily to improve and will not only help with the ability to rotate for groundstrokes, but also plays a big role in serving (especially stage 3: the loading stage).

Ankle Dorsiflexion

The limitations in the ankle can have profound impact on other segments of the body higher up (i.e., knee, hip, lower back and even the shoulder). This is an area of the body that is important to maintain adequate flexibility to help in movement, but also valuable in helping to limit lower leg problems. As someone ages, we know that calf injuries are a major area of risk and ankle mobility can play a role in this.