Power Up Your Tennis Game The “Complex Way”

By Richard-John Mensing

You play how you train and train how you play.” This mantra is echoed across fields, on courts and in athletic training facilities around the world.

When it comes to tennis, strength, power, speed and muscle endurance are all physical performance components vital to creating a highperformance athlete and a successful player.

It is imperative that both players and their coaches understand not only the relationships between these components, but more importantly, how integrating them into a sportsspecific program produces the desired results, at the desired times, and utilizes athletes’ dominant abilities.

Every sport requires strength training, but it is each sport’s intrinsic demands that will determine the type of strength training needed to smartly and effectively elevate an athlete’s performance.

Because tennis demands power (serve and groundstrokes), power

endurance (constant change of direction) and force and explosiveness (acceleration, deceleration and firststep) functional strength and plyometric work serve as a potent training combination.

After a player has properly progressed through the technical (proper form/stability), biological (motor control/muscle recruitment) and loading phases (amount of weight/number of sets/number of repetitions) of both strength and plyometric work, and only after the player has done so, should a coach advance the athlete using methodologies such as Complex Training.

Complex Training is designed to increase strength and power. It combines heavy and slow tempo strength exercises with explosive and fast plyometric exercises. The purpose of Complex Training is to simultaneously use the heavy-loaded movement to maximally recruit the central nervous system, and taking advantage of that heightened recruitment with a fast exercise to activate the fast-twitch muscle fibers. This is vital to enhancing speed and explosiveness, both on and off the court.

This method is ideal for players who are in pre-competition or who are inseason, but have limited training time. However, Complex Training should only be used after an athlete has first successfully performed the prescribed exercises under the supervision of the athlete’s coach and with proper form.

Below is an example of a singleday workout used for elite juniors, college-bound, and ATP and WTA pro players. Each set of exercises should be performed in their entirety before moving on.

Dynamic Warm-up

Exercises should include hip mobility, crawling, thoracic and lumbar range of motion (ROM), lunging, skipping and pushing.

Complex training block

• Back Squat & Squat Jumps: Three sets of four to eight reps at 75-85 percent plus eight jumps (two minutes, rest and repeat) • Bench Press & Medicine Ball Chest

Pass: Three sets of four to eight reps at 75-85 percent plus 10 throws (two minutes, rest and repeat) • Single Leg Deadlift & Lateral

Traveling Lunge Jumps: Three sets of four to eight reps each leg plus

five Lunge Jumps in each direction (two minutes, rest and repeat) • One-Arm Dumbbell Rows & Split-

Stance Medicine Ball Push Throws:

Three sets of four to eight reps each arm plus five Push Throws for each arm (two minutes, rest and repeat) • Forearm Plank & Prone Back Hyper

Superman: Three sets of 45 second

Planks plus 12 Supermans (30 seconds, rest and repeat)

Cool down

• Flexibility/ROM work, stretching and yoga poses

Complex Training should be performed two to three times per week, and is most effective with a comprehensive and progressive conditioning program on alternate days. The program should take place over a six- to 12-week period, with the frequency and duration of Complex Training coming into clearer focus as coaches and players formulate their yearly plans.

Want to train harder? Work smarter and power up your game? It’s time to incorporate Complex Training.

Richard-John Mensing Jr. is the Director of Performance and Junior Athletic Development at John McEnroe Tennis Academy and SPORTIME Randall's Island. He has more than 20 years of professional experience as an athlete, coach trainer and athletic educator, working in numerous sports with athletes of all ages and levels. You can reach him at rmensing@sportimeny.com.