Lawn Tennis: Warming Up

I hit the tennis courts early Monday morning in an effort to get my body back into shape after feeling my body bogging down a bit. It was a perfect morning for the exercise --- not too hot, not too cold.. The kind of temperature where you feel like working your body out is a comfortable thing to do. It kind of feels like stretching your body when you wake up in the morning to get out of a relaxing sleep and get into gear.

I hadn't played in quite a long time. I think it might have been more than a year already before I went out to the courts that Monday morning. I had to go to work that evening, so it was imperative to me that I don't tire my body out with the exercise.

Sadly, I was too excited in holding a tennis ball and racket again that I pounded on the wall with some shots immediately. I failed to do the proper thing: warm up before going into the game or practice. And now, two days later, my body is still stiff and aching. My right arm feels like it's carrying steel, and I walk like a board.

So get this and get this right: warm up before playing!

Warming Up

There are only three steps in warming up your body before playing. The main purpose is to get your body charged slowly for the game or practice. The warm-up is all about conditioning your body for the heavy physical activity ahead.

1. Walking, light jogging, and moving your arms and legs a bit... You can move your arms around in a circular motion, or shake them a little, as you walk around the court. Your legs will be slowly conditioned when you start walking. Then you pace it up a little by some light jogging. Then if you want, then you can do some side-jumping.

What I do is walk a little for a while, then start jogging after two or three rounds of walking around the tennis court. Then after two rounds of jogging, I would include some side jumps in my next two rounds of light jogging. I do the side jumps whenever I reach the serving areas of the court.

2. Stretching... after the walking and the jogging, it's time to stretch your muscles. The general order of stretching is to start from rotating your head to stretching your legs. But I would usually start from my legs because I feel like moving it a little bit more after the jog.

When stretching, don't push your body so hard. One of the mistakes I made when stretching before games is to stretch my muscles hard enough to feel some pain. But this isn't the real way to go. Stretching your muscles is all about getting them to be flexible with your movements later on. This means that comfort should be present. We can say that the purpose of stretching is to relax your muscles and get used to your body enduring the whacks in the game later on.

3. Doing some lawn tennis moves... Of course, this is imperative. You should also have your body familiarize itself with specific movements in the game. What I do in lawn tennis is to practice my forehand and backhand shots (without the ball). This includes fixing my pose, with one feet in front, the body in position, and getting that forehand and backhand curve right.

Do this step as many times as you like, until you get the movements in your system. Eventually, your body and muscles will be well-charged for the practice ahead.