Design­ing a Ten­nis Work­out Program

Today I start a new ten­nis work­out pro­gram. Once again, it is going to be a hybrid rou­tine fea­tur­ing work­outs from the RMAX fam­ily, Bryan Kest, and P90X. In case you missed my expla­na­tions back dur­ing the first hybrid ten­nis work­out pro­gram, here is my ratio­nale. I under­stand that when under­tak­ing any work­out, you need an intel­li­gently designed pro­to­col. You just don’t go out and start exer­cis­ing. That is the fastest way pos­si­ble to get injured. And you can’t play ten­nis if you’re laid up on the sofa! I am design­ing a pro­gram that encom­passes the needs of ten­nis play­ers over the age of forty. Actu­ally, these pro­grams can be used by any­one, but the joint mobil­ity exer­cises and yoga are espe­cially use­ful to the aging recre­ational athlete.

Why Use Cir­cu­lar Strength Train­ing For Tennis?

Cir­cu­lar Strength Train­ing, or CST, is a health-first pro­to­col. In other words, when you look at the ben­e­fits and goals of your exer­cise pro­gram, your health is goal one with CST. Physique, or body­build­ing if you will, is actu­ally the last item in the CST fit­ness value hier­ar­chy. The hier­ar­chy, in order, goes like this:

• Health
• Mobil­ity
• Func­tion
• Attrib­utes
• Physique

As you can see, physique is on the list, just at the bot­tom. So, you can (and should) build your body with CST, but your health comes first. In so many pro­to­cols, most notably body­build­ing, your physique comes first and your health is at the bot­tom of the list. As a recre­ational ath­lete over forty, my guess is that you are over the van­ity of body­build­ing and are more con­cerned with your knees and lower back! I hear you loud and clear, broth­ers and sis­ters! Sure, every­one wants to look their best. I have a vain side, too, just like I am sure most of you do. How­ever, since this is a ten­nis site and not a body­build­ing site, we want to play bet­ter ten­nis and choose to train that way. CST addresses two ele­ments very impor­tant to both ten­nis play­ers and those of us over forty. Firstly, one of the main com­po­nents of CST is joint mobil­ity. Heal those aches and pains that you have amassed over the years and you’ll play bet­ter ten­nis and have more fun doing so. Sec­ondly, CST empha­sizes exer­cise sophis­ti­ca­tion. Just like a musi­cian or mar­tial artist will con­tinue to learn more com­plex mate­r­ial as he or she pro­gresses, so should your exer­cise pro­gram strive for ever more sophis­ti­ca­tion. The “keep it sim­ple, stu­pid” phrase doesn’t apply here.

Why Use Power Yoga for Tennis?

Power Yoga is an excel­lent ten­nis sup­ple­ment for sev­eral rea­sons. Ten­nis is a sport, and like most sports, it empha­sizes one side over the other. For those of you my age or older, you prob­a­bly remem­ber Guillermo Vilas and some of the other ten­nis play­ers of the 70s who had one giant arm and then their non-dominant arm was skinny as a tooth­pick. They looked like over-grown fid­dler crabs! If you do noth­ing but play ten­nis all the time, you are going to have imbal­ances. Imbal­ances cause injuries. Yoga is an excel­lent way to ensure that you even every­thing out. Power Yoga goes a step fur­ther and intro­duces flow. You flow from one pose to another, just like you tran­si­tion from one stance to another in ten­nis. If you train for flow, you will achieve flow in your game. Power Yoga is very car­dio­vas­cu­lar. You will break a sweat! The deep breath­ing and con­stant motion will increase your sta­mina and your strength simultaneously.

Why P90X for Tennis?

OK, we’ve all seen the infomer­cial where the ten­nis instruc­tor had allowed him­self to get fat. Then he ordered P90x and became a stud again! I’ll have to admit, that was one of the rea­sons I ordered the pro­gram a cou­ple years back. P90x actu­ally is a good fit­ness pro­gram. It is intel­li­gently designed and the mus­cle con­fu­sion prin­ci­ple really does keep the rou­tines more fun. P90x incor­po­rates car­dio, strength, endurance, flex­i­bil­ity, and power. All you need is a chair, a mat, some decent footwear, a few dumb­bells or resis­tance bands, a chin-up bar, water bot­tle and a DVD player! Tony Hor­ton is a fun instruc­tor and the exer­cises are explained well on both the DVDs and the exer­cise man­ual. Plus, just like RMAX, there is a forum full of help­ful peo­ple to help moti­vate you and answer your questions.

So Why Do You Mix These?

To be hon­est, you don’t have to. I have a few rea­sons for doing so, how­ever. I would like to show how flex­i­ble the CST sys­tem really is and how adapt­able it can be if you already have a per­sonal trainer or work out at a gym with struc­tured classes, for instance. If you are a begin­ner and want to work out at home, all you will really need are a few pro­grams such as Intu-Flow and Flow­Fit to get you started. How­ever, I have been prac­tic­ing CST since 2006. So, to be hon­est, I need a lit­tle more vari­ety. Sure, if you visit the RMAX store, you’ll prob­a­bly be over­whelmed with all the offer­ings. After you famil­iar­ize your­self with the sys­tem, you’ll notice that the pro­grams bor­row from each other and branch out from one another, too. This is a good thing, but can also lead to burn out if that is all you do. By mix­ing the CST prod­ucts with other exer­cise rou­tines, I’m keep­ing myself fresh and inter­ested in work­ing out.

If you’ll notice, I choose to do Bryan Kest’s Power Yoga series instead of the Yoga X in the P90X pro­gram. The main rea­son I do this is because I bought the Power Yoga series way back when and I really like the way he (Bryan Kest) teaches. Noth­ing against Tony Hor­ton, but I do enjoy hav­ing a yoga teacher instruct me on how to do yoga! The Yoga X DVD is very good, how­ever, and I will prob­a­bly use it later in the year. I change my rou­tine every four weeks or so.

Finally, the main rea­son I don’t do P90X by itself is because I have some phys­i­cal short­com­ings. I have a slight case of sco­l­io­sis and slightly knocked knees. The DVDs and the work­book both have a warn­ing stat­ing that if you suf­fer from bad knees, back, hip or shoul­ders, then you should recon­sider using P90X. I have tried to go through the pro­gram and there are some exer­cises that aggra­vate ten­nis injuries like ten­nis elbow or torn rota­tor cuffs. How­ever, I really like most of the pro­gram! So, I am using CST to safely address the joints and keep­ing the ele­ments of P90X that I can do safely and still add the vari­ety to my pro­gram that I need to keep me inter­ested and moti­vated. So there you have it!

The Sec­ond Hybrid Work­out of 2011

Now for the work­out. On Day One I am keep­ing the Intu-Flow from the pre­vi­ous hybrid. I will con­tinue in the same man­ner, too. The first week I will do the begin­ner level, sec­ond week the inter­me­di­ate level, third week the advanced level and finally I will fin­ish the fourth week with the mas­ters level. You shouldn’t do it this way unless you have worked your way slowly and pro­gressed through the entire pro­gram. I will con­tinue to empha­size this. Do as I say, not nec­es­sar­ily as I do!

Day Two will still be Flow­Fit. I am stick­ing with Level Two until I get the flow down. When I can go through 14–18 min­utes of con­tin­u­ous flows with­out hav­ing to stop and think what I am doing, then I will progress to Level Three. Since I am almost there, I may progress to Level Three before this four week rou­tine is complete.

Day Three will now be the P90X Chest, Shoul­ders, & Tri­ceps DVD. Once again, I am get­ting plenty of core exer­cise, so I will not do the Ab Rip­per X rou­tine. It both­ers my back.

Day Four will be a dif­fer­ent Power Yoga rou­tine. This round of four weeks will be the Body Sculpt­ing pro­gram. Despite the name, this pro­gram really is ben­e­fi­cial to any­one play­ing sports and not just for some­one try­ing to look good!

Day Five remains the Legs and Back rou­tine from P90X. This pro­gres­sion is taken straight from the Lean pro­gram. I think I said it was from the Clas­sic pro­gram in an ear­lier post, but I cor­rect myself now.

Day Six remains the Tac­Fit Com­mando inter­val rou­tine. I am still on the Recruit level and will remain so until I get the push-ups down pat. I do not want to progress too quickly as that will only be cheat­ing myself.

And that’s it! Fol­low along as I con­tinue down that road to Spring ten­nis season!

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