Junior Tennis Strength Training

At Tennis Fitness we believe - Strength is ‘King’

Before you start trying to get faster and more powerful, you need to build a solid strength foundation. Your first step is to work on a strength and mobility/ flexibility plan for a young tennis player. This should be the focus to ensure they are creating the ideal pathway towards their goals 

Since 2003, we’ve been very passionate about Junior Tennis Strength training, and one thing I can promise you is that if you don’t do it correctly from the start, you are going to have problems down the track!  (Injuries and physical frustration stop most young player's journey). In case you missed Part 1 of this topic, click here 👉 Tennis Strength Training for Kids.

We had a player come to us a little while ago who was always injured, they said, we were their last chance, and they wanted to stop playing if we could help them get back on track.

We looked at their weekly training plan and compared that to their goal of becoming one of the best juniors in the world. We soon worked out that they were actually under training and what they were doing was not going to get them there. Due to the fact they had been under training, this led to them not being strong and robust enough to play well in tournaments and they were often getting injured in tournaments. 

The first thing we did was implement a training plan that suited their time constraints, needs and moved them towards their goal. We made some positive changes and the biggest one was getting them to follow a junior tennis strength and flexibility plan. It did not take long for the injuries to disappear and performance to improve. They are now well on their way to reaching their goals and we are always reassessing their training plan and how their body is managing the load. 

Every young player needs to have a plan. Getting the basics right and then knowing how to build on top of that! If you need help getting your child's training plan assessed and corrected please get in touch with us.

Over the years we have seen some common issues occur for junior players when they are trying to get stronger. These issues can alter the course of a player’s journey if they are not managed the right way. 

Common issues:

1. Hypermobility/flexibility – e.g. Being too flexible with not enough stability.
2. Reduced mobility/flexibility – e.g. Not being flexible enough.
3. Foundational strength – e.g. No foundational strength base established.
4. Incorrect training technique – e.g. Bad technique when doing strength training.
5. Lifting too heavy too soon – e.g. Kids training like adults.
6. Tennis specificity – e.g. Kids doing the wrong kind of strength training.

So how do we help combat these issues?

1. Hypermobility/flexibility – Follow a strength and stability program that is age-appropriate. This will help build strength in the muscles and stability around joints.
2. Reduced mobility/flexibility – Players who are having flexibility issues need to be following a regular (3-5 times per week) mobility program in the morning and a flexibility program in the evening, once they have finished their exercise for the day.
3. Foundational strength – Follow an age-appropriate, tennis-specific tennis strength development program. You can check out one here.
4. Incorrect training technique – If a player is following an effective, well-created program it will guide them through the technical instruction to make sure they are doing things right. Another good option is to follow a program with some guidance from a tennis trainer. They can use the specific program to help guide the player through the correct technique in person.
5. Lifting too heavy too soon – You definitely do not want this happening. If programming is not age appropriate it can be dangerous. So make sure what you are following is specific for your child’s age and level of training experience. We help guide players through this process. If you need help with this let us know.
6. Tennis specificity – We don’t want kids training like adults and we don’t want kids doing strength training that is specific for other sports. We want to encourage strength gains in key areas for developing tennis bodies eg Glutes, shoulder girdle, and core. A well-thought-out junior strength program should cover this.

Lifting weights at a young age can be dangerous and often leads to tennis injuries. Players under the age of 16 should steer away from weights and heavy loading (unless they are working with a professional tennis strength and conditioning trainer, who is monitoring their progress).

Alternatively, they should use bodyweight exercises, resistance bands, and medicine balls (5-10% of their body weight).
 
I am hoping by now you can see how passionate we are about helping and educating tennis coaches, players, and parents in this area. In fact, we said to ourselves a few years ago, that we can do two things…either sit back and cross our fingers and hope players can get educated and get the correct advice from somewhere or we can do something to help prevent the above issues from continually happening.

Platforms like YouTube worry us as players jump online and see something someone is doing, and it may be too advanced, not specific, or simply dangerous.

You need to always ask these 3 questions:

“What” do I need to do?

“Why” am I doing it?

“How” do I do it?

Because of this, we designed a Junior Tennis Strength Development Program.

Junior Tennis Strength Training

It is all about building up a young tennis athlete's total body strength in a safe and effective way for ages 8-18, I am sure you get that by now.

The program has 3 levels. 1 being the easiest, 2 intermediate, and 3 advanced. Players start at level 1 and work their way through the programs as needed. We set it up like this to make sure players go through a thorough process of building up their strength the right way.

This program will EDUCATE players and coaches on how to start and progress a Junior Tennis Strength development plan. 

To get you started today CLICK HERE and we will see you on the inside!

Please contact us for help and guidance on any of the points above.

As a coach and parent, the best thing you can do is set a young player up for life. Educate – Motivate – Perform.

Step 1, get their technique right, then build their strength base!

Good luck!