Will Hamilton: This video is the first and new series at FYB, where we’re going to be focusing on tennis fitness. Now today we’re going to be doing some plyometric exercises, what exactly our plyometrics. Well the exercises that work on developing fast explosive movements, which is obviously important when you’re playing tennis because you’re moving side to side and we want to exposure when you hit a forehand, backhand of serve whatever.
Now the good thing of plyometrics is that many of these exercises can be done by only using your own body way. Jumping for example is from about plyometric exercises. Now the problem with jumping is that it can be high impacts on your knees and there are some we’re entire associated with that exercise. So, if you little bit order that might not be the best form plyometric exercise to do.
The good thing about plyometrics is that there is many exercises that don’t require much impact that are low wear and tear. And that’s we’re going to be focusing on today we’ve two exercises we’re going to be doing that will add power and expose this to your forehand and your backhand, so what we done as we gone to the court and you can see I have a box. This is a plyobox from oncourtoffcourt.com we’ll talk more about them in a minute. But I’ve got this box and I’m going to crowds down on the box with one foot on the box and the other foot on the court. And you can see I’ve got a real deep knee bend, I’m got my butt below my knee that’s on the box and that’s important you want to get as low as possible.
And I’m also facing sideways and I’m holding the tennis racket like this. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to push off and rotate back towards the net. So, I hand up on this position where I’m balancing on my left foot, my right foot just in the air and I’m facing the net. And then I just get back down in the position again and I repeat this exercise couple times. If you’re doing this right if you get real low then you’re gong to get tired pretty quick. This is a really great exercise because like we talk about forehands low impact it’s really no more impact then walking down flight on upstairs but it really work your muscles, your leg muscles and your core muscles and that will give an expose to forehand or expose to backhand. So let’s go to the backhand side from me at least and the exercise is exactly the same, I just reverse my foot positioning and I’m facing the other way and I push off and rotate back towards the net and again I’m balancing here. That’s another important element you want to freeze when you get this point to make sure that your own balance.
And that’s the good thing about plyometrics it’s not only work expose in this and quick movements but they also work on your balance, which is critically important if you trying have correct mechanics. So, once you got that exercise down then you can modify it slightly and what we’re going to do this add a swing. And I’m going to do I’m get the exact position to start but now I’ve got my normal forehand grip and I push off and I swing so you get see I’m shadowing the swing as I push off. And this is a great exercise if you’re trying to work your open stance technique. You go back to crowd’s position again its real important have a deep knee bend. You push off and then you shadow this swing and there is going to work on pushing off your outside leg and staying balance, you want to make sure you freeze in this position once you completed the swing to make sure your balanced.
And let’s quickly talk about the timing if you get back to the crowds. I want a time everything like I was actually hitting in an open stance forehand. So, I’m going to push off first and then swing and that you can see if you play this again this was pretty similar this looks like what and open stance forehand should look like. So, you may be wondering why we’re using a specialty box for this plyometric exercises as oppose to something like this and this is your standard cardio step and you would get your local sporting good start. Well, this thing made out of plastic, it’s hollow, it doesn’t have rubber on the bottom or the top and it’s not made to be jumped on, it’s actually dangerous to try and jump on this thing. You can see and increased behind me I’m taken it over so there is a decent chance you could hurt yourself by trying to jump on this. It’s designed to be stepped on designed burn fat not designed to develop explosive movement.
The plyobox on the other hand is obviously design by plyometric exercises. Its made out of metal relatively heavy, its got rubber on the bottom prevented from slightly its got rubber on the top to prevent you from sliding and its high enough this once a foot high, so you can really crowd’s down like on doing here and develop explosive movement. The bottom line is if your person that’s serious about your tennis fitness or may be you run a club or camp. A box like they should be wanted tools. I like as a before then we got was from oncourtoffcourt.com there are nice one to send this one and I think that particular box is great.
So, you should check out their website there is a link next this video that I’ll take you there and we’re going to be using this particular box in a lot of our upcoming fitness videos.
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