Chapter 28 Core Strength
For upper limb strength training in tennis, arms and shoulders are only part of it; forearms and wrists are the real difficulty.
This is actually similar to table tennis.
Simply put, tennis is also a sport that requires very delicate touch and precise control. A little more or less rotation, a little earlier or later receiving the ball, a little faster or slower returning the racket can all lead to huge deviations in the effect of the return ball, and can even mean the difference between victory and failure.
In the mini match between Gawain and Giron, in the last point of the first game, Giron used his sideways forehand to create an absolute advantage and almost scored, but Gawain still did not give up, gritted his teeth and chased the tennis ball, completed the shot while his body was unbalanced, and finally won the point.
In that point, Gao Wen's backhand shot at the end used the small muscles in his wrist and his natural touch to turn the tide.
If the racket retracting action is slower or the racket head speed is slower, then even if Gao Wen completes the contact with the ball, the return ball is likely to go out of bounds and cannot be returned to the court; if the wrist strength is weaker or the forearm swing speed is slower, then the result will be the same, and it is likely to go out of bounds.
In other words, Gawain was able to successfully counterattack mainly by relying on the strength of his upper limbs, especially his forearms and wrists.
Most of the hitting actions in a tennis match are completed while moving. Even if the feet are not firmly planted, at least the upper limb actions of leading the racket and swinging the racket can be completed. But if the feet are not in place or the hitting point is missed, the swing action can no longer be completed, which means that the strength of the back, shoulders and arms cannot complete the force action.
So, in this case, the only thing you can rely on is your forearm and wrist.
At this time, the role of small muscle strength is key.
Not only the extreme ball reception, but also other technical movements such as dropping the ball, pulling the spin, and lobbing the ball also require small muscle strength to play a role; and the most frequent and most common change of line shot, that is, from the diagonal line to the straight line or from the straight line to the oblique line, such a change of line shot has very high requirements for the forearm, wrist and hand feel.
Why do some players have such ease in changing the line of the ball in the game? In fact, it is the suppression of strength.
Serena Williams's line changes are often the suppression of absolute strength; Novak Djokovic's line changes are more about the power of small muscles to give full play to his delicate touch and precise ball control.
But for both Williams and Djokovic, upper body strength plays an important role.
Therefore, the upper limb strength training for tennis is very complicated, and there is special training for the wrists and forearms; and it is not just special strength training, there is also flexibility training, ball feel training, hand feel training and so on.
In daily tennis training, players often use a tennis ball as a football to practice juggling, controlling the ball, and passing the ball. The purpose is to emphasize both control and flexibility, and more importantly, the feel of the ball and the feel of the hand.
In the training of upper body strength, tennis and table tennis do have many similarities, but the most obvious and direct difference is:
Even when training for upper body strength, tennis training requires athletes to keep their knees bent—at least, most of the training moves do so.
From this we can see that tennis requires players to be aware of the existence of leg strength at all times. Bending the knees is a spring function, and it is also a state of maintaining mobility. Even in upper limb strength training, the lower limbs should not be forgotten, and muscle memory can be deepened through such movements.
Finally, and most importantly, core strength.
At this moment, Gao Wen is doing core strength training.
Gao Wen was seen lying on his back on a yoga ball with his waist, hips and lower limbs all suspended in the air. His thighs were straight and his calves were bent, with his calves forming a 90-degree right angle with his body. He used the muscles of his waist and abdomen to control his body balance and the angle of his knees. This movement alone required the mobilization of muscles throughout his body.
At the same time, hold a 15-kilogram dumbbell in both hands, stretch your arms, and raise it high above your face - there must be no slackness, otherwise the dumbbell will fall down and you may bleed on the spot.
Then, move your hands straight up and down and slowly backwards, and the angle between them and the face will change from a 90-degree right angle to a 180-degree straight angle, forming a perfect horizontal line from the fingertips to the knees.
Pause the dumbbells in front of your head for a moment, and feel the burning sensation in your waist, abdomen, arms, buttocks, thighs, and calf muscles.
Then, the arms slowly return to the right angle position of 90 degrees above the face, completing one movement.
During the entire movement, you must ensure that your arms are completely straight and must not be bent; at the same time, your back must be pressed against the yoga ball to maintain balance and stability, and must not shake, and your waist and hips must not collapse. Carefully feel the changes in muscle stretching, tension, and relaxation in each position.
Slowness is the core of the whole action. It cannot be achieved quickly, but needs to be experienced slowly.
Twenty times per set, three sets in total.
This is only the first part of core strength training, but from here we can see that tennis training is not about strong muscles, but about muscle toughness and explosiveness. From the body shape, we can clearly see the obvious difference between tennis players and those who do boxing, weightlifting and other strength sports.
So, what exactly is core strength?
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The so-called core is the main torso area below the shoulder joints and above the hip joints. It is a whole formed mainly by the waist, pelvis and hip joints, including twenty-nine muscles.
The core muscle group is responsible for stabilizing the center of gravity, transmitting force, etc. It is the main link in the overall force. It plays a pivotal role in the activities and force of the upper and lower limbs. It can be understood as a bridge, a bridge for highly coordinated force transmission between the upper and lower limbs. The more stable and solid the bridge is, the higher the conversion rate of force transmission will be.
In fact, if we simply understand it as balance and conduction, we can probably see the outline.
In competitive sports, the importance of core strength is very universal. Different events may have different situations, but in the final analysis, core strength is still needed to provide more support for technical movements, especially in tennis.
If we look at them separately, the lower limb strength is responsible for footwork and the upper limb strength is responsible for hitting the ball. But if the two cannot be connected together, the entire technical movement will be fragmented and it will be difficult to connect the movements of the entire game. The importance of core strength is highlighted.
It is also because of this that the physiques of tennis players are often quite special. Very few of them can present an inverted triangle outline like bodybuilders. In many cases, the muscles in the waist and abdomen are very thick, and you can't even see the distinct six-pack or eight-pack abdominal muscles. This is also called the "tennis waist."
The connecting role of core strength is fully reflected here. All of the "Big Four" are like this, and only Murray is relatively thin. But overall, they all have standard tennis bodies, and the strength of their "tennis waist" is very solid.
(End of this chapter)