I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again - the most specific form of training for tennis is playing tennis! Thus, tennis training - which includes on-court drills, live ball hitting, practice sets (and even tournament matches) - is the truest form of ‘sport-specific physical training’ for tennis.
So if you hear someone talk about ‘sport-specific training’ and they’re jumping on a bosu ball, performing shadow swings on the beach or some other random exercise, that is NOT sport specificity.
The question then becomes, why do any off-court training at all? Wouldn’t it be better to simply play tennis and call it a day?
It’s a tricky dilemma because playing tennis elicits tennis-specific adaptations. These are usually favorable…to a point. For instance, it’s a good thing we gain shoulder internal rotation strength from serving but if we serve too much or don’t rest enough between sessions or any combination of the two, those tissues will get overly fatigued + range of motion (ROM) may decrease along the way.
In this case, gaining general strength/power might help - other muscles will support the shoulder during serving, for example. We could also adhere to a stretching/mobility program to help restore ROM after tennis sessions. And certain types of training modalities (like submax med ball throws) might help with the recovery process - which could allow us to practice more frequently.
All that to say this - if you want to improve on-court movement abilities, or striking power on groundies, or agility - we need to make the tennis player more athletic and robust.
To make a tennis player more athletic, we need to apply the most potent training stimuli that will improve strength, power, speed etc. The best ways to do that include:
Big bang strength exercises - squat, deadlift, lunge
Accel + speed training - linear sprints
COD training - 505, 10-0-5
Explosive training - various plyometrics + ballistic/Oly lifts
Throwing - med ball + plyo ball variations
These are typically considered ‘general training means’ - but they elicit adaptations that will allow for a greater expression of sport-specificity (tennis play). How much attention you give to one area versus another will depend on a player’s needs.
If, for instance, a player is lacking power on their serve, improving ground reaction force abilities would be a high priority (best tackled with a squat or squat derivative).
How to Organize Off-Court Training
In many sports, general training is typically performed cyclically - i.e for several consecutive months a year or for certain blocks a few times a year.
It seems like in tennis, this is harder to accomplish - many will blame tournament schedules but I think it’s also stubbornness from players and coaches that aren’t willing to take a break from tennis to develop greater athletic abilities.
Note - I encourage all players and coaches to at least take 8 weeks (and as much as 12 weeks) for an off-season training program. You don’t have to stop tennis, just plan sessions in a manner that allows you to focus a ‘little bit more’ on the physical work we mentioned above.
If you’re not willing to take time away from the court to use these highly potent training means to improve athleticism, you’ll have to use a strategy that allows for consistent implementation year-round.
That would mean including workouts at strategic times during competitive blocks - between tournaments (or in some cases, within events themselves).
There are many players that lift weights, sprint and perform high-powered training during tournament weeks. The reason is simple - this is the stuff that tends to decrease / get detrained. Plus, a lot of conditioning work gets overemphasized - how can a player be unfit practicing + playing for hours every day?!
We therefore have 3 primary options when it comes to physical prep:
Perform an off-season block of 8-12 weeks.
Use an in-season training approach year-round.
Combine the 2! Using a pre-season training block coupled with an in-season program will set players apart from their competitors (at least from a physical standpoint).
Lastly, while I believe that general training - like using squats, for instance - is a terrific way to gain adaptations in both neural (muscle recruitment type, rate coding etc - think being more explosive) and structural (think an increase in muscle tissue that can be an aid in injury prevention strategies). But, this type of training can have several adverse effects if done too frequently in-season.
As an example, there are other ways we can maintain strength, for instance, without performing any static lifts whatsoever - and shift the workouts towards more of the explosive/power end of the spectrum compared to ‘pure strength’.
We can utilize more ballistic lifts with dumbbells or olympic lifts - these will allow us to maintain strength while also targeting positions that are more angle/joint specific to tennis.
To summarize, remember this - playing tennis is sport specific. Adding resistance to tennis movements by mimicking them - will typically add very little to your training and may actually disrupt mechanics/technique.
And using highly potent training means has the potential to make everything better.