Best Tips and Excercises You ever heard/did

[exhaleexplode]

Pretty general but let me give it a go:
Agility ladder! Had 2 months off because of inflamed shoulder. Did 7 different patterns on the ladder..WOW. Im way faster and have much much better footwork than before.
The wrist dowel: a big dowel with a rope and weight on the end...or just twirl a heavy bat. I can credit this excercise with giving me a much much more consistent one handed backhand....
How about you guys...what really really made a difference for you?

[tom-selleck]

i know you wanted 1, but i'll give 3 and all to do with serve for some reason.

really hold back on shoulder turn on serve and then explode it.

on serve, your racquet swing path isn't actually in direction you want ball to go (it's further right for right hander).

cut more over top corner of ball on serve than dead on (not necessarily such a thing as a "flat" serve)

[Freedom]

Ah, those wrist-rope-twisty thingies. Those are good, but I don't really like them. It seems to easy to cheat.

When I was into paintball, someone told me about something called Plyometrics (or something like that). Crazy stuff, but excellent for footwork.

[nViATi]

Get off TW and practice! ;) :mrgreen:

[Bungalo Bill]

Get off TW and practice! ;) :mrgreen:

Sounds like a great idea. Good night.

[odessa]

Get off TW and practice! ;) :mrgreen:
:mrgreen:
good one.

[CrazyScheiner]

When I was into paintball, someone told me about something called Plyometrics (or something like that). Crazy stuff, but excellent for footwork.

Plyometrics is probably the most important type of strength exercises. It can improve you so much and do so little to your body damagewise.

Edit: I do multiple types of exercises in track that are considered plyometics. They are:
Platform Depth Jumps
Box Jumps (a variation that we do on the bleachers)
Standing Twist (with medicine ball)
Sit-up (with medicine ball)
Cone Jumps


The ones I do are the Clap Pushups, Broomstick Twist (with a weight bar), and I will soon be doing Barrier Lateral Jumping.

here is a site that can help you ALOT:

http://www.exrx.net/Lists/PowerExercises.html

[Kaptain Karl]

Plyometrics is *serious* training. You should be sure to already be fit before you "jump" into plyometric training. (Pun intended.)

Also, don't do what I did years ago with Legendary Abs. The first time I did about six exercises. When I was finished, I felt no "burn" ... so I did them all two more times. (The next morning I could not get out of bed...!) Build your way into Plyometrics.

Plyometrics is probably the most important type of strength exercises. It can improve you so much and do so little to your body damagewise.I've been researching plyometrics for tennis. It seems each "expert" has completely different ideas of what routines are the best for tennis.

Crazy's link is nice because clips of someone doing the exercise are included. The one's I like ("Just because;" not because I'm claiming any authority on the subject) for tennis training are ...
... Barrier Lateral Jumps (www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/BarrierLateralJump.html)
... Box Lateral Jumps (www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/BoxLateralJump.html)
... Barrier Lateral Shuffles (www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/BarrierLateralShuffle.html)
... Ricochets (Not from Crazy's site)
1. Mark out a small box shape on the floor (about 2 feet square) with paint or chalk.
2. Keeping your feet together, start at one corner of the box and perform small jumps from corner to corner in a random manner.
3. For this exercise the emphasis should be on speed and rate of leg movement rather than height.
4. Each ground contact is 1 repetition.
... Broomstick Twist (www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/BroomstickTwist.html)(Be sure to follow the "start slowly" instruction)
... Seated Twist (www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/MBSeatedTwist.html)
... Seated Side Throw (www.exrx.net/Plyometrics/MBSeatedSideThrow.html)

Crazy's recommended site (http://www.exrx.net/Lists/PowerExercises.html)

- KK