Gym Exercises for Tennis

Playing tennis requires several things: aerobic fitness, physical arm strength and the flexibility to move your entire body during the sport. Gym exercises for tennis, therefore, include a variety of aerobic activities such as treadmill walking and running; weight-bearing exercises, as well as dance or yoga.

  1. Aerobic Exercises

    • Gym exercises for tennis would be incomplete without aerobic fitness. You have to be able to move quickly and for a long period of time on the tennis court as you attempt to beat your opponent with speed and skill. Aerobic exercises help you achieve and maintain the ability to move quickly and for an hour or more on the tennis court. Some good aerobic gym exercises include speed walking, jogging and running on a gym treadmill, as you can set the machine to increase resistance and speed as you progress.

      Treadmills, however, are not the only aerobic fitness exercise in the gym. You can use the gym's elliptical machines and stair-climbing machines, and any racquetball or sport courts in the gym to increase aerobic fitness too, as well as participate in aerobic classes.

    Arm Strength Exercises

    • Arm strength is crucial when playing tennis to enable you to serve the tennis ball with enough power to get it across the net and place the ball where you want it on the other side of the court. In addition, without adequate arm strength your arms would tire before the three standard sets of this sport are complete. Gym exercises that increase arm strength include chest presses, which can be performed with a chest press machine, using barbells or dumbbells and exercises such as dumbbell flies and barbell lifts. Other arm strength exercises also exist in the gym and include cable pulls, bicep curl machines and rowing machines. Just a slight increase in your muscle size will go a long way toward increasing your arm strength, according to the National Institute on Aging.

    Flexibility Exercises

    • One of the best gym exercises you can do for increasing flexibility is to attend a dance or yoga gym class. While yoga can increase flexibility specifically, dance can increase flexibility and aerobic health and fitness. As the tennis player must be able to bend, reach and stretch in many different directions while also moving constantly, dance offers the tennis player an excellent exercise workout to maintain the fitness that would enable you to do so. Dance also helps build stamina as it increases flexibility. Different dance classes at the gym offer differing degrees of flexibility, with ballet gym classes offering great flexibility exercise too.