Fun and engaging, tennis can be played at any skill level and at any age—well into one’s retirement years. Because it can help those over 50 maintain their physical fitness, tennis may prevent some of the injuries that so often plague seniors and proactively counter natural age-related changes.
As a tennis player who has reached midlife, you may be thinking about some exercise to help improve your serve—and your game. We can address six basic areas that can help your midlife serve.
- Strength training. Strong shoulder and trunk muscles add power to your serve. Twice-a-week specific strength training of the arms, legs and posterior, in addition to shoulders and back, can improve your overall game—and health.
- Flexibility exercises. As you age, you’ll likely lose rotation and extension in your spine, and you might load more pressure onto your shoulder to make up for that loss as you serve—inviting injury. Thus, exercises that generate renewed spine flexibility can be the key to safe serving.
- Strong serving motion. We can analyze your particular serving motion to assess what you’re doing right, fix any bad habits and make sure that what works continues to do so. Key to any good serve is a strong rotator cuff, so strengthening that will be an important focus.
- Warm up. To prevent injury, warm up for at least five minutes before tackling the court, enough to literally get your blood flowing and work up a little sweat. A light jog, or even walk (depending on your current fitness level), should do it.
- Stretch. After warming up, stretch. We’ll personalize a selection of stretches to warm up the right muscles for tennis. Forward and backward arm circles and trunk rotations are particularly important for your serve.
- Balance. Important during serving, proper balance can become a bit more difficult as we age. To maximize your balance skills at home, stand on one leg for a minute at a time while you watch television, for instance.
We can offer more suggestions for each of these areas. Come in and let us “serve” you, and you can be serving aces for years to come.
