Effects of 6 week tennis specific exercises program on service velocity

Abstract

Performance in tennis involves various physical, technical/tactical and psychological factors together with a combination of abilities of agility, speed and power. On the other hand today serves have been a most important factor in winning a match. This study examined the effects of 6-week specific exercises program on serve performance and anthropometric characteristics in tennis players. Twenty competitive healthy tennis players were randomly divided into control and training groups. While the training group (n=10, 22.8±1.6 years) performed combined routine tennis training and 3 sessions (each session 45-60 min) including medicine ball, resistance and balance exercises, the control group (n=10, 18±0.0 years) only performed routine tennis training on court. Serve velocity, body height and weight, body fat ratios were assessed initially and at the end of the six week exercise program. As a result, tennis specific exercise training performed together with the 6-week tennis exercises program  provided further improvement in the serve velocity of tennis players than those in the control group (p<0.05). In conclusion, specific exercises are recommended to be performed in order to increase service speed.   

Keywords

• Anthropometric; kinetic chain; service; strength; tennis performance.

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