hey guys in today's video I want to teach you how to get ready for a tennis match but before we get
started take a look at these beautiful pillows here give this video a like And subscribe to the
intuitive tennis YouTube channel but this video is going to be super important guys because I
have a match tomorrow at 9am right now it's 7 45 p.m and the preparation for the match starts the
day before so this is what you have to do the day before first of all you're gonna eat a nice dinner
based on starch what I'm going to eat tonight is a nice pasta meal I want my glycogen levels
to be up but there's more things that I got to do tonight I'm gonna have to go to bed early 10
p.m it's 7 27 a.m I'm picking up my daughter we're gonna drive to school we'll get to school at 7 50.
now my match is at nine o'clock and I gotta drive 20 minutes to get to the courts which leaves me
with 50 minutes to get ready and get warmed up the good news is I woke up early I had a
good night of sleep I had oatmeal for breakfast I got plenty of time to digest the food and one
tip that I can give you is that you never want to play a match on an empty stomach there's a chance
that you're going to run out of gas you might be okay there might be some glycogen storages in your
system but if you play for a long time you might run out of them and you're gonna end up losing a
match you're gonna be completely dead happened to me several times so that's not gonna happen today
I ate breakfast I'm feeling good and another important tip that I can give you is to get
to the site where your match is being held with plenty of time you want to get there at least 45
minutes before your match starts time pressure is one of the biggest causes of stress you don't
want that when you're playing a match you get there early gives you plenty of time to relax to
settle yourself after getting out of the car and gives you plenty of time to warm up so I got at
least 45 minutes at the site where I'm gonna play the match to start getting my body ready because
right now I'm feeling kind of heavy it's normal for my age when I wake up in the morning I don't
feel too loose so the warm-up process is going to be crucial if I'm gonna play well okay guys I
made it to the courts later than I expected it's 8 27 now I got caught in a little bit of traffic
and this is another reason why you should give yourself plenty of time to get to your tournament
get to your match because you never know what's going to happen with traffic I can tell you one
story one time I was playing a tournament in Hallandale Beach at the Diplomat Country Club
and I got caught in a traffic jam I was late and I called the tournament director notifying him that
I was going to be late and it had already been 15 minutes since the match was supposed to begin
and I called them and I was very close to the tournament he told me Nick if you don't make it
here in five minutes I'm gonna have to default you and so I did ended up making it there and I
played the match but I got a three game penalty and I started the match down love three and the
guy that I was playing wanted two breaks which I argued about I wanted one break three love down
but he ended up getting two breaks and I got so angry which was a great lesson to always
leave enough time for things like traffic and things that are outside of your control
this is what you should plan for and again get to the tournament at least 45 minutes
before your match starts so now I still got a half hour to get ready plenty of time okay
guys let the warm-up process begin I'm going to start off with Shadow strokes this is something
you can do anywhere it doesn't have to be on the court and the reason why I like this is because
I can do it while moving and by mimicking the actual stroke I'm warming up the important body
parts that are needed for tennis so I'm going to start off with some lateral movements
I'm going to do this maybe for 30 seconds or so just going side to side and taking dry swings
got me breathing right away which is super important the goal of a tennis warm-up
is obviously to egt your body warmed up how do you know when your body's warmed up
when you break a sweat my dad always used to say you're not warmed up properly until
you start breaking a sweat and I'm going to work a little bit on diagonal movement so
I'm gonna go diagonally this way back to the middle back pedal and then diagonal this way
and there it is again out of breath is good this is a good sign I'm getting my body
ready now I'm gonna do backwards movement diagonal backwards movement because
in tennis you have to move in so many different directions
you have to use muscles that you don't even know you're using so I'm a big fan of all the different
tennis warm-up methods I'm a fan of bands
I'm a fan of running around the court and getting your body loosened up but nothing
beats what I'm doing right here for me personally this is the absolute perfect
tennis warm-up because I'm doing exactly what I'm going to be doing once the match starts so now
let's get busy with the diagonal backwards movement
and here you can start working a little bit on more open stance
okay next thing I'm going to warm up is the volley and overhead movement and I'm not going
to be at the net to do this again guys you can do this anywhere you can do this in a parking lot it
doesn't matter so basically I'm gonna move up and make a volley back up and then mimic an overhead
okay next thing on the list is a serve and this is one of the oldest
warm-up methods that's out there is this looping motion on the serve where basically
pick your racket up drop it go up down and loop it in the front let me show you from this side
there's the exercise that's great to loosen the shoulder now you can involve the left side too
right here this is perfect get that shoulder nice and warmed up a couple more
there you go good very good and guys for my old carcass to be ready for a match play I have to
bend and there's a drill that's usually done with a coach but since I'm by myself I can do
this alone basically I'm going to roll the ball this way and I'll go down lunge grab the ball
and then put it back on the racket would be with a coach but you don't have to do that you roll
it like this again lunge grab the ball and back around the racket roll it come up to it lunge
and then again one more time roll it lunge grab it and now you're working on getting low this is
probably my biggest weakness is bending and now that's not all now you can mimic the same thing
with hitting forehands backhands and volleys so I'm going to start with volley so I'm going to Lunge
and come back and I'm gonna lunge I'm gonna come back see I'm very weak in this area because both
of my knees are pretty destroyed and I'm backhand side it hurts forehand side they would go
oh man it does not feel good but it's good to do this now rather than than in a match do a couple more
does not feel good but I'm getting warmed up guys another great way to warm up a tennis is
to hit against the wall but most places don't have a wall but every single place is going to
have a fence on the court so you can try doing this exercise where you're hitting against the
fence and keeping the ball in play let me try it again hit against the fence and you keep the ball
in play the ball's not gonna bounce back very far but sensation of hitting and you moving
from side to side to the ball there's a nice little warm up exercise make sure you don't
hit the fence too hard you don't want to break anything you can try to in the air with volleys like this
and now backhand side
there you go this is beautiful now I have the sensation of hitting the ball another
thing that a lot of players ignore especially at the recreational level is warming up the wrist
so wrist exercises like this one getting the wrist nice and loose super important rolling the wrist
like this because the wrist is used in tennis no doubt about it the wrist gets used in many
different ways and so it's important to use the wrist and get it nice and loose
a nice and mobile prior to playing I'm not quite done yet there's one more exercise that I'm gonna
do and it's the following one there is jumping in tennis especially when we're jumping for an
overhead so I'm gonna start jumping up but not only that I'm also going to use a little bit
of my abs by pulling my leg to the side let me show you from this side right leg is going to
go to the left and then vice versa and I'm going to get off the ground this exercise that's super
important in tennis because guys there are situations on the court where you do indeed
need to jump and you got to get your body ready for these movements let me turn around
and do one more round here it is come on Nick come on now get ready yes and last one all right
here's a big test guys take a look you see the sweat I broke a sweat which means I'm warmed up
for tennis and guys there's only one other thing that's better than the warm-up I just
did and that's actually playing tennis so if you ever have a chance to warm up for your match by
actually playing tennis that is the absolute best and that's what all the pros do they'll probably
go through a warm-up session similar to what I did but probably with uh some bands probably a
lot more Dynamic stretching prior and most likely with some exercises where they're throwing a ball
they were going to do a really high-tech workout and let's face it a lot of us have busy schedules
and don't have you know two hours time to prepare for a tennis match so if you're in
a time constraint I find that what I just did there was absolutely a perfect warm-up because
it mimics the exact movements that are going to be happening on the court but even better than that
would be if you just grab someone and you hit for 10-15 minutes and that would be even better if you
have all the time in the world and you're more of an advanced recreational player a high level
player maybe you want to invest quite a bit of time into your warm-up and before every practice
do a procedure that you would see professional players do and if you want to know in great detail
what some of those exercises are you can check out my other video where I discuss in great depth
how to warm up in tennis and guys now the sweat is really starting to roll so I am really warmed
up and this took a good half hour this whole procedure because I did take breaks in between
so again take a lot of time for the warm-up and I'm going to tell you what the most common mistake
is that I see not only at the recreational level but even at the high level sometimes where players
don't warm up and they use the actual warm-up to warm up their body and there's nothing more
annoying than that I'm sure you've seen players that will ask for like 25 overheads and just take
forever to warm up that's not actually what the warm-up is for in a match should be five minutes
bam done you take a couple of shots you loosen up a little bit maybe Scout your opponent out that's
what the warm-up is for it's not actually there to for you to warm up do not waste people's time do
not waste your own time and warm up prior to the match starting so guys when you warm up prior to
the actual warm-up starting you can concentrate in the actual warm-up on scouting you can check
your opponent out and see whether they have some deficiencies from the Baseline and you don't have
to be worried about yourself warming up now you're already prepared you can start the match
right away and you can commit the entire warm-up to scouting your opponent and finding weaknesses
and guys another thing that I recommend that you do when the match starts is try
to extend the rallies as long as possible don't go for winners extend the rallies
which can not only help you warm up even better but also losing some
of the nerves that are very common in the beginning of a tennis match
you can see that I look like I just jumped in a pool completely drenched
so I'm absolutely warmed up for this match I'm going to check in with you
guys once the match is over okay guys that was a high level match I played really well
and I'm happy I warmed up because I didn't waste time in the match trying to warm up or didn't
waste my opponent's time and my own time trying to warm up and the warm-up so the way I look at it
it can give you several advantages when you warm up for a tennis match properly number one
you can serve as injury prevention let's face it if you do this diligently your
body is going to thank you if you go into a match cold and you put your body to the test
if you're not warmed up you can get hurt so that's Factor number one and Factor number
two and this is something that I learned in the Great Book winning ugly from Brad Gilbert there
are certain things in tennis that you can control and there are certain things in tennis that you
can't control for example you can't control if your opponent comes out and blows you off the
court you can't even control sometimes how you're playing you're gonna try your best but there's
going to be days where you're playing really well there's going to be days when you're going to be
off but the things that you can control are for example the warm-up this is something that you
have full control over and it's something that you should do every single time and not only is
it injury preventative like I already mentioned but it can definitely help you play better tennis