hey guys i just finished teaching a lesson and i'm gonna go for a run i have gotten a little
bit out of shape i gotta admit it to you guys i'm not in the greatest shape and right now i used to
be in much better shape now what happens with uh with me is that i'm teaching and i'm making
youtube videos and i don't have a lot of time to exercise so i've gotten quite out of shape
and this is what i'm gonna do i'm gonna record myself working out and getting back in shape so
let's see what date it is right now it's march 29th right here march 29th and i'm going to train
for two months completely by myself because i want you guys to be able to copy what i'm doing
so i'm not gonna spend any money on my training i'm not going to need a coach i'm going to do
everything completely on my own i'm going to show you guys how to do it and if i can get back
in shape especially playing shape because i'm not doing this to lose weight necessarily i just want
to feel better on the court and get to the shape i used to be for example when i played college tennis
okay guys so today i'm gonna start with a run and this is a nice beautiful track here
and actually know exactly what one mile is so what i'm gonna do i'm gonna run every single day
one mile and today is day number one you can see here we got a little bit of a gut
oh my god i don't know why i got out of shape
terrible okay guys no problem i'm out of shape but it's just day one every day one mile
okay guys let's talk about why i only run one mile so i believe that running longer than one
mile for tennis players let me take a little break it's not good for tennis players to run
too long of a distance so i always cap mine at one mile but i try to do it as fast as possible
because you do need the endurance for tennis but if you run too long in my opinion that hurts
your quickness around the court so i try to limit my runs to one mile but i really try to
do them as fast as possible right now because I'm out of shape i'm doing in about eight minutes but when
i'm in shape i can do it under seven minutes so remember for tennis specific running keep it as
short as possible but then try to give your best effort do it super high intensity similar to what
you would do on a tennis court you do a short distance but do it as fast as possible let's go
hey guys in addition to running i'm going to also do wall training as part of my daily
tennis regimen the reason why i love the wall so much is that i can be out here for 10 15 minutes
and just because the frequency of the ball the ball comes back so much faster
it's the equivalent of double the amount of time on the real court so i'm going to
try to do 10 to 15 minutes of super hard wall practice every single day no taking breaks
okay guys another thing that i'm going to be doing not every day maybe three times a week
is going to be court sprints and court sprints are great because they mimic the real movement
that you're going to be doing on the tennis court and i'm going to show you some of my favorite
sprints on the court now court sprints don't have to be long i think five to ten minutes
is plenty because they're going to be super high intensity and one drill that i like to
do as kind of a warm up is the jimmy connors and here's how it works you're gonna start running
sprinting in the doubles alley you're gonna touch the net and then you're gonna back pedal all the
way to the baseline and now once you get to the base then going to go diagonally over the court
towards the other doubles alley and the reason why this is called the jimmy connors because i
saw jimmy connor connor's doing this once on the court and i love it and now once you're
on this baseline you go back diagonally across the court over here touch the net and now you
back pedal all the way to the baseline and i like to do three sets of these in a row
for the next few drills i'm going to use my timer on my iphone and the great
thing about the timer is you can set it by the seconds so i'm gonna set this particular drill
at 30 seconds so basically what it is i can't even see the screen hold on okay there it is start all
right hold on pause can't all right so it's all set now this particular drill is great for
lateral movement so i'm going to move laterally i'm going to touch the t with my right hand
then i'm going to move laterally over towards the single line i'm going to touch that with my hand
i'm going to do that for 30 seconds and i'm going to do two sets all right ready set go
and don that burns that really burns that's a killer guys
one of my favorites i'm going to take about a 30 second break i'll do it again second round
alright guys the next drill is also one of my favorites it's called ball transport
so basically you're gonna put five balls in the corner of the singles line there one
on the corner of the tee here one ball in the middle of the tee and then so on on the other
side and for all my students that are watching see i don't only talk to talk i walk the walk as
well see i'm doing these drills i'm grinding out here guys i'm not just making you do this stuff
i do this stuff myself so basically ball transport is a great drill where you're going to start
with this ball bring it to the middle and you're going to keep moving the ball one slot so at
the very end it's going to look like the way it started and that's called ball transport let's go
come and guys let's finish off with the most brutal drill
in my arsenal of drills it's the 45 seconds drill basically you're going to be running from one
single line that you're going to touch with your right hand if you're right-handed you're
going to turn around but you're going to face the net as you turn around don't spin in a circle
you're going to run back to the other singles line touch that line with your hand turn back this way
and then you're going to do it for 45 seconds ready set go
oh oh my god i gotta do this more often that's a real test to
what kind of shape you're in i'm gonna do this three times a week
this is killer guys it's a killer drill i love it and guys something that every tennis player needs
to do is run hills here we have a beautiful hill and the drill that i'm going to be doing today
is called the tommy haas basically i'm going to sprint up i'm going to do 20 push-ups on top of
the hill then i'm going to sprint back down and do that five times it's a hundred push-ups and
why am i doing this well number one this is the most important thing that tennis players
need and that's the legs i'm gonna be building my legs by sprinting up the hill so let's go
that's brutal you guys want to know why it's called
the tommy haas drill just like the connor's drill i saw tommy haas doing this once in california up
sand dune so he gets credit for the drill i love it
all right guys that's it the hill it only took 10 minutes but i can tell you super high intensity
i'm completely out of breath i'm sweating and my legs are killing me so this is
something i'm going to be doing twice a week it's just really great for tennis
it's great to build up your stamina and improve speed come on all right guys another thing you
can do as a substitute to the hills is run stairs all you need is a stadium i'm lucky enough to be
close to the florida atlantic university football stadium and this is where i'm going to do stairs
this is something that i used to do in college almost on a daily basis i love doing stairs
it's a great exercise for tennis it gets your footwork going you're on your toes you're making
those small little steps and you're working on your stamina as well and for you guys that say
i don't have a stadium i'm sure you have a flight of stairs somewhere available and you can do the
same exercise that i'm about to do this is one of my favorite things to do and it kind of reminds me
of my college days all right here it is the fau stadium and this flight of stairs i don't think
it's as long as the murray state flight of stairs i remember it being much longer
but nevertheless i'm gonna run up here 10 times in a row let's see how i feel afterwards
all right guys there it is ten times up the stairs this is absolutely exhausting it's a killer
workout i love it i love coming up here at the end on the 10th time and you feel such a euphoria when
you're up high it's something about it we got a beautiful view of boca raton right here we're
super high up it's just a beautiful sight i'm going to sit down and let it soak in a little bit
so another great way to get into tennis shape is to do tennis specific footwork drills in the sand
when i played college tennis i'll never forget we used to go to saddlebrook all the time and
i once saw maybe the greatest fitness trainer for tennis of all time pat echeberry train
pete sampras in the sand on the volleyball courts so if it's good for sampras it's good for me too
guys i love this this is a fantastic workout
the hardest tennis workout you can possibly do is do tennis specific drills in the sand ah come on
all right guys so part of getting back in shape is also gonna involve playing tennis and in
today's video we're going to do tennis drills and i told you guys that you don't need a coach
this is going to be something you can do completely for free so just grab someone who's
willing to feed you some balls and do some drills and in today's case it's one of my former students
we're going to reverse the tables so that you're going to make me run oh yeah i'm looking forward
to it i bet you are don't make me run too much okay no no that's the point all right not too much
so the big question is will you be able to make me break a sweat today because i really
don't sweat that much i'm one of those guys who doesn't sweat and also never cramped in a match
just one time when i played against my um one of my friends at a club championship i think i was
like 15 or 16. the only time i have a cramped was at this match with six in the third and uh when
i won match point i went like come on and then my hand cramped and i couldn't let go the racquet i
had to pry my fingers open from the racket but that's the only time i cramped because i don't
really sweat that much so the question is can you make me break a sweat today carla let's see okay
laughs
and look you managed to get me to sweat look see my shirt is that real what do you mean that's real
of course it's real yes i'm sweating yeah see this is a hard workout thank you so much carla
i appreciate it strength training is something that's really important to get into tennis shape
and i've actually been doing strength training since i was 13 years old you might not be able to
tell because naturally when i'm in shape i'm very lean guy i'm like a poor man's danil medvedev
so it's been two and a half months since i started this workout regimen i actually planned to do it
two months but i needed an extra couple of weeks to get a little better shape you can see here it's
june 13th so let me tell you what i've been doing over the past two and a half months so i tried to
get my cardio in every day i tried to run one mile i also went to the wall almost on a daily basis
as far as the strength training at the running the hills doing the stairs and doing the beach workout
i try to do that once or twice a week and the results have been great my stomach has gone down
significantly i feel a lot lighter on my feet and the definition in my muscles is starting
to come back but the important question is am i back in tennis shape because there's a
difference between being in shape and being in tennis specific shape so let's find out
so did i get in better tennis shape absolutely yes all the stuff that i did over the last two
and a half months worked i'm lighter on my feet i'm moving a lot better and i'm playing
much better tennis than i did two and a half months ago but it's not only that
i feel better about myself there's this happy feeling inside when you've done
all the work you just generally feel better on the court am i in the same shape that i was in
my 20s absolutely not i'm getting older i'm 44 i'll never regain those physical abilities that
i had in my 20s but guess what it doesn't matter it's a big advantage to get in shape at any age
because another very important factor is that when you're heavy when you're out of shape your risk
of injury is much greater so guys i know you have a busy schedule but try to do as many
of these exercises as you can and i guarantee that you're going to be in better tennis shape