Yoga for Tennis

Acing Your Tennis Game with Yoga

The game of tennis can take quite a toll on the body. To truly excel in this sport, agility, endurance, strength, and speed are requirements. Players of such a draining sport are often exposed to a variety of joint injuries such as in the knees, elbows, wrists, hips, and shoulders. However, the regular practice of yoga can help to prevent and remedy these injuries and others like them.

Initially, hot yoga provides physical benefits focusing on flexibility, balance, power, and stamina. All these qualities contribute to injury prevention. While playing tennis, many competitors keep their muscles tense. However, yoga is just the opposite. Through relaxing the muscles, players can improve their reaction times, and thus, decrease the probability of an injury. Flexible muscles allow players to extend their reach and to better get their body behind the ball. With powerful muscles, a tennis player’s knees can remain bent throughout the match; this leads to strong serves and ground strokes. Furthermore, in a game that requires balance so that all shots are not thrown off, yoga provides just that.

Additionally, the practice of yoga can teach tennis players to focus and remain composed throughout the match. At times, the mental aspect of the game can be just as important as the physical aspect of tennis. Therefore, through the rhythmic breathing and thought-out postures of yoga, tennis players can begin to see an improvement in their game. With both their mind and body relaxed, players can be fully engaged in each moment of the game.

Many yoga poses are particularly beneficial for those that play tennis. For example, tree pose can strengthen legs, improve coordination and balance, and open hips. Also, spinal twist pose increases the flexibility of hips and shoulder joints, while toning the spine. Among others, chair pose generates space within the ankle and knee joints and tightens the abdomen. Of course, the poses of yoga vary in difficulty. With the regular practice of yoga, tennis players will notice a vast improvement in the physical and mental aspects of their game.