Winter Cross-Training for a Stronger Spring Tennis Season
When the court time slows down in winter, your tennis progress doesn’t have to. In fact, the off-season is one of the most valuable windows to build the strength, mobility, and resilience that will carry you through a healthy, powerful spring season. As a physical therapist, here’s how I recommend using winter to your advantage.
Focus on getting stronger. Use resistance to strengthen the gluts, core, shoulders, and upper back muscles. Not only will these help power but can also protect against overuse injuries.
Work on mobility. It does not have to be exciting and elaborate but consistent mobility work for the hips, thoracic spine, and shoulders will improve your reach and stroke mechanics.
Sharpen conditioning and reactivity. Low impact conditioning work and reactive training drills can make large objective changes to how you perform on the court.
Address aches now. Get those recurring aches and pains evaluated. Proactive work now prevents reactive rehab later.
Winter isn’t downtime—it’s development time. A structured cross-training program builds on the fundamentals that translate directly to improved tennis performance.
If you want a personalized PT-designed off-season plan, I’d love to help you step into spring tennis feeling stronger, faster, and injury-resistant. If you’re interested in joining our Tennis Performance Program, or want a consultation, feel free to reach out to meghab@stick2itpt.com.
