Now it's time to talk about fitness. Fitness is a crucial component to being a great tennis player because tennis is predicated on moving, and so because of that, you have to understand that by working on your fitness, it's not only great for your health, but it's also better for your tennis game. 

One of the biggest components that a lot of players aren't aware of that's important for tennis is the ability to recover. So many players I know and I hear say, Oh, I'm fit. I've been jogging on a treadmill for hours and hours. I can go for miles.

 But then it hit the tennis courts and they suffer because they're training themselves to run long distances at an even steady pace. A tennis match isn't like that. A tennis match is explosive and running around and sprinting and then having to regain your breath and then having to do it all over again.

 So it's important that you train this way. Not to say that doing long distance running is bad, but it's not the same type of running and training that's going to make you a better tennis player in the long run. So the three exercises we´re going to do really come down to working on recovering your breath, meaning going really hard for a while and then recovering your breath. 

The very first thing we're going to do is a racquet almost footwork drill. I love this drill because it kind of does two things at once, meaning that you can use it for your footwork, but it's also great for your fitness.

And we're going to do is shadow hitting a forehand six times and then take a 20 second break in the beginning if you're not used to this Make sure you take a little bit longer break and also consult your doctor if you're not used to doing tennis fitness this way because it's going to put a little bit more strain and task on your body to make sure that you're getting better at recovering. 

So if you find it hard in the beginning, give yourself a little bit more time to recover. And then as you get better, start to lower the amount of time you get as a break. So the very first thing I'm going to do is a shadow forehand six times and then I'm going to take a break. From here, you should feel your heart starting to beat pretty hard if you're not used to this. I already feel my heart starting to go from here. 

You want to use a timer and give yourself about 20 seconds, rest between and then do it again now, depending on your fitness level and where you are. You can take this up to doing eight of these instead of six, or you can take it down and do four and then continue to practice this.

So I would do another set just like this after 20 seconds. You want to do a total of four sets just like this. 

So I'm going to do one more and then I'm going to move to the next exercise. And if you're really an animal, you can actually create and run a bigger distance taking bigger steps. There's so many things you can do and increase the difficulty and the strain it puts on you, but really in the beginning, work with where you are and then build from there. 

The next exercise you can do is an explosive squat jump move. By doing this, it works on your explosiveness to get out of the gates and hit a ball. But it also gives you that power boost that you're going to need to get back into points. The more you can do this, the stronger your legs are going to be, but also it'll help you recover. 

So we're going to do is 10 to 12 squat jumps, meaning that all I'm going to do is come down and then push up by coming down and pushing up and doing it repeatedly. It's going to work on that explosiveness and your heart is going to be beating fast too. 

So again, just like before, we want to do 10 to 12 of these, or you can tailor it down or tailor it up, depending on your level of fitness.

Give yourself  20 to 30 seconds break again. You can tailor that down or tilling it up, and then rinse and repeat at least three to four times. So let's get started. Right. Now, the key to when you do the squat jumps is making sure your Butt's going down and you're coming straight up. 

You don't want to be leaning over like this, try to keep your chest up while doing it, and that'll prevent you from getting injured while you're doing this. Making sure they're not putting a lot of load here, but all the loads on the balls of my feet and pushing my butt all the way down and not out. 

The final drill is a strengthening drill. It's not so explosive, but you will feel it in your legs. And it's so important. Having strong legs for tennis is probably one of the most important things because your legs have to be strong to get you to the ball. You can't get to the ball and be balanced so you can rotate. 

You're not going to be able to hit a great ball from here. It's really simple. Spread your legs nice and wide. We're going to take two steps forward and two steps back, making sure that as I take those steps, I'm going to keep that low position and not pop up. 

Once you do this enough times, you're going to start feeling your legs burn and that means you're working your legs.

You want to continue to do this until you get to at least 30 seconds. So you're going to need a timer to do this. So here we go. That should be about 30 seconds. I do feel my legs burning. You want to rinse, repeat this about three to four times and do it for about 30 seconds if you can pull that off. 

If you feel like 30 seconds is too long in the beginning, lower it to about 20 seconds. And if you feel like 30 seconds isn't that hard, you can then step it up to about 40 seconds to a minute. Either way, you're going to be working your legs and feeling the strength. Develop as you do this consistently and feel like it's easier each time you do it. 

Now, with these three exercises, you can probably do this three to four times a week and it doesn't take that much time. But it'll give you great results because each time you're working on getting stronger, being more explosive and having better recovery, those three things are the key elements to being fit on the court because playing along points is going to require you to recover. 

Having strong legs and be able to make sure you're explosive getting out to the ball. And that's what all three of these exercises do for you.