Strength Training At Home
When you talk to someone about strength training, they will usually fall into one of two categories. Those that already workout in a gym (and constantly boast about it), and those that have a few weight-lifting equipment at home (that has been gathering dust for some time). When I talk to the latter, I always get the same excuse. "I don't have a spotter, so I can't lift heavy for any real gains in strength. So, I got dissapointed and kinda quit". Sound like you? Well, don't even think about not reading the rest of this article. This is for you. I am going to introduce you to four strength techniques that have been used by home strength trainers for decades. I promise that if you give them a try, it will raise the intensity of your workouts and leave you begging for mercy. - J.D.
1. Forced Repetitions (reps): Before explaining what forced reps are, we need to explain what muscle 
failure is. Muscle failure is when you are doing a particular exercise and you can no longer perform that exercise with good form. Let's take the biceps curl with a dumbell for example. You curl and curl until you can no longer lift the weight through the full range of motion. That is muscle failure. It is at this point, that a partner or spotter usually helps lift the weight past the point where your strength fails and you "force" three or four more repetitions. What to do if you are working out at home and have no partner? Instead of crying and complaining (and getting weaker), do your exercises with one limb. For example, the biceps curls would be done with a dumbell one arm at a time. When the arm you are working out reaches failure, force a few more reps with the help of your other arm. Same thing for squats, do them with dumbells and one leg at a time then use your other leg to squeeze our a few more reps.
2. Drop Sets: A drop set is where you perform one set of an exercise until you reach failure. Immediately after failure, you lower the weight you are lifting by 20% or so and perform another set to failure. Repeat this for three sets and you can get a great intense workout. If you are doing a workout with dumbells, be sure to have the lighter dumbells close to you. Try to take as little time as possible between drops.
3. Partial Reps: Ok, let's talk about muscular failure again. When you reach failure (let's talk about the biceps curl again), you usually reach what is called partial muscular failure. This means that although you can no longer perform the exercise with good form over the entire range of motion, you can still move the weight through part of that motion. Performing repetitions through that small range is known as partial reps.
4. Giant Sets: This is when you perform about three exercises per body part in immediate sequence to each other. A giant set for chest would be something like: Bench press, followed immediately by dumbell flys, immediately followed by pull overs. This would constitute one giant set. For legs it would be something like: Leg extensions, immediately followed by leg curls, immediatel followed by lunges.
There is no substitute for hard work, and there is nothing like the feeling you get after a good workout. Strength training has to be a little lonely sometimes, but it doesn't have to be boring. Choose one of those four strength training principles per month; and, in four months, you will be amazed at how much strength you gained training at home.
How does strength translate to tennis? As with any sport, it prevents injury and makes repetitive exercise safer and easier. You will build strength in the connective tissues that tend to break down with hitting a thousand ground strokes per week over a year's time. You will have the power in your anterior deltoids to send that one-handed running backhand up the line past your opponent. Now doesn't that sound good?
Need hands-on lessons? Don VanRamshorst is a U.S.P.T.A.
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