Dom King: Separate The Signal From The Noise

Hey everyone, on today's episode we've got Dom King, the Head of Athlete Development for Every Ball Tennis at Halton Tennis Center. He's an ITPA Master Tennis Performance Specialist and someone I had the privilege to coach with at the 2024 Tennis Congress out in Arizona.

On today's episode, we discuss some of his favorite strength training exercises, the appropriate amount of stretching, and why you should be wary of some online content promising quick results. So sit back, relax, and prepare to become a smarter tennis player.

All right, Dom, welcome to the pod. How you doing? Great, man. I love having you on here. Again, I've said this a million times, but fitness, strength and conditioning is a massive blind spot for me. I am not a strength coach. I am a tennis coach. Yes, they go hand in hand, but I like to lean on professionals like you. And one thing I see when I watch YouTube videos online or Instagram is I will see other coaches maybe teaching something that has been factually proven incorrect.

right so they are promoting a myth or something that's not true but how would an amateur or a non-professional know that that information is not great so i want to start with i want to know what are one or two things that you see being pushed online whether in youtube videos or just articles or whatnot that you think is somewhat of a fitness or a strength and conditioning myth that a lot of tennis players seem to believe

There's a lot out there, you are absolutely right. There is a lot out there online and one of the things that you do need to do is sort out the signal from the noise, which is tough to do. If you look at something, I think you want to have a look at what someone's credentials are, because then that will tell you a lot about whether it's good information or not. I'm not a huge fan of when people say, do this one thing.

and you will achieve x and i think that gets pushed a lot and in its little bite size its little kind of like small attention span that's what where we are these days i think a little bit it's almost like do these three exercises and you will you will put 20 miles an hour on your serve If only it was that easy. You know, it just doesn't work like that, unfortunately, I don't think. So when I see that come up as a caption.

It already makes me think, okay, let's have a look at this because there's so much that goes into it in terms of your training overall that I don't think you can be so reductionist and take it down to just literally that kind of soundbite. So anytime I see that, I'm a bit already my antennas up, you know, to think this could be something that might not be useful. And yeah, like I said, I think that's one of the big things that I see online.

So if I click on a YouTube video and it says, hey, do these two exercises and I can add more speed to my serve or I can get faster and it's not that simple and you said more things go into it.

What are the other types of things that players should be paying attention to that will go into it? Because obviously some of that information is great and probably the exercises that people are doing at home are great and yet they might not be getting the results they want. So what does that total picture look like?

It is massively, like it's a huge picture in my opinion. And what you see with a lot of people online is you'll only ever see like a snapshot. So even like if I post some content, what you're seeing is a snapshot of a session probably.

you might not understand like unless i do a good job of explaining it you might not understand the rationale behind it why am i doing it why am i doing it with that particular player you know what what is the basis for that and i always say to the players that i work with like no matter how how old they are i say look if i can't justify

why i'm doing something fire me immediately like get rid of me because i should be able to justify anything being in my programs with people so if you if it's a bit of a oh i saw it it looked cool or you know or whatever i can't justify it then it's like that there's there's no place for it So in terms of the overall program, it's massive. You've got to have, there's a strength underpinning.

There's robustness. I mean, we talk kind of over here a little bit as a group in terms of having kind of powerful players. And I'm talking here about literally any age, any level. You know, you can apply this across the board, but it can be tweaked depending on where you are.

So you're looking at powerful players, you're looking at good movers, so good agile movers, and then you're looking at kind of like robust players as well. So if you can sort of tick those boxes, then you're going a long way in terms of developing the complete tennis player and tennis athlete.

I want to preface this by I know that every person listening or watching this on YouTube has a different body, has different strength, different speeds, different body, different injury history, all this. So we know that. a lot of your answers will be, it depends, right, on the individual. But everyone listening is probably like, hey, I do want to get my movement better. I do want to use my body as a weapon on the court instead of a liability. So for people listening, generally speaking, like...

Where do they start? Is there like a basic movement self-assessment? Do you start with a strength self-assessment? Like how does someone know where they need to get started and how they get started on this fitness journey? Very good broad question. And you're absolutely right. Sadly, the answer often is it depends, which is a wholly unsatisfactory answer for a lot of people all the time when they just want a quick answer and a quick, you know, do this and you'll be fine.

But you're absolutely right. Everyone is different. And my big thing for me is you want to be kind of efficient and effective in terms of like your movement and your strokes. And I'm sure you're thinking that the same in terms of stroke production. but that would may depend on the body you have and what it can do so yeah if you want to do so i i will often start with a player and again it can be can be any age any level and i will do um some sort of screening whatever that might take so

I take elements of the functional movement screen. I do the racket fit screen, which I'm certified racket fit. So that is very specific. It's sort of taking the elements of the functional movement screen and putting it specific to tennis.

So look at some key areas of the body that might affect it. Predominantly, it's based on the serve, but I absolutely think you can extrapolate a lot of the information from it to anything. So, you know, if your thoracic spine is tight and it's affecting your serve, then pretty sure it's going to affect your forehand as well, you know.

I do the rapid fit screen, I may do some sort of strength power testing so it depends on the tech you might have but I might do a unit where I might do like a squat jump assessment, they might do a counter movement jump assessment so you can see when you've got

The squat jump is from a static position. So it's like how much force you can produce like immediately out of nothing. And then the counter movement jump would be how much sort of energy you can produce in an elastic capacity. So how much can you absorb the force and rebound effectively?

So I'll do that. I'll do something like a triple hop, which is a really simple exercise test that you can do just on one leg, just hop forward three times, stick the landing, see how far you get. And we can discuss, you know, in terms of measurements that you want for that.

You can do, say, like an RSI, which is almost like a pogo test. So again, you can get some measurements of it. So it's almost like how springy you are out of the calf and the ankle, which is going to have a massive implication to movement around the core. You could do like a 10-metre sprint. You could do a 5-metre out-about. You could do a 505 across the court and back for a change of direction. All of these things will build an overall picture of...

of where the player is whether it's in terms of trying to need to be more powerful whether it's in terms of needing to sort of highlight any potential areas of concern like that might cause injury uh or in terms of like movement movement and moves on the court in terms of change of direction and be able to to stop and go again so there's yeah there's a i have sort of a whole battery that i use and that will give me a whole heap of information about someone

So I want to kind of start with the footwork element of fitness because obviously it's massive. You got to be able to get to the ball. You got to get to the ball on balance. You got to get to the ball with timing so you can hit the ball well. It's a movement sport, right?

before i get into what type of things players should be looking to add into their daily routines i want to know who are some pro players that you watch that you admire as movers and then i know it's like comparing us to aliens but if there's anything about them that you think like an amateur can strive for to copy yeah i mean movement is massive right now and there's um

I literally just got through like a study, which I haven't actually read in detail yet, but it sort of, from what I see from the architect, it hints that, you know, the best movers are the quickest out and obviously like the best at being able to stop an opposition, which is not rocket science, but... know that ability to cover the ground quickly but then also decelerate effectively to be in position for the shot. So in terms of good movers I mean

I grew up watching Fed a lot. You know, Fed was a great mover. And he said, you know, the best players are the best movers. Doesn't mean the best movers are the best players, but the best players will invariably be the best movers. So, you know, he was obviously very...

graceful around the court and but but um efficient with it but also you know kind of like powerful with it you know i think i think people thought he's just like a ballet dance but he was pushing he was moving he was hustling uh and then you've got like a i love yannick's in always looks pretty balanced to me right now um the uh you know novak obviously great i think i always love the way eager uh can

almost be in completely out like extended positions and yet still be aggressive in those positions so there's very rarely will she will she hit or look to hit a defensive shot so the ability to be pushed and still be aggressive or at least neutral I think is amazing. So I think those, I mean, the vast majority of the shots are played nearby. We know that.

the ability to be able to push wide and still maintain your balance i think and cover the ground i think is an area that i think a lot of players and a lot of rec players recreational players could learn from

Just that ability to eat up the ground, but then do it effectively, but efficiently. Don't know if that answers your question. It did, but you mentioned deceleration, which, you know, everyone's like, hey, I want to get faster, right? I want to accelerate. I want to get to the ball faster.

And when I toss someone a ball in a clinic or a lesson, they're obviously very excited to get to the ball. But then sometimes, like you said, they don't decelerate and then their recovery is very, very slow. So what are some general exercises or... What muscles need to be strengthened to help people decelerate when they're either moving out wide to a ground stroke and then kind of reaccelerate on that recovery?

a lot a lot of exercises that you can do i think i think one thing i missed out on before was like the split step by the way for a lot of players i mean you see the pros they will split step you know every time and you'll quite often see a lot of

uh players around around the place like not doing that so that's definitely something that they can uh look to incorporate into it that's just like the most basic simple thing that they can do uh to be able to move and push uh you're right absolutely that it is a

deceleration sport like we've got to be quick always say you've got you've got to be it's no good being a sports car without brakes so you've got to be able to move quickly and then be able to decelerate um in terms of specific exercises so muscle grip so when you're coming down so almost like off a split step or wherever you are if you're landing, you've got to be able to absorb the force. So you've got to be able to absorb the force kind of into the ground before you're then able to push off.

sort of muscle groups for that would be things like the hamstring group and the semitendinosus muscle particularly and then you're kind of looking at almost the soleus muscles to the calf muscles so your ability to kind of absorb that vertical force to then effectively to then be able to move Once you're then pushed out, the quads are going to work really hard to decelerate when you're in position. You want to almost have that upright body position and the force going down into the ground.

So I say in terms of like deceleration, like no matter where you're going, if you're going sideways at that point where you have almost like the penultimate step.

to decelerate to then do whatever shot you want to do whether it's in place or running through or you know a shuffle step through or whatever it might be or a hop you've got to have that penultimate step and the force is down in my opinion so it's like even if you're moving out that last step the force is down to sort of just absorb the force and decelerate and then you can do whatever you want to do with the shot I mean I often say to some of the players and to the coach I say like

My job is I'll get you to the ball. I'll do my best to get you to the ball. What you do once you're there is kind of down to the coaches, whether that's, you know, technical or whatever, but I'll do my best to get you there and be in position for it. So, yeah, there's a lot. I do a lot of fun.

Sorry, we got a delay. I want to make sure I understand what you were saying about the deceleration. So because I used to always joke and I think it's true, but it might be a lie that I just have told enough that I believe it. But I never lost a sprint at Duke.

But I also never won anything that was above a sprint. Like I probably finished dead last in every type of distance, run a mile, run at 800, no chance. But like a suicide, I would win. And when I was going out wide for a ball or when I was doing a suicide is.

right before i got to the line i was getting lower and instead of having my i'm on youtube here trying to explain it but having my head kind of leaning wide this way so i had all my weight on my outside leg Right before I was about to change directions or slow down, I almost felt like my center of gravity was closer towards the middle so that I could put my foot in the ground and drive back as opposed to sometimes I see people out wide and they either slide after they hit.

or they almost look like they have to take two steps to catch themselves. So is that kind of what you meant about getting low with that deceleration? Yeah, I mean, it's just not necessarily getting low, but that force that you're putting into the ground is more of a downward. If you're still moving sideways, if you're pushing out wide and your momentum, like your movement, your step is still pushing you sideways.

then as you say, you're going to kind of lose that balance and be, you know, say you're going to leave loads of court free for your opponent. So you've got to, I always, I did a lot of drills, whether it's like landing drills or overspeed and hold decelerations.

I say the triple hop I mentioned earlier is a great one to just do as a training so you land off that last one and your last one will be like you'll have to land down almost to stick the landing and that will teach you to kind of apply that force downwards and whatever you then in my opinion this is I say anything it's just know my thoughts my biases but my feeling is that whatever you then want to do whether you want to then be in place and rotate through the shot or you want to

they say do a lateral hop or you want to do a shuffle step or a run through, whatever the terminology might be, you'll be in a position to be able to do that effectively with that.

downward force on the on the penultimate step on the deceleration so yeah exactly right if you're still moving sideways if your momentum is still going sideways then absolutely you're going to be run going through the shot you won't be able to stop effectively you'll probably give up a couple more yards a couple more couple more meters and leave the court wide open so there are plenty of players out there who are willing to put in hard work

uh push their bodies to the extreme all in the hope that they will move better play better tennis stay healthier etc what is the biggest mistake that you see amateurs or even high level players making When their goal is to improve their movement, what is that mistake that they're making with their training plan or their routine that you think is the reason why they're maybe plateauing instead of bursting through and actually getting that movement that they desire?

I think one of the big areas that people are missing out on, again at any level, is developing the ability to create force to push hard into the ground. a lot of times you'll see and again going back to probably like the first question we talk about you know what i see online anytime i feel like you see the kind of like the tippy-tappy kind of movements you know through a little tippy-tappy through the through the ladder

It looks good. It looks like quick feet, but it's not really generating force into the ground. And that's kind of what you need to do, in my opinion. So the ability to create, to have to be strong, to create power, to create force out of the ground. and that can just be like i train a 90 year old who's still on court playing but we'll still do some kind of almost like assisted jumps using say like some straps or t-rex so the body it's still kind of trying to generate that impulse

but it's obviously not a, you know, one metre box jump or something. So, yeah, I think people are missing out a lot on their movement by not applying force into the ground. And I just always have a saying that you don't get anywhere quickly by pushing softly. You know, you have to push into the ground. You have to generate some force to move. So, yeah, I think people are leaving that on the table quite a bit.

Is there a strength element? So when we talk about creating that force off the ground, I know Gil Reyes used to always talk to me about having like a strong ass. He'd just be looking at like every athlete. He'd be like, ah, that's a strong ass right there. Like, oh, you know, weak ass. That person can't move. And so he was huge on the glutes, whereas some people might say quads or hamstrings like.

If you want to be able to create that force from a strength perspective, is there a certain muscle group or certain kinetic chain that people should be prioritizing?

I mean, all of them, all of the above. I mean, yeah, the glutes are absolutely the powerhouse, 100%. And then good posture, being in a good posture to be able to like... you know access to power from them if you're kind of slouched over hunched over you're not going to probably be in that you'll be able to get that extended hip position so again some people have like a swear jar you know i have a posture jar that's why i say posture all the time

over here you know just sort of like posture posture posture keep that posture because i think it just will help you so much in in movement around the court um but yeah i mean glutes 100 yeah 100 but then equally quads absolutely but then hamstrings as well calves you know you want you gotta you gotta hit the whole the whole lot and you can isolate muscles that's fine i don't mind doing that that's absolutely fine uh and then

but equally bigger, more compound moves will be very useful to do as well. So I will tend to have, like if there's been a heavy on-court work, like tennis is a very anteriorly dominant sport, so people will... we'll work out we'll work the quads a lot they'll work the front side of the body so if someone's been on court a lot i might have a real heavy posterior chain like back side of the body emphasis in in the strength session that day so i might really

you know go in on various exercises for the glutes for the hamstrings for everything on the back side of the body just to kind of almost balance out a little bit um what they've done on the court because if they've been doing a lot of lunges all around the court they probably don't need a whole heap of lunges in addition

Right. And I promised I wasn't going to say this before every question, but I do understand that everyone is an individual. But do you have a favorite exercise? So we're talking about, you know, building, you said all the above glutes, hamstrings, calves, all this stuff.

Do you have an exercise that you think everybody should be doing? You go, I'm coaching you. You're a nine-year-old. You're a 90-year-old. You're high performance. You're a 3-0. But I believe so strongly that this exercise is beneficial to your game that I think all my players should be doing it.

I will, yes, well, there's loads. I think everyone will do a squat pattern, everyone will do a hinge pattern. I've moved way more into doing like single leg. I might do some double leg, but I'm not too sure it's... great for a lot of people and i think i think just in terms of maybe some imbalances through the through the torso i think sometimes and i'm talking a little bit of my own experience as well like my body doesn't seem to tolerate bilateral movements as well as it used to now

uh so i will go much more heavily on single leg like unilateral movements so that could be there'll be single leg bridges there will be single leg hip thrusts there will be single leg rdls which will all hit the posterior chain. But I will do some single leg split squats. I will do some lateral. I think a lot of people forget.

The lateral component as well, so the frontal plane, so they won't do side lunges or lateral movements, lateral sways, you know, to target that sideways movement. People tend to quite often stick a lot in like the up and down. and forget that you need to work those muscles that will enable you to push sideways. So I do a lot of, whether it's landmine sways or landmine lunges or lateral lunges or goblet lunges, sideways lunges, things like that.

So a lot of laughter movement will always be in there as well. So I think people will forget that. You mentioned side lunges and it kind of brought me back. So when I was 16 years old, I was a junior in high school, maybe a sophomore.

And I had a strength coach from Atlanta who created a program for me. And so I would just do it in my garage like five, six days a week and you'd have some on-court movement stuff. We did a lot of those side lunges, but a big component of what we did, and by the way, I got in the best shape of my life. I was super fast.

was we did a lot of jumping so like you said split squat jumps i was like okay i remember doing a lot of that like i had light weights it was nothing crazy but it's a lot of jumping either side to side with those weights is that something that you think players

Well, first of all, I don't know if you even think that was a good idea back in the day. It was like 25 years ago. So maybe that's outdated. But is that something that players should be looking into is more like that explosive movement with maybe some lighter weights?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. And a place for everything. So we have what we sort of termed the force velocity curve. So, you know, when you've got a heavier weight, you'll move it more slowly. When you've got a lighter weight, you can move it more quickly. So you almost want to...

as we say sort of surf that curve and and and work on all aspects of that curve um but yeah 100 moving explosively so yeah so when i say about the the side lunges i will very very often and if you look at some of my content you will see a lot of

lateral bounds coming to that so there may be and again you can tailor it there'll be maybe like a strength speed component so it's all semantics and terminology but strength speed will be almost like it's a slightly heavier weight but you're still trying to move it pretty explosively

so that there's a little bit more of a strength component to it and then you can if you take away the weight and then or you've got a super lightweight and then do it the same movement that would be more of a kind of speed strength component so the emphasis will be on speed and power so like the the quicker movements

so yeah absolutely throwing in those and you can do those as standalone sessions as power sessions you can do those as complex sessions so you have like a strength movement and then go immediately into a corresponding power movement which is quite a nice way of doing it i quite like doing that

so it's almost like the strength movement sort of primes the body and then you can it really is like ready to be powerful and explosive so yeah you can do them as kind of contrast sessions complex sessions and but 100 i would wholly include some Power. Power components to a training program. Absolutely. Just a quick break to thank ADV for sponsoring the podcast. ADV's most compact bag yet, The Flex, drops in October.

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Let's say there's a player out there and they have in their mind that they can dedicate an hour just to their strength and conditioning side. So they'll also be moving on court in the lesson or the clinic and they will be... actually doing the movement that they want but they have an extra hour and it is no racket in the hand it is purely strength and conditioning so let's say that's five hours in the week what what is the

the percentage of the pie, like how much of that should be on like mobility, which is a word I hear all the time or strength or sprinting or cardio training. I know some of those fields will overlap, but. What is the breakdown for the average generic player on how much time they should spend lifting versus running or stretching versus rehab? What does that look like?

Okay, it's a very broad sweep and overview because I know you don't want me to say it depends. So I will not say that. But yeah, so I would say as a broad overview, I might... to think and and we'll work with the coaches if i can to say right some of the conditioning a lot of the conditioning element will hopefully be taken care of on the court so it within you know and you can manipulate drills to to do that

to have a conditioning element to it it may not be all the time but you may want to be working more technically but there are there are definitely ways that you can do that on court because i'm not sure some people might not have that additional time to do extra conditioning work if they want to absolutely go for it. I would say if you're splitting up and that's your five hours, I would say you could do two strength sessions a week.

This is very, very general, by the way, for anyone listening. Two strength sessions in the week where you can almost mix and match muscle groups. So you might want to do like a quad dominant bilateral on the first day. Then you might want to do a hip dominant.

bilateral on the second day and then sort of switch it around a little bit so we talk about you know the squat the hinge the pull the push so you can manipulate it so you can hit all the different muscle groups within the sort of the two days so you could go two days of strength

You could then go two extra days of what I would tend to call structural strength. That's my terminology for it, like a structural strength program. Some people call it injury prevention, injury reduction. I kind of tend to like... the idea, the terminology, that it's building something. So it's building the structure, almost like the chassis. So that's where you can really personalise it to someone and those key areas that we know are at risk in tennis.

So things like the shoulder, maybe the wrist, things like the hips, the back, things like that. So we can really zero in on those areas in these structural strength sessions. And on paper, I always think they look easier.

you know they're that intense but i tell you what the players i work with when they do those they are they find those as in as hard as as anything because you really isolate and have to dial in on those on those muscles that you want to work um and equally they might be a little bit weaker because tend to adapt adaptations from tennis so they really might struggle with some of those some of those movements so and then on on a on a fifth day i mean i kind of like to

i have a little bit of maybe a standalone power session in there as well so you could run programs in this way where it's being like monday strength tuesday structural wednesday power thursday strength friday structural and then you know maybe a bit of a an extra conditioning at the weekend or something so as a very very broad overview that sort of i think that will hit all the areas that you want and then you can manipulate it you know throughout the sessions as well

Is there a common waste of time that you see if you look at other strength coaches, you look at tennis coaches in general, you look at what players are doing in their spare time and you go, look, I see a lot of people.

focused on this area or focused on these types of drills, and honestly, they're not getting the bang for the buck that they'd like? I mean, again, it's sort of... you're only ever seeing a snapshot and you don't know the full picture so there may be a very very justifiable reason why they're why they're doing that so it's always hard i think it's always i'm always wary of of making those sort of judgments um i will always

my general modus operandi is almost like i will i will i will big up what i will justify what i do rather than but you know have a go at anyone else and what they're doing that said in terms of say like the shoulder i think we historically there's been an awful lot of the band work with the shoulder that's fine absolutely fine

uh has its time and actually kind of in part of the warm-up as it was called as a an upper body preparation so we have the mobility and then we might want to do some light band work to get some blood flow into the shoulder before we play so there'll be an oh and you'll see behind the scenes at the tournaments you'll see a whole heap of players doing that work

However, I think we also need to make sure that we're putting some force through the shoulder as well. So you need to make sure there is a little bit of heavier stuff going through them and it's not just relying on the banded external rotations and things like that to get it.

I think we can apply a bit of force. I like to use a lot of isometrics with the shoulder, like holding kind of a pretty heavy weight and holding it static. It's hard work on the shoulder, but it really strengthens it up. I think I've gone way more towards that.

I'm not going to say it's wrong to do that stuff, but I think if you're focusing too much on that, you might be missing out on some other stuff that you could be doing that would have a benefit. Love that. This is going to stun you, but...

In May of this year, I was on a golf trip and I had to stop because my back basically seized up. I couldn't even walk down the fairway, let alone swing a club. I came back and the guy I saw who was helping me said, oh, your hips are so tight.

Your hips were messed up. That pulled on your back. That's why your back went out. Do these stretches, blah, blah, blah. I've been doing them. And guess what? My body miraculously feels better because I started stretching for the first time in probably like 20 years, right? So no surprise there.

you know he says oh i want you to get into a stretch and get there you know get in and out of it do a two second three second four second intense stretch and then don't hang there for 30 seconds i've also heard people that i trust tell me sit in that stretch for 30 seconds also while i was getting stretched uh he asked me if it felt okay and i said it feels like the bone is ripped like my muscle is ripping off the bone but if you're comfortable with that answer i can tolerate it

And he's like, nope, that's fine. That's good. And afterwards, I felt fine. So I'm just curious on your thoughts in terms of stretching. What is, you know, let's say someone, let's say post-match or something. Is that different than pre-match? How long should you be sticking in the stretch? I've heard people say you don't want it to be that intense. Some people say it should be intense. What are your thoughts on that, generically speaking?

Generically pre-match, I mean there's nothing when we're doing a bit of a light static stretch if you feel like you need it. So if you feel like you need and you've got the time maybe to... prep prep and have a you know maybe a bit of a like massage frame roll or whatever and then a like then a static stretch fine however it for me it has to then be followed by a more dynamic mobility warm-up so

that is like just a static stretch before you play for me is not not adequate so there will always be like a more dynamic warm-up which starts off small gets bigger starts off slow gets gets quicker and just gradually prepares the body and i think the mind as well for for what you're about to do so you just go through lots and lots of different movement patterns i've got there's um i point people to a video that i did actually at an event we were both at called the tennis congress

where we filmed an on-court warm-up that can be followed easily. Although there is, and for those that know, there is an ever so slight mistake, deliberate error, right at the beginning of it. So see if you can spot it. So, yeah, so an on-court mobility. After the match, yeah, we know that things can, like playing tennis can tighten certain structures, so things like the shoulder, internal rotation of the shoulder can get tight.

you might want to do a more of a kind of a passive stretch after to sort of look to restore the tissues after you play. I think you've got to be wary of over stretching.

because there's a big difference between passive range and active range and so I think if someone does a lot of passive stretching or is passively stretched by someone and that can be able to say like someone who's stretching you and you might improve the range of motion around the joint like you might improve that flexibility but if you haven't got adequate strength to control that range you are asking for a whole heap of trouble.

because your tissues and your joints will be loose and lax and they won't be strong. So if I can get, if someone can bend my arm into an external rotation, like miles back, but then I cannot access that range myself, that's not good. So I'm always like range and flexibility is great, but you've got to have strength in that range. Does that make sense? I hope it does.

That makes perfect sense. But now I'm worried that I'm going to start strengthening. So like the hip flexors feel better, the back feels better, but I also do no strengthening with that. So I'm going to get on to that in this offseason. And last question. I think a lot of times with that is hip flexors.

is an interesting interesting topic because i think a lot of people think they've got a massively tight hip case and will stretch the what's it out of them and i think actually sometimes that can they don't they need some strengthening

So they might need some strength at length and range and also at shortened range. Yeah, I want to get selfish here because my hip flexors, okay, so that's literally exactly what I'm doing. Like he said, my hip flexors are tight, stretch them. I'm stretching them like crazy. I feel better for sure, but I do know strengthening things. How should the average player approach hip flexors? That's just a word. By the way, as a player, I never had to worry about. Now as a 41-year adult.

41 year old adult who doesn't do any exercise like that's something that's very much coming to my life so how should someone approach the whole hip flexor dilemma the dilemma uh well

I mean, they're massive important. So whenever you sprint, you've got to contract your hip flexors pretty quickly to raise your knee and boom and go. So yeah, I think... there's a whole heap of ways you can do it so in fact i had someone in literally earlier today and we were doing a ton of work on the on the strength from the hip flexor both that range but in an extended position and then also in a shortened position

So, for example, you could get into what you would probably have is almost like a classic hip flexor stretch, like a couch stretch. And if you're in that position, you could apply some tension.

a little bit like tension doesn't have to be too much but like a 30 percent tension into the ground or into the couch into the box or whatever you're on and so for me in my head that's you're getting range but then you're also building a bit of strength in that range Or you could then do things where you've got some, it could be like today I set up a bar and had them hold onto the rack and push their knee in a bent leg position up into the bar, you know, just hold an isometric.

contraction again against the bar so you're applying force and real like good tension through the hip flexor uh it could be a hip flexor triangle where you sit against say like the wall put a dumbbell down and almost like raise your foot up and over the dumbbell which if you haven't done that can like try it because it is humbling like it's a humbling exercise and you'll fatigue pretty quickly and possibly you know like you know feel that quite a lot so yeah i think the hip flexors are

I mean, I'm not going to go crazy on it, but I think someone needs it. I think that there's, you know, I think it's strengthening it because I think sometimes what is perceived as a tightness might actually be a weakness.

I'm going to finish this with a question that you're likely to hate, especially based on your first answer, which is there's no one exercise or do these two things. But if players... especially we're coming to the off season of a year where people are about to start a new year. What is one habit?

that you think a majority of players can start implementing into their strength and conditioning routine, their just everyday routine that you think will give them the most impact on their tennis game and their health moving forward?

I said you were going to hate it, so I understand that. I don't hate it. I'm just thinking. I think, I mean, the one habit is exactly that, is consistency. You know, it's like, if you built, because every... workout builds on the previous workout and lays the foundation for the next workout so if you're in the off season or any time like if you can't

The person that does 20, 30 minutes a day or a few times a week will make better improvements than someone who does two hours once a week. So I would say, I mean, you would hope that at certain levels there is consistency in there. And whether it's because they've got someone telling them to do it or encouraging them to do it, I should say, whether it's because they're doing it off their own back. But yeah, I think if you have consistency in your habits.

And that does include recovery as well, because again, a saying I love to use and players are bored with me saying it is, you know, that preparation for the next session begins with recovery from the previous session. So make sure you're... preparing well, carrying things out, good technique, recovering well and just consistency and that should bring about results.

I'm sure that answers your question, but it's boring. It does, but now I have a follow-up because I want to know if you have any good advice for people. to maintain that consistency because everyone hears that and goes oh yeah that makes a lot of sense right like if i just continue to do it and i prepare for the next you know workout at the end of my last workout and i keep doing it back to back and i'm stacking workouts that's obviously going to be a good thing and yet people don't do it

right so as a strength coach what is your best advice to help people get more consistent with that like i guess the the proof of it is is what you're seeing on the call like you know my job is is fundamentally to to help you express or help the player express themselves on the court in the way they want to and it's to help the coach do what they want to do with the player so that that's where i see where i see my job so if you're if you're

I guess, talk to the player, talk to the coach and think, right, what are the areas that you want to improve? If there's measurable things that you can improve with that, whether it is something on the court.

whatever you might want to think about as a coach in terms of like outcome outcome markers whether it's something in the gym like whether it's improving your vertical jump or your hop distance or your 10 meter spread time or something like that if you're giving someone an idea of where they are now perhaps where you want them to get to or where they want to get to then hopefully as well that and with some you know good effective coaching on both sides that

takes them you know that gives them the encouragement and the motivation to keep turning up because they're seeing improvements they're feeling i mean we can see it objectively you know we can we can measure things i think and i don't know if you agree but i've been you know been

tennis for a heck of a long time and there's an awful lot of subjective kind of feel i think which i don't think should be disregarded at all i think i think sometimes within the strength conditioning world we get so caught up on the objective It's like, oh, well, they're squatting heavier, so I've done my job. It's like, but that might not be carrying over in any way to how they're feeling, you know, or how they're moving on the court. So often sometimes I remember one player that I was...

and i was working with and she um you know on the wta tour and she was like i didn't really do too much measuring with her but she would come back to me and say i feel like i'm moving so much better on the call and it was almost like that was enough for me that was like if she's feeling like she's moving back on the court it's like like maybe we could measure it and back it up i don't know but it was always like that was okay so i think we can't we shouldn't disregard that that's objective

feel or the eye of the coach say yeah they're definitely moving better up wide there or they're getting to more drop shots or they've got more pop on their serve or that we can measure it but I think you can so I think you can measure the two sort of hand in hand and I think that's kind of something that I think my own tennis background has helped with I'm not just stuck in the gym doing the objective S&C stuff.

Well, Dom, you have taught me something because I've been sitting at home just overstretching without doing any strengthening. So I'm going to try to add a little bit of that strength component to my mobility, to my flexibility.

I've gained a nugget. I hope a lot of people listening have gained nuggets. People can follow you on Instagram. Your Tennis Congress presentations are on YouTube. They can follow your stuff online. And thank you so much for being on the show today. You're really welcome. I've enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

All right. I want to thank Dom for joining the podcast today. One thing I can say from personal experience is when your body is working properly and you're in great shape, your tactical discipline also improves. You don't rush points because you're worried about being tired. You're more balanced and in position so you hit the ball better. And you can actually practice more just because you're healthier and you can go longer.

So make it a priority this winter to work on some weaknesses with your strength and conditioning so you can start the 2026 season strong. As always, thanks again for listening. I hope you just improved at tennis without even hitting a ball.