Strong Hip Flexors for Improved Speed and Performance

Strengthen and stretch your hip flexors to improve your speed.

Every athlete can benefit from strong hip flexors. However, hip flexor strengthening is very seldom included in the training regimen. For a tennis player, strong hip flexors, hamstrings and glutes will improve performance dramatically. The stronger the hip flexors, the faster you are going to be, because you will have more powerful and faster forward movement. Lateral movement in tennis is important, but you have to move forward as well, because every “first step” that you make is a “movement forward” that you want to have very explosive.

Strong hip flexors alone won’t make you super fast. You have to strengthen the glutes and hamstrings as well--but often, the posterior muscles are not as neglected as training of hip flexors. For strengthening the posterior chain, do walking lunges, jump lunges, cross-over lunges, one-leg squats and  jump squats.

If you strengthen your hip flexors, you have to stretch them as well. It is extremely important, because tight and shortened hip flexors will hinder your performance. Do quadriceps/hip flexor stretch, and myofascial release for hip flexors. Also glute stretch and external hip stretch would benefit you.

Leg Raises

Lie down on the ground and lift your straight legs up. If it is too difficult, you can bend your knees a little. You can do also hanging leg raises which are more intense. Hang from a bar and keep your body straight. Lift your straight or bent legs up toward your chest. If you want to add more resistance, hold a weight with your feet.

Knee Drive

Wrap a TheraBand around your right ankle/foot. Keep your foot flexed. Stand on the other end with your left foot. Start lifting your right knee explosively to your chest. You can also fasten the TheraBand behind you, and drive the knee up and forward. Control the movement when you are returning to starting position. Resist the band. If you do this exercise in the gym, you put an ankle cuff of a cable machine around your right ankle. Having the machine behind you, explosively lift the right knee up and forward.

Lying Knee Lift

Lie down on your back and wrap the TheraBand around your right ankle and hook it around your left foot. Keep your left leg straight and on the ground and bring your right knee toward your chest, while pulling on the Theraband. Do the movements explosively and resist the band on the way back to the starting position.

TheraBand Walk

Wrap a Theraband around your ankles. Start walking forward with big steps. You can make this exercise even more powerful by doing walking lunges, with the Theraband wrapped around your ankles.

Add strenghtening of your hip flexors into your regular tennis fitness regimen, and your speed on the court will improve very soon. Your performance and tennis game will improve as well.

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