Tennis is a demanding sport on your muscular-skeletal system. The quick direction changes and bursts of sprints and stops are extremely taxing to your muscles, tendons, and joints. The one-sidedness of tennis creates even more problems: the dominant side of your body gets much more work, even if you play a two-handed backhand, because you hit the serve, volleys and forehands with your dominant side only. Furthermore, the majority of players prefer to hit forehands and they run around backhands as much as they can, which will add even more work to the dominant side. Over time, one side of your body gets stronger, bigger, and tighter. No amount of work in the gym will make it even, but it is a good idea to work hard to make the difference as little as possible.
In addition to changes in your upper body, there are things happening in your hips. When you choose to hit forehands instead of backhands, you hit the forehands with the open stance most of the time, while many backhands you hit with the closed stance, and therefore the hip muscles of your dominant side work much more. Once you start having slight imbalances in your hips, then the mechanics of your running stride change a little bit and over time, you may encounter problems with the knees, ankles, feet, or the lower back. Paying attention to your hips should become a high priority in your fitness training. Keep them balanced with strengthening and stretching and always address one side at a time so you can feel the imbalances.
After every tennis practice or fitness training, you need to stretch the hips and glutes. If your training have caused any hip issues, you can correct them right then, before the muscles get tight and make the imbalances even worse. Perform this glute stretch after every training session, and preferably daily.
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