Tennis is the sport; strength and core are what keep the sport possible. One training system, three fronts.
My own work off-tour: what I am building at Koru Club right now — one-handed backhand mechanics, the slice as a real weapon, and the climb through NTRP 3.5. The full training module lives on the tennis page.
Left wrist an Apple Watch, right wrist a WHOOP — and no, it isn't redundancy. It's a two-layer sensor architecture: the Apple Watch is the foreground computer for the moment, the WHOOP the background physiologist for the trend. This piece opens up the four engines that make the second wrist worth it — the Recovery↔Strain core loop (the morning readiness number the Apple Watch still doesn't synthesize), real-time stress, the early-warning vitals panel with its respiratory-rate illness signal, and the one I find most interesting, WHOOP Age — then lays out exactly what each watch does better and where they cover for each other.
After cycling through eight different programs in three years I have settled on four movements that earn their slot regardless of phase — trap-bar deadlift, goblet squat, single-arm dumbbell row, and overhead press. Everything else is seasoning. Here is the case for each and why I picked these variations over the textbook versions.
I tried to train like a powerlifter for two years before realising tennis is not a max-effort sport. It is repeated near-max effort, recoverable inside a 20-second window, for three hours. The mistakes I made — heavy bench press, low-rep barbell squats, no rotational work, no single-leg work — all came from copying programs written for a different sport.
The cheapest gym in the world is the one in the garage that you actually walk into. Mine is one adjustable bench, a pair of adjustable dumbbells, a trap bar, a pull-up bar, and a yoga mat. Total cost about NZD 1,200 over four years. Total sessions: way more than the commercial-gym membership it replaced.
For ten years I trained "core" as a synonym for "abs" — crunches, sit-ups, leg raises. Then a physio watched me serve and said the reason my lower back hurt at the end of every match was that nothing between my ribs and my hips was actually holding me together. Core is anti-rotation, anti-extension, anti-lateral-flexion. The visible muscle is the smallest part of the job.
After three rounds of trying complicated programs I cut the core block down to five moves that I can run in fifteen minutes with no equipment besides a mat and a band: dead bug, bird dog, Pallof press, side plank with reach, and Copenhagen plank. Each one trains a specific anti- pattern. I do all five, twice a week, every week. No periodisation. No deload. Just five moves.
Stand on one leg, close your eyes, set a timer. Most adults under 50 should be able to do thirty seconds. I could do six. For two years I thought my forehand was timing-related; turns out my forehand was balance-related, and my balance was non-existent because I sat at a desk all day and trained both legs symmetrically every gym session. The fix took six months and one minute a day.
Resonated with something? Leave me a note — or leave a way to reach you, and I'll write back.
看到有共鸣的地方？给我留言——或者想认识、想聊聊，留下联系方式，我会回信。
The pigeon is on its way. Thank you for the note — I'll read it, and if you left a contact I'll write back.
鸽子起飞了——我会读到的，留了联系方式的话我会回信。
// prototype — the relay isn't wired up yet; this was a demo flight and the note wasn't actually sent