Compound lifts, mobility work, recovery protocols. Volume tracking and progression as a hedge against everything tennis breaks down.
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.