If you are a beginner, use an old ball with a slower bounce to take a better control.

What will you need? You need only tennis racket, ball, wall and tennis court – not necessary.

Warm up: Only in first circle – use 60 % of your maximum intensity hitting against wall. Than use maximum intensity in second and other circles.

1. Forehand drill against wall – 3 minutes

Assume the ready position.

Contact point of a  tennis racket and ball is in front of the body.

Fallow through with good shoulder rotation and balance.

2. Backhand drill against back board (use aether one handed backhand or two handed backhand) – 3 minutes

Assume a ready position. Step out with foot closes to the ball.

Contact point of a racket and a ball is in the front of the body. Fallow through with good shoulder rotation, extension and balance.

 3. Forehand volley drill against wall – 3 minutes

Come closer to the wall. Practice volley against wall without letting the ball fall.

4. Backhand volley drill against wall – 3 minutes

Come closer to the wall. Practice volley against wall without letting the ball fall.

5. Sprint on court; if tennis court is not available, you can set up sprinting lines by yourself anywhere close to the wall you are practicing your strokes.

This is not a warm up anymore. It is a sprint/interval workout.

Start in the front of a end (doubles) sideline.
Sprint toward the middle line.

.Touch the middle line with one of your hands.

Sprint back to the end (doubles) side line.

Touch the end (doubles) side line with one of your hands and as fast as you can sprint back toward the singles side line.

Touch the singles side line with your hand.

Sprint back toward the opposite end (doubles) starting  sideline.

Touch the end (doubles) sideline.

Sprint toward opposite end (doubles) sideline.

Touch the end (doubles) sideline.

Sprint back toward end (doubles) sideline.

Sprint across the starting end (doubles) sideline.

If you did this right and tried to do it as fast as you could, you feel tired and you are gasping for breath.

Take a 3 min. break and start with:

7. Push ups – try maximum amount of repetitions 

Keep your back straight. Don’t let your but sink.

Go as low as you can without touching the ground.

If you can’t do regular push up, put your knees on the ground and do modified push ups. Also try as many as you can.

Go as low as you can without touching the ground.

8. Abs – legs and arms raises – 25 repetitions 

Lie down on on the ground. Legs and arms are extended.

Bend your knees slightly and lift your legs and arms simultaneously up until meeting each other in the middle.

9. Squat jumps- 25 repetitions

Lower your body bending your knees to the right angle and keep your back straight. Hands go up while you’re bending your knees.

Jump up explosively as high as you can swinging your hands down. Repeat squad jump going right away back to the low (knees in right angle) position.

10. Mountain climber – 15 repetitions each side 

Assume a push up position.

Bring your right knee as close as you can toward your left elbow while moving your but forward.

If you are doing this exercise right, your bent leg is almost parallel to the floor.

Repeat the opposite side. Left knee touches right elbow.

Do 2 – 4 circles of these interval workout on tennis court, starting again with tennis drills than sprint and strengthening exercises. 

Keep 3 minutes break only between sprint and strengthening exercises.

Steady pace on treadmill: 

• Warm up 3 to 5 minutes at 3.5 mph (RPE 3-4) RPE=RATE OF PERCEIVED EXERTION= intensity of your workout based on your feelings

• Walk briskly at 4.5 mph or jog at 6.0 mph for 30 minutes (RPE 6)

• Walk for 2 – 5 minutes at 3.5 mph (RPE 3) to cool down

Total time: 36 to 40 minutes.

You should mix it with some interval-cardio-workout:

Interval workout # 1:

• Warm up for 5 minutes at 3.5 mph (RPE 3-4)

• Sprint for 1 minute (7.0-9.0 mph) or walk briskly on a incline (4.0-4.5 mph; 7% incline) (RPE 7.5-9)

• Recover for 2 minutes at 3.5-4.0 mph (RPE 4-5)

• Repeat 7 times

• Cool down for 5 minutes at 3.3 mph (RPE 3-4)

Total time: 31 minutes.

Interval workout #2:

• Warm up for 5 minutes at 3.5 mph (RPE 4-5)

• Sprint for two minutes (6.5-8.0 mph) or walk briskly incline (4.0-4.5 mph; 7% incline (RPE 7-8)

• Recover for 2 minutes at 3.7-4.0 mph (RPE 4-5)

• Repeat 7 times

• Cool down for 5 minutes at 3.3 mph (RPE 3-4)

Total time: 38 minutes

Interval cardio training is a great way to add intensity to your workout and maintain it interesting and challenging.

You should not interval train more than 3 times per week.

You can determine intensity of your exercise from Perceived Exertion Scale, which is designed to estimate the intensity of exercise based on how you feel as you are working out. It correlates well with the target heart-rate zone formula.

On the Perceived Exertion Scale:

• low-intensity level corresponds to 5 or 6, so if you walk as your workout, it should feel somewhat difficult

• mid-intensity level corresponds to 6 or 7, walking should feel difficult, but not extremely so

• high-intensity walking, running or any other cardiovascular exercise corresponds to levels 7 to 9, so high intensity cardiovascular exercise should feel somewhere between difficult and extremely difficult

Perceived exertion scale

1. Resting

2. Extremely easy

3. Easy

4. First feelings of exertion

5. Somewhat difficult

6. A bit more difficult

7. Difficult

8. Very difficult

9. Extremely difficult

10. Maximum exertion or “Can’t take it anymore”

• Canadian researchers reported that just two weeks of interval training boosted women’s ability to burn fat during exercise by 36 percent

• Levels of human growth hormone – which assists in building muscle and eliminating fat – skyrocketed 530 percent in subjects after just 30 seconds of sprinting as fast as they could on a stationary bike, according to British study

• Australian fitness researchers had 18 women perform 20 minutes of interval training on stationary bike – eight-seconds sprints followed by 12 seconds of recovery throughout the workout, three days a week. The women lost an average of five and a half pounds over 15 weeks without dieting, while a similar group performing 40 minutes of moderate cycling three days a week actually gained a pound of fat over the same period. Two of the heavier women who did intervals dropped 18 pounds.

Here is my simple cardio work out for you: you can run, bike, swim, elliptical train, even speed walk. What’s important is that during the interval, you push yourself hard enough that you can’t maintain the effort longer than 60 seconds.

• Warm up 8 minutes

• Start your first 60-second interval, if you are walking and don’t want to run, increase the incline on the treadmill 3 to 6 percent and speed up enough to feel that you’re working hard

• The effort should feel like 80-90 percent of your maximum for the first 3 sprints, than 100% (maximum intensity) the rest of the sprints

• After 60 seconds, recover at a casual relaxed pace, about 30 percent of your maximum (slowly) for 60 seconds, and then do it again for total of 10 intervals

• Finish with a 2 minute cool down

• The workout will take 30 minutes

Other important tips

• Your body needs time to adapt to the intensity of intervals. If you’ve been very sedentary, ease into the intensity by brisk-walking the intervals to start. For those unused to a fast pace, do just three moderate sprints for fist week and add one sprint every week until you do ten sprints

• Allow a day of active rest between interval workouts to give your body time off to recover. What could you do as a active rest? Walk outside easy for 30 minutes or swim in relaxed pace, bike slowly – active rest rule – your hearth rate should not go higher than 60 percent of your maximum heart rate. Your maximum heart rate = 220 – your age. Our body actually recovers actively faster.

• As with any exercise program, talk to your doctor before starting

Keeping intervals interesting

It is very easy to vary intervals to keep workout even after a while interesting:

Three-two-one interval training

• Warm up – 5 minutes easy to moderate pace – (30-60 percent) of your maximum effort

• Increase intensity (70 percent) – 3 minutes

• Push a little harder (80 percent) – 2 minute

• Keep increasing your effort for 1 minute, and finish last 10 to 15 seconds as hard as you can go (100 percent)

• Recover – 5 minutes (30-50 percent)

• Repeat three-two-one interval

• Recover – 5 minutes

• Cool down – 3 minutes

• Total work out time – 30 minutes.

Two by two interval training

• Warm up – 5 minutes – easy to moderate effort (50-60 percent)

• Hard (90 percent) intensity – 2 minutes

• Recover (50-60 percent) – 2 minutes

• Repeat these interval 5 times

• Cool down (40 percent intensity) – 5 minutes

• Total work out time – 30 minutes.