To do the hand squeeze, hold a tennis ball in your palm. Squeeze the ball firmly and hold for 3 seconds, then relax. Repeat until your muscles grow tired. If this exercise is difficult at first, start with a foam ball or racquetball and progress to a tennis ball.

Do these two exercises several times each day. It´s a good idea to have tennis balls and rubber bands in convenient places, like at your desk and by the telephone.

Knee Problems The knee is critical in terms of mobility in tennis. For many pros, this is a problem area. Many concentrate on building strength in the quadricep to mitigate the pain in the knee. Weight loss may also aid in lessening knee pain.

Make an appointment with your physician if you are having problems with your knee that prevent you from playing tennis.

Grip size Check with your pro to see that your grip size is correct for your hand. It may be necessary to increase or decrease the handle size. Correct grip size can be an important factor in eliminating tennis elbow (see our "Rackets" Category).

Tennis Elbow What are the best ways to get tennis elbow? Hold the racquet tight throughout play, straighten your racquet arm while hitting the ball, or put your thumb up the back of the racquet while hitting the backhand.

Racquet and Tennis Elbow There is no conclusive evidence that one type of racquet is better than another for reducing elbow stress and tennis elbow. However, the lighter, medium-flex, evenly-balanced racquets are probably best. Oversized racquets are useful for increasing the "sweet spot," thus making the ball less likely to hit the frame and producing less elbow stress.

Strings Stringing patterns do not seem to matter but mild to moderate tension on the strings (52 to 55 pounds) is recommended to reduce the symptoms of tennis elbow. Gut is more resilient and slightly better than nylon, but the cost difference does not really justify the small advantage. Therefore, use 16-gauge nylon.

Relieve Elbow Stress Strengthen your grip to relieve the stress on your elbow with one of those blobs or springs you crush in your hand.

Exercise1: For the finger extension exercise, place a thick rubber band around your fingers and thumb near the base of your fingers. With your palm facing the floor,spread your fingers apart as much as possible. Hold for 3 seconds, then release. Repeat until your fingers and forearm grow tired. After this becomes easy, slide the rubber band closer to your fingertips. When you can readily do the exercise from the fingertips, graduate to a thicker rubber band.

Surface A fast court such as grass or cement will speed the velocity of the ball and increase impact force generated toward the elbow. Therefore, playing on slower surfaces such as clay or Har-Tru is preferable.

Strokes Relearn your strokes to remove ´wristy-ness´. Use a locked wrist type stroke.

Stretching Back injuries are epidemic throughout the world. A lot of it is stress-related, while other pain is a direct result of an injury. Whatever the case, contact a specialist and have them advise you on the best way to alleviate the pain, and build strength in your back. There are many alternatives to surgery, such as chiropractic care and Yoga, so do your homework.

Stretching Exercises Stretch the tendon before you play by extending your elbow and then extending and flexing your wrist.

Wristy Problem Andre Agassi experienced serious wrist problems over the years. He even had surgery. For amateurs, the best way to avoid injury is to build strength in that specific area with light weight training BEFORE the wrist is injured. Contact an athletic/personal trainer about how to best build strength in your wrist to avoid future problems in that area.

The Rotator Cuff Are you experiencing pain in your shoulder? It may be because you´re holding the racquet too tight before, during and after the shot. Try this. After you hit the ball, place the racquet in your non-racquet hand, and you´ll be relaxing your "hitting" side between shots. Remember, it´s only necessary to hold the racquet "tight" when striking the ball, which occurs only 15% of the time while playing!

Why Pulled Muscles As we get older, it´s more and more essential to stretch our muscles to "prepare" them for exercise. Make sure before you stretch to hit some balls first. Then, stretch the upper and lower body. Now you can play with less risk of pulling any major muscles! But remember, do some light stretching after play, while the muscles are still warm.

Please read my DISCLAIMER and also make sure that you have supervision when exercising as well as you must have previous physical and athletic training before engaging in intense training or any training.

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