Anyone for Cardio Tennis?
Cardio Tennis began life in the USA before arriving in the UK
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tennishead reporter Michael Beattie realised he hadn’t seen 7.30am for quite some time as he headed to National Tennis Centre in Roehampton to give Cardio tennis a go…
When the chance for me to swing a racket in anger came up in the office, I jumped at it – and immediately regretted my split-second enthusiasm. It soon dawned on me that, despite working for a tennis magazine, I hadn’t hit a ball in nearly a year – and what if, after all those excuses about my dodgy shoulder and opting for a kick-about instead, I couldn’t play any more?
Not only that, but I’d hardly describe myself as at the peak of physical fitness. As exhilarating as the grass-court season was, I’d effectively spent a month sitting down – either at a desk, courtside, or in a press conference – and any notion of regular exercise had gone out of the window. Still, Carpe diem and all that – I dug my trusty Prestige out from the back of the closet and headed bleary-eyed to the National Tennis Centre for a 7.30am Cardio Tennis session with Sam Richardson.
You hear a Cardio Tennis session before you see one. Only gym bunnies can justify blaring dance music that early in the morning. “It’s one of the key ingredients of Cardio Tennis,” Sam tells me later. “It’s the first thing you’d hear if you walked into a gym – it sets the scene, it gets you motivated. We play music that’s about 120-130 beats per minute, a similar beats per minute to your cardio-zone.”
Reaching and staying in your cardio-zone is critical to a successful session. The entire hour is geared towards keeping your heart pumping at roughly 65-85% of its maximum for as long as possible, which is typically 45 minutes. So after a thorough warm-up and some dynamic stretching, it’s down to drills.
Here goes then, my first ball in a year…scrambled back. I hadn’t noticed before, but the hopper is full of low-bouncing Mini Tennis balls, which had me completely flummoxed at first. No time to dwell on that, however – almost as soon as I’ve rejoined the queue I’m hitting another ball, then another…
The drills themselves are very simple – think my-first-tennis-lesson-style basket feeding – but the pace keeps it challenging, and it’s not long before the first few beads of sweat form on my brow.
It has no pretensions towards being a tennis lesson. “It’s not about forehands and backhands,” says Sam. “It doesn’t matter if you hit the back fence, it doesn’t matter if the ball goes in the net.” That being said, the footwork exercises will transfer to your game.
After getting us to run laps of the court while playing champion-challenger, Sam switches to a lob-chasing drill, which has us sprinting corner-to-corner across the court. Next we’re sidestepping past our doubles partners after each shot, before skipping backwards from the net to the baseline between rallies, all the time being stretched by the low bounce of the Mini Tennis balls.
The movement element is what has kept Mark coming since the sessions started two years ago. He openly admits that, despite working at the state-of-the-art tennis complex, he has no desire to take up the sport. “I don’t want to take up tennis as a full-time hobby,” he explains. “I don’t have the game, but that’s the great thing about Cardio – if you haven’t got the game, it doesn’t really matter.”
For Caroline, who certainly looks more comfortable with a racket in hand than Mark, the appeal is even simpler. “It’s fun, plain and simple,” she says of her own two years’ experience of Cardio Tennis. And she is right.
Cardio Tennis is, as Sam puts it, “tennis with all the boring bits taken out. You’re rarely picking up balls, you’re moving around the whole time, and you’re hitting lots of balls. It’s high energy, it’s high tempo – and just a lot more fun.” It could be just what you’re looking for – it was for me, and that dodgy shoulder seems to have healed too. Must be magic…
If you fancy giving Cardio Tennis a bash, click below to find a venue near you
