A Warm-Up That Actually Works

Walk into most amateur tennis clubs ten minutes before a match and you will see one of two things. Either a player jogging slowly around the court for two minutes then heading to the baseline to “warm up by hitting” — or a player doing static stretching for five minutes, the kind of long-hold stretches that 1990s gym class taught us all and that the research has since shown to be either useless or mildly counter-productive as a pre-activity warm-up.

Table of Contents

1. What a Warm-Up Is Supposed to Do
2. The Three-Block Structure
3. A Specific Tennis Warm-Up
4. The Static Stretching Question
5. The Hitting Warm-Up
6. Why Players Skip the Warm-Up
7. What About Match Days vs Practice Days?
8. The Cool-Down Question
9. One Thing to Do on Court Tomorrow

A good tennis warm-up is neither of those things. It is short, specific, dynamic, and graduated. Done right, it takes 8–12 minutes, raises core temperature meaningfully, primes the neuromuscular system for tennis-specific movements, and measurably reduces injury risk in the first 30 minutes of play. Done wrong — or skipped entirely — it leaves the player either flat or cold, and the first set is where the cost shows up.

This article is what the warm-up should actually look like, why each part of it matters, and the common mistakes that turn good warm-ups into bad ones.

What a Warm-Up Is Supposed to Do

The biological purpose of a warm-up is four-fold:

1. Raise muscle and core temperature. Warm muscle contracts more efficiently, transmits force faster, and resists strain better than cold muscle. Most of this happens through light continuous activity in the first 3–5 minutes.

1. Increase joint synovial fluid and tissue extensibility. Joints become more compliant. Tendons and fascia become more extensible. The body becomes physically ready for the range-of-motion demands of tennis strokes.

1. Activate the neuromuscular system. Sport-specific patterns wake up. Reaction times sharpen. Coordination between segments improves. This is where the warm-up becomes tennis-specific rather than generic.

1. Prepare mentally for performance. Heart rate rises into the working range. Attention narrows. The shift from “off court” mental state to “on court” mental state begins. By the first point, the player is already cognitively engaged.

A warm-up that delivers all four of these takes about 10 minutes. A warm-up that delivers fewer of them takes the same amount of time but produces worse results — which is why “warming up by hitting for ten minutes” is not enough. Hitting raises temperature and primes coordination, but it skips the joint and tissue preparation steps.

The Three-Block Structure

The warm-up that works has three blocks, in order. Each block has a specific purpose and shouldn’t be skipped or reordered.

Block 1: General activation (3–4 minutes). Light continuous activity that raises core temperature and gets blood flowing. Jogging, jumping rope, light shadow boxing, or any movement at conversational effort. The heart rate should rise to roughly 110–130 bpm by the end of this block. Not a workout — just a wake-up.

Block 2: Dynamic mobility (4–5 minutes). Sport-specific movements that take joints through their full range of motion under control. Not static holds. Active movements. Examples below.

Block 3: Tennis-specific priming (2–3 minutes). Short, intense movements that match tennis demands. Shuffles, lateral bounds, light medicine ball throws, split steps, fast-feet drills. The neuromuscular system shifts from “moving” to “performing.”

Total: 9–12 minutes. After Block 3, the first ball hit should feel sharp, not cold.

A Specific Tennis Warm-Up

What follows is the actual warm-up I run with my players before practice or matches. It hits all three blocks in approximately 10 minutes.

Block 1 — General activation (3 minutes):

• 1 minute light jog around the court perimeter
• 1 minute jumping rope or skipping in place (any rhythm)
• 1 minute alternating: 15 seconds of high knees, 15 seconds of butt kicks, repeated twice

By the end of Block 1, the player should be lightly sweating and breathing slightly elevated.

Block 2 — Dynamic mobility (5 minutes):

• 10 walking lunges with trunk rotation (each step, rotate toward the front leg)
• 10 walking knee hugs
• 10 walking quad pulls
• 10 leg swings forward-back per leg
• 10 leg swings side-to-side per leg
• 10 arm circles forward, 10 backward
• 10 shoulder cross-body stretches with a small bounce
• 8 deep squats with shoulder mobility
• 10 hip openers (figure-4 walking)

The whole block takes 4–5 minutes if moved through purposefully. The key word is dynamic — movements through range, never static holds.

Block 3 — Tennis-specific priming (2 minutes):

• 30 seconds of lateral shuffles, side to side
• 30 seconds of split-steps in place with hands held in ready position
• 30 seconds of forward/backward shuffles
• 30 seconds of shadow tennis — full forehand and backhand swings without a ball, focusing on body coordination

After Block 3, hit 5–8 medium-pace balls cross-court forehand and 5–8 cross-court backhand to bridge into hitting. The player is now warm.

The Static Stretching Question

A common question: should static stretches (long holds) be in the warm-up?

The evidence says no — at least not before performance. Static stretches longer than 30 seconds, performed immediately before activity, produce small but measurable decreases in power output for 10–20 minutes after (Behm et al., 2016). For a tennis player, this means a slower serve and ground stroke in the first set. The effect is not catastrophic, but it is the opposite of what a warm-up should produce.

Static stretching has a place — but it’s after activity, or in a separate flexibility session, not in the pre-match warm-up. Dynamic mobility serves the warm-up purpose better.

The Hitting Warm-Up

After the structured 10-minute warm-up, the on-court hitting warm-up should follow a graduated progression too. Hitting hard, fast balls from minute one is a mistake; building up takes 3–5 minutes and is part of the warm-up itself.

Suggested progression:

• 2–3 minutes mini-tennis from inside the service line, medium pace
• 2–3 minutes full-court ground strokes, medium pace, cross-court only
• 1–2 minutes volleys
• 1 minute overheads
• 2–3 serves at 50%, 2–3 at 75%, then full pace

By the end of the hitting warm-up, the player is fully ready. Total time from “walk on court” to “ready for first competitive point”: about 20 minutes.

Why Players Skip the Warm-Up

Three common reasons, and what to do about each.

Reason 1: “We didn’t have time.” Most players who skip the warm-up could have arrived ten minutes earlier. The fix is calendar discipline, not warm-up modification. Plan the arrival to allow the warm-up.

Reason 2: “It feels silly.” Adults can feel self-conscious doing dynamic mobility in front of others. The fix is to do the first half of the warm-up in private (locker room or quiet corner), and only the on-court part in front of other players.

Reason 3: “I’ll warm up by hitting.” This is the most defensible-sounding argument and also the wrong one. Hitting doesn’t warm up the joints, hip mobilizers, or the spine. It primes coordination but skips the tissue preparation. The result is a slightly higher injury risk in the first 30 minutes — which is exactly when most amateur tennis injuries happen.

The case for a structured warm-up isn’t about feeling ready. It’s about being ready. A warm-up that works produces a first-set performance level that matches the second and third sets, and reduces the rate of soft-tissue injuries (Lauersen et al., 2014).

What About Match Days vs Practice Days?

The warm-up is the same. People sometimes ask whether match day warm-ups should be longer or more elaborate; the honest answer is that the 10-minute structured warm-up is the right protocol for both. What changes on match day is the mental component — the player is more focused, more keyed up, more attentive to outcome. The physical preparation is identical.

If anything, match day warm-ups should be slightly less intense in Block 1 to avoid pre-match fatigue. Save the energy for the match itself.

The Cool-Down Question

A brief note: the post-match cool-down is a separate topic, often confused with the warm-up. A cool-down’s purpose is to gradually return heart rate to baseline, clear metabolic byproducts, and begin recovery. It is shorter than the warm-up (5 minutes is usually enough), and it can include the static stretching that the warm-up excluded. Static stretches after activity, when muscles are warm, are useful for maintaining flexibility over time without the power-loss penalty.

One Thing to Do on Court Tomorrow

For your next session, set aside ten minutes before you touch a racquet for the structured warm-up. Three minutes general activation, five minutes dynamic mobility, two minutes tennis-specific priming. Time yourself. Don’t shortcut. Then hit the first ball and notice the difference.

Most players, doing this for the first time, find that they feel “ready” earlier — the first ten minutes of hitting are sharper, the first set quality is higher, and the body feels less stiff in the morning the day after. Ten minutes for a measurable performance and injury benefit. It is one of the highest-leverage habits in the sport, and it is free.

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About the author: Emre Köse is a tennis coach at Beykoz Tenis Kulübü in Istanbul, with 12+ years on court. He holds a BSc in Coaching Education from Marmara University, Faculty of Sport Sciences.

Related in this series: Cool-down: necessary, or theater? · Shoulder care: rotator cuff and scapular control · Load monitoring for injury reduction

Selected reading:

• Behm, D. G., Blazevich, A. J., Kay, A. D., & McHugh, M. (2016). Acute effects of muscle stretching on physical performance, range of motion, and injury incidence in healthy active individuals: a systematic review. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.
• Lauersen, J. B., Bertelsen, D. M., & Andersen, L. B. (2014). The effectiveness of exercise interventions to prevent sports injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine.
• McGowan, C. J., Pyne, D. B., Thompson, K. G., & Rattray, B. (2015). Warm-up strategies for sport and exercise: mechanisms and applications. Sports Medicine.