Tennis Camp Hell!

by Danielle
(NJ, USA)

Even as I write "hell" in the title, I still remember this as one of my favorite workouts...it was just VERY, VERY HARD!

Back in high school, I attended a summer tennis camp where the coaches drilled us like there was no tomorrow.

We started off the day with a deceptively easy jog around the courts. After a couple of laps I was lulled into a false sense of security -- running a couple laps isn't so hard!

When the coach told us to stop, I immediately went to take out my racket. Wrong move! The workout wasn't even close to being over.

We went straight to high knees, for a good 3 minutes, and then butt kicks for another 3. After that was a 2 minute wall-sit where your legs would be prodded by a racket if you weren't parallel to the ground.

The we did some light abdominal work, push ups, and then...Firecracker Suicides.

A suicide is when you run laps from line to line on the tennis court. Firecrackers are when all the students line up and their start times are staggered.

The coach blows a whistle and the first person starts to run, then after a second or two the second, and then the third, and so on.

The object of the firecracker is to complete the suicide run and make sure you are ahead of the person who started behind you. If they somehow pass you and finish before you do -- you do the suicide run over again.

After that, the actual tennis drills began, with agility training, arm work, and practice games.

Whew. I sweated just thinking about that!