It’s essential to take care of your glutes, particularly for athletes, as training can cause their glutes to become shortened and too tight. Failing to take care of your glutes can make it challenging to perform at your maximum. To care for your glutes, there are various techniques, including strengthening them for strength, power, and explosiveness, making them evenly strong and flexible on both sides, deep tissue massage through a therapist or myofascial release tool, and stretching.
Tennis is known to be an especially demanding sport on the muscular-skeletal system, as it requires quick direction changes, bursts of sprints, and hard stops. Additionally, the one-sidedness of tennis creates more problems for athletes. When playing, the dominant side of your body performs much more work, even if you play with a two-handed backhand. The serve, volleys, overheads, and forehands are hit with your dominant side only. Moreover, most players prefer running around backhands and hitting forehands instead, adding even more work to the dominant side.
As a result, the dominant side of your body gets stronger, bigger, and tighter over time, and no amount of work in the gym can make it even. Therefore, it is essential to work hard to make the differences as small as possible. Apart from changes in the upper body, there are also things happening in your hips. Most forehands are hit with an open stance, and many backhands with a closed stance. This means the muscles on your dominant side are used most of the time. As mentioned before, you often choose to hit your forehands instead of the backhands, which means that the dominant hip gets beat up.
Once slight imbalances occur in your hips, the mechanics of your running gait will change slightly over time, leading to knee, ankle, foot, or lower back problems. Therefore, it’s critical to prioritize your hips’ attention in your fitness training, keeping them balanced with strengthening and stretching. It’s recommended that you address one side at a time, so you can feel the imbalances and work on them.
Performing a glute stretch is one of the simplest and quickest ways to take care of your hips. It should be on your daily agenda without fail. The best time for this glute stretch is directly after tennis practice. If any hip issues have been created, you can correct them before the muscles get tight and make the imbalances worse. Performing this glute stretch at least once every day is essential, preferably in the morning, after training, and before bed until you feel like your hips are even and flexible.
Glute Stretch
Here is a quick demonstration of this stretch:
If you are very flexible, your lower leg will be parallel to your hands. If you are like most tennis players and athletes, your foot will be closer to your hip. Slowly bend your upper body down over the left leg. Place both elbows on the ground and relax your shoulders and the right leg. It will be tempting to tilt your hips to the left to relieve the pain or to get lower to the ground but resist the temptations. Keep the hips even and parallel with the ground. If the pain is horrible, try to manage it with deep breathing. Focus, visualize how the tension leaves your body, and let go of the physical fight that you and your muscles do right now. Relax your neck and make yourself comfortable in the stretch.
Most tennis players and athletes find this stretch difficult because of the tightness in the glutes. You may also feel tightness in your left inner thigh, knee, or the right hip flexor. Breathe deeply, hold the stretch for one to two minutes, and switch sides. This stretch aims to reach the ground with your left glute but without tilting the hips. With regular practice, you will be able to do it.
Always start with the tighter side, then stretch the good side and return to the tighter side one more time.
Daily stretching and myofascial release of your glutes will keep your hips functional. As a result, your movement on the tennis court will be faster and more explosive. You will get to the balls sooner and hit more powerful shots, improving your tennis game.
Lastly, for lower back discomfort or pain, this glute stretch may help get rid of it, too! So, do this stretch daily and get your glutes and hips functioning again!
