Dubai: On Sunday afternoon, a tired-looking Tomas Berdych stepped into the Aviation Club gym to be greeted by a camera crew.
Clad in a pair of sky-blue shorts, the athlete had just come out of a Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships roundtable where he was grilled by members of the press about the men’s tournament, which began on Monday. For the next few minutes, he would be filming his part in the promotional DDF Full of Surprises Travel Show.
He wasn’t quite ready to exert all his remaining energy for the day on the exercise equipment around him, but he was willing to do a quick demonstration of what his usual routine would look like through one-minute examples.
“It’s always about finding the right regime and right exercise for the particular player,” he told tabloid!. “For myself, I’ve been working with my fitness coach for five years, and I think that we already found out the good way [to do it]. We made and set up a plan, which is working well, so I’m trying to stick to that.
He said he would keep it simple for the day as he looked around at what the spacious workout area had to offer.
“Something on the bike, something on the ball, something on the rope…”
Berdych started off on a Stair Master that was situated next to a long line of treadmills, but the athlete made a disagreeable face when asked if he wanted to give the latter machines a go, too. Not a fan of running, then.
Instead, he moved on to one of the black, medium-sized exercise balls, swiping it off the ground and readjusting it into a position that suited him. He lay down with his head, shoulders and back to the floor, arms outstretched by his sides and feet propped up onto the ball. In a seemingly impossible move, he lifted only his torso off the ground and held the position for a few seconds. He relaxed his body and, a moment later, lifted himself again.
“Probably I will not do it for 60 seconds in a row, because my legs will die — so you have to be quicker,” he warned the camera crew in advance, so they could clamber to try and get a good shot of it.
The next part of his routine was easier to envision perfecting, even for the less seasoned fitness buffs: jumping a skipping rope. Though the 28-year-old was nowhere near the young age of the usual skipping rope enthusiasts found in parks and schoolyards, Berdych proved to be an expert at it, very rarely catching his feet on the rope or having to restart.
Last but not least, he moved onto the leg extensions machine, where he hooked his feet beneath a weighted lever and pushed it upwards with some difficulty.
Berdych’s exercise choices stemmed from a desire to improve his finesse while competing, especially considering his 185cm build.
“I’m a tall and big guy, and movement these days is a really key aspect of modern tennis. If you look at the guys like Rafa [Rafael Nadal], Novak [Djokovic], they all move absolutely great. They’re a bit shorter, so it’s a bit of an advantage for them,” he explained.
“I’m trying to keep [up] with them, trying to improve my movement on court as well. Most of those exercises are helping to do so.”
Jez Manso, one of many trainers working at the gym, said that athletes — and especially tennis players — focused on functional workout sessions that helped them streamline their performance.
“They do things that are more related to their work. For example, they do lunges — why? Because of their movement on the court. They want to strengthen their legs — why? Because they bend a lot, right? Their movement is not linear all the time, so they really have to work out their legs more. They focus more on mobility.”
Berdych’s chosen workout routine, Manso added, centred around cardiovascular and core training, which were important for achieving the three S’s: speed, stability and stamina.
“What [athletes] love is strength and conditioning,” she said, emphasising the importance of such endurance-building exercises.
For his part, Berdych highlighted the benefits of mixing things up rather than focusing too much on either weights or cardio in isolation — tennis is a complex sport, after all, and it requires a variety of physical preparations.
However, before any of that could take place, Berdych pointed out that the athlete must be convinced and committed to their end goal. So, what was his?
“Just to be light, to be agile, have a good, sharp response and reaction — this is all the exercise that I need and use quite well.”
