Cardio Tennis

WashingtonPost.com: Tennis can be a great workout if you have skilled, competitively matched partners playing singles. For others, the game is more stop than go, sprinkled with cuss-muttering frustration: hit, run, whack ball into net, stop. Hit, return, re-return(!), stop, curse, hail taxi to retrieve errant shot, etc. Entertaining, yes, even social. But not a heart-rate booster.
Cardio Tennis, a national program being offered at a variety of venues in the Washington area, seeks to change that. The workout runs participants around the court urgently enough to keep their heart rates in the cardio-training zone (65 to 85 percent of maximum heart rate) while helping improve tennis skills. It’s billed as similar to an interval workout. Armed with a racquet, a watch and my well-honed ability to count heart beats via my carotid artery, I showed up to give it a try.
On an indoor court at Sport Fit Bowie in Bowie, instructor Kevin McClure starts me and four other participants with warm-up footwork moves followed by a repeating drill in which we hustle from one spot to another, squaring up to imaginary balls and swinging imaginary racquets, culminating in a phantom overhead slam down a nonexistent opponent’s throat. No unforced errors!
Cardio Tennis: Advantage, Heart [WashingtonPost.com]