The Tennis Blast Story
I met David Bailey in 1991 when my sister Cindy was 14 and started strength and conditioning training. I remember walking through the main driveway of White City from the Rushcutters Bay entrance an seeing Cindy and one of her team-mates, Melissa Dause, carrying a thick folder each, something Tennis players never did until David came along.
David called his first works on Tennis fitness and movement “Balanced Action.”
He thoroughly documented the movement and exercises that he concluded were necessary to be a professional Tennis player complete with stick diagrams and directions.
The results were that every player that David tutored on Tennis fitness, strength and conditioning became successful Tennis players. In this group, Jelena Dokic became the most well known, reaching no. 4 in the world. Melissa became no. 2 in Australia, and Glenn Knox became no. 1 in Australia. There were several other players who had similar success and my sister Cindy went on to win the 18s Shell Super series, the Tieldsley Shield Singles (Australia’s premier school-girls tournament), top 600 in the world and 2 WTA satellite doubles tournaments.
A few years later, David had become the most respected Tennis movement and fitness specialist in Sydney. In 2000, David made a decision to focus more on Tennis Footwork. Tennis footwork and fitness certainly are closely linked. He developed a system called the Bailey Method.
David decided to move to Florida and worked for 18 months at Chris Evert’s Academy, and then started to work with Nick Bollettieri’s world famous Tennis Academy.
David and Nick made a Footwork DVD together.
In 2005, David moved back to Sydney and made what we call “The Original Bailey Method DVD.”
It was in 2007, that I met with David and we filmed the “Tennis Blast Total Body Workout” Programme.
When we did this, I believe that this fitness programme that David created for Tennis is the world’s first skill based Tennis fitness programme. I like to call it the core fitness sections that a player needs to train in, to prepare to become a competitive Tennis player.
Why I love the Tennis Programme so dearly
- As a Tennis player, you know that you need to be fit, but the Tennis Blast Fitness programme makes getting fit fun.
- The Tennis Blast Fitness Programme covers all aspects of Tennis specific fitness and the footwork to hit every type of stroke, anywhere on the Tennis court; the footwork for hitting Tennis strokes is called a CONTACT MOVE. Please note this term. the CONTACT MOVE.
- The Tennis Blast Fitness Programme includes the footwork and contact moves for all Forehands, Backhands, Serves, Smashes and Volleys – Offensive, Rally and Defensive.
- The Tennis Blast Fitness Programme covers the fitness areas of (1) Warm Ups, (2) Speed & Agility, (3) Tennis Aerobics, (4) Tennis Specific Strength, (5) Flexibility, (6) Injury Prevention.
- As a Tennis Coach, it was the Tennis Blast Fitness Programme that gave my coaching variety, balance and the foundation to as David states, to “Develop the Tennis Athlete.”
- Without Tennis Blast, I would have lost the passion for coaching Tennis, and I and all my students would never have been as all-round fit.
- The Tennis Blast Fitness Programme made getting fit for Tennis more affordable and created much more of a team atmosphere for our players and families.
- The icing on the case though, is that I believe that the Tennis Blast Fitness Programme is the only thing you will need to stay physically fit and healthy as you get older, since it covers every aspect of fitness and the common sense in keeping maintaining the body and staying young.
- Thank you David Bailey for creating the Tennis Blast Fitness Programme!
My investment in David and Tennis Blast
- As a full time professional, enthusiastic, inquisitive, scientific and technically minded Tennis coach from the 80s to the present, in 2007, I loved David’s influence on Tennis players and coaches, his university type approach and the fun yet effective Tennis specific fitness he brought to Tennis here in Sydney, that when some marketing experts asked me to find the best fitness trainer in Tennis, I had no hesitation in nominating David Bailey.
- There were some other great fitness trainers in the Tennis industry at the time, but David Bailey was the only on who had documented a comprehensive programme, researched Tennis movement and the top professionals as to what they were doing and eating, and also had a progressive system and had created terminology and in fact a new language for Tennis.
- The New York Times wrote an article on Tennis movement noting the movement of Roger Federer and praising David for his study of footwork and his revolutionary concepts on movement and the Contact Move – see New York Times 2009/08/31
- So from 2007 to the present, I invested many thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to help David Bailey present his fitness programme to you.
- So here now, we present to you:
Tennis Blast Total Body Fitness
Best of luck with your Tennis and fitness,
Kerry Dock
