Murray Makes Time For Mid-season Strength & Conditioning

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With the ATP World Tour season running from January to November, it's not always easy for players to find time to do more than maintain their current fitness levels as they move from one tournament to the next. But Andy Murray carves out a few weeks beginning in mid July to improve his strength and conditioning base to launch an assault on ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments in Toronto and Cincinnati and, ultimately, the US Open.

Murray, who will interrupt his mini boot camp this week after accepting a late wild card into the Farmers Classic in Los Angeles, says that the fitness work in steamy Miami is a perfect preparation for the biggest tournaments of the US hard court season.

"Obviously at home the weather's very up and down whereas here in the States it's hot and very humid and it'll be like that through till the US Open," Murray said. "To play in places like New York and Cincinnati you need to give yourself time to get used to the conditions. So that's one of the reasons we come here. The other reason is time. Throughout most of the year most of the work you do is maintenance, but before the Masters Series in Toronto I've got some blocks of time to work on increasing my strength and fitness, and that's the focus out here.”

Jez Green, Murray’s strength and conditioning coach, details the training: "The first few days of any block are always the same, it's always a case of putting those foundations down again. He's had a few weeks off to rest, and  there's certain drills which Andy does that make him confident and build that base again. That's the track work, and the general weights work. There's about five days where he'll lift again and put a few miles on the clock before we get into the more specific work after about a week."

On acclimatising to the heat having come from Europe, Green said: "You've just got to get the body used to it, and unfortunately the best way to do that is to train in the hottest part of the day. The quicker you can do that - short sharp sessions in the heat of the day - then the more quickly the body gets used to it. It's not very nice the first few sessions back, because you're really short of oxygen but that's the best way of doing it"

For more information on Murray’s training – and to get tips for your own fitness from Green - visit andymurray.com