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The real key to recovery and longevity for tennis players, according to Kevin R. Stone, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon specializing in knee and shoulder injuries and founder and chairman of The Stone Foundation for Sports Medicine and Arthritis Research and The Stone Clinic in San Francisco, is to spend a little less time chasing the fuzzy ball and spend that time trying other forms of exercise.

"What we always tell our patients is that it's important to cross train," says Stone. "If they play tennis and want a long career, they shouldn't just hit balls over and over. Instead, they should train in a variety of ways, whether it's cycling, in the pool, yoga or weight lifting, and play tennis a bit less frequently. That way, their overall fitness will be better and the likelihood of injuries will be less. This is especially true when they do get injured and an injury takes them out of tennis for a while. Then, they need to keep training, but train around the injury."

Stone suggests these basic cross-training ideas and rehabilitative exercises for the following all-too-common trouble areas for tennis players:

Knee: The best exercises here include pool running with no impact, the stationary bike ("It's very difficult to injure your knee on a bike, and most knee injuries respond well to bike training," says Stone), upper-body weight training or yoga. "You still want to continue training on daily basis," says Stone. "In general, we don't rest injuries, so if someone isn't responding or doing well with impact exercises, we design a non-impact routine."

Back: The best training methods for most minor back problems include stretching, pool exercises, Pilates, lower-body weight lifting and Spinning.

Tennis Elbow: "For tennis elbow, some people use a wrist splint, which limits the wrist motion that aggravates the elbow," says Stone. "But you can try other exercises, such as squeezing a tennis ball during the day, to strengthen your hand and forearm, along with a soft tissue massage around the elbow."

Shoulder: Most shoulder problems stem from poor mechanics on serves or overheads (in other words, to avoid this problem, take a tennis lesson!). However, if you do have a shoulder problem, Stone suggests that you continue training but keep the hand below shoulder level during any exercise. "You can still train by hitting ground stokes, or do weight lifting to regain shoulder musculature, including biceps, triceps and shoulder rotator exercises."

Ultimately, each person and each injury is different, thus the treatment should be. "Multiple methods of treating injuries tend to lead to the most rapid recovery," Stone says. "Everything from soft tissue massage and Pilates to acupuncture or using a chiropractor can be effective, and it's not always clear which technique works, so often using a combination is the most helpful."

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