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The beauty of these exercises are their simplicity, you just need a ball and a wall! They work on developing your reaction time, explosiveness and speed over a short distance.
The first exercise is for one person to throw a tennis ball over either shoulder of their partner, for them to retrieve after as few a bounces as possible - ideally just one! As the thrower you will require some concentration and skill to stretch your partner so that they can just reach the ball after one bounce.
The next progression is to throw the tennis ball from behind onto the front wall - where possible the partner should try to catch the ball without letting it bounce. This exercise should remind you of the benefits of watching the ball and player when they are behind you and not to 'front wall watch' in a match!
Using a reaction ball for the exercises increases the difficulty of the drill by introducing a randomness to the bounce. Only progress to this when you are comfortable chasing down a tennis ball.
The idea when working on explosive speed is not to work when fatigued, so limit the number of reps in any set to 10, and have at least a minute rest between each set. Depending on your level of fitness you might do up to 5 sets of each exercise.
As with a lot of these exercises they are great as an exercise in their own right, or as a final part of a warm up.
