I will lead with the disclaimer this week. Sakkari is apparently Greek for “please do not try any of this without first consulting your doctor and also make sure you are working with a well-qualified personal trainer.” We are currently in the midst of breaking down a montage of intense training techniques performed by Greek tennis player Maria Sakkari featured in S1 E3 of the Netflix docuseries “Break Point.”
In that sequence, Sakkari is shown performing lateral lunges using a heavily weighted barbell. In principle, this exercise has already been covered in this series because Taylor Fritz was seen performing lateral lunges earlier in the same episode. Many of the benefits of performing that exercise were previously explored in “Side Lateral Lunge for Hip Mobilization.”
One key difference is that Fritz was performing lateral lunges using only his body weight as a pre-match warmup movement. Consequently, that post focused on hip mobility. The addition of the barbell in Sakkari’s version kicks it up a notch and demonstrates how the movement can be used to increase hip strength and enhance explosive power. That supports balance and stability on the court, which is required to hit powerful shots while maintaining control.
I do not own a barbell and weight plates due to space constraints in my home gyms. However, I sometimes perform a weighted version of side lateral lunges using a weighted body bar. That works well for me since I prefer to do my strength training with lower weights and higher reps. If I were to tackle the “Squats on a Bosu Ball” exercise featured last week, the weighted body bar would be a reasonably safe way to attempt it.
Next week the Sakkari streak will continue by examining how she uses lateral jumps in her training.
 | CAP Barbell Weighted Body Bar |
