While many of us are far from becoming top-ranked athletes, there’s plenty to learn from the pros when it comes to optimising our health and fitness. From Janik Sinnner’s muscle-building techniques to Novak Djokovic’s devotion to longevity, dig into these tennis pros’ secrets for peak performance.

CARLOS ALCARAZ

Fitness Game Changer:

Sand Footwork Drills

Any pro tennis player has to play with agility, but Alcaraz can move. To do so at a high level, the 21-year-old performs lateral movement drills in the sand, teaching his feet to drive up from an unstable surface. This can help prevent ankle injuries and build strength in his calves and shin muscles.

JANNIK SINNER

Fitness Game Changer:

Landmine Rotations

Sinner has historically lacked the physical prowess of his competitors, so the 23-year-old has gone all in on strength and mobility work. He does landmine rotational exercises such as the hollow body landmine press, which builds upper-body power.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC

Fitness Game Changer:

Devotion to Longevity

He’s been around this long for a reason. Djokovic, 37, eliminated gluten and dairy from his diet, started practising mindfulness techniques like conscious breathing and visualisation, and even brought a hyperbaric chamber to the 2019 US Open.

BEN SHELTON

Fitness Game Changer:

Explosive Strength Moves

Known for his consistently fast serves, Shelton, 22, relies on single-leg training, using dumbbells to do lateral lunges, step-ups, and even Bulgarian split squats. He focuses on exploding upward on every rep so he’s ready to attack the ball on each serve.

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FRANCES TIAFOE

Fitness Game Changer:

Overcoming Isometrics

Tiafoe spent last off-season doing overcoming isometrics: exercises that force the 27-year-old to hold a position against a load he can’t move. This aids in boosting power and strength and can improve joint health.

If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.

Andrew Gutman, NASM-CPT is a journalist with a decade of experience covering fitness and nutrition. His work has been published in Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Muscle & Fitness, and Gear Patrol. Outside of writing, Andrew trains in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, helps coach his gym’s kickboxing team, and enjoys reading and cooking. 

There’s more to your core than you might realize. There are the muscles that make up the visible topmost layer of abs — the ones responsible for the chiseled six-pack — and then there are the deep core muscles.

Among these deep core muscles is the transversus abdominis, the deepest layer of the abdominals. Think of them like a corset that wraps around your entire midsection, explains personal trainer, TODAY.com health editor and Start TODAY producer Brianna Steinhilber.

The muscles of the transversus abdominis control your posture and the way you move, TODAY.com previously reported. They act as the foundation for the rest of your abdominal muscles, supporting mobility and functional strength across the entire body. For that reason, they deserve as much attention as the superficial ab muscles that tend to get all the glory.

“Working these deep core muscles is really what’s going to help you lose inches off your waist, build core strength and stability, and even reduce lower back pain,” says Steinhilber. Improve your strength and stability with the one deep core move that stands out above the rest.

Fitness Tip of the Day: Perfect Your Pelvic Tilt for a Strong Deep Core

While there are many exercises that target the transversus abdominis, the “pelvic tilt is definitely the most important thing to master before doing any other ab exercise or, arguably, any exercise,” says Steinhilber.

Why It Matters

On its own, the pelvic tilt strengthens the innermost ab muscles, but it also acts as the foundation for every other workout you do.

“It’s a position that should become second nature,” says Steinhilber, because it stabilizes and braces your core whether you’re doing an abs circuit, Pilates or strength training.

By activating and engaging your deep core muscle with a pelvic tilt, you’ll be recruiting these innermost ab muscles to protect your back, prevent injury and support your posture with every move you do, TODAY.com previously reported.

How To Get Started

Start by lying on your back with your knees bent and your feet hip-width apart, TODAY.com previously reported. Place your arms at your side and point them toward your heels. Inhale, then, as you exhale, “think about pulling your belly button to your spine and tucking the tailbone under,” says Steinhilber.

It can help initially to exaggerate the movement by rounding your lower back so that it touches the ground as your tailbone remains in place. Then, tilt your pelvis toward your ribs. Repeat these pelvic tilts forward and back 10 times.

When performing other exercises, whether or not they require you to lie on your back, maintain the pelvic tilt position to ward off injury and make the workout more effective, TODAY.com previously reported.

TODAY’s Expert Tip of the Day series is all about simple strategies to make life a little easier. Every Monday through Friday, different qualified experts share their best advice on diet, fitness, heart health, mental wellness and more.

Everyone knows the importance of staying active as you age, with those who exercise more likely to improve their longevity by staying fitter and healthier. But new research suggests exercise variety counts for a lot, too.

It might be time to add a bit more spice to your activity mix.

The study, published in BMJ Medicine, tracked the weekly exercise habits of 110,000 people – 70,000 men and 40,000 women – over the course of 30 years. Researchers wanted to determine whether there was an association between variation in physical activity and risk of death.

Participants reported how much time per week they spent doing activities such as walking, running, cycling, swimming, rowing, strength training, playing sports, lower-intensity exercises like yoga, outdoor work such as gardening or chopping wood, and even climbing the stairs. Researchers then scored participants according to the variety of physical activity they undertook, which was only measured if it was something they engaged in consistently – playing badminton just once a year doesn’t quite count here.

Those who engaged in the greatest variety of exercise had a 19% lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who engaged in the least variety. The relationship also held true at every level of physical activity – for example, someone who took part in four different activities had a lower mortality risk than someone who completed only three.

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Researchers also highlighted that people who resistance trained for 120 minutes or more per week saw their mortality risk plateau, regardless of exercise variety.

What Does This Mean for You?

It’s all about variety. The research suggests taking part in a wide range of activities is better for you than doing the same amount of exercise in just one discipline, so start mixing things up and reap the benefits. Rather than being extremely regimented week to week and sticking to the same one or two activities, this approach gives you greater freedom to try new things, safe in the knowledge that doing so may be better for your overall health. But don’t go all guns blazing just yet.

‘For people who are less active, the key message is that small amounts can still matter,’ the researchers say. ‘Building a routine gradually may be more important than trying to do a lot at once.’

It’s also fair to assume that combining strength training with cardiovascular exercise, such as running or hiking, will help optimise those benefits even further. Both are associated with greater longevity, so pairing them together is likely to help keep you fitter and healthier for longer.

That said, total exercise volume is still king when it comes to longevity – five hours of strength training beats four hours split between swimming, running and cycling, for example. The NHS recommends that adults over 65 do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity, each week to improve health and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

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The main message? Lift some weights, get outside as much as you can, and keep your heart pumping with a bit of intensity each week – it’ll help you stay in rude health.

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If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.

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Ryan is a Senior Writer at Men’s Health UK with a passion for storytelling, health and fitness. Having graduated from Cardiff University in 2020, and later obtaining his NCTJ qualification, Ryan started his career as a Trainee News Writer for sports titles Golf Monthly, Cycling Weekly and Rugby World before progressing to Staff Writer and subsequently Senior Writer with football magazine FourFourTwo.

During his two-and-a-half years there he wrote news stories for the website and features for the magazine, while he also interviewed names such as Les Ferdinand, Ally McCoist, Jamie Redknapp and Antonio Rudiger, among many others. His standout memory, though, came when getting the opportunity to speak to then-Plymouth Argyle manager Steven Schumacher as the club won League One in 2023.

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Having grown up a keen footballer and playing for his boyhood side until the age of 16, Ryan got the opportunity to represent Northern Ireland national futsal team eight times, scoring three goals against England, Scotland and Gibraltar. Now past his peak, Ryan prefers to mix weightlifting with running – he achieved a marathon PB of 3:31:49 at Manchester in April 2025, but credits the heat for failing to get below the coveted 3:30 mark…

You can follow Ryan on Instagram or on X