Ben Shelton Strength Workout: Split Squats, Box Jumps and the Copenhagen Plank
UPLIFT IRON CLUBBen Shelton’s Gym Work Is Built for Tennis, Not for Looking Busy
Ben Shelton’s strength training is a useful reminder that the best gym program is the one that serves the sport outside the gym. The American tennis star described a program built around single-leg strength, explosive jumps and stability work rather than chasing fatigue for its own sake. That makes sense for a player who has to accelerate, brake, rotate and recover position for hours at a time.
The headline is not that tennis players discovered secret exercises. Bulgarian split squats, box jumps and planks are familiar movements. The interesting part is how they are combined around specific needs. Shelton wants force from one leg, fast force production, resilient hips and a trunk that can transmit power. Those qualities show up when he pushes into a serve, changes direction or reaches wide for a ball.
For ordinary lifters, that is the first lesson worth stealing. Exercise selection should begin with the adaptation you need, not with what looks hardest online. If you want bigger quads, train them through enough hard, stable volume. If you want athletic power, include movements where speed matters. If your sport repeatedly puts you on one leg, unilateral work deserves more than an occasional token set.
Why Bulgarian Split Squats Make Sense for a Tennis Player
Shelton specifically mentioned Bulgarian split squats, and they fit tennis extremely well. The movement loads one leg heavily while the other provides support, forcing the working side to produce force while the pelvis and trunk stay organized. Tennis is full of imperfect single-leg positions: pushing out of a corner, decelerating into a shot, recovering across the baseline and loading before a serve.
That does not mean a split squat literally reproduces a forehand. Good strength training usually should not try to imitate the sport. Its job is to build physical qualities that transfer. A rear-foot-elevated split squat can train the quads and glutes through a large range of motion while exposing left-right differences that a bilateral squat can sometimes hide.
For lifters, it is also an efficient hypertrophy tool. Hold dumbbells, use a Smith machine or load a barbell, then control the descent and drive through the front leg. A practical starting point is two or three hard sets of six to twelve reps per side after your main compound lift. Keep enough stability that the target muscles, not your ability to wobble, limit the set. You do not earn extra athletic points for turning every rep into a balance test.
Box Jumps Train a Different Quality Than Heavy Leg Work
Strength is only part of Shelton’s equation. He also uses plyometric drills such as box jumps and mini-hurdle hops. The distinction matters: a heavy split squat asks you to create high force against substantial resistance, while a jump asks you to express force quickly. Tennis rewards both. A player can be strong in the weight room and still leave performance on the table if that strength cannot be expressed rapidly.
For gym-focused lifters, plyometrics are best treated as quality work rather than punishment. Put jumps early in the session when you are fresh. Use a box height you can land on cleanly without tucking your knees toward your ears. Three to five sets of two to five crisp reps is often more useful than chasing exhaustion. Once jump height, landing quality or speed clearly falls, the useful power work is probably over.
This is also where copying an elite athlete blindly becomes silly. Shelton has coaches, years of sport practice and a workload built around professional tennis. A recreational lifter does not need a giant menu of jumps. A small dose can complement squats, deadlifts and unilateral work without stealing recovery from them. The goal is to become more explosive, not to turn leg day into a conditioning circuit disguised as athletic training.
The Copenhagen Plank Is Brutal for a Reason
The exercise Shelton singled out as especially unpleasant is the Copenhagen plank. It looks like a side plank made unnecessarily hostile: the upper leg rests on a bench while the body stays elevated, placing a large demand on the adductors and lateral trunk. Those inner-thigh muscles matter in sports that involve cutting and rapid changes of direction, yet they are easy to neglect in conventional gym programs.
Technique matters because the full long-lever version is genuinely demanding. Keep the supporting elbow under the shoulder, drive the upper leg into the bench and hold the body in a straight line without letting the hips sag or rotate. If that version immediately turns into a shaking collapse, shorten the lever by supporting the knee rather than the ankle. Progressing the position is smarter than surviving ugly seconds for bragging rights.
For most lifters, Copenhagen planks belong in the accessory bucket. Two or three controlled sets per side can train the adductors and obliques without hijacking the session. They can be useful if your program contains lots of squatting and hinging but almost no direct lateral or adductor work. Sharp groin pain is not a productive training sensation; regress or stop rather than forcing a movement your current capacity cannot support.
What Lifters Can Steal From Shelton’s Athletic Strength Formula
The broader template is simple: build strength, express it quickly, then reinforce the structures that keep movement stable. A gym version might pair a main bilateral lift with Bulgarian split squats, a small amount of jumping and one targeted stability exercise. That covers more athletic ground than adding six random functional drills simply because they look complicated.
One example after a warm-up could be three sets of three box jumps, followed by your main squat or trap-bar deadlift, then three sets of eight Bulgarian split squats per leg and two sets of Copenhagen planks per side. An upper-body day can carry the same logic with a heavy press or pull, a faster medicine-ball throw and shoulder or trunk stability work. The exact exercises matter less than keeping the qualities distinct.
There is also a fatigue lesson. Power work needs freshness. Heavy strength work needs intent. Stability accessories need control. If every component is taken to failure, those qualities blur into one long fatigue contest. Shelton’s sport already supplies enormous conditioning demands, so the weight room has to add capacity rather than merely prove toughness. Lifters can use the same filter: ask whether each exercise creates an adaptation that the rest of the week does not already provide.
The same principle should shape progression. Do not make the session more “athletic” by changing every exercise each week. Keep enough continuity to measure improvement. Add load or cleaner reps to the split squat, improve jump height without sacrificing the landing, or progress a Copenhagen plank from a shorter lever to a longer one. Those are visible adaptations. Random novelty is harder to evaluate and often just creates soreness.
Scheduling matters too. If explosive work is a priority, place it when your legs are not already wrecked by high-volume squatting or hard conditioning. A recreational lifter could use this athletic block once or twice per week and still keep most of the program focused on conventional strength or hypertrophy. That is the useful middle ground: borrow the qualities behind an elite athlete’s training without pretending you need an elite athlete’s total workload.
Creatine, Protein and Recovery: Useful Support, Not the Main Story
Shelton also discussed familiar sports-nutrition tools including whey protein and creatine, alongside electrolytes, magnesium and a multivitamin. The least glamorous part of his approach may be the most important: he puts sleep, nutrition and consistency underneath the supplement stack. That hierarchy is worth preserving.
Protein helps make adequate daily intake convenient, especially when training and travel make normal meals harder. Creatine monohydrate has a deep evidence base for supporting repeated high-intensity performance and strength training. Neither compensates for a program with no progression, chronically poor sleep or insufficient food. Supplements are useful because they support a functioning system; they are not a substitute for one.
The real takeaway from Shelton’s routine is therefore not to copy an exact tennis workout. It is to connect gym work to a purpose. Train single-leg strength if your goals demand it. Add a modest dose of explosive work if you want to express force faster. Strengthen neglected stabilizers instead of waiting for weak links to announce themselves. Then recover well enough to repeat the process for months and years. That is less exciting than a secret exercise, but it is much closer to how durable athletic progress is actually built.
That hierarchy also helps keep supplement decisions boring in the best possible way. Start with total food intake, enough protein, carbohydrates that support hard training, hydration and sleep. Creatine can then sit on top as a well-studied performance aid rather than becoming the centerpiece of the plan. For a recreational lifter, consistency matters more than recreating a professional athlete’s branded supplement cabinet. Travel schedules, match demands and medical oversight are different from ordinary gym life, so Shelton’s exact list should be treated as context, not a shopping checklist.
Recovery should be judged by what it allows you to do next. If your jumps stay sharp, strength numbers progress, joints feel tolerable and you can train with intent, the system is probably doing its job. If every session leaves you flat for days, adding another powder is unlikely to solve the programming problem. The useful model is simple: training creates the signal, food and sleep help you adapt to it, and supplements can provide a relatively small layer of support. That order is less marketable than a magic stack, but much more useful.
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