Archive for the ‘Injury Prevention’ Category

It’s All about the Feet

Our feet have many nerve endings that collect data on pressure, temperature, and terrain if we are walking barefoot. Wearing shoes limits these inputs and the balance and mobility is less natural and can increase the risk of falls, ankle sprains, and other injuries. Lately, there has been a lot of movement toward minimalist footwear (such as Vibram’s FiveFingres shoes) and a lot of books on barefoot running. Obviously, that is not something a tennis player would want to do, especially when playing on hard courts. A few players state that playing in minimalist footwear on clay or grass is an amazing and healthy experience, but for the rest of us, we need to take care of our feet in a different way.

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Feet Muscles

Any imbalances in musculature in your feet will limit full range of motion and alter your running and walking gait, which in long term can cause problems and overuse injuries. There are two kinds of musculature in your feet, extrinsic and intrinsic:

1) Extrinsic foot muscles have one attachment in the foot and the other one somewhere up in the leg. These muscles move your foot relative to the lower leg. The three muscles of the calves are all extrinsic.

2) Intrinsic foot muscles have both ends inside the foot. Intrinsic motions move one portion of the foot relative to other foot joints. One example is the muscle (abductor digiti minimi) that moves your pinkie toe out and away from the other toes.

For the feet muscles, wearing shoes is like putting a cast on your arm after a bone break: without regular use, the muscles atrophy quickly. When the smaller intrinsic muscles with fine motor skills atrophy, the larger extrinsic muscles start to compensate. Slowly, they are overused, developing trigger points and tension that will further cause more problems.

Training Your Feet

The muscle groups of your two feet make up 25% of the body’s muscles. If you ignore the strength and function of your feet muscle, it is like eliminating upper-body exercises from your routine. That doesn’t sound too good, does it? Yet, it is very common that we don’t pay enough attention to our feet.

Exercises that innervate the intrinsic foot muscles and restore the length of lower leg muscles are extremely important. Foot strength has the key role in proper foot mechanics, gait patterns, ankle stabilization, and whole-body balance.

Your toes are designed to have as much dexterity as your fingers — each toe joint can flex and extend, abduct and adduct. These are basic, simple motions, but when you try it yourself, you realize how difficult it is to lift one toe without lifting the other toes. That’s why you need to start a strengthening program for your feet, and work on it until your movements are fluid and the motor skills are visibly improved.

Toe Lifts

Lift your big toe on its own, without the other toes lifting. Keep working on it until you are capable of doing it smoothly.

Process to lifting each toe one at a time, until they are all in the air. Then, reverse and place them down again, starting with the 5th (smallest) toe, until you get your big toe.

Toe Abduction

Our feet are always smashed and compressed inside our shoes, often too narrow for the toes to move. The narrow toe space in footwear creates weak toe abductors and tight adductors, which prevents your toes from spreading wide naturally.

Stand up barefoot, with the weight on your heels so you can lift your toes. Now spread your toes away from each other without lifting them off the ground.

If you wear flip-flops as footwear of your choice when you are not in the tennis shoes, you need to know that flip-flops force your toes to increase the gripping action, which can cause chronic tension in the flexed position and eventually alter your balance.

Stretching the Toe Flexors

Stand up and reach one leg behind, placing the top of the foot on the ground. Relax and stretch your ankle. If you experience cramping in your toes, take a break and return to the stretch. Work yourself up to holding 1 minute on each side.

Strengthen Bottom of your Feet

In this exercise, you can either use small pebbles that you will pick up with your toes, one by one, from the ground. You can also use a towel that you will scrunch with your toes. Try to feel the muscles in the bottom of your feet. If you would prefer a simple, yet very effective tool for exercising your feet muscles, get yourself the Elgin’s Arch Exerciser that will make it simple to strengthen the muscles and also helps to prevent plantar fasciitis and heel spurs. You can find the exerciser on many websites or stores, but I often find Amazon’s prices the most affordable.

Foot Circles and Points with Therabands

Many foot problems happen because of the limited range of motion or flexibility in the ankle and surrounding muscles. The simple, restorative Foot Points and Circles as described in one of my previous articles will create more movement in your ankles and bigger range of motion. To bring this exercise a bit further and work with some resistance, take a Theraband (or any resistance band of your choice) and loop it around your foot. Pull on the band to create enough challenging tension, and do 20 points and flexes, followed by 20 circles clockwise, and 20 circles counter clockwise. You will definitely feel the muscles working. Then repeat for the other foot. If you find one foot much weaker, repeat on the weaker side one more time, until you get both sides evenly strong.

Walking Barefoot

Occasionally, you may want to walk around barefoot or in minimalist footwear, so you would exercise the muscles in your feet during body movement. You will feel the ground differently; you will create a new sense of balance and develop a light foot strike, which will help you to move lighter on the tennis court.

Rehab of your Feet

Give your tired and beat-up feet more love. Besides strengthening and stretching, massage them occasionally, give them a hot bath, and soak them in good lotion or shea butter. If you suffer from hammertoes or other toe issues, or if you are in your tennis shows for many hours each day, you could use this simple device “Pampered Toes” to give your toes a little bit extra room. You can use it just for a few minutes a day, yet it will make big difference in your feet’s well-being. You can also roll your feet on a golf ball or other small massage balls.

After only a few weeks of strengthening your feet muscles, you will notice a better movement on the tennis court, and if you have been experiencing aches in your knees, or tightness in your calves or glutes, you may be surprised that these will go away. Make sure to give your calves a good stretch and myofascial release regularly!

Keep your feet fit and happy, and your tennis game will blossom too!

Strong and beautiful glutes are pleasure for the eye. More so, functional glutes are crucial for proper function and maximum athletic performance. Many injuries and pains are attributed to dysfunction or even atrophy of the glutes. If a reduced activation or complete inhibition of the glutes happens, other muscle groups compensate and get overused. Over time, many problems such as lower back issues, knee pain or ankle sprains may happen.

It works in reverse as well. For example, if you sprain your ankle, and don’t perform correct rehabilitation, you may alter your body movement, such as walking or running gait, your stance, or posture, and that will add to more to the imbalances and glute inhibition and thus losing even more function.

Optimal Posture

For a tennis player, correct posture and optimal alignment are crucial, because they absorb the shocks during running on the court, and help transfer the forces through kinetic chain during your shots.

Optimal posture makes your movement more fluid and efficient with less stress on your joints, you won’t fatigue as fast, and you will have less chance to sustain overuse injuries.

The glutes consist of 3 muscles: gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. They extend the hip and trunk and rotate the hip externally.

For your glutes to perform optimally when moving on the tennis court, all the surrounding muscles need to be functional, strong, and flexible. If your hamstrings, hip flexors, TFL (tensor fascia latae), adductors, and lower back erectors are too tight or weak, then different compensation will happen and possibly cause even further inhibition of your glutes, and therefore more compensation of surrounding muscles. This vicious circle needs to be broken with concentrated glute isolation training, and then gradually introducing movements that are more functional and tennis specific.

Gluteal Inhibition

If you are a student or have a regular work besides playing tennis, you probably sit quite a lot. In a seated position, your torso remains in flexed position relative to the upper leg for extended periods, which can lead to increased tension and shortening of the hip flexor muscles. This will cause an anterior pelvic tilt, which impedes the powerful glute muscles and causes tension in your hamstrings. This fact of tight hip flexors inhibiting the glute muscles is called “reciprocal inhibition” and it is not a good thing even though it sounds cool.

The constant pressure and minimal use of your glutes will cause atrophy and surrounding muscles will compensate during the movements where glutes are called upon but cannot perform. Muscular imbalances and excessive stress on the joints will happen. During athletic performance, the lower back gets a lot of stress and beating because it also compensates for the lacking glutes, overuse injuries are more likely to happen, and performance will decrease tremendously.

This glute inhibition may just “sneak up” on you. One day you start experiencing lower back pains and other injuries and you don’t know why. Don’t wait until that day will come. Start taking a good care of your glutes today, and you will keep them strong and powerful forever.

Test Your Glutes

I simple test is to lie down on your stomach. Bend your left leg in your knee and then squeeze your left glute and raise your left knee off the ground. Hold the position for 60 seconds, without tilting your hips or pushing with your arms to the ground. Switch sides. Was one side harder to do? Or was it almost impossible? If so, the glutes on that side are getting inhibited.

Reconnect Your Glutes

Perform the above exercise contracting the glute for 10 seconds, relax briefly, and contract again. Repeat 10 times, then switch to the other side. Always start with the weaker side, then do the better side and return one more time to the weaker side.

One Legged Bridge

Lie down on your back; bring both heels as close to your glutes as possible, arms on the side of your body. Lift the left leg, straighten it and keep it above the ground. Push the hips up toward the sky by pushing with the right heel to the ground and contracting your right hamstrings and glutes. Hold the top position for 1 second and slowly return to the start position. Repeat 12-20 times for one side, then switch to the other side. If this is too difficult at first, you can do the bridge with both legs on the ground. As you get stronger, advance to one-legged bridge.

Peeing Doggie

Get down on all your four, hands and knees. Keep your back straight and lift your left knee straight to the side as high as possible without tilting the hips. Imagine your hips are like a tabletop where drinks are served. Repeat 15-20 times, then switch sides.

Backward Walking

The gluteus maximus strongly assists during backward walking. If it is weak or inhibited, you may experience lack of coordination or some level of awkwardness.

Single Leg Deadlift

Stand on your right leg, hold the weight or kettlebell in front of you. With a straight back, start lifting the left heel up toward the sky, and let the upper body is lower toward the ground. When you feel a stretch and tension in your right hamstring and glute, reverse the movement, and slowly stand up to starting position. Repeat 12-15 times for each leg. Video here.

Functional Strengthening

When you have done all the isolation exercises and you feel that you have reconnected with your glutes, you can move on to perform squats, lunges, jumps, kettlebell swings, and other functional exercises.

Make sure that you always take a good care of your glutes. Don’t let them disconnect or atrophy. The more sedentary you are besides your tennis and fitness activities, the more careful and dedicated to your glutes you need to be. They will be not just perfectly functional, but also a candy for the eye. Your tennis performance will benefit as well.

And remember, if your hip flexors get too tight, you may enter the vicious circle of reciprocal inhibition. Stretch your hip flexors and quadriceps regularly, and even better perform self-myofascial release.

Books to Read:

1)  Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success (P.S.)

If you want to understand what needs to be done to become a master, and what biology, economics, psychology, culture, genetics, race, and politics have to do with it. It is a VERY good book for every athlete!

2)  Anticancer, A New Way of Life, New Edition

Excellent reading with information and tips on how people living with cancer can fight it and how healthy people can prevent it, talks about nutrition, fitness, mental aspects, and it’s based on studies. Very educational.

3)  Tennis Fitness for the Love of it: A Mindful Approach to Fitness for Injury-free Tennis

Maybe I am a bit biased, but you will find there all good information on stretching, myofascial release, injury prevention, strengthening and performance improvement. The winter months are great for working on your fitness!

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All high-level athletes are pushing their limits to the extreme. For a tennis player, the uneven nature of the sport where one side is used more than the other in addition to training every day for hours, and frequently on hard surfaces, the body gets a lot of beating. If you want to remain healthy, you need to spend a lot of time on recreating balance and health in your body. I dare to say that you need almost more time than on playing tennis, especially as you are getting older. You need to stretch after each practice (try this great stretching routine), pay good attention to your body, and listen to its subtle signs signaling you what is happening. You need to be aware of your posture, balance, flexibility, and “evenness” of your both sides, where the right and left side of your body should be equally strong and flexible.

The pro tennis players spend enormous amounts of time on rejuvenating their bodies with massage, physical therapy, and myofascial release therapy. You may not have the monetary means to do that on a daily basis, but you still need to take equally good care of your body in the same way as the professional tennis player does. The self-myofascial release techniques come to your help and they will do almost as good job as a massage, with the difference being that you have to be active.

Myofascial Release Technique

Myofascial release is a technique where you “massage” and stretch the fascia, so it will return to its original soft and subtle texture. Fascia is a specialized, tough layer of connective tissue that surrounds muscles, bones, and joints and gives support and protection to the body from head to toe. Fascia is extremely strong and usually transmits mechanical tension generated by muscle activity and external forces. When there is a chronic tension, the fascia hardens, thickens, and restricts the free muscle movement and that leads to even more dysfunctions. Micro-tears of the tendons can develop.

Trigger Points

Muscular injuries and trauma, improper body mechanics or structural imbalances, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, stress, or overtraining can cause development of trigger points, which are small, extremely painful spots in your muscles. If you push on these spots, you will feel agonizing pain and will want to pull away. Trigger points inhibit proper function of the muscle fibers and therefore create more problems. Generally, once the trigger point exists, it does not want to relax on its own and you have to help to release it. It is difficult to diagnose and treat trigger points, as they often refer pain to other parts of the body. Therefore, it is very important for you to be in touch with your body by always looking for trigger points and releasing them before they can create more problems in the future.

The following myofascial routine will help you to find and release the annoying trigger points. Perform the routine regularly and you will learn how to be smooth in getting into the positions on the ball, how much pressure you need to apply, and where are the spots that you need to address. The more intense your training is, the more frequently you need to perform the myofascial release routine.

Myofascial Release Tools

You can use the traditional foam roller for your myofascial release, but I think you will outgrow it fast, and the release will not be deep enough. I have two favorite tools for myofascial release: 1) the 6-inch foam ball, which has been my absolute favorite until the rumble roller came out, 2) 31 inches long Rumble Roller, which is very firm and penetrating. Each tool serves different purpose, so I do recommend owning both. The foam ball is easily portable and you can have it in your tennis bag or purse all the time. The rumble roller is quite big, not as portable, but it reaches spots in your body just as human fingers would. I get my foam ball on powersystems.com and the rumble roller on amazon.com. Powersystems offer free shipping until October 21, with the code C55005, and rumble roller has a free shipping always.

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Self-myofascial Release Routine

Always give attention to your entire body. However, if you find some specific areas that are more out of balance or more painful, spend extra time on those. The painful trigger points in your body will move around, and you need to pay attention and correct the small problems before they create more serious issues and injuries.

1. Quadriceps. Start your routine with lying on your stomach and rolling your quadriceps. Observe if the right and left side feel different. Make sure to roll the front, inner and outer parts of the quadriceps. Then pull one leg to the side…

2. Adductors. Place the ball on the inner thigh of the away leg. Roll the entire way from the knee toward your groin. Make sure to reach both front and backside of your adductors. When done, transition to the hip flexors, rolling your ball high up into the hip area…

3. Hip flexors. Make sure to relax and let the ball sink deep into the hip area. Pay attention to make both sides even. Then roll over to the side…

4. IT Band, or illiotibial band. Spend a good amount of time on the entire length of the IT band, addressing also the front and backside. Then roll the ball high up on your hip…

5. TFL, or tensor fasciae latae. TFL is very thick and you need to work it deeply. Roll on the ball with both straight and bent leg. Pay attention if both sides feel the same. Then roll over on your back…

6. Piriformis and gluteus. If you neglect it, you can experience nagging lower back problems or “sciatica” issues. Take your time to find all the trigger points. Then slide the ball under your hamstrings…

7. Hamstrings. They are more difficult to roll, because it is hard to put full body weight on the ball, especially if you have limited flexibility. Try to get as much of your body weight on the ball as possible. Then move the ball to the bottom of your spine…

8. Spine feels very good to roll on. Roll from the bottom up toward your neck and down again. Repeat a few times and feel how rejuvenated your spine will become. Move the ball to the upper back area…

9. Upper back. Initially, rest on the ball and relax. Let your shoulders and arms sink. Then roll around the entire upper back area and look for tightness, especially in your dominant side. When done, roll over on your stomach with the ball under your chest…

10. Chest. Roll the entire chest area from the sternum, around the clavicle, and outward to your arm. Continue on your biceps. Then get up on your knees with the ball under your lower leg…

11. Lower leg muscles. It feels very good to massage the outside part of the lower leg—an area seldom addressed. Roll from the ankle toward your knee and back. Then turn around to move on the calves…

12. Calves. They are hard to roll on the ball, because they need deeper penetration. Start on the ball first, and then use your opposite knee to reach deeper.

The routine takes 20 to 40 minutes to finish, depending on how long you stay on different areas. You will find myofascial release quite painful, initially. As you muscles get healthier and more functional, you will enjoy the myofascial work much more, because it won’t hurt as much. Eventually, you reach the point that you enjoy doing myofascial release as much as you enjoy a good massage.

Keep learning how to treat yourself, especially if you have issues with chronic injuries. Finding and massaging away the trigger points with the myofascial release regularly will prolong your athletic career, increase the functionality of your muscles, and decrease the injuries that you suffer. Keep rolling and play injury-free tennis for the rest of your life. Your performance and tennis game will improve dramatically, too!

Another good exercise to prevent future injuries is to rebalance your hips with this simple exercise described in the past article here. Also, remember to take a good care of your core and keep it strong with these variations of planks.

If you like to have all the fitness tips close to you at all times, you can find a paper or Kindle book on Amazon.com. It is small enough to fit your tennis bag and you can work on your health any time.

Work on your tennis fitness and play great tennis!

Injuries are not fun. They can sideline you from training for long time. The two kinds of injuries are acute and overuse injuries. Acute injuries happen when you fall, twist, or break something, or somebody or something hits you. Acute injuries are easy to notice, because they hurt, swell, or bleed, and you need an immediate medical attention. The other type of injuries is an overuse injury, sometimes called stress injury. They develop over time with many traumas and they “sneak” on you. The overuse injuries can happen from doing too much, too soon, to fast, too hard, too intense, or too “something” that your body is not conditioned for. You start feeling a little irritation or pain that you tend to ignore with words “no pain, no gain” or “it’s part of the process,” and eventually you may get some swelling, inflammation or daily pains and aches.

The best approach to prevent overuse injuries is by being physically fit, evenly flexible and strong in both left and right side of your body, strong in your core, and having good balance. You need to train smart with proper periodization, eat healthy nutrition, and eliminate as much stress as possible. Additionally, you need to use good quality equipment and shoes. That is a lot to think about, especially if you also work, have family and other obligation.

Where do you start? The core and hips are the most important part of your athletic body. You use your core and hips in any athletic movement to transfer the forces between the lower and upper body. Any imbalances in your core or hips will cause uneven forces on other muscle groups and joints, and over time create overuse injuries. Therefore, a good start in your physical well-being and injury-free training is to look at your hips. You want to keep the hips balanced and equally strong and flexible on both sides.

The lopsided nature of tennis and our lifestyle creates small imbalances in our hips that are hard to spot, unless you search for them. The open-stance forehand, close-stance backhand, serving (one side only), driving your car (using your right leg most of the time), and many more daily activities that we do, support the developing imbalances. The most common problem in your hips is rotational misalignment — one hip is rotated forward, the other backward. This very common condition can create many other symptoms, such as piriformis syndrome (often mistaken for “sciatica”), pain in the patella (front of the knee), plantar fasciitis (pain on the bottom of foot/heel), excessive foot pronation, groin strain, IT band syndrome, and hamstring strain.

How do you know if your pelvis is misaligned? Compare your left and right side and see if it is harder to balance on one side, if one side is weaker, more painful, tighter, or stiffer. If any of this is true, your pelvis may be rotated. Another test is to lie on your back on the floor, bring your knees to your chest, and then slowly stretch them straight. Have a friend observe if you have one leg longer than then the other leg. In about 80-85% of the right-handed tennis players, if there is a pelvic rotation, the right leg is longer than the left leg. While you are on the floor on your back with straight legs, have your friend check if your hipbones are level. Often, the right hipbone will appear lower than the left one. Similar check can be performed from the back, when you lie on your stomach and your friend checks the level of your hipbones. Most often, the right hipbone appears to be higher than the left one, if the pelvis is rotated.

This rotation of your hips can happen during the aggressive movements on the tennis court or in the intense training sessions, where the many muscles of the hips are pulling in different directions. If you have imbalances in strength or flexibility in these muscle groups, then the forces are even more uneven. If you find the hip misalignment subject interesting, you can find more in Wolf Schamberger’s book “The Malalignment Syndrome: Implications for Medicine and Sports.”

Isometric exercise to self-correct your hip misalignment

1) Lie on your back with straight legs.

2) Lift your right leg, bend your knee, and hook your hands behind your knee.

3) Push your right leg away from your chest into your hands that are resisting the pull. Use about 30% of your power and hold the position for 6 seconds, then put your right leg down on the floor.

4) Lift your left leg, bend your knee, and place your hands on the top of your left thigh.

5) Pull your left knee at 30% of your power toward your chest and against your hands. Hold for 6 seconds, then switch sides again.

6) Repeat 6 times on each side.

If your pelvis has been rotated for long time and the muscles are very shortened, this self-correction exercise may not help you. You should consult with a sport physical therapist or other skilled specialist. If your condition is light, you will benefit from this quick isometric exercise. Learn how to recognize the imbalances early, so you can help yourself on your own, without getting too much pain and subsequent need of professional help.

Remember that you must work on strengthening your core regularly to keep it fit and strong. After each training or tennis session, perform a thorough stretching routine. If your body has more aches and imbalances, you need to set some time aside for a good self-myofascial release routine to get rid of the pesky painful trigger points.

If you find this article helpful for your athletic performance, remember that you have friends that may be in pain too… Help your friends by sharing this article with them. Lets hope that they won’t thank you by beating you on the tennis court next time because they feel so great.

New Product on Mental Toughness

Have you lost matches that you clearly should win, or you thought you would win? What happened? What is happening to Rafa’s mental toughness now when he lost a number of times to players he is not used to losing? The mental game is so important, yet we don’t pay enough attention to it. I’ve had a good conversation with the mental game expert David Breslow. David has 25 years experience in the tennis business, 13 as a competitive player, Director of Mental Toughness at the USTA National Tennis Center (site of the U.S. Open) Ivan Lendl’s Grand Slam Tennis, National Junior Reebok Training Center and Teaching Professional. In addition, for the last 20 years, he has been a Mental Game Performance Coach helping tennis players of all levels around the world and teaches them how to think, feel and do things better when they play.

David’s has developed many products, with his newest one  called, “Match-Tough: Practice Great and Play Even Better!” It directly answers the most often asked question: “How do I take my practice game into competition?” What separates David from the majority are his insights and conversation. Without any psychological rhetoric or the need for the usual quick-fix tips (“be confident, positive and make sure your body language is strong”), David takes you on an active journey that includes exercises after each module that will blow you away. It’s incredible how these simple, yet transforming insights can help you become clearer, more confident and see yourself and the game through new eyes—and these changes begin immediately in module 1.

The “Match Tough” product is an online audio/video slide presentation (about 2.5 hours) in 4 timely delivered modules that will change your view of the mental game forever. It includes a 30+ page study guide and 7 other bonuses to add to your learning. The price is affordable. If you are interested in improving your competitive toughness, grab your “Match Touch” here.  Get strong, get flexible, get tough!

Other good articles to consider reading if you want to improve your tennis fitness:

Kettlebell training for tennis players – basic kettlebell swing (great for cardio, core and leg strength)

Kettlebell workout video for inspiration (explosive power is very important for tennis players)

Stiff-legged deadlift for strong hamstrings (very important for tennis players, as our hamstrings are often weaker than the quadriceps, causing injuries, tightness and slowness on the court)

Do you experience a tight neck and shoulders often and do you get tension headaches? Today’s lifestyle of is “everything forward.” You sit at the desk with your shoulders, arms and head positioned forward, and with your lower and upper back rounded. The posture is similar while you drive your car: your shoulders, head, and arms forward, with rounded back. Then you come home and relax, slouching in the sofa, watching TV with your head and shoulders forward… The majority of your activities is “forward” and only very few activities, if any, put your body in its natural position with the sway lower back, the head positioned over the shoulders and the shoulders retracted back.

Our bodies are optimally functional when the posture is erect, with a slightly arched back, a curvature in the neck and a head positioned directly over the shoulders. The shoulders are aligned over the hips, which are directly above the knees, and they are directly above the ankles. This is the ideal that we always want to strive for, or the joints will experience additional and unnecessary stress during your athletic endeavors.

After many years of the “forward lifestyle,” our shoulders turn forward permanently, where the chest muscles are shortened and the upper back muscles are weak. Then when you play tennis and hit thousands of forehands, backhands, volleys and serves during your practice, the movement of the arm originates in the shoulder for each stroke. And because your shoulders are positioned more forward than they should be, you will experience stress on the shoulder joint every time you hit the ball and over time, you can develop nagging pains and overuse injuries. Taking care of your imbalances now will help you avoid future pain and it will greatly lengthen your tennis career.

The next three exercises — elbow curls, arm circles and cats and dogs — are simple to do, you can do them as often as you want and anywhere. They will re-establish the proper position of your shoulders and back, and make your spine more flexible and supple.

Elbow Curls

The elbow curls exercise doesn’t take much time and no equipment is needed. It strengthens, activates, and balances the shoulder and upper back muscles that are involved with the shoulders’ ball-and-socket proper function. Perform it regularly, even if you don’t have any problems. Keeping your shoulders functional and balanced will prevent future injuries.

• Stand by the wall, with your feet parallel and hip-apart and your ankles, knees, hips and shoulders aligned over each other.
• Keep your heels, glutes, upper back, and head touching the wall.
• Curl your fingers into your palm and put the knuckles on your temples with thumbs pointing down, and push your elbows back until they touch the wall.
• From this starting position, slowly bring your elbows forward until they touch in front of your chest, while keeping your knuckles on your temples. The knuckles will want to move around. Make sure that they stay in place after each repetition.
• Keep your head touching the wall at all times.
• Perform 50 repetitions. It can be difficult in the beginning, but it will get easier as your shoulder joints get more functional.
• Do not hurry with the movement. Breathe deeply while focusing on the quality, and correct form for each repetition. Keep in mind that you are rebalancing your shoulders and teaching them to function properly.

Arm Circles

This simple arm circles exercise is very efficient for reestablishing proper function of the shoulder joint. If you have severe dysfunctions, you will find the exercise quite tough, when done correctly. It will strengthen the muscles of the upper back that are often weak and tight because of the constant pull of the shortened chest muscles.

Stand straight with your head up and feet hip-width apart. Lift your arms to the sides of your body, parallel with the floor. Face your palms down and thumbs pointing forward. Squeeze the shoulder blades together. While keeping your shoulders leveled at all times, perform 6-inch circles forward in the direction of the thumbs and feel every muscle in your shoulders and upper back. After 30 circles, face your palms up and perform another 30 circles backward, in the direction of your thumbs. You may feel more tightness, soreness, and clicking sounds in your dominant arm. Perform the arm circles regularly until both arms feel even and your shoulders retract back.

Cats and Dogs

Your goal should be to adjust your posture to stay more straight and “backward” regularly. This simple cats-and-dogs exercise works your spine, hips, neck and shoulders in coordinated flexion and extension, and loosens up the stiff backs, necks, and shoulders. Depending on your lifestyle—how much you sit—you may need to do this exercise several times per day.

• Get down on your hands and knees, keep your weight evenly distributed, and align your hands, shoulders, hips, knees and feet in one line.
• Visualize a happy doggie: take a deep breath and lift your tail (hips) and your head high up, while arching your lower back as much as you can.
• Now visualize a smooth cat: breathe out and round your back as much as you can while dropping your hips and head low. The middle of your back should be at its highest point, creating a pleasant stretch across all your back.
• Keep repeating the arching and rounding movement in a smooth continuous motion for 20 repetitions while breathing deeply. It will make you feel limber and energized. On the tennis court, a flexible spine will allow for better upper body rotation and your shots will be more powerful. Do cats-and-dogs regularly, and watch your tennis game improve.

In life, keeping your shoulder healthy will improve your posture and prevent tension headaches and other problems. On the tennis court, keeping your shoulders functional will allow you to strike your shots more powerfully. Functional shoulders reduce the risk of injury and you will be able to train hard and improve your tennis game at steady pace. Include the elbow curls, arm circles and cats-and-dogs into your fitness routine, and you will feel great!

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Did you like the exercises? Similar and more advice is available in the e-books in the Tennis Fitness Love Store.

In today’s tennis game the player’s fitness and conditioning are more and more important. For the player who strives for improvement, the off-court tennis fitness training should be as crucial as the tennis play itself, with the focus on strength, explosive power, balance, agility, coordination, endurance, and injury prevention. In tennis, the key element is great movement—if you move well, you get to the ball fast and on balance and your shots are going to be more powerful.

Strong and powerful legs are not just beautiful but also extremely useful in tennis. Bending your knees will achieve a low base, giving you better balance and better transfer of forces from the ground, through the kinetic chain and upward to your arm, racket and to the ball. As a result, your shots will be more powerful. However, to bend your legs deeply in each shot is highly energy demanding. The tennis players with better fitness and stronger legs will have an advantage.

Having a strong core is extremely important in tennis. It gives stability to your hips and shoulders, which are essential for your stroke production, and it permits a smooth transfer of power from the core to the limbs with perfect balance, strength, and flexibility. A strong core allows your limbs to move more efficiently and independently from each other, and as a result, you will run faster and still execute your shots with precision and power.

In this e-book you will learn how to train your legs, core and shoulder stabilizers efficiently. You don’t need any equipment, and all exercises can be done outdoors – on the tennis court or in the park. A few short routines are outlined as well, you can perform them after your tennis practice. For maximum performance, you should be stretching regularly and perform myofascial release with a foam ball for future injury prevention.

Content

1. Triangle Lift, aka Windmill
2. Walking Lunges
3. Jumping Lunges
4. Functional Crossover Lunges
5. Jump Squats
6. Jump Squats with Open Legs
7. One-leg Squat: The Master Exercise
8. Glute Bridge
9. Hip Flexor Strengthening
10. Burpee: The Ultimate Conditioning Exercise
11. Plank with Knee-To-Elbow Touch
12. Plank with Arm and Leg Lifts
13. Plank with Hip Twists
14. Side Plank with Leg Lifts
15. Upper Back Row with Resistance Band
16. Shoulder External Rotation with Resistance Band
17. Mini-Workout: Legs, Core, and Shoulders
18. Mini-Workout: Legs, Core, and Agility
19. Mini-Workout: Core and Upper Body Stabilizers

Price: $2.99

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Trigger points are small, extremely painful spots in your muscles. If you push on these spots, you will feel agonizing pain and will want to pull away. Trigger points can develop as a result of muscular injuries or trauma, improper body mechanics or structural imbalances, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, stress, over-training, and more. Trigger points inhibit proper function of the muscle fibers and therefore create more problems. Generally, once the trigger point is created, it does not want to relax on its own and it needs to be helped.

Trigger points can exist in the muscle bellies or tendons that attach to the bone. Often trigger points create a referred pain— pain that is somewhere else than the trigger point itself. For example, you push on a trigger point in your hip and you might feel pain in your knee. The level of pain depends on the level of irritability of the trigger point. Sometimes a trigger point in the tiniest muscle can cause the most extreme pain. Even tension headaches, migraines or stiff neck can be expression of referred pain. A lot of chronic injuries are caused by trigger points. It is very difficult to diagnose and treat trigger points, as they often refer pain to other parts of the body. Therefore, it is very important for you to be in touch with your body by always looking for trigger points and releasing them before they can create more problems in the future.

Myofascial release will help to get rid of the pesky trigger points. Muscles (myo) and organs in the body are connected or separated by a band of a connective tissue that is called fascia. Fascia is a specialized, tough layer of connective tissue that surrounds muscles, bones and joints and gives support and protection to the body from head to toe. Fascia is extremely strong and usually transmits mechanical tension generated by muscle activity and external forces. When there is a chronic tension, the fascia hardens, thickens, and restricts the free muscle movement and that leads to even more dysfunctions. Micro-tears of the tendons can develop. Myofascial release is a technique where you “massage” and stretch the fascia, so it will return to its original soft and subtle texture. As a result, the stress on the surrounding tissues will decrease and your injury will go away. You can seek a professional who specializes in myofascial release or you can use this technique on yourself with help of a foam ball.

This myofascial release booklet will teach you how to help yourself, especially if you have issues with chronic injuries. Finding and massaging away the trigger points, and performing myofascial release regularly will prolong your athletic career, increase the functionality of your muscles and decrease the injuries that you suffer. Your performance and tennis game will improve dramatically.

Content

1. Trigger Points and Chronic Pain
2. Foot Myofascial Release for Plantar Fasciitis
3. Lower Leg Myofascial Release for Shin Splints
4. Calf Myofascial Release
5. Quadriceps Myofascial Release for Knee Pain
6. Hip Flexor Myofascial Release for Lower Back Pain
7. TFL Muscle Myofascial Release for Hip Pain
8. IT Band Myofascial Release for Knee Pain
9. Piriformis Myofascial Release for Sciatica Pain
10. Hamstrings Myofascial Release for Lower Back Pain
11. Upper Back Myofascial Release for Neck Pain
12. Chest Myofascial Release for Shoulder Pain
13. Myofascial Release Recovery Routine

Price: $2.99

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Flexibility training is possibly the least popular and the most underrated element of tennis fitness training. Even though you might have heard a lot of contradicting opinions about the importance of stretching in the injury prevention, it is obvious that the flexibility of the muscles and joints plays an important roll in any athletic movement. The muscles that are not tight can move more efficiently and in a bigger range of motion resulting in better performance and less injuries, because the limb can move further before an injury would occur. A flexible athlete is a supple athlete. With better flexibility your movement and agility on the court will improve. Another benefit of flexibility training is that the stretched muscles get more relaxed, and with relaxed muscles, it is easier to learn new skills. Your body awareness will increase and that itself will help with your movement and performance.

Content

1. Static stretching routine
2. Calf stretch
3. Glute stretch (pigeon)
4. Hamstring and hip stretch
5. Quadriceps stretch
6. Seated groin stretch
7. External hip stretch
8. Supine groin stretch
9. Hip crossover stretch
10. Straight legged hip stretch
11. Spinal twist
12. Rotator cuff stretch
13. Backbend: the total stretch
14. Dynamic warm-up

Price: $2.99

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This is The One-And-Only tool that EVERY tennis player HAS TO own.

It will get you out of trouble when pains and overuse injuries could take over.

Trigger points are small, extremely painful spots in your muscles. If you push on such spot, you feel agonizing pain and you want to pull away. Trigger points can develop as a result of muscular injuries or trauma, improper body mechanics or structural imbalances, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, stress, overtraining, and more. Trigger points inhibit proper function of the muscle fibers and therefore create more problems. Generally, once the trigger point is created, it doesn’t want to relax on its own and it needs to be helped. Trigger points can exist in the muscle bellies or tendons that attach to the bone. Often trigger points create a referred pain (pain that is somewhere else than the trigger point itself). For example you push on a trigger point in your hip and you might feel pain in your knee.

This 6 inch, high density foam ball will assist you in a self-massage of your overused muscles. The deep pressure will help the muscles to relax, and the special techniques of self-myofascial release will get rid of the adhesions and scar tissue in the muscles. Your flexibility, function and tennis performance will improve, while the risks of overuse injuries will decrease.

Use the ball daily, preferably after your tennis practice. In the beginning, it will be a painful experience, but the more you use it, the better you will feel and the less amount of time you will need to spend with the ball.

Price: $21.95

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Read more Articles on myofascial release.

David Ranney (www.maxtennis.com) is the expert on playing the mental game of tennis. He has been studying the mental game for over 25 years. I have recently met David and participated in his mental seminars (read about his free offer here) and he has a lot of great information and knowledge to offer. If you live in California, Washington or Oregon, you should check out what David has to offer. See some of his irresistible offers and contact him for more information. David wrote a book called “Tennis: Play the Mental Game” , a great practical guide how to improve your mental fitness (and thus your tennis game).

Just as much as I work on applying David’s ideas into my tennis game, David is applying the fitness and health advice outlined in my “Tennis Fitness for the Love of it” book to his  body… (I trust he does!!! ) He has kindly reviewed my book and shared the following with his students and readers.

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Tennis Mini Lessons by David Ranney

From my way of thinking, there are 4 major areas that you need to be proficient in to play tennis well. They are, in no particular order.

1. Physical Stroke Production
2. Physical Fitness
3. Mental Fitness
4. Strategy

As you know, I deal with your Mental Fitness and now you can get your physical fitness in order.

When I was in California in November, I met an outstanding tennis fitness guru. Her name is Suzanna McGee. She has just recently written a book on tennis fitness that I believe all of you should have, read, and then do.

The name of her book is:

“Tennis Fitness for the Love of it”
A Mindful Approach to Fitness for Injury-free Tennis

This 178 page book with over 80 photographs will teach you how to listen to your body and how to understand what your body is telling you. Take care of the imbalances that have been created by the uneven nature of tennis and your lifestyle, and correct them before they will cause a more serious overuse injury. The book will teach you the simple techniques how to take care of your body, so you can play injury-free tennis for the rest of your life.

You can order her book by going to this web site. http://www.tennisfitnesslove.com/store/

Suzanna has generously offered to give you a 20% discount not only on her book but on any of “Her Stuff!” Just use the Discount Code: DAVID20OFF

Check out her “Static Stretching For Injury Prevention” e-Book (39 pages) for only only $2.99. You can use the Discount code: DAVID20OFF for this also.

This discount will only be available for the month of February so check out Suzanna’s stuff and order it now. You won’t be sorry.

Her web site: http://www.tennisfitnesslove.com/ is the best site to discover how to improve your tennis fitness to become a better tennis player and how to play injury free for the rest of your life.

The tennis fitness articles on her web site are not just an instruction of different exercises. They are educational. They are meant to help you to develop an awareness of your body and mind. You will master how to hear what your body is telling you, and as a result you will be able to prevent injuries before they even happen. You will be able to improve what your body needs the most at the moment. Start reading with an open mind, start learning and become a master of your tennis fitness.

Want to learn more about Suzanna? Read on.

Suzanna McGee

As an experienced athletic trainer, fitness expert, tennis teacher and competitive tennis player, Suzanna possesses the tremendous ability to inspire you with her teaching and writings to be the best that you can be. Her passion for writing and educating people has resulted in a book on tennis fitness, which is currently being published. Suzanna speaks six languages and has two master’s degrees in computer science.

Suzanna has been an athlete since age of eleven. She has been a skier for twenty years in Czechoslovakia and Sweden, and a drug-free bodybuilder for seven years, earning the title Ms. Natural Olympia. Currently she has been fully committed and passionate about tennis, trying to find the “magic potion” for ageless competitive tennis through tennis fitness.

Suzanna’s special training style that combines many different techniques of training, healing, and injury prevention, brings a lot of success and great results to anybody who learns how to master it. Suzanna is residing in Venice Beach, California.

Now that you know all about Suzanna, go here http://www.tennisfitnesslove.com/store/ and buy her book. Be sure to use the Discount Code: DAVID20OFF. You won’t be sorry and you will be doing your body a big favor.