Tennis

Go Hard Or Go Home

 

In the times of your workout, don’t give it half the effort you know you can exert. Give it your absolute best shot each and every time. With your continuous activity, your body will surely be able to adapt to the push. Don’t let your heart rate drop; keep it rising at a steady, but effective pace. There is a fine line between pushing your limits and risking yourself, so don’t let the latter happen. If you’re working at a pace you’re already accustomed to, it must mean that you are ready for something new and more. Frequently challenge yourself with new and different ways to improve, for there’s always plenty more room for that. Don’t let yourself sit in one place. Or rather, stick to a specific routine for too long. By spicing things up, your body will have an easier time facing new challenges you might face on the court, or off.

Fore(hand) Play

Ever wonder how you can improve your forehand hits? Well, I’m here to tell you today!

For the most part, your forehand hits rely heavily on the sort of grip that you use. However, by heading into the ball’s direction, with your weight shifted into the spot in which you hit the ball, you extinguish your body rotation. Thus, your forehand will not only look better, but it’ll also improve in feeling, in spite of whatever stroke you do. Focus, and pull your arm back for a longer wind-up, thus giving you more time to accelerate your racket into a better speed and forehand. Also, what about incorporating a topsin to your forehand? This will make the ball dip as it lowers back to the ground, allowing you to get a harder hit.

Finally and most especially, have confidence! Be strong with your hits, and focus. Keep your eyes on that ball!

Reflect and Prepare for Life’s Next Adventure

Congratulations! At Ryan Krane, Inc. we believe that hard work deserves praise. Take a few seconds right now to reflect back on your work from 2010. With the arrival of the New Year, we need to take a step back from ourselves to acknowledge and truly appreciate our own work. What did you accomplish?

Did you give your all during training?

Spend valuable time with your family?

Meet a new friend?

Reach a new milestone in your business?

Even if the result of one adventure didn’t end as expected, learn to appreciate the journey. Stay motivated to reach your goals—or completely start new goals this year. Never forget that as humans, we’re able to accomplish literally anything we put our minds to. As famed Roman poet Horace used to say, CARPE DIEM! Take advantage of 2011 and do your best!

Exercises to Improve your Tennis Serve

When watching the likes of Roddick and Murray performing their monstrously powerful serves during big Tennis tournaments, you might assume that it is pure brute force that fuels their 150mph + efforts. While a degree of strength and muscularity is required to produce the sufficient forced required to propel the ball at such meteoric speeds, technique and power are king when it comes to hitting aces set after set. Tecnique is something that can only be perfected with years of practice on the court but power is an attribute you can work on in the weights room.

You might think that differentiating ‘speed’ and ‘power’ is splitting hairs but there are distinct differences between the two. While strength refers to the amount of weight you can move, power is a measure of how fast you can move it. Being able to bench press 300 pounds is a great achievement, but if you can’t do it explosively, i.e. with power (speed) then it is not relevant for any sports field.

Thus developing power is all about performing your reps quickly, while still maintaining good form. It’s no good twisting your spine in an attempt to haul a personal best as quickly as possible because a slipped disc will put your Tennis career on the rocks. Here are some great exercises that will develop your explosive power and possibly add a few mph to your serve:

Power Clean:

Starting from a standing position, holding a barbell so it hangs in front of you, bend at the knees and drive the bar upwards using your entire body. Twist your hands around and ‘catch’ the bar so your arms are pressed against your chest and the bar rests across your clavicles (upper chest).

Clean and Press:

The first phase of this move is very similar to a clean and press but it finishes with an over head press. Once the bar is resting on the upper chest, explode up with the legs and press the bar straight up above your head. Lower and repeat

Jump Squat:

The standard squat is a great exercise for adding size and strength to the lower body, but their lesser know cousin, the jump squat is much more adept at developing explosive power. Rest a barbell across the trapezius and squat down as if performing a regular version of the exercise, rather than simply standing up, jump as high as possible, landing with bent knees in preparation for the next rep

Plank:

While not strictly a power exercise, the plank address core stability which is crucial in transferring power from the lower to the upper body.

Increasing power is not rocket science and doesn’t require a fancy program full of elaborate exercises. Sticking to the basics will allow you to maintain focus and strive to improve each week. Here is a sample routine that could be used to incorporate these moves:

Powerclean – 5×5

Clean and Press – 5×5

Jump Squat – 3×8

Plank – 2x 30 secs

(Repeat once )

Joe is a copywriter working for a company that lease cars.He is also a part time gym instructor specializing in sports specific training.

Fall Season, Windy Season for Tennis

Tennis and Weight Loss

The following is a guest blog post from Chris @ howtoloseweighthealthy.com:

Tennis can be a lot of fun and can keep a player physically fit. Additionally, tennis can help you lose weight. Before getting into the details on how playing tennis can help you lose weight let us first discuss when a person gains or loses weight.

When we eat, the calories from food are being converted to energy so the body can perform its physiologic functions as well as other activities that are part of daily living. However, if we take in too much calories and at the same time live a sedentary lifestyle, the calories are converted to reserved energy (also known as body fat) and deposited in the fatty tissues for future use. This body fat greatly contributes to the ability of a person to gain weight and also looks not as aesthetically pleasing. However, when physical activities that require effort are performed, the body will be working harder to convert these body fats to energy so the person can efficiently perform the tasks, thus a person loses weight when working out.

According to fitness experts, an effective workout activity doesn’t only burn calories but it is also something that is enjoyable as well. Come to think of it, a workout will be considered a chore if a person finds it boring and unchallenging, which is the reason why more and more people drop out from gym or fitness classes. On the other hand, a fitness activity that interests a person is considered recreational thus people are able to burn more calories because they keep on coming back. That’s the reason why fitness experts recommend fun activities for weight loss like dancing, yoga, and sports.

Tennis is a great calorie-attacking sport that allows a person to burn 326 calories/hr for doubles and 469 calories/hr for singles. This sport burns a good amount of calories because it requires a lot running, jumping, skipping, hopping, tossing, and hitting. Since this sport requires both the upper and lower body to work, it’s one of the best sports that is recommended if you want to shed off those excess pounds at an accelerated rate.

Playing tennis also contributes in creating lean and toned muscles because it requires both strength in hitting the ball and agility as the player runs and jumps. Additionally, since muscles burn calories faster than fats, tennis allows the player to lose weight faster than going through workout machines.

Tennis is also a great aerobic exercise. This means that when a person plays tennis, the oxygen system is improved and the heart gets some exercise as it pumps faster in a short period of time. Also, according to the principles of indirect calorimetry, oxygen plays a major role in burning calories, so you lose weight as your oxygen level improves.

Because of all these reasons, playing tennis is like working out on several exercise machines all at once. Thanks to tennis, Anna Kournikova, Maria Sharapova, and Maria Kirilenko look so stunningly sexy and James Blake, Andre Agassi, and Rafael Nadal have lean and well-toned abs.

Author bio: Chris maintains a weight loss blog where he explains how to lose weight using natural methods and techniques. Sports and especially tennis are some of the best ways to lose weight fast and enjoy it at the same time.

Redefine Your Limits: Start Preparing for the 2011 Tennis Season Today

Jump-Start Your Slow-Start Matches

Fighting back after a slow-start is never where you want to find yourself in a match. A new client recently expressed this very concern: “I never start my matches in a groove. I’m slow on my feet, missing my first serves, hitting my groundstrokes long and my overheads into the net. It’s only once I’m down a few games that my groove kicks in, and I try to fight my way back, but by then it’s sometimes too late, or I exhaust myself in the process.”

Few can shrug off a slow-start like Federer did against Falla earlier this year. More often than not, a low energy start will lead to a low energy finish. The more you jump-start your slow-start matches through mental and physical preparation, the better chance you have to play at your peak level. Win or lose, that’s all you can hope for. Every match is an opportunity for you to play better than you have ever played before, starting with the very first point. …

Let’s face it: How are you going to play the best match of your life without being prepared?

How to prepare yourself…

-Get enough rest (See my article “Sleep More, Do More”)

-Eat a proper pre-match meal (See my article “Give Your Body What It Wants: Competition Nutrition”)

-Make sure your equipment is in order

-Arrive early

-Warm up (ideally with enough time to cool-down before the match)

-If you have time, change into fresh attire for the match

-Mental match preparating (focus on the positive feeling of knowing you are going to play your best, starting with the first point, because you know you have prepared … you should feel refreshed, energized, and light on your feet before walking onto the court and meeting your opponent …)

-Study your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and develop a game plan

-Be conscious of repeating your most common unforced errors

-Remember to stay light on your feet (See my article “Top Priority Footwork”)

-Remember the goal is to play at your peak level, if not exceed it (every point should be fought for, every hit should be deliberate and focused… In short, be true to your game, your limitations, do what you know works, and start every match with confidence. With a bit of luck, the scoreboard will start to reflect all your hard work …)

How to Calculate Your Average Workout Water Loss

You know you’re supposed to stay hydrated, but do you know how to calculate your average workout water loss? Every time you hit the gym, your body loses water. Since your body is 65 percent water, being dehydrated by as little as 2 or 3 percent can decrease performance by as much as 10 percent. Depending on your diet, hydration habits, and the intensity of your workout routine, you are more or less prone to sweat out an unhealthy percentage of water…

Now, you might be saying to yourself: “But what’s wrong with sweating a lot? I thought I was sweating off the pounds!”

It’s a common and dangerous myth that dripping sweat will drop the pounds. In fact, sweating too much can be counter productive. When you work-up a dripping sweat, your body starts to lose heat. Millions of sweat glands lying under your skin go into overdrive, consuming metabolic energy in order to secrete all the sweat. Your total energy, in effect, gets drained; and, in effect, energy is drained from your muscles… The very muscles you are trying to strengthen! 

Here’s how to calculate your workout water loss, so you know if you’re staying safely hydrated:

1. Weigh yourself before working out (For example, we’ll use a nice, round number: 200 pounds)
2. Weigh yourself immediately after working out (For example, 195 pounds)
3. Subtract the post-workout weight from the pre-workout weight (5 pounds lost)
4. Divide the pounds lost by the pre-workout weight (5/200 = .025, or 2.5% weight loss)
5. Lastly, multiply the pounds lost by 15.3, or the number of fluid ounces lost from the body for every pound lost during workout (5 pounds x 15.3 fluid ounces = 76.5 fluid ounces lost)

So, what do all these numbers mean? They mean if you weighed 200 pounds pre-workout and 195 pounds post-workout, you would have lost 2.5 percent of your body weight, and 76.5 fluid ounces of water. You might feel good about losing 5 pounds, but even at 2.5 percent body weight loss, your performance would have already degraded by a decrease in thermoregulation and a steady increase in thirst.

Negative effects on your workout performance only build alongside the percentage of weight loss. At 4 percent, your energy is now limited by 25 to 40 percent. At 5 percent weight loss,headaches are common, as well as a feeling of weakness, incoherence, fatigue, and general irritability. At 6 percent, you would feel especially weak, nauseous, and suffer from a dangerous loss of thermoregulation. Finally, at 7 percent and above, you would be in incredibly dangerous territory. Someone weighing 200 pounds would have to drop 14 pounds during a single workout in order to lose 7 percent of their body weight, which amounts to 214 fluid ounces of water, or over 26 glasses of water (assuming you drink 8 ounce glasses)! Obviously this is an extreme case, but you get the point…

You don’t have to sweat up a storm to shed the pounds. If anything, all that sweat may be slowing you down. If you stay well-hydrated, your post-workout weight loss should read close to 0 percent, which means you have enabled your muscles to workout under optimum performance conditions, unlimited by metabolic energy drain from over-sweating and fluid loss.

If you don’t want to workout the math on your own, don’t worry. Unlike working out at the gym, there are shortcuts with math, and online you can find many exercise water loss calculators.

There Are No Easy Matches

Andy Roddick is hands down one of the best tennis players in the world (no. 5 seeded, to be exact), and he probably knows better than anyone never to take victory for granted. You never know when your opponent is posed to play the match of his life, as unseeded Yen-Hsun Lu did at Wimbledon on Monday, beating Roddick in a five set quarterfinal upset.

If you’re not on your game, anyone can beat anyone

One of the most exhilarating things about sports is that upsets happen all the time. In singles, all bets are off. When you’re all alone on the court, every player becomes a team of one. When things aren’t working, you have to coach yourself back to being the better player on the court, or else you’ll lose.

Even the best players lose focus

Wimbledon is the home of many upsets. In 1965, Manuel Santana became the first defending champion to lose in the first round. And then there was no. 1 ranked John McEnroe’s loss to Kevin Curren in ’85. Defending champion Steffi Graf’s first-round upset to Lori McNeil in ’94. Andre Agassi’s first-round loss in ’96. Pete Sampras’s second-round loss in ’02. Maria Sharpova’s second-round loss in ’08. The list goes on and on. … And on Monday, Roddick fell short on his returns, and he knew it. “I don’t view what happens today as an impossibility,” he said in a post-game interview. “It wasn’t my serve. It wasn’t my service games. It was my returning. That was crap. It was really bad.”

There are no easy matches

At the end of the day, seeded or unseeded, world renown or unknown, the player with the most fight and focus usually wins. Speaking about his state of mind going into the 5th set, Lu said to the journalists, “I don’t believe I can win, because he’s a better server than me. I mean, for chance, I don’t believe. But I just tell myself, ‘Even if I don’t believe, I have to fight….’”

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