Bailey’s Blog

‘Tennis is a dance and the ball is your partner!’
 Footwork and balance on the court is like dancing. But, when you learn to dance you just don’t grab a partner, put on the music and go for it! If you did this you would be treading on her toes and having no idea. What you do is learn the steps by yourself, then incorporate it with a partner and then as a couple you put on the music and dance the moves you enjoy the most. Learning tennis  footwork is the same….Shadow tennis followed by fed ball then live ball! Without this simple order it takes a lot longer to learn.
 

As you all know I am a huge fan of shadow tennis (mimicking shots without a ball). Study the contact moves, out steps, set up stances and recovery steps. Move without a racket and practice the moves and steps so you concentrate only on the feet. Do this to music , for to move well rhythm needs to be your guiding light. The music also helps you stay motivated.

Once you have learn’t some set footwork patterns and contact moves you can practice the moves off court and target important fitness components i.e.

• For strength go slow and low and move as if doing Thai Chi. Try shadowing in sand or up slight hills.
• For aerobic endurance use the footwork with boxing pads or combined with jogging around an oval.
• For speed use the concept of assistance training and shadow down slight hills.
• For Power get a and friend and throw 1kg medicine balls that bounce to each other.
• For anaerobic endurance,  shadow explosively for 3 sets of 1 minute intervals with reistance belts around your waist.

Remember the secret to sport specific fitness is to make the training as realistic as possible and to train the muscles in ways that are similar to on court movements.  

Tennis does not get us in shape. In fact,tennis can gets us out of shape. The harder you train, the tighter your body will become, and this is true in nearly any sport. A chronic injury in most cases comes on slowly as the body goes further and further OUT OF ALIGNMENT. The day eventually comes when the inbalance breaks through as debilitating pain.

Injury is a very effective means used by the body to get your attention. First stopping tennis does not fix an imbalance. Rest may give the body time to heal, but it doesn’t eliminate the source of the problem. Once you start training again, the same imbalance will cause the same injury over and over again. Tightness never goes away. Muscles don’t get longer by themselves.

A good analogy is if you drive a car, hit a pothole and put the front end out of alignment. This will wear out the tyre and eventually it will go flat. Now, if you don’t fix the alignment , won’t the next tire wear out the same way? MUSCULAR IMBALANCES AND STRUCTURAL IRREGULARITIES DON’T FIX THEMSELVES.

If you carried a baby on one hip and now have a bad knee, it may take 2 years of carrying a baby on the other hip to fix the problem. Be aware - tennis is a one sided sport!