Hi folks,
During a recent Continuum lesson with Rebecca, I raised the issue of the frequency of visits to this blog concerning tennis-induced wrist and forearm injury. The blog post entitled “Tennis-Induced Wrist Pain – Every Injury Is An Opportunity To Learn And To Improve In Your Sport,” has been extremely popular, with literally thousands of visitors. In fact, never a day goes by that at least 10 people find and read this post. I was surprised about this, and mentioned it to Rebecca, whose opinion is that these injuries occur because people play sports such as tennis for long periods of time, but they don’t allocate sufficient recovery time and flexibility training to complement time spent on the court. I suggested that Rebecca might propose some exercises suitable for the training of amateur tennis players, beyond her previous video on “How to pick up a rock.” Here is what Rebecca had to say:
There are clearly a number of issues to address if you wish to enjoy your game of tennis later in life, as follows:
- Forget what you could do years ago; focus on your abilities today and work from there.
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Roll-up bar for hand, wrist and forearm strength. A simple stick, cord and weight provide an inexpensive alternative – my preference.
Include strength training for your hands, wrists, forearms and shoulders. I like roll-ups, using a weight attached to a cord wrapped around a stick. Others prefer wrist curls, whilst you will have to explore your preferred approach to tennis-related strengthening. Some people don’t like to use the weight room, but I sure find that it helps to prepare me for race season by reducing my risks of strains.
- Incorporate flexibility training into your tennis routine, and remember to allocate adequate time for stretching and lengthening exercises immediately after your game, before you cool down. Once it becomes a habit you will find that it is no longer onerous, but just part of your sport.
- Allow sufficient recovery time between tennis games, which, I am sorry to say, will have to increase in duration with age. We do take longer to recover from exercise as we get older. However, the fitter you are the shorter these recovery times can be – but they are never as short as when you were in your teens and twenties!
- Work to optimize your biomechanics, with the help of a good coach if you can arrange that.
- Take the game seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously – remember, it’s a sport that you undertake for your enjoyment, and to provide you with a program of safe exercise for better health. In effect, chill out a bit and your game will improve.
Anyone for tennis?
-k @FitOldDog
Aha, my #1 problem is #1: Forget what you could do years ago; focus on your abilities today and work from there.
Hi Marsha, I hear it all the time, especially from men. They see that I am in running gear (I live in running gear – it’s comfortable), and they ask me what I do ‘running-wise’ and I say, and then they start telling me all the things they did in high school or college 20 to 40 years ago, as if that has much relevance today (it does have relevance in terms of the potential base – for instance, my water polo training of 40 years ago helps me in the swim when the traffic is heavy). These people living in past glories are always horribly out of shape. Makes you want to shake them to wake them up because they are damaging their bodies, and as far as I can tell we only get one. I think this approach is the brain’s way of excusing the absence of exercise today. I find it to be extremely odd. They’ll even ask me how fast I run (I’m 69) and laugh and tell me how much faster than that they ran when they were 18. This is so odd. Interesting though, don’t you think? -k
As they say “Ah, nostalgia – it’s not what it used to be!”