Improve Your Tennis Game: Yoga for Great Tennis
You are on a tennis court and everything is looking
good: your backhand is as strong as ever and your serve is
impeccable. Point after point, you are winning the match.
Inspired, you come back to the same court the next day and
unfortunately, are faced with a different scenario: nothing
works, every ball goes out and the more points you are losing,
the more irritable you become. Sadly, this scenario is too
familiar to most tennis players. If you are not a pro, you are
likely to experience some degree of unsteadiness in your tennis
game.
Yogic practices can tremendously help in making your tennis
game steadier and stronger.
Meditating for just ten minutes a day can greatly improve
your concentration during a stressful match and dristi
(single-pointed gaze) would prevent your tennis instructor from
screaming: “Watch the ball!” For seventeenth time during a
half-hour practice. Pranayama (breathing practices) increase
the lung capacity, so you don’t run out of breath while your
tennis partner is busy running you from one corner of the court
to the other. Regular asana practice would make you more
flexible, therefore increasing your reach on the court. Sun
Salutations make the spine suppler, so if used as a pre-game
stretch, they can greatly reduce the risk of injury.
While most yoga poses can be used as an aid for a tennis
game enhancement, some poses are still better than others, as
they target tennis-specific injuries and problem areas. These
poses can be done both on and off the court and of course, if
you’d like to see quick improvement, you should try to practice
regularly.
Before starting your yoga practice, take a moment to center
your breathing. Inhale and exhale deeply and fully through the
nose (ujjayi breath.) Try to remember to go back to this type
of breathing in between difficult points during your next
match. You will notice the soothing and the centering effect of
ujjayi when you are stressing out about a tie-break or about
losing a game.
Inhale and lift your arms in prayer pose up to the sky.
Exhale and fold forward, placing your palms on the floor, with
fingertips in line with the toes. Then, straighten your legs,
if you can. Inhale and look up. The spine is straight. Exhale
and jump or step back into chaturanga, bending your elbows
straight back. Look in front of you, not down. The elbows have
to be very close the body, don’t let your tailbone stick out in
the air. Keep the space between the shoulder blades broad. Hold
the pose for five breaths. This pose strengthens the arms and
the wrists, so you’d never have to use one of these annoying
wrist machines again, because practicing chaturanga should
eventually give you a better control of the racquet.
Inhale and move forward, lifting to upward-facing dog. Your
thighs should be a few inches off the floor. Gaze at the tip of
your nose. Make sure that the inner elbow creases face forward,
thus opening the shoulders. Hold for five breaths. Up-dog is
great for tennis elbow treatment and prevention. Because the
pose opens up the shoulders, there is less pressure on the
elbow joint. The pose also strengthens the spine, the arms and
the wrists. It can improve your serve.
Exhale and make your way into a downward -facing dog,
pushing back, straightening the legs and trying to place the
soles of the feet on the floor. Gaze at your navel. Spread your
fingers wide and make sure the inner elbow creases are still
rotated forward, while the middle fingers are parallel and
pointed straight forward. This way you are preventing the
tennis elbow through stretching the shoulder joint. Activate
your quadriceps and hold the pose for five breaths. Downward
facing dog is one of the best pre-game stretches. It stretches
the spine, the sides of the torso, the shoulders, the arms, the
neck and the backs of the legs. If you practice downward-facing
dog regularly, you should have a better reach on the court and
you may feel lighter while running to the net. Your ground
strokes can improve tremendously from all of this stretching.
If you love this pose, you are unlikely to develop post-game
cramping of the legs, because of the regular hamstring stretch.
The serve should become very powerful from the shoulder
opening.
From a standing pose, inhale and lift your right knee into
the chest. Exhale and open your right knee to the right,
placing the right sole of the foot into the inner side of the
left thigh. Imagine energy, lifting through your left leg. Lift
your pelvic floor in and up. Keep your torso straight and on
the inhalation, lift your arms in prayer up above your head,
with forearms being behind the ears to tree pose, vrksasana.
Keep your gaze steady at an unmoving point in front of you.
Hold for ten breaths and repeat on the other side. Tree pose is
excellent for balance and coordination, necessary for tennis.
It also strengthens the back and the torso muscles for a great
serve and works on the leg muscles for ground strokes and
volleys.
Yoga practice can make your tennis game steadier, through
improving your strokes and helping your injuries. Most
importantly, yoga can steady your mind, so you are able to get
“into the zone,” necessary for winning.
Anastasia Dorohova of Steady Bliss Yoga, is a certified yoga
teacher, registered with the Yoga Alliance. Being a very
experienced tennis player, she developed Yoga for Great Tennis
program and is teaching “yoga for tennis” workshops at various
clubs and tennis camps. Anastasia produced and starred in two
DVDS: Yoga for Great Tennis and Yoga for Tennis Elbow and Bad
Knees. To purchase the DVDs and for workshop information, log
onto http://www.steadybliss.com
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