Im back as promised with more on core and ab exercises!
As I said in the previous blog post, for tennis the most important muscle group to train is the core. This prevents injuries, creates stability and balance and enables explosive acceleration in shot rotation.
In this post I'm going to present a 12 minute physical training video. Whereas the previous blog post was a general introduction this blog post and the next two (that will be published right here on www.robertjbush.com) is specific to the muscle groups of the core and adominals in tennis. This blog post is going to cover the rectus, external oblique, internal oblique and lower adominal muscles. The following posts will cover the transverse admonials and lower back muscles.
Core & Abdominal muscles vital for tennis professionals
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Ana Barretxeguren, from Blibao (Spain); a pilates guru, biomechanics expert and amazing spiritual person. This was for whom I had woken up at 4:30 in the morning and driven 5 hours to see after a recommendation from family. It was more than worth it. :)
Ana works from the feet upwards and is a specialist in myofascial tissues. When I arrived she did a few tests on how I walked, my posture, my head position, my movements, my general biomechanics. I was told that due to my pelvis injury I was walking with one side of my hips higher (e.g. skewed to one side). I had to improve my flexibility in this hip to eradicate my problems in the right lumbar muscle. So I've been working on exercises similar to this one below:
On top of this Ana told me I was walking on the "sides" of my foot. This is likely to have been accentuated when I broke my ankle ligaments. As the ankle is directly connected to the adductor (groin) muscle and abdominals it is very likely a lot of my muscular problems in these zones have been caused my walking differently to before the injury. In addition by walking on the ball of the big toe when extending or lifting up the foot (instead of the little toe which the majority of people do) which gives greater spring and explosivity. This is because the big toe is the connected to the high arch of the foot (the bones which are at the top of the foot) whereas the little toe is connected to the heal of the foot (at the bottom of the foot and importantly flat). You can view this in the anatomy of the foot photo below.
Using statics theory in the field of engineering an arch shape is stronger and more powerful that a flat one which is way so many bridges were made with an arch in the past. So by walking on the big toe also gives more performance, more speed, more spring as well as correcting my pains in the back and legs.
My exercises are presented below.
So I bet your saying this is impossible:
- "How can you change something which you have done all your life. How can change how you walk after 24 years." Well firstly, it is the natural way to walk - we have diverted from this as we have evolved but if we connect our minds with our body we will revert to what is most efficient and effective. Besides if you have an attitude that you can not change then you will never change. There are countless cases of people who have been told by doctors that they would never walk again but after decades of trying they find a way to walk again. One should never say its impossible.
- Or maybe you're saying "His problem is in the back, not in his foot or how he walks". Well this is true but we contact and impact the ground firstly and always. If we don't do this well we are going to get problems in some part of the body. Imagine walking with one leg longer than the other, you are really going to put stress on the knees, back, spine, neck and hips. Thats why doctors usually operate on children who don't have equal lengths legs because they are going to have problems later in life.
Well perhaps the best defence is after 2 weeks working on the exercises once/twice a day (1-2 hours) I am feeling the best i've felt in 4 months. I'm swimming 1-2 hours a day, doing core exercises and walking an hour without pain. Im going to keep you updated but right now its definitely doing me good. THANKS ANA :)
Thought i'd put down an example of the food I have for lunch/dinner. When training full-time the goal is to eat 5,000 GOOD calories (thats GOOD calories, not just 5 big mac burgers!?!?).
Breakfast everyday: Spanish Tortilla
Breakfast: Spanish tortilla with some tomato salad
Breakfast: Chorizo & Asparagus Scrambled Eggs | Homemade apricot jam
Breakfast: Apple Tart
Lunch: Spicy meatballs with rice
Lunch: Rice, potato and vegetable tambor with breaded turkey.
Hey there, in this post i'm going to build on the previous blogpost where I briefly talked about some physio and osteopath treatment I had.
As the previous post states I had some peculiar injuries that my coach and I were trying to cure ourselves with stretching, ice, heat, massages, Pilates and joint mobilisation. Unfortunately none of these completely cured the injury (but they did help) so first we went to a physio recommended to me
Adductor (groin) strengthening exercises
by a family friend. The physio, Carole McAthey, was fantastic. She found that my adductor strain had been caused by stiffness of the lumbar spine and Sacro-iliac joint. She gave my coach and I clear exercises to perform on the adductor and lumbar and to iniate Pilates, preferably based on the APPI course (this is the Australian Pilates organisation which is a kind of hybrid physio/pilates course). All of this helped considerably and cured all of my pains except the back which needed further treatment from an osteopath as it was skeletal rather than muscular (where a physio is better).
The osteopath, Nick Tuckley, I have used for many years and I haven't met a better osteopath. He confirmed the pelvis alignment was out due to the fall when I broke my ankle ligament in July. He stretched my L4 disc of the lumbar spine and instructed me to rest for at least 24 hours. For 40 minutes after the treatment I chose to lie down to let the body accustom to the new position of the skeleton before driving home. I personally believe this is vital after an osteopath session - you are paying £45 for 30-40 minutes of treatment, for that cost you should have the patience to let the body rest so the skeleton doesn't return to its previous position! I have a follow-up session 5 days after the first to see how the alignment in the pelvis is and hopefully if all goes smoothly I should be back training 3-5 days after that!
I wanted to write about my experience as I think sometimes one has to bite the bullet and pay the price to have experts look at your body and then cure you. Without these two professionals I would still be injured and no closer to being cured. Now I'm more than half cured and within the week I should be back training touch-wood. It was more than worth spending the money and in the future I will be quicker to go to a top physio/osteopath after an injury.
Today I've been working on anticipation exercises. During the first few weeks after my injury I kept myself from going crazy in my bed by working on my anticipation. Roger Federer has been studied to react faster than is possible with the human brain - this is because he anticipates where his opponent is going to hit the ball. The difference that distinguishes the top pro's is their ability to anticipate and therefore seem as if they are lightning fast and have so much time on the ball. This ability is normally developed from playing hours and hours!However, I haven't had the luxury of playing 6 days a week from 4 years old and now at 23 I don't have the time. So I developed an exercise to improve my anticipation in dramatically short time although incredibly boring! [i have played points since this work and i can honestly say it has made me be so much quicker on the court and really improved my game]
Basically the exercise is to use a tennis match video (e.g. from youtube) and take snapshots/photos (min. 10) of a players shot. The earlier that you can 'anticipate' where they are going to play the shot (cross-court, down-the-line etc… before they make contact the better [see slideshow]. Once you get better at this (success > 80%) move to a live video slowed to 25%. Once better at this move to 50%, then 70%, then 90% and finally 100%.
And of course please send me your comments as to where you think he's playing the shot!?!?
