Increase your performance and stop injuries from happening...

Every high level athlete is pushing his or her body to the extreme - training every day for hours and often on hard surfaces (the concrete courts of Los Angeles are very unfriendly to the tennis player’s body!). Additionally, the uneven nature of tennis where one side is always used more than the other, makes it even worse for your body.

You need to spend as much time and effort - if not more - to recreating balance and health in your body as you do playing tennis. You need to

• stretch after each practice,
• pay good attention to your body and listen to its even subtle signs signaling you what is happening, and
• be aware of your posture, balance, flexibility and “evenness” of your both sides – the right and left side of your body should be equally strong and flexible.

The high level tennis players, who don’t need to grove their stroke technique as much, work on their fitness 2-4 times longer than on their tennis. They spend big amounts of time on rejuvenating their bodies with massage, physical therapy and myofascial release therapy. We might not have the monetary means to do this on a daily basis, but we still need to take equally good care of our bodies like the professional tennis players do.

You have already learned a good stretching routine after your tennis practice. Here will be presented a good routine of self myofascial release that you should do on a regular basis. The harder you train the more often you need to do this.

Myofascial release routine

Always give attention to your entire body, but if you find some specific areas that are more out of balance or more painful, spend extra time on those. The tight and achy spots (trigger points) in your body will move around, and you need to pay attention and correct the problems before they cause you more serious issues and injuries.

1. Quadriceps is very overworked muscle, so why not start with it? See detailed description here. Observe if the right and left side feel different.  Move the ball high up to your hip bone:
2. Hip flexor myofascial release. Often extremely tight, this will feel great. Then roll over to the side:
3. IT Band (illio-tibial band) – very sensitive and painful area. Spend good amount of time here. Then roll higher up towards your hip:
4. TFL (tensor fasciae latae) – can be very painful as well. Pay attention if both sides feel the same. Then roll over on your back:
5. Piriformis and gluteus – often very painful and tight. If you neglect it, you can experience nagging low back problems or “sciatica” issues.
6. Now move the ball under your thigh for hamstrings myofascial release. They can be very tight as well.
7. Lay down and put the ball between your cheeks and start rolling from the bottom of your spine up towards your neck and down again. Repeat a few times and feel how great your spine feels afterwards. Finish in your upper back area:
8. Upper back myofascial release – feels really great and relaxing. Just rest on the ball first, and then roll around all your upper back areas and look for tightness, especially in your dominant side. When all your trigger points are gone, roll over on your stomach with the ball under your chest:
9. Chest myofascial release. Roll the entire chest area from the sternum outwards to your arm. You can even continue on your biceps.
10. When you are done with the upper body, return back to your lower legs and do the lower leg myofascial release for prevention of shin splints. The muscles in the front of your lower leg are often much overused.
11. You can return back to your quadriceps again and move your leg away from the body and give some attention to your adductors (inside of the thighs) as well.

This routine can take 20-40 minutes, depending how long you stay on different areas. But I promise that once you start doing it, you almost don’t want to stop because it feels so great. When you are done, you feel like you just got the best massage! If you do this routine regularly, you will soon figure out how to move and manipulate your body on the ball for smooth movement and to be able to access any area in your body.

Keep rolling, feel good and play injury free tennis!

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Other Related Articles on Tennis Fitness

• Rejuvenate your body in the morning or any time with Sun Salutations.
• Stretch your hips with the pigeon, frog, crocodile twist, spinal twist, external hip stretch, quadriceps, hamstring, calf and groin stretch.
• Do the myofascial release for your feet, booty, hamstrings, IT band, TFL, hip flexor, chest and lower legs.
• Strengthen your legs and booty with lunges, jump squats, windmills, air bench, jumping lunges or one leg squat.
• Strengthen your core with the side plank with leg lift, windmill, plank with arm and leg lifts, plank with hip twists and push up with knee to elbow touch.
• Prevent overuse injuries of your shoulders, wrists and elbows with elbow curls, arm circles, dogs and cats, external rotator strengthening and rotator cuff stretch.
• And if the injury happened and you had a knee surgery, here are exercises for your come back, or how to recover after a sprained ankle.
• Use the beautifully colored kinesio tapes to prevent or heal your injuries.
• Work on your agility, coordination and balance with some fun footwork drills, running the stairs,  agility square jumps, jump rope or one leg squat.
• And because the weather and conditions in Los Angeles are very hot, don’t forget to drink a lot of water, because it will increase your performance and well-being. And don't forget to eat nutritions foods for best recover and performance.
• Learn how to sleep well to feel good and increase your performance.
• And besides working on your body, learn how working on your brain can help too.

For more info: ex Ms Natural Olympia Suzanna McGee is an experienced athletic trainer, competitive tennis player and a freelance writer. She lives in Venice Beach, CA and online at www.sixftlion.com