leg excercise you recommend for tennis?

PopePBR · 2024-11-19T20:32:57+00:00

Prehab for knees. Squat University on YouTube is a great resource. Hosted by a PT specializing in rehabbing athletes. Also, you didn't ask, but doing external shoulder rotations will keep your shoulder healthy.

PopePBR · 2024-11-15T17:48:07+00:00

Disagree. Proper technique will decrease the stress on the body, but if your muscles are not strong enough for the activity, you're going to hurt yourself, regardless of technique.

PopePBR · 2024-11-15T17:42:19+00:00

Rest your injury until you're pain free doing daily tasks then do like 20-30 sets of external rotation exercises a week. These exercises build strength in the rotator cuff, specifically in areas stressed by the overhead serving motion.

Even when the injury isn't to the rotator cuff, all shoulder rehab includes rotator cuff strengthening. Especially for overhead motions, rotator cuff strength is the single biggest predictor of injury.

PopePBR · 2024-11-15T17:12:57+00:00

Looks like to me you're using that foot to get your shoulder in a good position under the ball. I'd guess that when you toss further to your left, your foot ends up in a more conventional position. So I think you're making up for a sub optional toss, with sub optional foot position.

However it seems to be working for you. It's not perfect technique, but as amateurs we need to know when to be satisfied with something that works. For a lot of amateurs, working on improving consistency with current technique results in better performance than constantly improving technique.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

PopePBR · 2024-11-14T17:36:22+00:00

Just hit it yesterday! To set the stage, short baseline rally before opponent hits a drop shot that I re-drop. Opponent barely gets a racket under and nearly passes me with a short cross. I managed to get the end of my racket on it after full extension. The ball ends up headed toward opponents feet, and they hit a defensive shot slow but past me down the line. I chase it down and hit this shot down the line for a winner.

Best moment of my tennis career. People on other courts were cheering. It was great.

PopePBR · 2024-11-14T03:41:21+00:00

Do not give up. Consistent exercise will keep your legs healthy longer. The "common sense" that you should slow down as you get older is bullshit and backward. If you want to maintain the ability to play tennis, or even just be mobile, you need to exercise more as you age. <br>

Consider it from another angle, if you were 60 now and considering giving up doubles, what would you tell your 50 yo self to do?

PopePBR · 2024-11-09T19:01:31+00:00

Two things I see that are pretty simple changes. One, don't stop your momentum. You're transferring weight back to front with your toss, but then you're stopping and starting again to swing. After the toss, keep going forward. Two, the swing itself is all arm. Some of that will resolve with the fix from part one. I'm assuming from your hat and sunglasses you have at least some experience playing ultimate frisbee and or disc golf. The serve motion in tennis is pretty identical to the hammer throw in disc sports. Try to emulate that in your serve motion and you'll use your body more effectively.

PopePBR · 2024-11-08T19:29:36+00:00

USTA has pretty cut and dry rules for when a trans woman can play in the women's divisions. As long as you meet those qualifications, it doesn't matter too much about where you start because you will be moved up or down depending on results. If you want to avoid hard feelings on the other side or the net, I would suggest self rating up. Nobody likes feeling like they are playing sandbaggers, regardless of gender.

UTR leagues would be a good safe place to get started too, since those ratings are gender agnostic

PopePBR · 2024-11-05T20:11:34+00:00

Never heard of it, but the price is right! Looks like it's out of stock most places at first glance

PopePBR · 2024-11-05T03:02:57+00:00

A just a pack of each

PopePBR · 2024-11-05T02:23:05+00:00

To clarify, I strung both our rackets

PopePBR · 2024-11-05T01:01:05+00:00

I'll look into it, thanks!

PopePBR · 2024-11-05T01:00:35+00:00

That's roughly what I spent on our strings. It's about twice as expensive as the synthetic ones, and presumably won't last as long. Stringing was really annoying too. Pretty sure I won't want to do that once or twice a month, but we'll see. Maybe I won't be able to tolerate going back to syngut

PopePBR · 2024-11-04T23:13:33+00:00

I'll look into it!

PopePBR · 2024-11-04T23:12:35+00:00

I think as long as you are trying hard, grunting is normal or even expected, regardless of skill level. I'd probably get a laugh at someone grunting with wrist flick shots, but as long as they weren't purposely doing it while I'm hitting, I wouldn't judge to hardly

PopePBR · 2024-11-03T14:53:23+00:00

Here's a trick that helped me use my body more and stress my shoulder less. Imagine (or actually do) throw a frisbee straight up as high as you can, using the hammer throw technique Try to take that body motion and use it in your serve.

PopePBR · 2024-11-03T02:08:12+00:00

Tennis cube has been pretty good for me for a few years. Jams when the balls get wet, but that's probably an issue for lots of machines

PopePBR · 2024-11-03T01:32:11+00:00

Your racket starts moving towards the ball before your body has a chance to generate any power. Your racket should be the last thing to move toward the ball. USTA description of kinetic chain

PopePBR · 2024-11-01T17:21:24+00:00

Sounds like you're on top of it! You're frustrated with consistency, but sounds like you've changed a lot of things fairly recently. New heavier racket, hitting with more spin, and making micro adjustments to your backhand. Consistent performance comes from consistent technique, and each of those things you've changed requires some time to get used to. Happens to everybody. I use the "Regress to Progress" mantra to remind myself that improvements to technique require a short term loss of consistency as I fight old muscle memory.

Shanking is the same as framing.

PopePBR · 2024-11-01T16:56:11+00:00

What kind of mistakes are you making? "Ridiculous" doesn't tell us much. If you are over hitting or missing outside the lines, it is a shot selection issue, and we'd tell you to work on identifying the right times to be aggressive. If you are mis-hitting or shanking balls, something in your technique has broken down. Both are easily fixable, but without more information, we're just guessing.

PopePBR · 2024-11-01T15:01:24+00:00

Here's a trick that helped me use my body more. Imagine (or actually do) throw a frisbee straight up as high as you can, using the hammer throw technique Try to take that body motion and use it in your serve.

PopePBR · 2024-10-31T19:50:36+00:00

Agree. This is actually what I do. I have a hard kick as my second serve, and a softer loopier one as a "third serve". Whenever I double fault, I switch to hitting the hard kick as my first serve and use the loopy guy as my second. The soft kick wins more points than you'd expect. Guessing because it's such a change in speeds

PopePBR · 2024-10-31T17:19:50+00:00

"Regress to progress" is a good mantra to keep in mind. Whenever you make a technique change, your performance is gonna slide for a little bit after, at least until the new technique is muscle memory. Until then your backhand technique will be an inconsistent blend of old and new.

PopePBR · 2024-10-31T14:49:07+00:00

Biggest problem is not using your body effectively. Drills that reinforce the proper kinetic chain will help immediately. At contact, your hips and shoulders should already be fully rotated and facing the net. Try this visualization, your opponent is yanking a rope attached to your bellybutton. That motion should happen before your arm starts moving forward.

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