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Showing posts with the label Mental Training for Tennis

CONTACT V’s COSMETICS: Don't Train Like a Golfer

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Tami Grende, Wimbledon Junior Doubles Champion Many players and coaches try to approach tennis with the mindset that if they can create the perfect swing, their game and results will automatically improve. I call this the “cosmetic” mindset. They believe that something that looks (cosmetic) correct, translates into a perfect result.  In fact, you see golfers at golf driving ranges adopting the “cosmetic” mindset to improve their games all the time. Golfers spend a lot of time tweaking the position of their feet, where their elbows finish, correcting the angles of shoulders and arms, etc before and after every stroke. The problem with adopting a golfers' “Cosmetic” mindset for your tennis training is that golf and tennis are completely different sports requiring different training methods. In golf, the position of the ball is predictable (stationary), while in tennis the ball is unpredictable and not under our control.  In golf, you can stand over the ball and dictate exactly w

CREATING RITUALS THAT HELP YOUR TENNIS

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The best players use rituals to help them perform Everyone responds to events in different ways. Dropping a glass of water can make us angry, shocked, and frustrated or could even become a catalyst for laughter. It all depends on the person and how dropping that glass of water makes them feel.   Like thousands of other events throughout your day, dropping that glass of water is a CUE that creates an action.  In his bestselling book “The Power of Habit” author Charles Duhigg calls the action that follows a Cue  a Routine . He states that while the Cue is the same for everyone, it’s in the routine that you see the differences in people. Watch a game of tennis and you will see all the same cues. You will observe a player who is fatigued, some matches are more important than others, poor line calls occur, a player will go down a break of serve and another will go up a break of serve. These are all cues that evoke a routine. Many of these routines are destructive and lead to negati

PRACTISE WITH A "HITTER" MINDSET

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GETTING THE CORRECT MINDSET IS ESSENTIAL TO PRACTISING AND COMPETING BETTER DESCRIPTION The most important drill you do each day is the “drill” in your head.  The way your mind operates during practice will also be repeated during competition, therefore it’s critical to not only work on technical and physical aspects, but also practice the type of mindset that you need in order to compete at your optimal level.   In many cases the technical problem you see when a player makes an error actually starts from a faulty mental mindset. If you are a player who over-thinks when playing, chances are that you are making many unforced errors.  Over-thinking doesn’t allow you to play on an instinctive level where everything flows and your true potential comes to the fore.  As you make more and more unforced errors your confidence can reach an all time low.  Over the years several players in my country were selected for special training because of their potential to be great

THE "NOMINATED PLAYER" GAME: Training 3am

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WHAT SEPARATES GOOD PLAYERS FROM GREAT  PLAYERS AND  CAN WE TRAIN IT SPECIFICALLY? DESCRIPTION For many years I have traveled with some exceptional players.  The very best of these players reached top 10 ATP and top 20 WTA rankings.  It was during these trips that I began to notice a certain quality that distinguished exceptional players from merely very good players. I began to notice that regardless of the circumstances, these few exceptional players would come on-court, either in practise or for competitive matches and strike the ball cleanly and without error immediately. It would also continue from the first ball until the last ball. This may not sound that unusual but this would happen regardless of time, place, weather, occasion or equipment issues.   It occurred to me that if I could find a way to develop this ability by a systematic training process I could be training the very essence of what holds back very good players from becoming exceptional players.

FOCUSING ON REACTION SPEED COULD BE MAKING YOU SLOW!

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ON-COURT MOVEMENT HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MAJOR ASSETS A PLAYER MUST DEVELOP If you are trying to improve your on-court reaction time during points, you’re wasting your time. Improved reaction skills may even hinder your ability to reach balls quicker.   Webster’s says that the definition of reaction is, “a response to something that involves taking action.” In other words the horse bolts first and then we try to catch the horse! In tennis terms we wait to return serve and plan to react when we know if the ball will go to the forehand or backhand side. Or, we watch our opponent getting under the ball and plan to react to his overhead once he completes his shot. Chances are that you are not going to get too many of those serves and overheads back into play. You’re going to be too late! You’re asking yourself the wrong question “where will the ball go?” I believe that reaction is merely the 3 rd step in returning that first serve and defending that overhead. In to

ARM WRESTLING CAN HELP YOUR TENNIS - A LOT!

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In the beginning of a match both players think they should win. What changes? You see it more clearly when the players are young and new to competition, but it’s common to all levels of tennis.  Two players are locked in an on-court battle for some time and then one of the players win the mental battle of wills and the match is essentially over. Don’t be fooled by appearances, the remainder of the match may seem competitive, and the points may be exciting, but the match was over once the mental battle of wills was decided. That early “arm wrestle” decided the outcome of the match. Think about that for a moment. Winning that mental arm wrestle can decide who wins the match. In a most cases both players start the match believing they can win. Both players can even start the match convinced that they will win. However in nearly every match something changes that self-belief in one of those players. But is the importance of winning the game of wills really anything new to u

THE TASK V'S EGO MOTIVATED PLAYER

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  It's important to understand what motivates each player, and also what demotivates them   Learning what motivates each player to train hard and compete strongly in competition is critically important to a coach. Understanding what dominates a player’s mindset allows us to “push the right buttons” when needed. I like to assess players based on their motivation for playing in the first place. I look at two forms of stimulation, Task or Ego motivation; their motivation to train and compete will be driven by either their willingness to work hard, Task, or their focus on winning and rewards, Ego. Task-motivated players are the type of players who thrive on working hard towards a goal.   They see a clear link between working hard off-court and being rewarded with improved results on-court. Coaches enjoy working with players who are Task motivated because they have a great work ethic and respond well to instructions.  Most coaches prefer coaching Task motivated

WHY WE PLAY: THE CHALLENGE OF COMPETITIVE TENNIS

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I recently had a player, “James”, who was going through a rough period. James was struggling in practice and in competition. He didn’t seem to be enjoying himself on-court, becoming over-stressed and making poor decisions while executing strokes and tactics. It would have been easy to point the blame at his faltering ground-strokes and poor on-court execution, but I felt that spending time working on the details of his game would not have helped.   It seemed to me that the problem was mental and not technical.   Sometimes players lose sight of the real reasons they love to play tennis and compete. Often I ask players “Why do you play tennis”?   The answers are mostly the same.   Players say they “Like to Win” and “It’s fun”. But if that was true we would all play against opponents that we could beat easily.   Obviously playing against opponents that can be beaten easily would not be satisfying at all, therefore “winning” is not what brings us back to competition. Sometim

UNLEASHING THE COMPETITIVE MINDSET

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I attended a high performance sport seminar once and one of the speakers asked all the participants how important the mind was in their sport.   He asked what percentage the mind played in their sport compared to technique, fitness, nutrition etc. The representatives from all the various sports estimated the importance of the mind and the answers varied, but not by much.   Everyone estimated the percentage to be between 75-90%. They all thought the mind was the most important aspect. The speakers’ next question was even more reveling.   He asked “what percentage of practice time do you devote to training the mental aspects in your sport”? The answers fell between 10-15%! Why is it that as coaches we devote so little of our time to something that we know to be so important to the outcome in our various competitions?   I think the reason is that we understand very little about the way the mind works and therefore it’s difficult to train.   It’s the “hard” subject we try