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Post Info TOPIC: Week 6-( ITF$60k) - Launceston(Australia) - outdoor Hard


Grand Slam Champion

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Week 6-( ITF$60k) - Launceston(Australia) - outdoor Hard


The pattern seems to be for our girls that each time they make a breakthrough, they get injured. Is that the pattern all over the board does anyone know?

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ATP qualifying

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Yes I've wondered that.  We do seem to get a lot of injuries with both the men and the women whenever it looks like progress is being made.  Hard to tell if it is different for other nations as information isn't easy to come by for those outside the top rankings.  However, I have to say that the fitness sessions I've seen at UK academies over the years (for juniors rather than pros) mostly haven't impressed. I do wonder whether some of our players have sufficient access to good routines for injury prevention or have left the juniors without good fitness training habits.  Thinking aloud here rather than accusing players of not looking after themselves properly.  Also worth saying that when travelling outside of the main tour, facilities can be a bit hit a miss as well making training harder.



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I don't know about fitness sessions here as such but the lack of physios on the NHS in a real major difference from the European systems I know and has a direct and important impact on sports injuries.

Just as an example, two young players here that I know had minor injuries - no physio available from the doctor - the parents paid for a couple of sessions but it was too expensive to do much more. One injury cleared up, pretty much, but not great. The other just dragged on until everything about tennis (and sport in general) was ruined.

On the other hand, when my son (age 9) got a slight tendonitis in his shoulder from tennis in France, he had 12 sessions of physio, free, at the drop of a hat. Cleared up beautifully, without any drugs, and with the preventative and strengthening/suppleness exercises you're given, never flared up again. Of course, it probably would have cleared up anyhow, with rest, but then come on again without the techniques to prevent it. Most of his young tennis friends also had various, very similar, sessions, at various points, especially in their young and teenage years (tennis is an a-symetric sport that puts a lot of stress on a growing body).
Similarly, a young promising player age 18 had a serious lower back problem. The health system paid for three months in-house rehab, at a specialised centre.

The status of physios is a lot higher - Lucy Brown tells of having a lot of treatment here for a certain problem, only to go to the physio attached to a club in France, to be told that the underlying problem was completely different and it was only a deferred problem that was being treated here. (All to do with hips and feet, from recollection.

Obviously, there's a cost to this (although NHS costs are hardly something for GB to be proud of) but the net effect is a lot fewer long-term injuries.

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Challenger level

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To restate my somewhat ignorant, layman's view...

I see there as being 2 schools of thought...

Spain/Florida; young players develop by spending long hours on the (freely available, cheap to provide, outside) practice court

UK; young players spend more time in the gym, less time on the (rare, very expensive, indoor) practice courts. This provokes more injuries, as muscle power increases while tendon/cartilage/joint strength and resilience does not.

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These are interesting takes. I understand TO and CD and for me they make sense. Get your training habits right to prevent the injury in the first place, and if the injury does happen, then have a great recuperative program that helps it mend and provides the tools to help prevent it from happening again.

I don't get what you're saying wimdledont. I would say that you need the gym work needs to be done to make the body strong enough for the court time, and as TO says you need good fitness sessions to build up the right muscles and tendon/cartilage/joint strength and resilience.

I would be interested in the stats for the lower ranked players though, as it doesn't seem to have happened to Andy or Jo of late.



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Challenger level

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Hi Helen,

What I'm saying is that if you develop muscular power, in a gym, you are not developing power, but not resilience. You end up hitting the ball harder than your tendons/cartilage/joints can cope with.

If you hit a tennis ball with a force of X Joules, your arm experiences an equal and opposite force of X Joules. Spend more time in the gym, and your ability to impart more force on the ball increases; but your ability to absorb the (increasing) equal and opposite force which the ball inflicts on your arm does not. You end up injuring yourself.



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Very much non expert here, but is it not about doing the RIGHT gymwork? I am pretty sure that that can be beneficial, indeed is likely to be.



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Hi Indi,

I don't think that any gym work will ever help protect you against injury. It does not strengthen cartilage or sinew; it does increase muscular power, which increases the forces inflicted on (1, yes) the tennis ball and (2, but) the player''s own body.

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wimdledont wrote:

Hi Indi,

I don't think that any gym work will ever help protect you against injury. It does not strengthen cartilage or sinew; it does increase muscular power, which increases the forces inflicted on (1, yes) the tennis ball and (2, but) the player''s own body.


 

I think the issue might be how you define gym work (after all, a running machine in a gym is basically just areobic).

As long as gym work includes suppleness and flexibility work, then it will help protect against injury. Strong muscles have to be balanced by ligaments and tendons that are not short or rigid or the muscles put too much stress on them.

Also, as an asymetric sport, gym work to balance the body will protect against injury for tennis players - in the physio manuals, there are some truly horrific photos of young tennis players with very one-sided bodies which causes them awful back problems (for instance). More tennis will just make them more one-sided, and worse.

NB I think this is less of a problem now as people - doctors/coaches etc - are more aware of the problems - the photos I've seen were of american boys from 20 - 30 years ago or so - but it can still cause problems even if the imbalance is a lot more minor. (Some imbalance is almost a given but it's a question of degree).

Playing lots of different sport is one of the best options - develops different muscles, as well as different skills, without needing too much gym work. But I think a gym, if used properly, can be beneficial.



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That was more my thinking, CD, that there is such a variety of work one can do in the gym other than just power / muscle work, where while some of that may or may not be beneficial I certainly couldn't speak with any real authority on that. There are so many development areas one can work on and mixture therein, many much more to do with flexibility and endurance.

I think that almost anyone would accept that care has to be taken, especially with still growing and developing younger players. Under the care though of people who know their business ( unless hardly anyone does ! ) then the gym can surely help.



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It's a real moral dilemma as to who pays for what but I don't think there is a very strong case for the NHS picking up the bill for professional sportsman it us all about whether or not the sport is viable when balancing earnings against costs of which injury and rehabilitation are part, of course it should be tax deductible.

A major frustration for me is that most injuries get better with rest, ice and NSAID's boring I know but essential in young players. Totally agree with the playing other sports, fine have tennis as ones overall focus but in generality spending 10-15% of your time playing doing (yoga, swimming etc...) something else in the winter and summer is very sensible in terms of achieving balanced physical development and cross training to improve stamina but avoid wear and tear.

I agree about the gym work can be extremely detrimental unless it is supervised by someone who really knows what they are doing, to do that you are talking about a very high level of sub-specialisation and deep understanding around the biomechanics of tennis. Even at the highest level of professional sport that is hard to find, the remodelling of English test bowlers actions to avoid injury used to be common place until relatively recently, hopefully this has been irradiated by a more joined up structure across the age groups.

I feel for players on the futures and challenger tours, the resources are poor and basically you have to be supremely professional and disciplined not only in understanding how but also in sticking to a pattern of behaviour/routine that will allow you to rest and recover. That discipline is essential in terms knowing when to quit a mach and have confidence in realistic short and long term goals, one can't push hard all the time. 

The French do take physical therapy more seriously than we do, osteopathy here is seen as quackery where as in France it is held in very high esteem, regardless it is a question of finding someone with a good anatomical understanding of what they are doing and paying for it. Rest is cheap and undervalued. Physical resilience is part of what makes a pro-sportsman and many players in many sports with enormous talent are just not physically gifted enough to deal with the physicality required to deliver on it. That is nobody's fault they are just cut out to do something else for a living.



-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Saturday 11th of February 2017 07:18:23 AM

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Yes, I'd agree that yoga might well help to develop resilience; and that some cross training in different sports may be necessary to correct the asymmetrical strains imposed by tennis.

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Oakland2002 wrote:

It's a real moral dilemma as to who pays for what but I don't think there is a very strong case for the NHS picking up the bill for professional sportsman it us all about whether or not the sport is viable when balancing earnings against costs of which injury and rehabilitation are part, of course it should be tax deductible. 


 This is pretty topical right now. My jury's out on this one, maybe if you could means test it against earnings? BUT, for me it is better to treat sportspersons than the lard arses that have self inflicted diabetes, stomach bands, joint problems etc on themselves.

If I ruled the world or the UK anyway, I would implement heavy fat and sugar tax food and use the revenue to subsidise healthy foods. Also I'd subsidise exercise facilities and target health education in schools in order to drop the NHS bill. I hate that this country tries to put out fires instead of preventing them. Grrrr Rant over.



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Futures level

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Going back to Katy, I've just watched the stream of the end of her match. She seems slightly spaced out, she clutches her stomach a lot and so whether is a stomach bug, dizzy spell or injury to a stomach muscle I'm not sure.

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