Category: Tennis | Jean Galea

How to Record Your Tennis Strokes for Analysis

Published: November 05, 2019Leave a Comment

I’m a big believer in video as an aid to sports improvement. I’ve already written about the subject in my post about recording padel matches, so that’s a good read as a start, but in this post I’ll expand on some tennis-specific things.

I would still use a GoPro, and if you don’t have one you can use an iPhone or iPad. I use a Manfrotto quality tripod which is also an essential part of your gear. If I am attaching the GoPro to the back fence, I use the Joby Gorillapod.

The app to use for stroke analysis is Coach’s Eye. When you compare your shot to the pros, you should probably always use Federer as he has the purest technique you can refer to.

You should always insist with your coach that you record the strokes, else you will not have a clear baseline when starting out and neither will you be able to clearly observe the improvement that takes place over time.

As a coach, you cannot have a rally while watching exactly what’s happening with the technique of the student at the other side of the court.

The ability to use slow motion is essential as you can really look for those important steps within your strokes and observe the finer kinetic details of your movement.

With regard to angles, the best ones to use are the following:

Side views for backhand and forehand
Back view for posture and movement
Side-back (45-degree angle) for volleys

You should record one minute of each stroke so that you have enough to be able to choose the best and most representative shot. Another important consideration is frame rate. You should use the highest possible available with your camera, generally 60 or 120 frames per second.

Do you have any other tips on recording your tennis that I have not mentioned above? Let me know in the comments section.

Five Different Ways to Improve at Tennis and Padel

Published: October 25, 2019Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick list of five different ways you can improve at tennis or padel. Go through them whenever you feel like you’re stuck in a rut and you’re not improving much.

Movement and positioning – understanding the footwork patterns to be the most efficient on the court and can your recover to the right positions.
Fitness – can you maintain good technique throughout the whole point and the whole match due to being in optimal shape?
Mental shape – can one point cost you an entire game or set? How tough are you mentally?
Strategy and patterns – can you figure out your opponents’ strengths and weakness and can you figure out patterns to stress their weaknesses?
Technique – All four points above are interlaced with this last point. It’s really important but not the be-all-and-end-all. Technique gives you a larger array of shots you can hit and the ability to hit them consistently, but you need the other four points too.

Isoinertial training

Last updated: February 23, 2020Leave a Comment

This week I had the opportunity to train at a center here in Barcelona (GlobalPerformance) that specialises in isoinertial training methodology and equipment.

This is a type of training originally developed for outer space use since it doesn’t rely on gravity as the traditional weight machines do.

In the video below, you can observe some exercises that can be done with the pulleys and flywheels used in this type of training.

The nice thing is that the machines could be attached with a monitor that took note of each concentric vs eccentric movement of my muscles and measured the variation between them. In just one session I was able to observe the weak points of my body and that gave me a very good indication of what I need to be working on for gaining further strength while at the same time preventing injury.

This type of training is excellent for tennis and padel training as there’s a lot of emphasis on correct posture and using the whole kinetic chain effectively for every movement, and this can transfer very well to our oncourt performance.

My Tennis Notes

Published: September 10, 20192 Comments

I started training tennis in May 2019 as part of my quest to become a better padel player. This may seem counterintuitive but from my experience I can say that it was a good decision and I have been able to learn certain techniques that were really tough learning through padel. A tennis racquet gives a much more responsive feel on the ball and therefore it is easier to feel how your movements are affecting the ball.

In any case, I’m enjoying learning a new sport and challenging myself both physically and mentally. In this post, I’ll note down my lessons through this new journey.

Difference between the walking step and open stance

The walking step is a penetrating step in nature while the open stance is a side step in nature. With an open stance, there is no forward movement, which makes it great for baselines and counter punchers. Great when you’re not planning to move forward.

However, it does not give you the penetrating advantage of the walking step. It allows you to get to the ball and take it on the rise while moving forward. Both have a role in the game of tennis, but you need to master the walking step if you want to learn how to move forward in a menacing way.

Playing Chess as a complement to tennis

I discovered that many tennis pros like to play chess as a way to relax as well as improve their focus and tactical acumen. As an amateur player, I can also get these benefits by learning and playing this game.

Learning how to juggle three balls

A good aid in improving visual perception in tennis is learning how to juggle. I’ve always thought it was very difficult, but following one of Essential Tennis’s tutorials I was able to learn it with a few hours of practice.

Missing shots is part of the game

As a beginner tennis player, it is very typical to get very frustrated with myself when I miss shots that I thought were simple. However, the truth is that most tennis rallies end with unforced errors, so it’s normal for players to make mistakes at any level. If you don’t believe me, here is a video of two of the best tennis players making unforced errors in a match:

5 Signs of a Bad Tennis Lesson

These are some signs of a bad tennis lesson, at least bad for my type of personality and tennis goals. This list comes from an episode on the Essential Tennis podcast, which I just loved because it described point by point the things that I had come to loathe during my padel training experience.

Working on your entire game in 60 minutes.
This is super typical and something I really hate as a tennis student. Many coaches will have you hitting all the repertoire of shots during one lesson. It’s hardly possible for me to make significant changes on one single shot in one lesson, let alone the whole repertoire, so this is just a big waste of time and provides deceiving illusion that you’ve actually achieved improvement during your lesson.
Instruction whack-a-mole.
Again this is very common. Coaches will have you perform a shot and then keep adding adjustments to your footwork, shot style, wrist position etc etc. Sometimes I’m guilty of doing this to myself in overzealousness to get the perfect technique. The key is to understand that you need to break each shot down to its constituent parts and work on those parts patiently one by one.
A focus on quantity over quality.
Coaches might make you perform a battery of drills that might involve say hitting a volley then running back to the baseline for a forehand and a backhand and repeat. This consumes a lot of energy for the average amateur as we don’t yet have the necessary technique to be able to move efficiently, plus you end up hitting most balls late and out of control. You’ll end up panting but having learnt absolutely nothing.
No homework for the rest of the week.
You might be training with a coach for one or two days a week, but you need to be repeating things more regularly than that if you want to advance rapidly and become a better player. Not having enough time or money could be a limitation, but you should always talk to your coach about these limitations and have him suggest what exercises you can do on your own during the rest of the week. You could fit these in before or after matches, for example, or use a wall for some drills, saving time and money. But you should definitely always have homework.
No video analysis is being used.
I’ve written about how important it was and still is for me to record my matches, as it enables me to keep in touch with how I really play and move on the court versus relying on my very different sensations when I’m on the court. I also record my training sessions and specifically different strokes, so that I can track my improvement over time. Although almost no coaches currently use video analysis, they should do so as it’s the best way for a student to understand the mistakes they are making and how to fix them. Essential Tennis has some great YouTube videos on the topic of making the best out of your video recordings, and I recomment the app Coach’s Eye for this purpose.

What are your best tennis tips? Let me know in the comments section below.

The Trap of Trying to Improve Your Skills During Matches

Published: August 22, 2019Leave a Comment

Timothy Gallway spoke about the inner game of tennis in his two books on tennis psychology several decades ago, although all the principles remain true to this day.

He observed that we think of ourselves as one person, but when playing tennis or padel (and certainly in other areas of life) there really are two selves in play; self 1 and self 2.

Self 1 constantly tells the other part what to do. It seems to know everything there is about tennis – how to bend the knees, watch the ball, follow through and so on. And then there is the other part, Self 2, who is a silent doer.

And yet, the Self 1 doesn’t trust Self 2 much and even takes things in its own hands and starts moving the body, tightening all sorts of muscles and makes the arm go where it thinks it should go. Since all the fluidity and timing is gone by now, the arm usually mishits the shot and Self 1 gets one more chance to degrade Self 2.

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