15 January, 2006

Good tennis news (personal, not the Aussie Open)

I hope everyone who minds these little asides can just skip them. I'm just excited over this bit of news, and someone out there may show up for tennis some day.

I have loved tennis for 30+ years now, and have injured myself more times than I care to count (stitches twice - not everyone plays the game the same way!) For the last couple years, my shoulder has given out half way through the season. I have to drop my serve to about 60% except on critical points, just to play out a match. I even went to see a doctor about it, and that is wierd.

No help.

I believe I have figured it out!

I have looked for 2 years for a rehab exercise that would hurt the muscle that keeps letting me down. Every exercise I tried seemed to exercise the wrong muscles. The other day, I accidently lifted the trash can in a funny way, and bingo! It hurt!

Perfect.

That's what you need, something to hurt the right muscle, and then you can strengthen it slowly. I can start a program that will have me ready for the spring now, so I am happy.

But, there's more.

The thing that struck me as oddest of all is that the exercise I found has me holding my arm straight in front of me, and lifting a weight straight up and down. If you can picture that, you are picturing the opposite of the service motion. Really. On a serve, you are moving your hand forward. In this exercise, I am moving my hand backwards.

Huh?

Well, it took me a day to figure this out, but my shoulder is not failing on the serve, but on the follow through! It is the muscle DEcelerating my arm that's suffering! I knew something had to be wrong with my motion to be causing me an injury. Now I know what to look at to begin the healing process.

Cool.

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