Alongside Andy Murray the wonderful opportunity of watching the future of British tennis in the junior boys singles presented itself at Wimbledon yesterday (Wednesday). Truth be told I was making a beeline for court 14 where Kyle Edmund and Jonny O’Mara were 3 all first set.
Maybe at this point your expecting some kind of sledging as to why these lads are never going to make it and that they will just end up on the scrap heap. Maybe the media might do that but not here.
U.S. Open Juniors Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The tennis, in my opinion was entertaining and of a high standard. Kyle strong, very strong off the forehand wing with an incredible amount of racket head speed available. Coupled with a strong first serve his tactics will be simple and effective. Jonny not as powerful but when in rallies looking like he had the potential to compete and he made a go of it at least. More that could be said of 3rd seed Zerev who pulled out with a so called shoulder problem at 4-0 down in the third.
The tennis engineer is interested in the human body and the bio-mechanics of tennis and here in lies the reason for this post. I have been alluring to the idea that the there is some relationship between where joints sit and muscle tensions in the human body which results in imbalances and hence sub optimal output. Where there is an imbalance the joints and muscles cannot and I really mean cannot, move through an action efficiently and effectively and there is a knock on throughout the whole system. This may or may not be a cause of future injury but if not an injury risk there is still more possibility in producing better strokes, coping with tougher situations and executing tactics.
So I turned my attention to Jonny as it was clear in his gait there were some quirks. Not bad at this point until he turned to face his coach who was sat in front of me. Here is where I saw the tennis players stereotypical shoulder drop on the hitting side. Not only that as I followed this through the system it was clear that Jonny’s left hip was also hiked higher than his right and often this is coupled with a rotation to the right (right handed). His gait when he walked away had an obvious flexion to the hitting side also which is characteristic with the previous observations. Not at the expense of Jonny but I was delighted but the question arose in my mind of what can I do about it?
Well, nothing, at the moment. Immediately after the match I was thinking about talking to the coach but chose against it probably for the best as a few seconds later I was surrounded by Greg Ruesedski, Martin Weston and some other guy who I recognized. While many asked Greg for photos I called my colleague to tell him the good/bad news about the match I just seen.
So, now hypothetically want can be/needs to be done with Jonny? Well, in my opinion and according to alot of research Jonny’s posture and joint alignment is only causing him to under perform regardless of the other traits of tennis. His body is simply not optimal therefore his fantastic ground strokes could be BETTER! not only that he could deal with higher pace and higher levels, he could grow in confidence and he could execute his tactics effectively and more repeatedly.
So step 1 is to re educate, re engineer his body to accept the range of motion and the intended functions of the joints. Remember, the body wasn’t designed with tennis in mind and therefore we should respect the actual function of the body and restore these defaults. That is not to say that the tennis posture is the way it is because it should be because it shouldn’t!
Step 2 then is then to educate the body to function properly within tennis stroke production movements. Coupling all joint actions to the end result. This relies on heavy input on the technical model used by the coach/coaches.
Step 3 maintain and improve.
The Tennis Engineer is not a fitness trainer or S&C coach but a tennis coach specialising inhuman movement and the aim of the approach is to give the best chance to the player to perform at maximum!
Coming soon: The Tennis Players posture article
Please feel free to message me with questions or share this with any parties that may have interest.
I hope this asks some questions and prokes thought.
Best
The Tennis Engineer.
The Tennis Engineer 