The Sports-India Community

gvhvhg and I have intermittently been in touch, having "met" through this forum. Now that he has moved to Singapore, we managed to get together today to play a couple of sets of tennis. It was great fun, and I look forward to doing more of this with other members of the forum over time.

Thats cool.I think Ishuu and I will be playing soon

anyone in Kurla. I have just started learning to play tennis

Ishan and I will be playing today in Chennai

bujilover get ready for todays encounter .. come to my office sharp at 5 pm..

So, who won? Dinesh or Ishan?

PKB, when you are in the bay area next, I'd love to get on the tennis courts with you. Of course, you are warmly invited to stay with my family for all your visits to the area. The advantage of living in the bay area is that we can play tennis all year around outdoors. I hope to meet you soon.

Thanks, very kind of you to offer to treat me as your Atithee.
But surely one cannot play tennis outdoors in the Bay area for at least half the year...? Mark Twain said...

I've been taking my boys to a Tennis club close to where we live for the past few years. I've never played Tennis seriously and in Dec 2012, I decided to join a beginners clinic at the same club. It's been fun these past few months and I learned quite a bit (still working on that serve and backhand). However, I found that you have to be extremely fit to be able to play this sport. It's actually a very different kind of fitness. Lower body strength is the key.

I can run long distances and can swim a bit too (a few of us go out for long runs every weekend) but I can't seem to last more than 30 min (moderately intense play) on the tennis court. What I also found is that the tennis pros aren't very good (atleast at this club) at recommending appropriate exercises. I may have to look for a separate coach (for my kids) for improving their fitness and conditioning. Any suggestions on strength training and age appropriate exercises from folks on this forum who play tennis actively? There is a ton of stuff online but not really sure what's credible.

Gautam, My boys (ages 9 and 11) are at a tennis academy here in Austin. The 9-yr old is showing lots of promise but a long way to go. The coaches are truly world-class, but we parents (you and me, at least) tend to view the game more holistically. There is a lot of life lessons being learned on and off the courts, and that imho is the ROI.

Foot speed and agility are key in the modern game (look at how Djoker or Delpo retrieve and punch every ball back). The boys are in swim and soccer as complementary sports. There is a school of thought that swim slows down the reflexes, but our goal is to stay healthy and avoid injury.

i hit the gym 3 times a week and am a middling 3.0/3.5 (NTRP) player. 4.0 is reachable, and there are some 5.5 players at our Academy.

If you post your body fat percentage here, i'll post mine

Best wishes to you.

Thanks Peter. It's always a pleasure chatting with you (unless of course we are talking about the Fed or Bernanke). I know we chatted about this a bit in the past. My boys (10 and 7) swim and play basketball year around (but tennis is their primary sport). They both love the sport and my younger one, like yours, is showing promise. I totally agree that agility and foot speed are the key what I've begun to realize also is that you can't get fast without building lower body strength. I am actually inclined on cutting down their tennis a bit and instead have them focus on strengthing and conditioning (at least for the 10 year old). I want to minimize their risk of getting injured. Just want to make sure they are strong enough to play against faster and stronger opponents (especially as they grow older).

I've tried to get my 8-year old into tennis, but he's too much of a soccer die-hard. I've heard that opinion about swimming slowing reflexes before, but I have to say I'm very skeptical - and the benefits in terms of muscle development & stamina are huge. I've pushed hard for both our kids to make swimming sport #2, regardless of what they choose for #1. I may be getting the theory all wrong here, but I don't think the development of muscles in general impairs fast-twitch development.

Gautam - I think my lower body strength has improved a lot from long distance cycling. Its a lot lower impact than running, and the effort is dominated by quads & hamstrings. I typically ride 40-50 miles each weekend & a shorter ride or a spin workout during the week. Speaking of which - I will be doing the 170 mile MS ride from here (Houston) to Peter's home town in a few weeks.

Prashant wrote:I've tried to get my 8-year old into tennis, but he's too much of a soccer die-hard. I've heard that opinion about swimming slowing reflexes before, but I have to say I'm very skeptical - and the benefits in terms of muscle development & stamina are huge. I've pushed hard for both our kids to make swimming sport #2, regardless of what they choose for #1. I may be getting the theory all wrong here, but I don't think the development of muscles in general impairs fast-twitch development.

Gautam - I think my lower body strength has improved a lot from long distance cycling. Its a lot lower impact than running, and the effort is dominated by quads & hamstrings. I typically ride 40-50 miles each weekend & a shorter ride or a spin workout during the week. Speaking of which - I will be doing the 170 mile MS ride from here (Houston) to Peter's home town in a few weeks.

Awesome, Prashant. Good luck with the ride.

I've heard from sources (including the famous Hal Higdon whose running programs I religiously follow) that cycling and running work completely different muscles and that cycling is good to build up strength in quads and hamstrings. Hal recommends cycling (and swimming) as cross training workouts. He also mentions that runners should avoid playing tennis/basketball or any other sport that involves stopping/starting and sideways movement (increases the the risk of injury). Some day, I'll swtich from running to cycling (like President George Bush did ) but I love running a bit too much now to completely quit! I've done a few half marathons and am signing up for the Philadelphia full marathon in Nov (i.e, if my body doesn't breakdown by then). It's probably a good idea to take my bike out (of the garage) for a tune up!

I ran another half marathon (in Brooklyn) yesterday. Took me 2:12:30, which is 8 min better than my previous PR Going to pick up my track/speed training before the next one. My goal is to break the 2:05 mark in the next one in September!!

Sorry, had to share this with my fellow sports buddies

Congrats and good luck for your continued success. I can only dream of being a marathon type of runner. Actally, not even in my dreams. I have a great admiration for long distance runners.