Play Smart Tennis – MIND YOUR GAME – Anticipate! Don’t participate
by Milos Dimic, Sports Neuroscience PhD
To be able to produce consistent level of performance at the physical (visible to eye) level, athletes are in need of the rested and productive brain, prepared to create mental images and connect them to the muscle fibers producing the most optimal movement
Before we activate our muscle fibers to begin our movement, there is an order of things that should be done inside of our brains. No matter how it sounds, although our brain is a perfect machine that enable us to do impossible things it can inhibit us from doing things as well
The movement as a task and its outcome can be influenced by multiple factors as players interact with environment adjusting, creating and coordinating their own psycho-physical responses and body movements depending on the task in hand (perception) and spatio-temporal constraints (action potentials)
Initiating preparation for the stroke that is considered defensive not only influences the stroke mechanics but decreases the levels of forces used in the stroke production. By changing the perception from defensive to counter attacking, the player can neutralize the attacking intentions of the opponent, placing him/her to the unfavorable position at the court
In order to keep lateral momentum as a source of power, the player needs to keep the inertia (lateral direction) without pulling the breaks before the stroke transferring the linear momentum into the forward momentum
Tennis game relates to the changes from external to internal focus. Incoming ball with all the changes in intensity and pace should be recognized as soon as possible so the prediction of the ball bounce would quicken the preparation for the technical-tactical execution.
Players focus externally to determine the properties of the incoming ball and make a decision of the preparation and timing of their set-up for the stroke. As the ball is external object to which trajectory and intensity a player responds, players are in need of the recognizing the external stimulus – ball. As soon as the spatio-temporal characteristics (intensity, pace and court area where the ball will bounce) of the incoming balls are recognized, player can transition the attention to creating internal (own) responses. Internal responses are determined by the decision of the movement response and the technical-tactical execution
Play Smart Tennis - MIND YOUR GAME - Anticipate! Don’t participate 