During the COVID-19 pandemic that the world has been going through, a lot of opportunity has arisen for players to be able to learn at home by doing certain things to keep themselves active and mentally in the game.
Practicing Mindfulness
Now there may not be a tennis court in your house, but there is nothing stopping you from becoming the fittest and strongest player you possibly can. There's a lot of drills you can do in terms of physical work, and mindset work is a really important element that you can practice at home as well. Mindfulness is the practice of making yourself think more presently when you're on the court, so when practiced alongside your physical work, become really important.
Examples of mindset work might include:
- Listening to meditation music,
- Focusing on being present in the moment more often,
- Visualization work,
- Affirmations and self talk to reaffirm the positive things that you can do,
- A focus on gratitude to get in the habit of appreciating things more,
- Writing down things that you're grateful for every single day.
These practices will help to rewire your brain to be able to think about the positives when you're on the court and improve your performance.
Using a brick wall
If you have a brick wall in your house and you can do some volleys or groundstroke hitting, there's nothing better than training against a opponent that doesn't miss. We always want to make excuses for what we can't do, but we never think of the things that we can do.
Volleys against a wall are really important not only for keeping your eye in, but for the strength of your forearm and lower wrist. This will ensure that when you come back on the court after some time away, you have really solid volleys. Additionally slicing against the wall if you have enough distance can be a valuable practice tool, as well as shadow swings to ensure you keep your muscle memory strong.
Being Grateful
People always want to think of the things they don't have instead of the things that they do have, and that's part of being grateful. Showing gratitude is a really important part of making sure your mind set is clear and positive, and making sure you are present in every single step of the way, because being present is a critical part of tennis. Every single point is a new point new opportunity for you to be better.
Take the time to research
When you're at home there's so much to research and look at online. At The Tennis Menu there are so many different programs and drills for you to learn from and use to help your training. You can work on the physical components of your game, which could be from a movement perspective or it could be from a strength perspective.
A number of drills on the Tennis Menu are shadow based. This allows you to visualize what you're doing easier. You can integrate your thought processes and your stroke production together, and if you're thinking of all the things that you can't do you're wasting your time. It's important to think about all the things you can do, utilize the time that you have and utilize the space that you have to work with.
Keep moving forward
There's always a way of improving. Never let something knock you down. This pandemic has knocked everybody around, but at the end of the day the pandemic's going to come to an end. I think it's really critical for us as people to continue to improve ourselves, so when life can resume as normal, we'll be ready to perform and that's what it's all about.
It's about performing to your best at every single stage, and doing things at home on your own is a real key component of that. Don't wait for your coach. Don't wait for your mum or dad to tap you on the shoulder and tell you to get outside. It's important that you get outside you take the initiative and you make yourself a better player every single day