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The Tennis Stroke from a Dynamic Posture Perspective
Which muscles and joints are involved in the tennis stroke or swing? Well, a safe answer would be all of them. Next time
you watch someone swing a tennis racket, take notice of how many joints are moving; practically every joint in the body works
at some point during a tennis stroke, making it a very complex movement. To appreciate the neuromechanical challenge a tennis
stroke places on the body, lets look at some of the basic biomechanical requirements.
Tennis isn’t all about hitting your groundstrokes and returning the shots. The tennis game requires two critical
elements, one is the physical aspect in which you have to be in good shape and be able to hit the strokes
and the other is about the mental aspect.
Therefore, to play winning tennis, your knowledge must be broad and thorough. Mastery of the mind is
the crucial factor that tips the balance in favor of the winner.
Start taking lessons early. These skills will help you for the rest of your lives. Our goal is not to turn you into a
professional, but to give you the tools for success that will make the game more enjoyable.
Fundamentals are necessary for cutting down on injuries and increase longevity in the game.
It appears that the more skillful the player, the more enjoyment is gained.
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Tennis requires full rotational capacity of nearly every joint involved. tennis is a rotation sport; to reach your tennis
potential, you must be able to repeatedly rotate efficiently and explosively.
Consider a known physical principle; force applied to an object imparts to it an acceleration, not only in translation
but also in rotation; the object turns around its centre of gravity. This is important, as rotation may cause the affected
vertebrae to displace from the normal position; chiropractors and osteopaths refer to the misalignment of such vertebrae as
subluxation.
Tennis players with inadequate postural alignment, muscle imbalance syndromes, and associated joint motion restriction
will not be able to rotate efficiently. This was proven by Moshe Feldenkrais who, in comparing humans and animals, calculated
mathematically the moment of inertia of the body around the vertical axis.
Feldenkrais noted that when animals adopt a bipedal stance, the head leans forward and is balanced by the pelvis protruding
backward. The result is that the moment of inertia around the vertical axis is four to five times greater than humanlike vertical
alignment.
The position in which the pelvis, truck, and head are aligned vertically and the spinal curvatures are at a minimum is
the position in which minimum muscular contraction is necessary to keep the body from falling over. The smallest amount of
muscular tone is consequently required in that posture. As the player deviates from ideal spinal alignment, muscular tone
increases, as do energy requirements, casuing performance to decrease and the incidence of musculoskeletal pain to increase.
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