The fourth in a six part micro series to provoke a little thought about the way you see your game!
In the initial blog on footwork technique, we wrote of efficiency or economy of movement. It’s an interesting subject, in as much as it’s not frequently spoken about. Fundamentally, it’s lovely to hit accurate strokes, it’s important to be reliable and cut down unforced errors… however if the movement patterns we use cause us to be inefficient with our energy, we’re in real trouble.
Let’s assume that from the time we are proficient at the sport, and playing an opponent who is comparable, we’re going to be confronted with games that last around eight minutes. Rough figure, but seems to work out more than not. Eight minute games, 90 second between games, best of five games, and we’re suddenly around the 50 minute mark… that’s a lot of cardio.
Not, let’s assume for a moment that there are situations which are bound to be horribly inefficient.
Emergency moments happen, interference happens, injudicious stroke selection happens, so take those aberrant situations out of the immediate discussion. If you are exhausting yourself with simple rally building strokes, you’re doing it wrong. There, I said it… Special occasions may involve desperate measures, but if you’re finding simple strokes to involve desperate and energy depleting movements, you need to reevaluate your paradigm. Just sayin…
See you on the court!