How to Relax Under Pressure
Increasingly the Essential Tennis Forums are a wonderful place for tennis enthusiasts everywhere to gather and share their problems, triumphs, and other thoughts about tennis. That is where the subject for this blog comes from, it's a question written there by Darius, who goes by Dariusn in the forums. He wrote and said:"I noticed recently that after a while, my hitting arm will slightly throb or feel really warm during a match or sometimes during practice when playing a pseudo match.
The sensation will come from the bicep and sometimes the tricep. So I am figuring out that I am arming the ball. I dunno where this is coming from, it is most likely from serving and maybe during a power shot WW forehand. If I continue down this path, I have a feeling that I will development a chronic condition of arm problems.
I know that the key is to relax when playing especially on serve, but it is sometimes hard to do so when adrenaline is pumping especially through a crucial match where you just want to smash the ball out of play for your point or trying to serve it very well. Are there any pointers to staying relaxed even through the most crucial moments during a match?"
You've brought up an extremely important topic Darius! Anything we can do to decrease the chances of injury is certainly worth while, since our enjoyment of tennis could hinge on such things.
Physical and Technical Implications
Before I talk about ways to avoid becoming tense during match play I feel it's important for you to understand exactly how essential keeping your body relaxed is to your progression as a tennis player. There are three main reasons:
Injury
Playing tennis well requires your body to make long, sweeping motions with your arms, shoulders and core as well as very intense amounts of footwork. When you become physically tight your muscles tense up, and are much more difficult to contract and move. Continuing to force them to move over and over as you swing at the ball or sprint towards it puts them under considerably more strain which can quickly lead to an overuse injury such as tennis elbow. Keeping your muscles loose and relaxed so that they can move fluidly and efficiently will help minimize injury.
Efficiency
Even if your tensing up during tennis doesn't result in a painful injury and time away from the sport, it will still cause you to use up more energy than necessary to compete. Let your body work as its made to by allowing your muscles to move freely.
Better Technique
Day after day I'm on the court with club level tennis players that are literally holding themselves back physically. When you swing your racket should move freely and smoothly, very often lower level players have tight muscles before, during, and after contact with the ball which results in short, jerky swings. From level to level in tennis, very typically the better the player, the longer the swing to achieve more power, spin, and control over the ball. Don't hold yourself back!
Overcoming Tense Moments
So you might be saying to me now: "Well that's all fine and dandy Ian, but I can't control my tension! Every time I play a match and a big point comes up I just tighten up!" Well first of all please don't think you're the only one, everybody deals with this from time to time, even the pros, and some people chronically every time they play. Unfortunately there's no silver bullet to overcoming this, just as everybody has different physical attributes to which certain playing styles lend themselves, each individual player deals with mental issues differently as well. Below are four suggestions you can try to relieve your mind, and in turn your body within a pressure situation.
Focus on Your Strategy
When you're getting ready to play a really important point in your match, the last thing you want to do is put your mental focus on thinking about just how critical it is that you succeed. Worse yet is thinking about how terrible it would be if you failed, these types of thoughts need to be put out of your head as quickly and as often as possible, and you can do that by replacing them with a solid game plan to focus on. You chose which thoughts to linger on, and which to push aside and ignore, dismiss negative or tension building thoughts and replace them with a strategy to accomplish. This doesn't have to be complicated at all, it can simply be "cross court return, cross court return", or "serve to the backhand, volley cross court". Just make sure its specific and appropriate to your skills and abilities. Give your brain something else to work on!
Focus on the Ball
The most generic advice in all of tennis right? Trust me, focusing on the ball is a powerful mental tool. Just like the suggestion above about focusing on a strategy we're giving our mind something else to occupy itself with, taking our conscious attention away from how incredibly important this point is perceived to be. I personally use this one very often as I compete (in paddle tennis more than regular tennis lately). As the toss goes up to be hit by the server my eyes are fixed intently on it already, and I often times literally think or even say to myself over and over "ball, ball, ball, ball" as I step forwards and split step to receive the oncoming ball. What could be more important to focus on than the ball? Pretend its just you and it out there and nothing else matters, play the ball and not the situation.
Waiting to Exhale
Make sure that you continue to breathe during a point as you make your strokes. This is why the pros "grunt", it's the release of a breath usually timed with making contact with the ball. This release helps relax the body, and therefore get the most possible result from their efforts. If you don't already release a breath as you hit the ball try it next time you go out to practice, and make it a habit. It doesn't mean you have to grunt, but as you start hitting the ball stronger and more aggressively you may find one come out once in a while along with your breath!
Enjoy the Pressure!
Some of you out there are saying "What?! Enjoy it? You're crazy." This is a mental attitude that can be learned, and I promise you that the vast majority of high level players out there adopt it. Rather than dreading those big points and focusing on how bad it will be if you fail, consider the opposite. How awesome is it that you're able to get out there to compete against another athlete, and fight hard to contest a match of body and mind. Just being on a court to compete gets me all pumped up and excited, and by the way this excitement is very often referred to as "nerves" by lesser experienced players. Instead of being scared of that big point at the end of the match, relish the idea that you even get to participate in something so cool in the first place. Not only that, but you're now being presented with an opportunity to show what you're made up and come away victorious! This is a privilege, and something you should learn to appreciate very much, rather than dread.
Feeling nervous and anxious is completely normal and universal, how you think about it and react to it are totally up to you!
