We have just finished the first major tournament of the tennis tour and it did not disappoint. I was lucky enough to go to the AO (Australian Open) and thoroughly enjoyed it. A highlight for me was watching Alex de-Minaur play in front of his home fans. #aussieaussieaussieoioioi
As we progress in this new season, I wanted to share some insights from my involvement with a handful of the worlds best tennis players over the past 12 months.
Last summer, I had the opportunity to spend time working with Novak Djokovic and hear him discuss how he maintains his peak mind and body fitness on and off the court.
You have probably read that Novak takes his health incredibly seriously and has pioneered many aspects of the modern game in terms of fitness and performance. One area that he focusses on is maintaining a sound mind and attributes this to a large portion of his ongoing success. I was fortunately enough to be able to work with Novak’s team with ASICS to evaluate the impact of his morning routine on the state of mind on over 40 journalists. In a novel experiment, adults came to the secret Wimbledon location to have their wellbeing measured & then engaged on a range of activities to sharpen their focus. These activities included mindfulness, morning stretching & tennis routine and a healthy breakfast. The guests were also visited by Novak for a Q&A session. You can read about the coverage of our work on Novak’s routine in the Mirror newspaper and Daily Mail.
I also had the opportunity to take part in a media panel discussion with top 10 tennis player Alex de-Minaur & Olympic Gold medallist and elite player Belinda Bencic.
In the panel discussion, we discussed how the elite players maintain a sound mind and sound body and maximise their chances of peaking at the optimal times. What struck me from the discussion was how much weighting the players gave to manage their minds when not on the court during tournaments. I knew that maintain appropriate rest, sleep routine, nutrition away from matches was key, but I had not realised the extent to which players like Alex & Belinda spent a large amount of time focussing on this. What I took from this was that players found that performing in the tennis was easier to control and more certain/familiar, than the large amount of time trying to unwind and achieve normality outside of this match state.
For me as a scientist, I am really excited about the potential influence of tennis on the health (especially mental health) of participants. It is striking to me, that although tennis remains one of the most commonly played sports globally, there really is scant research on the benefits to us. I see huge potential for the role of tennis and I will be talking at a free event this week where you can register here on this topic. I hope to see you there.
Do watch out as there are some big plans to really demonstrate the uplifting power of tennis on the Mind in the coming year.
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