Wheelchair Tennis Warm ups

Video Transcript

"So, in addition to running marathons and playing basketball in the winter, tennis kind of became my summer cross training sport. Tennis is like any sport. You want to get warmed up. You might do some stretching. You might do some light warm up, work up a light sweat. Make sure you don't eat a big meal, five minutes before you get on the court. You want to stay hydrated. You want to have the right shoes. You want to have the right clothes. If it's cold, you might want to have a sweatsuit on, or a sweat jacket, so really, a wheelchair athlete in that respect is not a whole lot different than an athlete on their feet, and I'm not sure tennis is any different than a runner getting ready, or a basketball player getting ready. The bottom line is, you want to be loose and be ready, before you go out there and start straining muscles, especially when you get old like me. There's balls are always all over the place, and you're running all over them, and whatever, but you need a couple of balls to play, and they always end up on the ground, and you don't always want to roll over there, and set your racket down, and lean over and grab it, so one of the first things I think is really important in wheelchair tennis, is just to be able to develop the coordination to take your racket, and just touch the ball, so it's a small thing, but it's a big thing. Who wants to lean over every time and pick up the ball? Just learn to do that."