2-28-18 (Wednesday) HY: Tennis + Ab EMS.

2-28-18 (Wednesday) HY: Tennis + Ab EMS.

This is my final Tennis Day until April, so I planned to make the most of it.  I left home much earlier in hopes of getting in some extra warm-up time, and it worked.  I was able to warm-up with the leader who is arguably the best player in the club.  It started out well when we were playing at the service line, but when we moved back to the baseline, that is when the differences started to show up.  I am able to handle hard hitters, but I haven't played someone who has such a biting slice backhand.  It almost accelerates when it hits the court and it has some weight behind it.  Even though I knew what was going to happen, I couldn't catch up to it to get a good stroke on it.  Afterward, I was asking him how he hits the shot with so much backspin.  His secret is the string tension.  I string my racket at 55lbs. which is pretty tight for more power.  But he strings his racket at 40lbs.  Which is like a butterfly net in comparison.  Because it is so loose, the ball stays on the racket surface much longer allowing it him to generate that much more spin.  I tried looser strings once, and I couldn't control it.  I'll have to find a way to work around that or give up the hard slice.  But I was sweating buckets just from the warm-up.

Luckily, again, there weren't many people to start, so it was constant drilling for the first 30 minutes or so.  Then suddenly a bunch of people came and we continued doing the same drill for the late-comers.  This time there was a little wait, but not much.  We had two courts and eventually, 14 members.  We were in full rotation mode.  Also, when I was at a break station, I didn't rest, I was running around picking up balls and chasing balls to stop them from going into neighboring courts that were occupied by other people.  I would say that my strokes were at about 60% and my volleys at 65-70%.  Before leaving home, I actually wasn't feeling very good.  I was feeling sluggish and very listless.  I was feeling that feeling you get just before you catch a cold.  Just BLAAAH.   But once I got onto the court, that feeling flew away and I was energetic and pumped to play.

We also did Game Sims.  This format, today, was about 50%.  I would strike the ball well sometimes, then I could feel myself leaning over way too much to hit the ball especially on my backhand.  And when I do that, it goes directly into the net like a wet tissue.  I wish I could just hit auto-pilot and the good form and footwork would automatically happen.  The thing is that I KNOW how to hit a good backhand, and forehand for that matter, but for some reason, all too often I just junk or shank the balls.  Granted, there are a lot of "forced" errors, but there are also way too many unforced errors.  Those are what I need to clean up and get out of my game.

I got in my EMS later in the evening.

In the end, I burned over 1600 kcals.  That was a big burn for a Wednesday.  Probably due to the extra play time and the higher intensity rallying.  Happy HUMP Day!