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JAK'S MONTHLY ESSAY SERIES: Achieving Your Personal Best

Why Bother Breathing to Improve Your Game

By Jak Beardsworth

You attend tour events in your area. You regularly tune into the Tennis Channel to watch your favorite players in tournaments far and wide. You aspire to fashion your game by mimicking the stroke mechanics, movement, strategy and tactics of the tour's big boys and girls to the best of your ability. Yet, strangely, clubbers mostly fail to model themselves after the breathing techniques of the best players on the planet.

Unfortunately, the ubiquitous use of term "grunting" has done a great disservice in discouraging breathing - a highly essential component of the game - among club mortals, both overtly and subliminally, by putting such a negative spin on it.

A never ending curiosity to me, it's a lingering epidemic in club tennis that's, embarrassingly, left unaddressed by far too many teaching pros.

I've dutifully covered the subject in both my books - More Than Just the Strokes and Tennis Game Theory - apparently to little avail in my current part of the tennis world where the books have sold well.

Players continue to misperceive the nothing but positive, multi-faceted manifestations that breathing out, exhaling, at the ball striking moment can provide your existing game almost immediately, yet commonly viewed as unimportant.

Hers's a review of the 5 benefits that simultaneously occur if you're not stressfully holding your breath for dear life at shot impact:

  1. It is essential, particularly in a hard fought rally, to prevent one from going into oxygen debt, which, once the red light goes on, will completely undermine your focus on the task at hand, sap your stamina, and not to mention, especially if you're older and in hot/humid conditions, put your cardio-respiratory health at serious risk.
  2. Breathing out through the moment of racket-on-ball contact also adds easy power to your shots by reducing muscle tension, promoting physical relaxation, and optimizing racket swing weight.
  3. Additionally, it triggers an emotional calmness at that stressful shot making moment. Keep in mind that the issue may actually be more "emotional toughness" than "mental toughness," as is typically noted.
  4. Also, the physicality involved in breathing out will also do wonders in eliminating all too common left brain over-thinking, which will literally distract your eyes from the ball at the crucial moment, creating a glazed over non-focus. Think deer-in-the-headlights.
  5. Finally, and overlooked by some of the very best club pros otherwise, and completely unrecognized by others, it enhances the mechanical synchronicity, and all its connected parts – kinetic chain - involved in timing the optimal ball striking moment. Right place, right time, right moment.

My colleague, Margit Bannon, a USPTA tennis professional and Yoga Professional, recently offered me her "take" on the breathing component, "Breathing brings a certain fluidity to the tennis stroke in a way that nothing else can. Every other lesson, I get asked by students for 'more power,' but what they fail to realize is that it is in the 'letting go of the breath' (the exhalation/grunt if you will) that we experience that effortless expression of the stroke we are looking for. In other words, stop trying to muscle the ball (which would create more tension, etc), let go, breathe into the letting go of the stroke for that ultimate release to where it might actually feel good to hit the ball while adding more pace. Who doesn't want that?"

I have come to believe that players are timid about breathing, creating a negative mind-set and foolish embarrassment over trying to be "like the pros" with regard to this one, and only one, technique. Huh? As previously noted, they are eager and motivated to model themselves in every other way. But not breathing. I estimate that 70% of club players, maybe more, fit this profile.

In a game where one has to recognize the speed, spin, and trajectory of an incoming shot, calculate an optimal where and when position to intercept it, and then decide what their shot response will be in mere milliseconds, you need all the help you can get at the ball striking moment of truth. Get over it!

I have found great success in getting otherwise perfectly good players, but nonetheless breath-holders, to find "their noise," and improve their game right off. On tour, every player has a signature sound – some even utilize two syllables - that they make while exhaling. It does not have to be the blood curdling screams of the Sharapovas, Azarankas, Williams sisters, Nadals, and, regrettably, many more of the pro world. Ridiculous and bad for the game…where's the decibel meter? Conversely, you have to turn the volume up on your television to hear the greatest male tennis player of all-time, Roger Federer, breathing. Enough said about volume, although I'd love to know Rod Laver's take on the subject.

One of the techniques the Father and original proponent of the term "mental toughness," renowned performance psychologist Dr. Jim Loehr, used in his early groundbreaking programs (early 80s) for those initially uncomfortable and self-conscious with the practice was to say the word "yes" while striking the ball, a very viable substitute for actually exhaling. With committed use over time that "yes" will morph into your signature sound.

Next time out start either making a relatively quiet noise, or saying "yes," through impact right from the first ball in the warm-up, and continue it throughout the entire match, or practice session without fail. Make it your #1 goal for that day. Trust me, once you become more comfortable with the task you'll see a marked improvement in your game. If not - give it an honest try - contact me via email if you reside in SW Florida and I'll offer you a free half-hour lesson to get you over the breathing hump.

Copyright© 2017 by Jak Beardsworth Tennis. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

COMMENTS WELCOME: JB1tennis@comcast.net

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Past Essays

  • December 2024 - Believing In Your Shots
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  • November 2024 - The Walking Wounded
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  • October 2024 - HEY!… MAYBE IT'S JUST YOUR GYRO NEEDING RECALIBRATING
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  • August 2024 - The Game's Most Difficult Skills & the Most Taken For Granted
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  • June 2024 - KNOW YOUR DOUBLE’S IN-POINT SITUATION WHEN BACK or RETURNING SERVE
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  • April 2024 - Coulda, shoulda got that: The Art of Poaching
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  • March 2024 - Get Your JuJu On
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  • February 2024 - Giving Opponents too Much Respect
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  • January 2024 - Rally Ball Or Pull The Trigger
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  • December 2023 - The Forgotten Stop Volley
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  • November 2023 - "You're Only as Good as Your Second Serve"
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Essay Archives

Click a year to view more essays

2023

  • October 2023 - good misses vs bad misses
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  • September 2023 - Why good players are good players!
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  • August 2023 - On poaching and fake poaching: Becoming a Force at the Net in Doubles
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  • July 2023 - The Beautiful Game is Getting Ugly
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  • June 2023 - The Approach Dropper: Lob Killer
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  • May 2023 - Why club players don't practice
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  • April 2023 - DON'T FIGHT TIGHT
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  • March 2023 - Classic finish line failure
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  • February 2023 - Defending the lob over your net partner - The "Switch"
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2022

  • December 2022 - E. I. D. - Extended Impact Duration
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  • November 2022 - Movement Enhancement to Stay Better In-Point Connected
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  • September 2022 - Advanced Visualization 301
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  • August 2022 - Tennis' uniqueness: warming-up the enemy
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  • July 2022 - Extracting Double Faults Through Receiving Positions... and more
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  • June 2022 - Consider Serve and Volley
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  • May 2022 - How the Toss Primes the Serve Relaxation Pump
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  • April 2022 - Ball Watching and Science
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  • March 2022 - Caving
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  • February 2022 - Kenny G and Emmo
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  • January 2022 - The Knees
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2021

  • December 2021 - The Match is with You
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  • November 2021 - The Backup Racket in Your Bag
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  • October 2021 - Every Tennis Player Can and Should Have a Weapon
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  • September 2021 - LEARNING NEW SKILLS: First the Process, Then the Results
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  • August 2021 - The Challenge of Visualizing… For Some
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  • July 2021 - Playing with both your feet and your hands
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  • June 2021 - Finding the Range
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  • May 2021 - The Focus
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  • April 2021 - About Your Butt Cap
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  • March 2021 - The Essential Forehand and Backhand
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  • February 2021 - On Being a Doubles All-Courter
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  • January 2021 - Same Grip Volleying Myths
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2020

  • December 2020 - On mechanics and style
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  • November 2020 - THE BIG 3: The Glue That Keeps Your Best Game Together
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  • September 2020 - Protocol and Game Tradition Revisited
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  • August 2020 - As Good as Your 2nd Serve
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  • July 2020 - Shot Shaping
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  • June 2020 - Getting a Point in Jeopardy Back to Neutral
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  • May 2020 - A Positive Mind-Set: On and Off the Court in Today's C-19 Reality
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  • April 2020 - The Zombie Tennis Creed – Top Ten
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  • March 2020 - A Roadmap Into "The Zone"
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  • February 2020 - The service toss: myths and realities
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  • January 2020 - Shot Gazing
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2019

  • December 2019 - The Dreaded High Bouncing Moonball Dilemma
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  • November 2019 - Chalk Flew: Troublesome Line Calling without Hawkeye in Clubland [read more]
  • October 2019 - In the Spirit of Don't Drink and Drive… Don't Think and Hit [read more]
  • September 2019 - Old School vs New School [read more]
  • August 2019 - Getting the Ball Where You Want It [read more]
  • July 2019 - Taking Points Off…What? [read more]
  • June 2019 - Confidence Is Confidence: Take It Wherever You Can Get It [read more]
  • May 2019 - TENNIS INNOVATION IMPLODES [read more]
  • April 2019 - Defending the Court with Older Bones: A Club Player's Guide to Saying "Nice Shot" Less [read more]
  • March 2019 - Do You Have Doubles Rally Tolerance? [read more]
  • February 2019 - I Knew Jimy Van Alen: A Historical Look Back [read more]
  • January 2019 - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Mental Toughness Skills [read more]

2018

  • December 2018 - Less Bling is the Thing [read more]
  • November 2018 - Anatomy of a Doubles Serve Return…from the Inside Out [read more]
  • October 2018 - Older Dogs and New Tricks: Still Improving at Any Age [read more]
  • September 2018 - The All-Important Dynamic of Gripping [read more]
  • August 2018 - The Cinemascope Syndrome: Undermining Your Ball Watching [read more]
  • June 2018 - Serving and Returning Better with a Quiet Eye [read more]
  • May 2018 - The Man Who Breathed for Two [read more]
  • January 2018 - Rituals Anyone? [read more]

2017

  • December 2017 - Why Serving is so Difficult in Clubland [read more]
  • October 2017 - Managing your body and mind in tennis space [read more]
  • August 2017 - Why Bother Breathing to Improve Your Game [read more]
  • May 2017 - The "Maintaining" One's Game as One Ages Fallacy [read more]
  • February 2017 - Punta Gorda Tennis Clubs: Setting the Bar [read more]
  • January 2017 - State of the Club Game: The Growing Death of Sportsmanship [read more]

Check back often for more essays.