I am very excited to be on court and see you all again from today as i'm sure you all are.  Having been away from the court for over 3 months I urge you to take it slow and carefully to ensure you don't have another period away from the court due to injury.

I have been lucky to have been on court a fair bit over the last two weeks in taking my Level 4 Qualification in Bromley.  However I can say from my experience after the first day I was in my hotel room aching all over so there is your warning.  I wouldn't say I was in peak condition but by no means was I unfit.  This shows you that my body had got out of its routine of the daily pressures and strains of tennis so it was a shock to the system.

I myself will be ensuring I warm up extensively at the start of each day and cooling down at the end of my day and I will be doing this at the club for all to see and hopefully start a culture and educate everyone as to how important it is.  I will also spend a few minutes stretching  inbetween each lesson to ensure I look after my body throughout the day.  If you have a lesson booked with me over the next few weeks you can expect me to be persuading you to follow my lead.  So why not do your warm up before coming onto court so that you maximise your time on the court!

I can honestly say I have not always been red hot on this but I have paid the price with a serious back injury a few years back.  Since then I have ensured I stretch way more than I ever had done before BUT I know I can do more which is what I will be starting from tomorrow and continuing.  

The reasons behind this is to ensure I prevent myself picking up injuries especially after the long lay off we have had and to ultimately ensure I have longevity in the game of tennis.   So before you run onto the tennis court and straight away pick up your racket and start hitting just ask yourself:

1) HAVE YOU WARMED UP?

2) DO YOU FEEL READY TO PLAY?

3) HAVE YOU DONE ALL YOU CAN TO PREVENT INJURY?

'A MUSCLE IS LIKE A CAR, IF YOU WANT IT TO RUN WELL EARLY IN THE MORNING, YOU HAVE TO WARM IT UP' 

Florence Griffith Joyner

Tomorrow we will go into what a warm up should consist off in more detail.

BUT hey  lets now get out on the court, have FUN, ENJOY playing your FRIENDS, stay SAFE and make sure you............

WARM UP and COOL DOWN!!!!!!!!!!

Happy playing everyone.

Matt