A week of shoulders

First week of training with new coach, Gary Waughman, has come and gone already. It's been a very intense week getting used to his style of coaching and the adjustments he wants to make to my game. I have also been working with hitting partner Kev Gissing who is ideal as at a playing level his game was always about grinding out victories making very few errors. This makes the sessions even tougher when the ball keeps coming back but gives me the goal that if I can hit through him and outlast him on a court, I know I'm doing well!

The biggest changes that we are in the process of making to my game is adjusting the shoulder rotation on both my forehand and my backhand. We have also made changes to my serve to increase the shoulder rotation to increase the 'coiling' effect. All of these adjustments are being introduced immediately and my new coach is right on my back to ensure that right through from the first ball I hit in the warm up through every point situation I am disciplined enough to continue the technique.

Alongside the technique adjustments and tennis training my fitness training has continued with a few running sessions, along with a newly acquired heart rate monitor which has been great for allowing me to monitor my progress and make sure I am training in the right 'zones'. I will drop my gym weights sessions to just three each week which will focus on heavy weight training still for chest and arms, shoulders and back and legs. However, I have introduced more core training and tennis specific training that I am able to complete with relatively little equipment in and around my work on court. This includes some new training using gymnastic rings, courtesy of my brother. They provide some great exercises that use your whole body to stabilise your movement through each exercise and are ideal for core training for tennis.

That's all for this blog this week but I will keep you updated on my progress. Here are just a couple of short videos showing the kind of thing that we have started working on in a controlled environment, hence working from the service line etc. Please also take a look at my twitter account for more regular updates! www.twitter.com/jacksaunders