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Latest News

Jim Brown, Ph.D., Executive Editor, Sports Performance Journal (athletesperformance.com) will be contributing new content on sports nutrition, training and fitness to southerntennis.com each month. If you would like to see an article on a specific topic please email him your request.

USTA #102 Tests III – 20-Yard Dash

6/2/2008 2:24:00 PM

USTA High Performance Fitness Testing III: How Do You Measure Up?

Tests II – Push-Ups

5/2/2008 5:37:00 PM

In the previous Sports Science column, we talked about the the United States Tennis Association’s 11 components of fitness and injury prevention and the tests to measure those components.

Tennis Fitness Tests: Sit-Ups

3/18/2008 3:53:00 PM

Sit-ups can be used to test abdominal power and endurance. Follow these instructions and compare your score to the national standards.

Frequently Asked Questions About Tennis Nutrition

2/12/2008 7:32:00 PM

We get lots of questions about tennis in general and about tennis nutrition in particular. Here is a sample of those questions and answers provided by sports nutritionists around the country.

Sports Hernia: Thigh and Abdominal Muscles Overuse Can Cause Sports Hernia

1/10/2008 4:44:00 PM

Repetitive twisting and turning by hockey, soccer and tennis players, as well as those who ski, run, or hurdle, may cause a sports hernia, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. The exact incidence of sports hernias is unknown, but previous studies have indicated that 40 to 85 percent of chronic groin pain may be due to the condition.

Tennis Elbow Research

12/4/2007 1:31:00 PM

Tennis elbow may be unavoidable for some people, according to a study published in the September 2007 issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.

Fatigue and Gender Combination May Cause Some Knee Injuries

8/30/2007 3:33:00 PM

A new study conducted at the Cleveland Clinic sheds some light of why certain athletes may be more prone to ACL tears when they are fatigued. The study, published in the March 2007 issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, found that female athletes have a tendency to land with a more flexed ankle, the foot rolling outward with an elevated arch, more knee abduction, and knee internal rotation compared to male athletes.

Research Updates: Sports After Hip Resurfacing, ACL Injuries

7/19/2007 3:37:00 PM

Many middle-aged are older tennis players are faced with the possibility of hip replacement or resurfacing, and they want to know what they will be able to do after those kinds of surgical procedures.

Fleet Feet or Flat Feet?

5/30/2007 7:43:00 PM

About 25 percent of Americans have flat feet and most of them don’t have a problem, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. However, tennis players and other athletes suffering from foot, knee, or leg pain, shin splints, Achilles tendinitis, or plantar fasciitis should pay attention to whether one foot is flatter than the other.

Rehabilitation Mistakes

3/20/2007 7:06:00 PM

Tennis players don’t like to miss time because of injuries. As a group, they are as serious about their rehabilitation as they are about training and competing. Nevertheless, they occasionally make mistakes that delay the recovery process even further.

Early Sports Specialization May Be Detrimental

1/23/2007 8:05:00 PM

Early specialization is a common practice among junior tennis players and is often encouraged by parents and teaching professionals. Following is a news release from NewsWise regarding this controversial topic that reflects the opinion and research of Jennifer VanSickle, an assistant professor of sports management at the University of Indianapolis.

Ten Warning Signs of Over-involved Tennis Parents

12/12/2006 3:37:00 PM

There are two extremes when it comes to parents being involved with their children’s activities. One on end of the continuum, there are those who do almost nothing. They don’t go to teacher-parent meetings, don’t know who their children’s friends are, don’t enforce any rules of behavior, and don’t care whether or not their children participate in sports or extra-curricular activities.

Steroid Injections Not a Long-Term Solution to Tennis Elbow

11/6/2006 7:48:00 PM

Steroid injections might provide short-term relief for tennis elbow, but don’t count on it as a long-term solution. In fact, doing nothing — if nothing includes not playing tennis — is just as effective as the steroid option.

New Stretching Therapy For Plantar Fasciitis

9/25/2006 2:47:00 PM

Sooner or later, a significant number of tennis players have to deal with plantar fasciitis. It is a condition in which the band of tissue that supports the arch and runs along the bottom of the foot becomes chronically irritated and inflamed. In the past, treatment has often included weight-bearing stretches for the Achilles tendon.

Short-Term Recovery Nutrition

8/22/2006 3:42:00 PM

What a tennis player eats or drinks to recover following intensive training or competition should vary with the amount of time before the next exercise session.

Training Performance and Time of Day

8/9/2006 2:22:00 PM

Tennis players practice, play, and train for strength and endurance at all times of the day and night, often more than once. For those who have a choice about when they exercise, the time of day’s effect on performance could mean the different between poor, average, and better than average results.

Is the Glycemic Index Overrated?

7/19/2006 12:38:00 PM

No wonder everyone is so confused about nutrition, weight control, and health. Another media blow up has occurred involving the Glycemic Index. Could it be true? Could the index that has been adopted by many as the “golden ticket” to weight loss be skewed?

Tennis Elbow Research - The Truth Behind the Pain

4/4/2005 3:52:00 PM

Which is more effective in the treatment of tennis elbow: cortisone injections, physical therapy, or a wait-and-see approach? Researchers at a university in Amsterdam assigned 185 patients to one of three groups corresponding with the three strategies.

Looking for Antioxidants? Raspberries Are Potent Source

6/27/2006 2:32:00 PM

Serious tennis players, we hope, are always looking to improve their nutritional balance sheets. Part of a healthy diet is a steady, tasty supply of antioxidants, which are known to provide many health benefits and may play a crucial role in reducing inflammation associated with arthritis and other conditions.

Weak Knees: To Brace or Not to Brace

5/17/2006 2:38:00 PM

Tennis players and other serious athletes put a tremendous amount of stress on their knees. Some of them sustain knee injuries and wear knee braces afterward, while others are faced with the question of whether they should use knee braces to prevent injuries.

Best Recovery Fluid: Chocolate Milk Instead of Sports Drinks?

5/2/2006 12:22:00 PM

After your next tough match or challenging practice session, you may want to consider a surprising new sports drink to help refuel tired muscles: low-fat chocolate milk. The International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism reports that athletes who drank chocolate milk after an intense bout of exercise were able to work out longer and with more power during a second workout compared to athletes who drank commercial sports beverages.

Beyond Overtraining

4/18/2006 1:54:00 PM

The term "overtraining" is a misnomer. The physical and mental condition that prohibits tennis players and other athletes from training and performing to their capacities can be caused by a variety of things other than simply training too hard or too long.

Back Pain: When to See a Doctor

4/3/2006 6:27:00 PM

If we were to run to a doctor with every backache, we’d never have time to play tennis. So how do you know when a back injury is serious enough to seek medical attention?

What Not to Do After a Tennis Injury

3/20/2006 7:24:00 PM

Most tennis players are familiar with the RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) protocol following an injury. But how many of you know what HAAM means?

The Truth About the Effects of Glucosamine and Chondroitin

2/28/2006 4:42:00 PM

Tennis players with osteoarthritis knee pain have been taking glucosamine and chondroitin for almost a decade, but without much supporting evidence that they actually did anything. A study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine has shed some new light on these two sometimes misunderstood supplements.

Recovering From a Tennis Injury: Realistic Expectations

2/17/2006 4:39:00 PM

Arthroscopic surgery has spoiled us. Athletes want to believe that they can return to full participation in a matter of weeks — maybe even days — after an operation on the knee or shoulder.

Sports Hernia: New Name, Old Condition

2/7/2006 3:48:00 PM

In the late 1990s, the term “sports hernia” began to creep into the sports medicine literature. Until then, it had been referred to simply as “groin pain” or “chronic groin pain.” Now, “sports hernia” seems to be on the sports page all too often.

Protecting Yourself Against Wrist Tendonitis

1/10/2006 4:56:00 PM

Wrist tendonitis doesn’t get as much attention as tendonitis in the elbow, but it can be just as much of a problem for tennis players.

WUT: A Memory Device to Monitor Hydration

12/2/2005 7:34:00 PM

The Gatorade Sports Science Exchange has published WUT, which is a memory device designed to help athletes monitor their own day-to-day hydration status. WUT is based on scientific principles of hydration assessment, but the only equipment it requires is a body-weight scale. Read on for a summary of how the WUT system works.

Junior Tennis Players: Addressing Physical Deficiencies, Part II

11/14/2005 8:58:00 PM

In our previous Sport Science article, we looked at five physical attributes necessary for young tennis players to reach their full potential. In today’s column are five more — agility, flexibility, coordination, cardiovascular fitness, and vision — and how to improve them.

Junior Tennis Players: Addressing Physical Deficiencies, Part I

10/31/2005 5:46:00 PM

There are at least ten physical qualities that can enable young tennis players to reach their potential. The boundaries of those attributes are established by genetic considerations, but how much improvement that takes place within those boundaries depends on the athlete.

Predicting Long-Term Tennis Success

10/10/2005 4:13:00 PM

While using present ability and achievement to predict future athletic success is done all the time, more and more research is showing that this type of forecasting is much more difficult than most people think.

Updating Hydration Information

9/29/2005 7:02:00 PM

No matter how much information is available to athletes, parents of athletes, coaches, and trainers, there are always issues that need to be emphasized, updated, or re-visited. In this column, we look at replacing fluids with foods, the mixed evidence on caffeinated drinks, and hydration for children who are tennis players, athletes, or serious exercisers.

Hamstrings: Your Weakest Link?

9/14/2005 4:17:00 PM

Lack of flexibility, poorly conditioned muscles, and muscular imbalance are the usual suspects when tennis players sustain pulled hamstrings. But Gene Coleman, Ed.D., Chair, Fitness and Human Performance Program at the University of Houston – Clear Lake, thinks many hamstring injuries are caused by something even more basic.

Are You an Obligatory Exerciser?

8/15/2005 8:31:00 PM

We don’t have to tell most tennis players about the benefits of exercise. But there will always be a subset of athletes and exercisers who take things too far, get exercise out of perspective, and eventually suffer physical or psychological damage as a result.

Herbs and Athletic Performance

8/5/2005 1:51:00 PM

Tennis players are always looking for ways to enhance their performance, to maintain a state of health conducive to performance, and to recover from training and competition as soon as possible.

The Case for Sleep

7/19/2005 2:47:00 PM

Convincing a teenage tennis player that sleep is related to performance on the court can be a difficult task for parents, coaches, and teaching professionals.

How Involved Should Parents Be in Developing Tennis Talent?

7/5/2005 4:00:00 PM

The role that parents play in the development of their children’s interest in tennis and other sports ranges from too little to too much. Parent involvement and expectations are associated with success and enjoyment as well as with pressure and stress.

Developing Boys Versus Developing Girls

6/16/2005 2:18:00 PM

Dr. Carol Wood, an associate professor in the Department of Physical Education at Salisbury State University in Maryland and a child development expert, shares her thoughts with parents regarding the athletic development of boys and girls.

Tennis Vision: Are You Really Seeing the Ball?

5/25/2005 5:15:00 PM

We have known how to record physical movements on film for more than a century. There have been ways to record eye movement since the 1960s. But only recently has there been a method of recording physical movement and eye movement simultaneously.

Pinched Nerve: More Than a Pain in the Neck

5/17/2005 6:08:00 PM

The term "pinched nerve" is commonly used by the public, but physicians are more likely to talk about spondylosis, ankylosis, and radiculitis than they are a pinched nerve. More important than the correct terminology is the process that causes pain to start in the neck or back and to radiate through the shoulders, arms, and legs.

The Truth About Net Carbs

4/27/2005 8:04:00 PM

Is “net carbs” an important nutrition concept or simply a marketing technique used by the food industry to make athletes, exercisers, and other consumers feel good about eating foods high in calories? Dr. Brown and Amanda Gwinnup-Carlson look at the facts and cut through the fiction regarding this confusing new nutritional trend.

Proprioception: The X Factor in Tennis

4/19/2005 9:06:00 PM

It’s a word well known in exercise and rehabilitation circles, but one that is seldom-used by tennis players and the concept is not completely understood by anyone.

The Backache Disc & When to See a Doctor

3/14/2005 5:44:00 PM

The disc between lumbar vertebra 4 and lumbar vertebra 5 (L4, L5) has been called the backache disc. It is a frequent source of back pain symptoms, especially when it bulges out (herniates). This disc is part of a joint segment that plays an important role in absorbing shock. It is also subject to mechanical stresses that are not placed on other segments to the same degree.

Leg Injuries: Research, Stress Fractures, Questions

2/16/2005 8:59:00 PM

A study reported in Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, and Arthroscopy has shown that there may be a relationship between hamstring and quadriceps strength ratio in female athletes and the rate of leg injury.

New Dietary Guidelines Have Implications for Tennis Players

1/26/2005 8:55:00 PM

When the government released its "Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005" report in January, the information targeted the general population more than tennis players and other athletes. Many of the recommendations were based on the "normal" 2000-calorie-per-day diet, which is much too low a caloric intake for the serious athlete.

Pain and Performance

1/3/2005 8:28:00 PM

John Heil, D.A., a sports psychologist at the Lewis-Gale Clinic in Roanoke, Virginia, addressed the issue of pain and its relationship to performance at a World Congress on Mental Training. Following is a summary of his comments.

New Evidence on Underlying Causes of ACL Injuries

12/8/2004 2:54:00 PM

A study published in August issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery has provided new evidence on when gender differences begin to occur that result in injured anterior cruciate ligaments.

Repairing Knee Damage: The Microfracture Option, Part II

11/24/2004 4:40:00 PM

In the previous column, a procedure to treat knee injuries called microfracture was discussed. It is an alternative surgical technique used when the damage involves loss of articular cartilage all the way down to the bone. Following is a discussion of possible complications, what the rehabilitation process involves, limitations of the procedure, and where to go for additional information.

Repairing Knee Damage: The Microfracture Option (part 1 of 2)

11/9/2004 5:01:00 PM

Tennis players and other athletes who sustain certain types of knee injuries may be candidates for a procedure called microfracture. Microfracture is a surgical technique to treat full-thickness tears — that is, when the damage involves loss of articular cartilage all the way down to the bone.

Kay’s Story: Two Options for a Gifted Player and Her Parents

10/22/2004 5:02:00 PM

At 13, Kay was a gifted athlete who had never taken a tennis lesson. An hour into her first lesson, she had made dramatic changes in the way she held and swung a racket.

What Happens When You Stop Training: The Effects of Deconditioning

10/15/2004 2:00:00 PM

Serious exercisers and competitive tennis players worry about what will happen to their fitness and performance levels if they cannot work out because of injuries, family and work responsibilities, or other circumstances.

When Overconfidence Meets Reality

9/20/2004 1:32:00 PM

The best doubles team doesn’t always win. Judging opponents on the basis of their strokes, age, or appearance is a big mistake that often leads to overconfidence. And once the overconfidence train starts rolling, it’s hard to stop it.

The Penalty for Skipping Meals

8/30/2004 6:54:00 PM

Tennis players are notorious for eating at odd times, eating not-so-nutritious meals, and even skipping meals altogether. Evelyn Tribole’s new edition of Eating on the Run (Human Kinetics Publishers) has some good suggestions for tennis players and other time-challenged athletes.

Getting Used to the Heat

8/2/2004 6:29:00 PM

Unless steps are taken to allow the body to adapt to the hot and humid conditions of the summer months, expect a negative effect on performance and a higher than normal risk for heat-related problems.

Eating Disorders in Athletes: What are the Risk Factors?

7/6/2004 3:16:00 PM

Successful athletes often seek perfection, are goal-oriented, and are driven to excel. They may also be independent, persistent, and better able to tolerate pain. Unfortunately, those are the same personality traits seen in people who develop two clinical eating disorders — anorexia and bulimia.

Are You Pushing Your Kids Too Hard?

6/15/2004 3:31:00 PM

Achievement by Proxy (ABP) develops when parents of gifted athletes develop unreasonable and dangerous pride and satisfaction in the achievements of their children.

Resistance Training for Young Tennis Players

6/7/2004 2:11:00 PM

“When should my child start lifting weights?” is one of the most common questions asked by parents of young tennis players. With the myriad of questions surrounding strength training their concerns are well founded. Here, Dr. Jim Brown tries to shed some light on this often confusing question.

It's Okay to be Nervous

5/18/2004 8:38:00 PM

One of the myths of sports is that great athletes don't get nervous. There they are, performing in huge stadiums on live television before world audiences. They have every reason to be emotional wrecks, but they appear to be calm, cool, and collected.