Posts tagged health

Sometimes You Just Need A Break

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6 months ago
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After playing 3 tough tournaments over the past 5 weekends – with 4 back-to-back tourneys looming ahead on the schedule – my son got sick.  Nothing serious, mind you, but just the kind of exhaustion-inspired viral junk that makes you feel like garbage.  It came on slowly at first but then hit like gangbusters the day before we were supposed to leave for the ITF event in South Carolina.  He begged me to call the doctor for an antibiotic in hopes that he could feel good enough by the next day to go to the ITF and perform well.  I urged him to super-hydrate, eat well, and visit the chiropractor in a last-ditch, non-antibiotic, effort to get him feeling better.  He skipped the meds, took my suggestions, but was still feeling lousy the next More >

Back to Work

1
8 months ago
in

This week, I did something I hadn’t done for 14 years – I went to work for a boss other than myself.

When it was getting close to the time for my son to get his driver’s license, I had one of those AHA! moments and realized I was going to need something else to do with my afternoons once my chauffeuring skills were no longer needed.  While I was very content with my schedule of teaching fitness classes, playing tennis, Facebooking, Tweeting, blogging, and hosting my radio show, I knew my mental health was going to suffer if I didn’t find a reason to get out of my house for at least a few hours each week.  So, I started telling everyone I knew that I was looking for part-time work.

Part-time, for me, meant (1) I couldn’t work Mondays or More >

Our Impact On Our Children’s Development

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10 months ago
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The passages below are excerpts from a rather lengthy email I received this morning from sports psychologist, Dr. Jorge Valverde.  I am reprinting them with his permission.

Our responsibility as parents is like a mountain:  the bigger the mountain to climb, the stronger we must become, and our strength must come from wisdom and inspiration.

Dealing with discipline issues

-       Establish boundaries and natural consequences and follow them closely -       Present one front as parents, avoiding the bad/good cop paradigm -       Change behaviors and attitudes with extended metaphors/stories -       Spend quality time with each child separate and together -       Avoid comparison between your children -       Acknowledge their good More >

You Gotta Have Faith

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10 months ago
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A big thank-you to my amazing yoga instructor, Lisa Jones, for the quote above.

Sometimes I get a major wake-up call which catches me totally off guard.  This weekend’s tournament was one of those.

The week leading up to the tournament was a rough one for my son.  He came down with a cold/sinus infection on Monday and immediately started taking a antibiotic in hopes that he would feel significantly better by the Saturday start day.  All week, he shortened his practices, even resorting to hitting with only me one of the days, trying to conserve his energy.  I begged him to drink Emergen-C – my go-to when I start feeling a cold coming on.  He drank one, maybe two, all week.  I begged him to drink protein shakes at the end of each day.  He More >

If You Can’t Stand the Heat . . .

5
10 months ago
in

For the past several days, the outside temperature has moved into triple digits here in Atlanta, so I figured I’d write a little about how to help our junior players stay healthy in the extreme heat.

What is heat-induced cramping?  According to Dr. Scott Riewald, USTA’s Administrator of Sport Science, heat cramps come from dehydration and electrolyte loss that result from sweating.  There are other factors (e.g. anxiety, psychological stresses) that can contribute to heat cramps as well.  The end result is there is a change in the way the nerves communicate with the muscles – the nerves send inappropriate electrical signals to the muscles that cause them to contract or spasm.  The cramps often begin as subtle “twitches” in one or more More >

Help Yourself!

2
1 year ago
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Have you noticed all the medical time-outs and trainer visits the pros seem to be having during their matches in recent years?  Sometimes they’re necessary,  but sometimes they’re a strategic move on the part of the player to shift the momentum of the match or take a time-out to regroup after a rough patch.  In either case, I think it’s time for professional tennis to take a lesson from the juniors and teach the players how to care for themselves court-side or just resign themselves to the fact that the fitter, healthier player is going to win that day.

Very few junior tournaments have medical trainers on staff – it’s just too expensive for the tournament directors – so it’s really important that your junior player understands how to take More >

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