ARTICLES

In tennis, court coverage is an important part of winning.  But if you can’t cover the court effectively, it could be that you’re fighting an injury or pain.  One of the most common is a pain in one or both knees. Certainly, some injuries to the knee may be somewhat obvious, showing up on X-rays or quickly apparent in examinations.  Some injuries though are not exactly inside of the knee joint, but in front of or around it, yet often the discomfort it creates makes play impossible.  Some top professionals have had to take considerable time off due to this painful

A parent’s dream, in the world of junior tennis, is their child’s success on the court.  Success can be measured in many ways.  It is the hope of all interested and caring peripheral fans that this success will include the development of important skills that will propel their child toward productive adulthood and healthy life, long after junior tennis.  To this end, we all look for integrity, honesty, and sportsmanship to be a part of our children’s makeup.  These qualities are honed and refined throughout the rigors of a competitive world, not just in sports, but life in general.  In the

Overuse Although overuse injuries are common in sports enthusiasts at any age, this health problem in young athletes has only been recognized in recent years.  Overuse injuries in active youths range from the well-known nonspecific “growing pains” to the permanent disability of a bone. The major factor in the increased frequency of overuse injuries in young tennis players is a health problem largely caused by sports specialization.  Most young athletes develop injuries as a result of not providing reasonable off-training periods. Repetitive Impact                Microtrauma is caused by repetitive impact on an area such as

You are heavily into combat; the red clay under your feet feels heavy and damp; the balls are coming backstroke after stroke.  You move side to side, trying to control the point.  Your opponent, equally skilled, returns wide, and you are forced to extend even farther to reach the ever-widening angle, and then, WHAM!  You go over on the side of your ankle.  Your body’s weight tears down on your outer leg and your foot roll up below, and worst of all, you hear a POP! What just occurred was a tearing of your lateral ankle ligaments, or a sprained ankle,

Plantar fasciitis is a common foot-pain diagnosis.  Also known as a heel-spur syndrome, plantar fasciitis causes heel pain and pain across the bottom of the foot due to the inflammation of the plantar fascia, a fibrous sheath just under the skin and traveling the length of the bottom of the foot from inside the heel bone across the sole to attach at the bottom of the toes. With the active lever action of foot propulsion, the plantar fascia experiences over-usage.  The painful complaints usually occur at the bottom, front portion of the heel bone.  The occurrences appear more regularly in older,

I don’t understand it, you think to yourself. I’ve been doing all the right things–extra warm-ups and drills, jogging in place, resisting the urge to hit full power the first ten minutes on the court, so I’m well prepared for the demands of spring tennis, yet my heel still hurts. What am I not doing right? ​Your approach to training is sound, but things happen despite your best efforts at prevention. One is heel pain, largely tied to overuse, so if you’ve been training hard and have been an avid player, your heel is speaking up! Heel pain causes a sharp,

If it’s good enough for Chris Evert, Robert Parish, and Joe Montana, it may be good enough for you. They are just some of the many athletes who will not play without wearing custom molded orthoses (CMO) in their athletic shoes developed by Pro Support Systems. Worn regularly, the custom molded orthoses add balance, support, and control to the foot and decrease the potential for sports-related injuries. ​Pro Support Systems is the joint effort of Bala Cynwyd podiatrist Simon Small—a fellow of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine and associate of the American College of Foot Surgeons—and Kendrick Whitney a

Whether you’ve been playing tennis for 4, 24, or 40 years, you may at some point experience heel pain. This article is the first in a series that I hope will be helpful to athletes who want to better understand what problems they may experience in their feet, which ultimately affect how they feel both on and off the court. By taking a few moments now to understand the origin of your discomfort, you may prevent it from reoccurring. Don’t despair-your game is only temporarily kaput!  ​Heel pain is uncomfortable and annoying because it interrupts your ability to play, but the

I grew up with a desperate desire to wear loafers. All my friends wore penny loafers to school, but I had to wear an ungainly pair of black and white saddle oxfords with a Thomas heel and a steel shank. I complained to my mother that I was too young for old-lady shoes, but, bless her good intentions, she truly believe these monstrosities would cure my aching feet—which are as flat as a slice of bologna. Well, Mom was wrong. The corrective shoes didn’t do a thing. My feet still hurt, but at least I’m no longer ashamed to walk the

You’re on the court to play hard: winning is the object. But walking off the court with a winning score may be a hollow victory if your feet lost the match. In squash, you are pushing the envelope in ways you can’t imagine in terms of the normal range of motion in foot muscles and skeletal structure.