The recent French Open leaves all of us with incredible lessons that we can apply to our daily lives. First let’s start with Simona Halep’s victory. She had been to a grand slam final 3 times before, with a loss each time as a result. Specially tough to overcome was last year’s French Open final in which she had been ahead twice in the match only to lose confidence in herself and fold under pressure. Well she worked hard, overcame her demons and reached the final of this year’s Australian Open; but she again came out 2nd best to Wozniacki. Any other player could have been terribly affected by that defeat but she bounced right back and claimed the next SLAM! At the recent French Open final she was actually the own down a set and behind in the second set when she started her turn around!!

It is so true that a loss ( or any setback) can take you either to learn and become a better person or better player in this case or in can take down the opposite path. It’s all up to you, how you react to what’s happened. Halep learned from each defeat and in the end knew that if she trusted her training and her mental preparation, if she played her game, if she believed in herself, eventually things would play out. And they did.

On the other hand, Rafael Nadal’s victory shows us a different angle and teaches an alternative lesson. Here is a player that a couple of years ago was struggling to find his game again, recovering from injuries and had more and more of the newer younger players battling to dethrone the old guard ( Nadal / Federer ). Nadal had already one 10 Roland Garros! He really did not have anything to prove; well to us but I think to himself he did. His 11th Roland Garros victory exemplifies that persistence, consistency and discipline will always play a critical part in creating the outcome you wish. And it i seven more impressive doing it at 32 years of age when there are so many excellent your tennis players today in the field.

It is not easy for some of us to have or to sustain the same level of confidence and belief that propelled Halep to win her 1st slam and Rafa’s to obtain his 17th! However, the more we read about these success stories and the more we analyze them, it helps us to forge that same type of belief inside of us because we see that it is possible through these examples. Hard work does pay off, but hard work plus belief can be an unstoppable combination!

See you at the next Slam – Wimbledon!

A lot of people today play tennis to stay in shape but it’s important to reevaluate that strategy even if you don’t play competitive tennis. The reason is that injuries usually happen when the body is stressed and pushed beyond its normal limits and that happens because even the weekend, non competitive player will push that limit and strain a calf muscle reaching to get a short ball or pull a back muscle on a tough to get overhead.

Tennis actually becomes much more enjoyable when you put in the hard work and get in shape to play better tennis. Most of us want to improve our technique, our strokes and in general our stamina so it makes sense to actually work on your body to make these enhancements to your game. What I’m talking about does not take a lot of time but it does take patience, effort and consistency.

Let me show you the 3 areas you should focus on every day to get in shape.

1. Weight loss – Most people could use losing at least 5 lbs if not more. In my case, a while back my weight had plateaued at 212 lbs even after trying a variety of diets ( including low carb and high protein ). This lead me to keep searching for a solution for my dilema – getting to my goal weight of 200 lbs. I eventually found success by applying the Fast Diet system explained by Dr. Michael Mosley. This scientifically backed method is quite simple and is based on intermittent fasting only 2 days a week and eating normally the other 5 days.

The key here is that the days that you fast you are eating actually one fourth of your normal caloric intake. So for men ¼ is about 600 calories and for women it is 500. I would fast on Tuesdays and Fridays and eat my normal meals the other days. I started to see results after the first week and I lost a total of 12 lbs after 4 weeks. The neat thing is that although the fasting day is really tough to get through, specially in the beginning, you realize that it is only one day at a time you have to stick consistently to the fast. The very next day you can go back to your normal foods, awesome!

The added benefit is that this method has shown to reduce the risk of a range of diseases including diabetes and heart disease. Try this method for yourself and watch the pounds really start to come off!

2. The next area of focus is stretching. Even for the casual weekend tennis players it is very important to develop a basic stretching routine that can be followed on a daily basis. Let me recommend that you get in the habit of stretching for at least 10-15 minutes everyday before and specially AFTER playing your tennis match. Stretching after playing may be even more important as your muscles are already warm and this gives you the chance to increase your flexibility with less effort. Stretching will of course make you more flexible, which is the goal, but more important it will reduce your chances of getting injured when you play. The more a tennis match lasts, the more daily stretching will benefit you.

One of the ways I get my stretches in daily is by using an app on my android phone. The app I use is Stretching Routines which is simple but easy to use and even has a section on specific tennis stretches. I actually also use another app called Simply Yoga which gives me a more complete stretch and I can set up a routine also. There are of course many apps to select from on your iphone or android phone but I would recommend one that actually runs you automatically through a specific routine that last a certain amount of time, 10, 15 or 20 minutes. I personally use a 10 minute routine on Stretching Routines and a 20 minute routine on Simply Yoga.

In case you are wondering how important some of the pros consider stretching check out this article on Djokovic.

3. Last but not less important is Nutrition – Eating properly is essential when looking to optimize your performance on the tennis court. You need to feel light on your feet and have an abundance of energy. This means eating a well balanced diet which includes a lot of greens and fruit and staying away from soft drinks, fast food and processed food as much as possible. What you should be focusing on is live foods which are the fruits and vegetables and which will provide you with more vibrant energy.

You’ve probably also heard about juicing and how beneficial it is to your overall health. Juicing, I think, is the most efficient way to pack nutrition into your body. You should make drinking juices a part of your daily practice whether they come from either green vegetables or powerful antioxidant fruits or even a combination of both. I recommend that you look into juicing and experiment with different recipes, you won’t be disappointed! For more information on juicing you can go here for podcasts or I also highly recommend getting additional tips here. where you can get on a newsletter that I’ve learned a lot from. I’ll be looking more into juicing in the near future and it might be a topic for a future post.

So what do I do? Well what has worked for me personally is minimizing the intake of carbs and sugars. By doing this and occasionally going on the 5-2 fast which I described above, I have been able to maintain my weight without much effort. I’m also now starting the day off with a fruit juice and although I have done green juicing before, I have not done it recently. I am planning on starting again though because believe it or not your body starts craving these healthy alternatives.

One of the best “nutritional foods” I’ve found in the last few months is organic sulfur.  After searching endlessly for something to alleviate my knee pain this was the only thing that has eliminated the occasional aches I had due to the long hours spent on the tennis court. During my research I found that our body is about 4% sulfur and that we need on a daily basis for our body to function optimally. Unfortunately with today’s chemical fertilizers, most of our food lacks this element and thus I believe we are all suffering not only from unnecessary aches and pains but also from a lot of unnecessary diseases and maladies. I believe in organic sulfur so much that I decided to offer it on my website for sale as a product here. If you read the background research and history on sulfur you will realize just how powerful it can be. I would be happy to address any questions you have on this. Just comment below or hit the contact us link under about us menu.

So now it’s up to you to incorporate these recommendations into your daily activities and see how your tennis game thanks you for it! Let me know how it goes!