Am I just really out of shape?

[Cindysphinx]

Originally Posted by sureshs

OK then get your BP checked. If that is normal, you are probably OK.

Many people who "run out of breath" actually have high BP.

First, see a doc. Make sure it isn't a cardio or pulmonary problem.

If that all checks out, it sounds like poor conditioning and poor technique.

I used to sweat a lot and get out if breath on the court when no one else did. Beyond remembering to breathe, two things helped.

First, split step and recover immediately. Failing to split spent means you are constantly coming to a full stop after every shot. It uses energy to restart your motor. Also, if you don't recover after your shot and instead stand there flat footed and admiring it, then you will have to sprint for the next shot. That is exhausting.

Second, I learned to use my body better. Muscling the ball is exhausting. Lessons helped a lot with this.

Good luck!

[johndagolfer]

thanks for the replies all. During my last checkup my pcp basically said all I need to do is lose weight. Otherwise I am fairly healthy.

I guess what I am trying to get a better understanding of is that some people able to handle being overweight more than others. Like I say I've seen guys at the gym who are rounder and outweigh me by a ton, but can still out run me and have more stamina than I do(even when I was running my very slow paced 15 miles a week).

It just makes me so frustrated that for all the hard work I put into my conditioning/weight loss I am still very constrained on the court by not being able to give it my all due to having to conserve energy.

I guess I will wait and see how I am when I get to my weight goal.

Thanks all!

[LeeD]

Your "hard work" seems NOT tennis related, but overall fitness related.
You now swim farther than ever before, and you jog quite well, compared to if you never did those two things.
Now play tennis more. Play doubles to start, maybe 3-5 sets a day.
Then add singles to the equation, subtracting 2 doubles for every ONE added singles.

[johndagolfer]

Thanks Lee. I guess I do need to get out on the court more. I just thought there would be more of a translation from off the court fitness to on the court.

[LeeD]

I'm in your boat.
I have the ankle problem, cannot run ONE step since 2007. Try to play tennis with that slight incomberance. Singles can get really tough, which is why I say I can lose to the top of the heap 3.5 level singles guys.
I can swim OK, surf OK, windsurf with the best for an hour, even snowboard just fine for a couple of hours.
But beyond that narrow time frame, the game is over.
I try to play 3 doubles sets nowadays, no more, unless I don't have to windsurf in the afternoon.

[johndagolfer]

Attached is the type of hitting that I cannot do for my than 15 minutes without being winded. Sorry about the bad quality

http://youtu.be/RFv8MYUnMJY

[sureshs]

You are a pretty decent player. I can hit like that for 1 hour, with maybe a water break in between. I think I can go more, but I get mentally tired faster than I get physically tired.

[charliefedererer]

Don't get discouraged!!!

You are clearly doing incredibly well to have lost the weight.

Using swimming was brilliant so as not to suffer an injury from running.

The only trouble with swimming is that in the water you are weightless.
So as was mentioned above unless you are swimming really hard and getting your heart rate up, there will be little transference to tennis or running fitness.


It must be frustrating not to have even made even greater strides.

Just be patient - so you may not win the Australian Open - shoot for June and the French for your first title .


The advice above of using a stair climber - or cross country skier or even stationary cycling and doing HIIT workouts is what will eventually get you the kind of "wind" you are seeking for tennis.
HIIT - High Intensity Interval Training http://www.intervaltraining.net/hiit.html

For those who are suckers for high tec gizmos (like me) you may get a kick out of using a heart weight monitor when you work out - even give it a try when you play tennis.
Obviously this is not essential, but getting your heart rate into a higher zone may be a goal that will give you a yardstick to how hard you are working out.
You may even be quite pleasantly surprised to see your heart rate is indeed high - and as the weight comes off you can be expecting to see the results on court you desire.
[I use the Garmin Forerunner 205, although Timex and Polar are probably the two most popular brands, and Garmin makes a waterproof model for swimmers.]



Finally, are you sure you do not have the fairly common problem of "exercise induced asthma"?
I remember someone earlier this year started a thread that they got short of breath on court, and a couple of weeks later gave a follow up that they had been diagnosed with exercise induced asthma.

From the Mayo Clinic website:

"Exercise-induced asthma


If you cough, wheeze or feel out of breath during or after exercise, it may be more than exertion causing your symptoms. You might have exercise-induced asthma. As with asthma triggered by other things, exercise-induced asthma symptoms occur when your airways tighten and produce extra mucus.

If you have exercise-induced asthma — also called exercise-induced bronchospasm (BRONG-ko-spaz-um) — physical exertion may be the only thing that triggers your symptoms. Or, exercise may be just one of several things that trigger your asthma. But having exercise-induced asthma doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise. Proper treatment of exercise-induced asthma and precautions can keep you active — whether you're strolling through the park or running a race.

Exercise-induced asthma symptoms may start a few minutes after you begin exercising, and they may continue to worsen for another 10 minutes or so after you've finished a workout. It's possible to have symptoms both during and after exercise.

Feeling a little short of breath or fatigued when you work out is normal, especially if you aren't in great shape. But with exercise-induced asthma, these symptoms can be more severe."
- http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exe...asthma/DS01040

[TimeToPlaySets]

Video. You should only be winded after 15 mins if its over 95* outside. You're just a little out of shape. Nice swing.

[UCSF2012]

From this doctor's perspective, there's nothing that I'm too concerned about. Stop listening to medical advice from lay people, as they're often made up medicine.

There's nothing wrong with being winded during warm-up. I often do 2-3 hours of tennis without problems, but the first 15-20 minutes is the most difficult. Just keep it up and eat right.

[Fugazi]

I suspect that you don't eat properly.

[r2473]

Originally Posted by UCSF2012

From this doctor's perspective, there's nothing that I'm too concerned about. Stop listening to medical advice from lay people, as they're often made up medicine.

There's nothing wrong with being winded during warm-up. I often do 2-3 hours of tennis without problems, but the first 15-20 minutes is the most difficult. Just keep it up and eat right.

If you started doing barefoot HIIT 10-15 times per week, you'd no longer be winded in the first 15-20 minutes.

I also bet you are eating too much oatmeal (bad carbs) and too little bacon (good fat and protein).

Us lay people know what we are talking about.

[r2473]

Originally Posted by Fugazi

I suspect that you don't eat properly.

I use my mouth? Is that OK?

[Fugazi]

Originally Posted by r2473

I use my mouth? Is that OK?

I think you know what I meant. Just trying to help.

[r2473]

Originally Posted by Fugazi

I think you know what I meant. Just trying to help.

I have been known to use my salad fork for desert.

I know, how gauche.

[Fugazi]

Originally Posted by r2473

I have been known to use my salad fork for desert.

I know, how gauche.

I was responding to the OP. I just noticed that your post made a reference to eating right, but that's a coincidence. I was pointing to the fact that the OP is probably not eating properly, hence the weight gain.

[johndagolfer]

Since I have lowered my target weight to right around my college weight I have been eating a lot better. I am eating smaller portions with more helpings of vegetables. I am hoping to get back to form and without fitness my footwork just isn't there(as you can probably tell from my video).

As for asthma, my PCP did prescribe me some ventolin to try out to see if it would work on clearing up my inability to breath during my workouts. The one time that I did try it it seemed to work a bit.

Thanks all! BTW do you think I can top 4.0 if I get in better shape?

[charliefedererer]

Originally Posted by johndagolfer

Since I have lowered my target weight to right around my college weight I have been eating a lot better. I am eating smaller portions with more helpings of vegetables. I am hoping to get back to form and without fitness my footwork just isn't there(as you can probably tell from my video).

As for asthma, my PCP did prescribe me some ventolin to try out to see if it would work on clearing up my inability to breath during my workouts. The one time that I did try it it seemed to work a bit.

Thanks all! BTW do you think I can top 4.0 if I get in better shape?

I think it is great that tennis seems to be a "carrot on a stick", giving you a goal to get in better shape.

It sounds like you are doing the right thing addressing your diet - it is almost impossible to lose weight purely through exercise.


Exercise induced asthma is much more common in those who are overweight.

It seems like a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" scenario.
Difficulty breathing leads to exercise avoidance, and hence a tendency to gain weight.
On the other hand, those who do lose weight seem to have an improvement in their symptoms.
And most agree that in those that can "get over the hump" and exercise more seem to be bothered less and less by their symptoms.



You can top 4.0 - but it takes a huge time commitment to develop all the skills in tennis.
And there is no such thing as just developing a skill and expect it to be there - without constant practice some aspect - your serve, volley, overhead, etc. won't be there and your opponent will exploit the deficit.

But that is to a large extent what is so enjoyable about tennis - developing all the strokes is hard - if it was too easy, where would be the challenge in that?

The long debate has been: "Is tennis a running game with hitting, or it a hitting game with running?" [Obviously the answer is both are right.]
Getting to those balls with fast feet and recovering quickly for the next shot and the next and the next becomes ever tougher as you move up the ladder.
The unforced errors have to go way down, and use of combinations of shots to win the point becomes more and more important.

Enjoy the journey!

In your video it looks like you already are having a great time hitting.
Along the path to greater fitness and improving tennis skills, every step along the way is good!

[Chas Tennis]

Going in for a routine physical a few years ago I mentioned that the air sometimes seemed thin when I walked up the hill in my backyard.

First, there was a chest X Ray and then a Pulmonary Function Test (PFT). I have asthma and the PFT test indicated a significant loss of capacity. I was shocked.

I had always thought that if I had a serious lung problem that it would be hard to inhale. I was completely wrong as asthma, emphysema, and bronchitis usually/always? reduce the ability to exhale. Check this point on your own. One important quick test is to exhale as rapidly as possible and measure the peak flow rate using a simple meter. The PFT makes a better measurement by measuring the maximum volume exhaled in 1 second and also makes several more detailed measurements.

I also had a big misconception about the structure of the lungs. I had pictured the lungs as largely hollow with convoluted structure around the outside. The lungs have no large hollow volume and are more like a sponge consisting of branching bronchial tubes, blood vessels, and about 300,000,000 alovei spherical air cavities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_alveolus

If anyone suspects breathing problems have your lung function measured with a PFT.

My symptoms were not bad. Throughout I play tennis and can play singles. An inhaler makes a very noticeable difference if I, for example, exercise on an elliptical.

There is no clear trigger. I try to avoid dust especially the 'respirable' particle size that is too fine to see and gets into the lungs more than the big stuff. Vacuum cleaners do well catching the larger visible dust but they pass finer dusts to some degree back into the air. HEPA filter are probably best but they only claim to filter down to a certain size - 99.97% of particles 0.3 micrometers and larger - that does not necessarily include much of the respirable particles that are smaller than 0.3 micrometers.

Information on particulates-

HEPA Filters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEPA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates

Presentation overall coverage of subject. See settling times.
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/aero...erosol_101.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particu...Health_effects

http://www.epa.gov/region7/air/quality/pmhealth.htm

How long do particulates float in the air? Scientific basis for settling times based from on air resistance of spherical bodies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes%27_law

[r2473]

Judge Smails: Spaulding, get dressed you're playing golf.
Spalding Smails: No I'm not grandpa I'm playing tennis.
Judge Smails: You're playing golf and you're going to like it.
Spalding Smails: What about my asthma?
Judge Smails: I'll give you asthma.