10 Minutes of Tennis: Do Tennis Players REALLY Have to Grunt??
Episode #35 Season 24: Shaun Boyce & Justin Yeo
Breathing is generally important in any exercise but its importance increases incredibly in physically taxing sports, like tennis. Grunts just make the inhale- exhale process easier. Nobody really doubts the functionality of the act particularly during service, However, the associated sounds receive cancellation from fans, coaches, referees and players alike.
In this 10 minutes of Tennis episode, powered by GoTennis, Shaun Boyce sits with Justin Yeo to resolve the debate on grunts. Irritating they might be, but are they important for tennis players? In a comical fashion, Justin Yeo provides the answer in less than 10 seconds,”Yes!!”
Meet Our Guest
Justin Yeo: Our very own, Justin Yeo is the australian pro-tennis coach. Yeo is currently working in Atlanta. The diverse tennis cultural difference of Australia and Atlanta provides Yeo with an unique understanding and perspective. His coaching philosophy revolves around building the playing style around the skills and habits of the players. Therefore, he is meticulous in detailing everything that goes on in the field.
Highlights of the Episode
Press the play button to uncover the interesting discussion on Grunts in modern tennis.
- Changes of Soundscapes in Modern Tennis: Yeo explains that seemingly modern tennis is much more vibrant with sounds than classical tennis of the 50s or 60s. However, tennis has always been noisy. The sounds didn’t find their way to the audience earlier due to lack of microphone and cameras around the court. The availability of these technologies have made these sounds audible now. But the sounds of exhalation were always there, as a part and parcel of the game. So, the compliance of the sounds are nothing new.
- Importance of Breathing: During the intense moments of the tennis match, players require energy to fire up their shots. Breathing not only relaxes the mind but also ensures supply of Oxygen to the brain and muscles to ensure their function properly. Unfortunately, many players forget to breathe during the pressured moments.
- Impact of Grunts: Even when players are repeatedly asked to open their mouth in intense sections of the game, they forget to breathe properly even with an open mouth. While gruthing, they push the carbon dioxide saturated air out and make the sound. This ensures that the diaphragm is open and fresh air flows into the system. This act alone can reduce the pressure on the players and make them focus and their shots more powerful.
- Physiology and Psychological Aspects of Grunts: Shaun and Justin converse regarding the psychological impacts of grunts. Not only grunts help in emotional control and focus development, but there are implications that it helps in synchronizing breathing with the timing of ball movements.
Key Takeaways of the Episode:
Discover how-
- Grunts are different for male and female tennis players
- Players like- Venus William, Maria Sharapova, Federer and Nadal has managed this
- Rules regarding keeping the noise down effects the players
- Grunts can actually put more stability and strength in shots.
Whether you prefer a noisy game or a quiet one, do not forget to inhale and exhale during the match. Even with noise restrictions, grunts are 100% helpful for you in improving your game. Therefore, this episode definitely has valuable information for you.
Tell Us Your Story
At GoTennis, we believe that stories are powerful tools to connect, touch and teach us. So, share your tennis story with us at My Story of Tennis. We will feature one of your stories every month. With luck, maybe your story will be the next to be featured.
YouTube LIVE Replay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdSpPfr-UhQ
Shaun Boyce USPTA: shaun@tennisforchildren.com
https://tennisforchildren.com/ 🎾
Justin Yeo: https://www.instagram.com/yeocoach/
Bobby Schindler USPTA: schindlerb@comcast.net
https://windermerecommunity.net/ 🎾
Geovanna Boyce: geovy@regeovinate.com
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Transcript
[Music]
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Speaker:This morning is our 10 minutes of tennis, with World renowned tennis coach Justin Yeo,
Speaker:Australian in Puerto Rico.
Speaker:And today we ask the question, which I think is a lot of fun,
Speaker:and always debatable.
Speaker:I had the conversation with my wife last night, I said, "Honey, she's a fitness trainer,
Speaker:she's a Pilates expert, she understands breathing and grunting is breathing,
Speaker:but Justin Yo, I will start with you.
Speaker:Do tennis player, I'm going to jump right in.
Speaker:Do tennis players really need to grunt?"
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:All right, thanks for coming. We'll see you next week.
Speaker:That was our 10 seconds of tennis.
Speaker:Yeah. What do you mean? Yes, we have to.
Speaker:Okay, right. We didn't get back to the 50/60s, 70s, where the ladies and gentlemen
Speaker:was a quiet sport. It was less, less, uh,
Speaker:spectacularism involved. What we don't realize is back then,
Speaker:we didn't have big cameras and the big microphones and the amount of
Speaker:interaction that you would see on TV, but there was just as much
Speaker:in-store, in a stadium in Wimbledon back in the 60s and 50s, as there is now, you know,
Speaker:there will probably a little more dressed and there will probably a little more quieter because
Speaker:it was, you know, very white. But I'll use that as an example because the reason why
Speaker:the grunting thing such a big thing is that everybody was just like, "Okay, when is it we're
Speaker:going to bring the decibels down?" And why are we doing this? Like, why is this sport going this way?
Speaker:Because back then it wasn't as loud and now it's really loud. And it's like, "Okay,
Speaker:back then it was loud." They exhaled very heavily when they hit the ball. You know,
Speaker:Newcombs lever all those guys. I mean, you can go all the way back. The girls maybe not.
Speaker:I don't remember ever it being that loud, but she definitely breached. She exhale a lot.
Speaker:As you dive in for it, exhale a lot. They have to exhale when they hit the balls. Just like,
Speaker:it's like when you're hitting those last two, three sets of the bench press and you're like,
Speaker:"Oh, I got it! What you're doing is trying to exhale and put everything left into the ball." And you
Speaker:want to do it as every single time. So, exhaling is basically what a player needs to do.
Speaker:Majority of players that I see amateur-wise on a tennis court. And they're like hitting the ball
Speaker:in a really stiff, in a really stiff, in a really stiff, and they're getting one out really quickly.
Speaker:And I'll go, "Hey guys, let me try one thing." They're like, "What's that?" I'm like, "Hoping you man.
Speaker:Just open your man. When you hit the ball." And they're like, "Okay, let me try that." And they're like,
Speaker:"Okay, are there still a breathing?" Because you have to be out of exhale. If you don't bring that carbon
Speaker:oxide out, you can't allow fresh oxygen in, which is what your body's relying on. It's what your brain
Speaker:is relying on. And then if you want to stay loose and relaxed, you can calm and get so smooth,
Speaker:you have to breathe. So, if you don't exhale, it won't happen. And the theory behind the grant
Speaker:is that when you make a noise, you open up the diaphragm and you open up that opportunity for it to
Speaker:come out. Because otherwise, like I just showed you, you open your mouth and you're not breathing.
Speaker:So, when I go like this, I'm like, "I've just pushed it all out." So, the grant is basically designed
Speaker:around that. Now, Chera Pover redesigned it all. She did the whole grant on the way you and on the way
Speaker:"Yeah, never understand it. Don't know the full science about it. I'm sure. Most in peace, Mr.
Speaker:Volotary will tell me why she is to do it." But that noise is just, yes, our most debris. That would be
Speaker:the one. That's probably the most annoying. You mentioned Volotary. And he's quoted, "I found one
Speaker:article and I did not do an exhaustive search. I just found an article with some reason. I put it
Speaker:in, put it in the links as well." And there were two reasons Volotary is quoted in this article. And one's
Speaker:talking about the psychological and the physiological release of tension. Well, that sounds a little
Speaker:obvious for an athlete, right? It's the last rep. It's that. But the other one he mentions is
Speaker:it's synchronizing the breathing with the timing of the ball. Where even when I do it, I'm just
Speaker:roul. I just do a little, it's not even a big exhale. But in combination with what we've been talking
Speaker:about with the abdomen and engaging the core as my Pilates instructor wife would always say,
Speaker:engaging the core. That's where your strength comes from. And that's what you do when you exhale,
Speaker:you blow out, you engage that core. As you say, you're even opening up the diaphragm. I think back to
Speaker:my training as a vocalist in high school and college of using singing from your gut. And it just
Speaker:seemed weird. But then all of a sudden you've got more energy there. There's more coming out.
Speaker:There's more into that shot. So there's a science to it. But there's also that timing. There's that
Speaker:little bit of, I can think about. And like you said, the share of povo all of a sudden was screaming.
Speaker:And I want to put that into a separate category. Venus Williams, I think, was the same thing. This
Speaker:isn't just when the guys hit that final shot and they've gone, they hit it and they go,
Speaker:all right. They may combine it in with the winner. So it's the tone in the female. So it's the
Speaker:men that stands out a little bit more. There's a little bit, I won't talk about that part.
Speaker:The sound is a little bit correlation to something else too, which doesn't be very feminine or very
Speaker:ladylike. And then the other big one is that show of how this problem was it went all the way to the
Speaker:next shot of the next player's shot. So that new ruling came in that the grant had begun. But the
Speaker:noise has down before the player gets the next ball. Because first went so long, it was it was also a
Speaker:length of time that by the time the player hit the other ball, they couldn't hear the other,
Speaker:like they couldn't hear the shot or the other was so nice. So you think that was intentional on her part?
Speaker:Is that so? I know, I know the size part of that part. So in a high performance thing, and if we go
Speaker:high performance coaches out there, we go high performance juniors out there. Even I guess the
Speaker:adults that want to up up their game, there is a really, really important thing about the grantee.
Speaker:And then there's when you exhale and you grunt and you push the diaphragm up and you tighten your
Speaker:core up like you just said, you're actually allowing more stability over the ball and you're allowing
Speaker:that stability to balance and recover from the ball. Because if you didn't grunt, your actual
Speaker:body when you're twisting, it's through that balance off. Whereas when you, you can come back because
Speaker:you've held your core tighter because of the ground. So it's hitting the gas, it's hitting the gas
Speaker:into the turn, right? Correct. Correct. Exactly right. There is definitely a lot of science around
Speaker:the breath being holded long enough too. Because if you, you know, you're like, then and you're like,
Speaker:oh, breaks, breaks, breaks, now go to come back. You're like, oh, god, I can keep going because your
Speaker:core is being held and you're pushing. So it is a, there is, there's definitely a science, physiology.
Speaker:Oh, there's a lot of the advantages and I had everyone on my tips. If they couldn't grunt,
Speaker:I made them, you know, basically do the line, the raw rotation. Make me your best raw. And maybe like,
Speaker:oh, well, I don't think I can do that. I'm like, we're not going to always sound like that, but I'm
Speaker:trying to find the depth in you to be able to find a way to get you to let it out. You know, so
Speaker:and that's females or males. We always had to try to get them to learn to let that out, get it
Speaker:the right length so that you could, you know, you could hit it all, hold the balance and recover well
Speaker:and they're all insane. Now, if you think about length at the point, the other advantages are is,
Speaker:you know, oxygen depletion, you know, you wonder why you come into the net, you've got the opportunity
Speaker:and you go and you miss it and you only miss it because possibly there's just nothing left in the
Speaker:tank, oxygen wise, because you weren't breathing enough, you know. And if you're coming up on the ball
Speaker:and you're getting a short one, you've got the opportunity and you, you wonder why you miss it as
Speaker:well, because, you know, breathing and relax through the finishing shot. So breathing is exile and
Speaker:grunt is, sorry, we cannot ignore it. It is, if it's a hundred percent thing in the sport, like
Speaker:our, you know, early contact point, it's probably grunting, you know, they're all just a different
Speaker:breast. I mean, better grunting, he just wasn't that loud, he wasn't as loud and and the dial is,
Speaker:you know, you can tell the end level of intensity and what's left, you know, what he's wearing out at
Speaker:this point by the how loud he's getting. He's louder throughout the point. Yeah, and if he gets louder,
Speaker:I'd be on the baseline going, I hang in here for like three more shots here because
Speaker:it's just going to have nothing after that. There's not much more after that, you know.
Speaker:But there's a big difference there with the grunt and with the screen.
Speaker:They actually had to shut it down and say, all right, mostly the ladies, right? Shut it down. This is
Speaker:this is gamesmanship because in a connection with another conversation we have with Dave Matthews,
Speaker:we're talking about the sound of the ball. I can tell when when Nova act hits the ball, when Justin
Speaker:Yo hits that ball full speed, I'm like, come on, give me everything you got Justin. There's a pop.
Speaker:There's a, it's like a gunshot. It's a, wow, that really happened that you, I can, oh my god,
Speaker:he really hit that ball. But if you're screaming over it, you can cover that up. So there's a bit of
Speaker:strategy. There's a bit of gamesmanship, but then there's also just a bit of being an obnoxious,
Speaker:loud tennis player that that part, I don't think a lot of people appreciate. Yep. Justin, thank you so
Speaker:much. That was your 10 minutes of tennis. We'll see you next week.
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