Childhood obesity, underage drinking, smoking and failure to exercise are all concerns for parents these days. If you want your kids to adopt a healthier, wiser lifestyle, you are going to have to show them the light. Children often learn best by example. Lead and they will likely follow.

How can you set the example and get them off on the right foot if your habits aren’t that great? Consider taking these steps to put yourself and your family on the road to better health and fitness:

• Work closely with a personal trainer – Exercise is one of the best ways to get yourself and your family in shape. Coming up with a program that will suit the needs of family members of varying ages isn’t easy though. A trainer can help you pick a plan that works for you while encouraging family members to get involved. You may even want individualized plans that also include family exercise time that’s fun. Taking bike rides together, walks or even jogs through the park might do the trick.
• Make eating right cool – Children are not born with a hatred for fruits, vegetables and other healthy food choices. They learn to scorn these things when processed, sugary and salty snacks and treats are introduced into their diets. Reserve the unhealthy snacks and fast-foods for occasional treats and make the healthy options the staples in your house. Also make sure your family sees you eating healthy foods. If you munch on grapes, yogurt or whole grain crackers in between meals, your children will be more likely to do the same. At mealtime, present healthy options, but do take the steps to make them tasty and enjoyable. Grilled or broiled lean meats, fresh vegetables, whole grain side dishes and other similar choices are healthy and they can offer a lot of flavor.
• Make exercise fun – When it’s your time to exercise, don’t let your kids hear you complain. If you really can’t handle the idea of a trip to the gym on a particular day, load up the kids in the car and go to a park for a hike. Or, just head to the backyard for a game of Frisbee or something fun. You’ll know it’s exercise, but your kids won’t.
• Work on breaking bad habits – If you smoke or drink too much, take steps to kick these habits. When children see their parents smoking or drinking, they associate these behaviors with being grown up. They also believe they are acceptable. Keeping drinking down to low or moderate levels or giving up tobacco can send your children the message you want them to learn.

If you want your family to become healthier and more fitness conscious, you may have to take the first steps. When your children and even your spouse see you having fun, they are likely to follow your example. Working with your trainer or the pros at your fitness center can help you get off on the right foot to effect a change for yourself and your family.

Simple food choices go a long way when it comes to your heart’s health. Focusing on fresh foods full of heart-healthy fats and antioxidants can decrease your risk of developing heart disease and cut your chances of a heart attack. These 10 foods will help keep your ticker in top shape.

Oatmeal
Start your day with a steaming bowl of oats, which are full of omega-3 fatty acids, folate, and potassium. This fiber-rich superfood can lower levels of LDL (or bad) cholesterol and help keep arteries clear.

Opt for coarse or steel-cut oats over instant varieties — the coarse and steel-cut contain more fiber — and top your bowl off with a banana for another four grams of fiber.

Salmon
Super-rich in omega-3 fatty acids, salmon can effectively reduce blood pressure and keep clotting at bay. Aim for two servings per week, which may reduce your risk of dying of a heart attack by up to one-third.

“Salmon contains the carotenoid astaxanthin, which is a very powerful antioxidant,” says cardiologist Stephen T. Sinatra, MD, the author of “Lower Your Blood Pressure In Eight Weeks.” But be sure to choose wild salmon over farm-raised fish, which can be packed with insecticides, pesticides, and heavy metals.

Not a fan of salmon? Other oily fish like mackerel, tuna, herring, and sardines will give your heart the same boost.

Avocado
Add a bit of avocado to a sandwich or spinach salad to increase the amount of heart-healthy fats in your diet. Packed with monounsaturated fat, avocados can help lower LDL levels while raising the amount of HDL cholesterol in your body. Health.com: What puts you at risk for high cholesterol?

“Avocados are awesome,” says Dr. Sinatra. “They allow for the absorption of other carotenoids — especially beta-carotene and lycopene — which are essential for heart health.”

Olive oil
Full of monounsaturated fats, olive oil lowers bad LDL cholesterol and reduces your risk of developing heart disease.

Results from the Seven Countries Study, which looked at cardiovascular disease incidences across the globe, showed that while men in Crete had a predisposition for high cholesterol levels, relatively few died of heart disease because their diet focused on heart-healthy fats found in olive oil. Look for extra-virgin or virgin varieties — they’re the least processed — and use them instead of butter when cooking. Health.com: Good fats vs. bad fats — what to eat

Nuts
Almonds, walnuts, and macadamia nuts are all full of omega-3 fatty acids and mono- and polyunsaturated fats.

Almonds are rich in omega-3s, plus nuts increase fiber in the diet, says Dr. Sinatra. “And like olive oil, they are a great source of healthy fat.”

Berries
Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries — whatever berry you like best — are full of anti-inflammatories, which reduce your risk of heart disease and cancer.

“Blackberries and blueberries are especially great,” says Sinatra. “But all berries are great for your vascular health.” Health.com: How I survived a heart attack at 43

Legumes
Fill up on fiber with lentils, chickpeas, and black and kidney beans. They’re packed with omega-3 fatty acids, calcium and soluble fiber.

Spinach
Spinach can help keep your ticker in top shape thanks to its stores of lutein, folate, potassium, and fiber.

But upping your servings of any veggies is sure to give your heart a boost. The Physicians’ Health Study examined more than 15,000 men without heart disease for a period of 12 years. Those who ate at least 2½ servings of vegetables each day cut their risk of heart disease by about 25 percent, compared with those who didn’t eat the veggies. Each additional serving reduced risk by another 17 percent.

Flaxseed
Full of fiber and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, a little sprinkling of flaxseed can go a long way for your heart. Top a bowl of oatmeal or whole-grain cereal with a smidgen of ground flaxseed for the ultimate heart-healthy breakfast.

Soy
Soy may lower cholesterol, and since it is low in saturated fat, it’s still a great source of lean protein in a heart-healthy diet.

Look for natural sources of soy, like edamame, tempeh, or organic silken tofu. And soy milk is a great addition to a bowl of oatmeal or whole-grain cereal. But watch the amount of salt in your soy: Some processed varieties like soy dogs can contain added sodium, which boosts blood pressure.

Copyright Health Magazine

With a tennis fitness test, you will know immediately if you are ready to play. If you haven’t worked out in a while or your tennis game has just gotten rusty, starting a program to help you rebuild any weaker areas of your game is the best approach. By turning to a tennis fitness test to show you where you’re at right now, you will be able to measure and see the results of your hard training. Here are a few tests that you can use today.

Is your heart in it?

One of the main tennis fitness test possibilities will test the heart and the lungs. And if you’ve ever watched or playing in a long volley, you’ll know just how important it is to have this kind of endurance. To test your cardiovascular health, try sprinting from one place to another as many times as you can – i.e. from the backcourt to the other side of the court. If you can not do this quickly for more than a few times, you might want to focus your fitness efforts on building up your heart and lung power.

Try adding sprints to your workout routine or perhaps some longer runs to build up stamina.

Can you reach the ball?

A great tennis fitness test for flexibility is actually something you have probably done in the past – tried to reach your toes. As we age, the muscles in the backs of our legs and back can become tighter, but this will hinder your tennis game if you don’t add flexibility exercises to your workout routine. Try reaching your toes, either when standing or sitting to see if you can.

To improve your flexibility, you can simply repeat this exercise as often as you can as well as include more flexibility oriented exercises into your workout. If you find that you’re having trouble with this particular exercise, try using a towel to pull yourself closer to your toes. Put the towel around your toes and slowly advance your hands along the towel to feel a stronger stretch.

Are you strong enough?

What many people don’t think of when it comes to a tennis fitness test is strength. Too often you can forget that swinging a racket and pushing yourself in various directions takes a lot of muscle power. To test your lower body strength, you can do a wall sit. This requires that you sit against a wall and lower yourself until your legs are at a right angle – hold for as long as you can.

The longer you can hold the position, the stronger your legs are. For upper body testing, try seeing how many pushups you can do in a row.

A tennis fitness test isn’t designed to point out your flaws, but rather where you can make changes to help you improve your game. And when you’re looking to win more sets, that’s the right attitude to take.

A tennis fitness plan is the right choice for many people that want to get back into shape, but also want to have fun doing it. Instead of starving themselves to lose weight or jumping on a treadmill, tennis enthusiasts can spend their workout time on the court with friends. With a tennis fitness plan, you too can reap the fitness benefits of this fun exercise program. Here’s what you want to know.

Making a racket

Before you begin any tennis fitness plan, you’ll want to learn the basics of the sport. This might mean that you read a book about tennis or possibly watch tennis matches on television, just to get the feel for the game. But if you’re not interested in becoming ‘good’ at tennis, you can always simply find an empty court, grab a racket and some balls and hit away. You don’t have to be a tennis pro in order to get in shape. Try heading to your local tennis courts to see just how much you can pick up on your own.

Trying for more

But it’s a natural progression to go from a basic tennis fitness plan to want to learn to do more with your racket. Try taking tennis lessons from a tennis pro to see if you can improve your game, your aim, and your serves. You can also find group tennis lessons that will help you find tennis partners and players as well as have fun as you learn. You might also want to try playing with a friend that knows more about the sport than you do in order to pick up their techniques and improve your game. In all honesty, the more you play, the more you will learn naturally.

Why tennis can get you in shape

By creating a tennis fitness plan that includes singles matches and possibly just hitting the ball against a wall, you will improve not only your cardiovascular fitness, but also your coordination and muscle tone. Remember that holding a racket will help tone your arms while running from side to side will help your leg muscles. The fewer rest times you take, the more cardiovascular fitness you will gain too. And you don’t have to play for hours either – although once you get started playing, you may not want to stop.

A tennis fitness program may just be the easiest way to get yourself in shape after a long bout of inactivity. By adding fun to your workout plans, it will be simpler to stick to your goals, lose weight, and have fun doing it.

To make gains in tennis, players attack their training in a series of tennis fitness drills. Depending upon their characteristic and intent, these can be performed on the tennis court, in the gym or at home. The wide variety of options allows players to practice and improve in different venues.

Various books describe different methods to improve your game. They all mention fitness drills. Their focus, however, can be very different. Some concentrate on the factors of speed or agility, strength or power; others concentrate on footwork, endurance or flexibility. There are also articles written on conditioning and hitting.

What drills can help you with

Tennis fitness drills cover such topics as increasing the power of your serve. The answer to that, according to one expert, is to increase muscle strength and endurance, conditioning it to last longer, serve harder. By concentrating on drills designed specifically to increase the power and strength in your legs you will be able to transfer it to your racquet, blasting the ball. It seems it is all in the bounce.

There are tennis fitness drills that focus on repetitive training. These drills are intended to help specific aspects of your game. Many are play drills. You either use a ball lobbying machine or a partner to volley against. Volley drills can be designed to practice depth playing or overhead shots. They can be performed with one person, as part of a couple or, in some instances, competitive play drills can be composed of teams of five or more.

But why oh why?

Why play volley drills? Continual practice helps you improve your skills at the net. Not everyone is a good, let alone great volleyer. You may not be born with rapid reactions, sharp eyes, precise hands, supple legs, and great anticipation skills, but practicing tennis fitness drills can help you become more adept at lobbing the ball over the net. Even the most basic volley drill helps you cultivate such integral instincts as instant reactions, versatile footwork, and control.

Learning and/or enhancing control, you should not restrict your drills to the physical components. Developing the mental aspects of the game is also a must. Focus on body and mind relaxation. Concentrate on your breathing as you hit and receive the ball. Develop a mental toughness while learning to relax. If you don’t practise these aspects, you may not only be unprepared to compete but also open to injury.

Whatever your approach, remember, tennis fitness drills demand time, energy and your complete effort. You have to work hard if you want to improve your game – take it up a notch. If you can’t make it to a court, integrate drills that are more easily accessed. Jogging will help you increase leg strength and build up endurance. But don’t just jog. Combine your jogging with step work aimed at improving your moves on court. This foot work should combine a whole range of movement from backward jogging to side stepping and kicking.

Try jumping drills. Jump rope, skip and do double Dutch. All these routines will help you become more agile, provide leg conditioning and build up strength in your lower body.

Do not forget, tennis fitness drills extend to post season as well as pregame warm-up drills. Before any game you should always warm up. Focus on the muscles you will actually use during the game. Walk, jog, and stretch for several moments. This will help you to be prepared for the game.

Fitness training for tennis is a broad, encompassing subject. There are varying approaches on how best to be prepared to excel in the sport. In essence, however, the different regimes focus on the same required elements: coordination, speed, agility, reactions, endurance, flexibility and strength.

Practice does make for perfect

There is also one other common aspect – practice. A tennis player will not get anywhere without practicing. Fitness training for tennis must combine physical training with practice drills. Only when a balance between these two aspects is achieved, can a tennis player feel prepared to face another player on the court.

Today, tennis is a fast-paced game, stressful to the body and mind. It is a sport requiring a fitness regime capable of reducing these elements. Smart fitness training for tennis will approach the variables in a balanced manner. An intelligent and concerned trainer will consider what is best for you and your physical condition. The routine will then be designed to match not contradict what will be best for you.

What do you need to know?

What are the basic requirements? The list is quite long. Strength training, so you can lob the ball with force, repetition for conditioning and endurance – you must be able to go the distance; flexibility to handle the bends and twists your body has to make; and don’t ignore your lungs and heart. They need a good aerobic workout to increase endurance. Current wisdom says combining aerobics and a sprinting element will help you in this segment.

Do not forget to maintain a balance of sorts. Back muscles and arm and chest muscles both need strengthening. If one muscle system is stronger than the other is, problems will emerge, including strain or injury from over compensation. Do not just work the target muscles. Work their opposing muscles. For example, while doing a leg extension for your front thigh or quadriceps muscles, do a leg curl exercise for the rear thigh muscles or hamstrings.

Core muscle training is one approach taken in fitness training for tennis. This system involves strengthening your core muscles. Core muscle training will help you develop an athletic back, decrease the risk of injury, increase your muscle power and agility and enhance your balance and posture. If you decide to follow this particular regime, it is best to adopt a functional approach.

Functional fitness training for tennis would include core muscle training, but the emphasis would be on those muscles particular for tennis. A tennis specific method will ensure you are prepared for tennis, not some other sport. You would strengthen those core muscles and other applicable components in relation to how they can be made to serve you on the tennis courts.

In developing fitness training for tennis, be prepared to create a system that addresses all your needs. Include core muscle training, weight lifting and aerobics. Perhaps, fit it into an integrated circuit system of training. Whatever system you use, however, be sure it is sport specific. It must address the core requirements of tennis not those of any other sport. If you follow this particular application, you stand a good chance of becoming better on the courts.

Fitness and workouts specific to tennis tend to be one of the most effective means to get fit when mainly aerobic exercises are involved, but that is not necessarily true for everyone. It is essential that a tennis player condition her/his body before engaging in hard court play to avoid injury. Through various types of fitness and workouts specific to tennis, a player can gain a toned body, better flexibility and longer endurance.

What you might think now

Many people associate a tennis player with having a thin, lithe body. But fitness and workouts specific to tennis can include weight lifting that leads to serious muscle building. The result is extreme sprinting power as well as a more potent serve and firmer grip on a racquet’s handle. In addition, weight lifting can correct physical imbalances in the body like a lack of strength on the left side of a right-handed person’s body.

Furthermore, cardio is a great stamina-building exercise to gain fast reaction time Also, stretching is as important above weightlifting and cardio in fitness and workouts specific to tennis in order to keep a player limber during game play, so as to prevent injury.

What about injuries?

Injuries like tennis elbow and rotator tendonitis result when a player overextends her/his body beyond its conditioning. Anything can contribute to an injury from a lack of flexibility in a player’s back to a player using a too large racquet. Furthermore, many experts advise that as a part of fitness and workouts specific to tennis, drills where a player serve balls over and over again are good but that jogging and bicycling are better. A player will get much tennis playing practice during the game itself, so he conditioning should not involve too much movement in the style of tennis play because in time it can cause overextension or over use of a muscle, resulting in injury.

To prevent injury as well to ensure his/her body is at its most receptive to different ways of moving and new modes of exertion, a new tennis player should also seek chiropractic care. Chiropractors are unlike many other profession physicians in that they provide measures that can be preventative, not only rehabilitative.

Vitamin B12 shots, instant cholesterol and glucose testing and physicians trained to monitor the sometimes extreme loss of weight due to new participation in a sport. Fitness and workouts specific to tennis, along with proper chiropractic care, should be a must for a person beginning the fun and healthy game of tennis.

Tennis and physical fitness go hand-in-hand. It is a demanding sport exercising different parts of your body. Playing tennis requires joint flexibility, develops and tones your muscles and enhances your cardiovascular system. Your legs, arms, back, lungs and eyes get a work out. It is a marathon comprised of highly demanding skills including hand-eye coordination, balance and agility.

Not just a weekend sport

Tennis, to some, may be a weekend sport but it is a workout – a workout requiring some advance preparation. To excel, you have to combine tennis and physical fitness in your workout plan. Take heed. The workout should begin long before you are on the court. Perhaps, you could start with strength training.

Every time you lob the ball or run after it, your body is absorbing a major shock. In order to withstand the impact, you need to develop body strength. To maintain this as part of your tennis and physical fitness training, you can consider traditional weightlifting. You can turn to standard practices such as lifting dumbbells or barbells. There are also alternatives. Body weight exercises involving push-ups or squats or tossing around medicine balls can build up the necessary strength.

But wait, there’s more

Yet, strength is not enough. Tennis and physical fitness are only compatible if other elements are taken into consideration. An important requirement in this game is flexibility. Tennis features long stretches to reach those overhead shots and to lobby or serve the ball, lunges to nail those low shots and twists and bends as you bob all over the court. The only way to prepare for these and prevent possible injury is to incorporate stretching as a regular part of your exercise routine.

Tennis is a game of repetitive movement. As such, it requires you to build up strong endurance. A system acknowledging that tennis and physical fitness combined produces the best results, will consider this. Actions must require you to use certain muscles repeatedly performing a circuit of exercises, or doing multiple repetitions of the same exercise within a set time. Weight training, for both the upper and lower body, can be incorporated into this section of fitness training.

Another target area is the cardiovascular system. You have to reinforce or develop it so your body will be able to respond properly during matches that demand much from your heart and lungs. One suggestion is to alternate bouts of jogging with sprinting sessions. If you add weight lifting or any other form of resistance training to your cardiovascular exercise program, you will increase the amount of lean tissue. Thus, while working on your cardiovascular system, you can improve such elements as strength, power, and speed.

Do not forget that tennis and physical fitness are separate but symbiotic components. Each supports the other. In establishing a fitness schedule, make sure you adopt a comprehensive approach. Prepare all parts of your body in a tennis-specific fashion. Moreover, do so in the off -season as well as during the regular season. In addition, do not forget the warm up and cool down. Play gently before each game starts, lobbying the ball around. Stretch your major muscle groups e.g. calves, hamstrings, shoulders, quads, and lower back to promote flexibility and prevent injury. Jog to raise your heartbeat before the game and walk slowly around to cool down afterwards. Combine all the elements correctly and you will not only be prepared to play tennis but will be fit to enjoy whatever else comes your way.

Tennis conditioning techniques are useless to a body that is so inflexible that its maximum range of motion cannot be reached. For a beginning tennis player, stretching and warm-ups have to be essential to successful and injury-free tennis play. Key tennis conditioning techniques have to focus on strengthening the body as well as keeping its joints and muscles limber.

What the experts are saying

Many highly regarded tennis associations suggest the following tennis conditioning techniques for a beginning tennis player:

• Sprinting – A player must practice running because it is such an integral part of tennis. Conditioning the body to run will build stamina and endurance. The first twenty to sixty yards is where the player should try to increase his speed.
• Resistant training – If a player can endure racing uphill, then no ball is safe on the tennis court. Sprinting power can be increased by doing this challenging exercise along with others that builds leg and thigh muscle.
• Stretching – The beginning middle and end of the tennis conditioning techniques a player uses should focus on increasing flexibility. For instance, a player can stretch while doing movements similar to those done during an actual tennis game, like an ace of a serve or a far reaching back hand.

Don’t weight another minute

In addition, weight-training can be useful but not the type that a professional weight trainer would do. Arm curls with dumbbells along with exercises like the plank-where the athlete lies on the floor and lifts his entire body using her/his forearms- are good for strengthening the core of the body. And a beginning tennis player should make sure to exercise his muscles equally so as not to have one set stronger than the other. This can cause an imbalance that can hinder coordination and cause joint and spine injury.

Since tennis conditioning techniques require such rigorous movement of the body’s joints all at once, good chiropractic care is in order. Many people believe that you only see chiropractor after the damage has been done, but this is far from the truth. In fact, chiropractic can provide the upkeep and joint adjustments to prevent injury.

Proper conditioning techniques for tennis can help you take your game from ‘having fun’ to ‘winning matches.’ And while you’re probably just in it for the fitness, why not win from time to time?

For many people, the toughest part of tennis is mastering the serve but tennis conditioning drills can simplify matters. Most amateur tennis players cannot even dream of having the eighty miles per hour serve that Serena Williams does because they do not know how to put a power behind their serve that will not pull a muscle. The key to strength and stamina lies in a player’s commitment both to tennis conditioning drills and to health maintenance from a healthcare professional.

Keep these tips in mind

Because tennis is a game that insists on such intense hand-eye coordination, what many novice players resort to the any-kind-of-form will do as long as I return the ball. Unfortunately, that mentality along with a lack of tennis conditioning skills results in the leading tennis injuries of tennis elbow, wrist strains and rotator cuff tendonitis. While most experts agree that many injuries among amateurs occur during the serve, they also recommend some simple tactics to prevent them.

• Know your limit in game play as well as during tennis conditioning drills. Do not attempt to play while tired and therefore not as focused on proper form and technique.
• In relation to your strength and size, use the appropriate sized racquet as well as handle grip size
• When serving, make sure the arm is at an angle to the body at more than 90 degrees
• Do not have a loose, fluid motion to your swing. Instead, be firm in your grip and follow through steady on every swing keeping your wrist taut. This will help you guide the ball and place it where you want it on your opponent’s side of the net.
• Make sure to engage in tennis conditioning drills that focus on strengthening your abdominal and back muscles. The power in the swing of a racquet comes from the core body strength and not from the wrist, a mistake a lot of novice players make in their game play.

More you can do to help your game

Sometimes, some mistakes that happen on the court, a twisted ankle, an overused and misused wrist, require chiropractic care. Chiropractic medicine can also act as a preventative agent due to back realignments and joint adjustments that help with balance and posture. Players new to the game of the tennis have to take the initiative to do the tennis conditioning drills and get the healthcare necessary to gain a successful game technique.