How to Swing Freely in Matches When Tight

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Do your strokes feel super tight in matches and thus you feel like you can't play your best? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn. Today I'm going to answer a question from Cindy who who tends to have super tight strokes and how she can loosen up out there and play her best tennis. You're listening to the Tennis Psychology Podcast.

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Here's the question I received from Cindy. She said, my strokes feel tight when I play. It's like I can't finish the swing or swing fully in matches. How do I deal with playing tight while playing competitive matches? Cindy, thanks for your question. This is very common among many players that have fear of failure. For example, fear of embarrassment are worried about looking silly. Maybe you're even worried about not playing to your potential. The reason why your strokes feel tight is not just because of tension. A lot of athletes and tennis players feel like, well, I'm just tense. I'm just a little nervous or anxious. Well, that may be certainly, however, why? That's the question that you have to ask yourself. What's underlying that tension and the anxiety? Is it more mental apprehension that you're feeling in your mind, like fear and apprehension and worry about missing? Or is it more in your body where it's just your strokes feel really tight and controlled and you can't swing out on the ball. Those are the two responses typically to when you have anxiety. It starts in the mind and then it filters into the body. So it's not just the fact that you have tight strokes. You it's what's underlying that that's where players don't understand why they're playing so tight. So let me give you a couple ideas that you can work with that may be underlying your tension. And then we could talk about trusting your stroke more, which means swinging out on the ball, finishing your swing, and loosening up out there as well. So a big one is pretty perfectionist. Players that are out there trying too hard, they'll play tight. Another big one is if you have fear of failure and you're afraid to lose or you're afraid to look silly, you're afraid to embarrass yourself. That's another One, a third one could be the fact that you want to play well so badly to that level that you think you can play. And maybe it's a realistic level, maybe it's an unrealistic level that you get tight out there because you don't want to screw that up, you don't want to not reach that. I know it's kind of counterintuitive. You want to play well so badly to your potential that you fear messing up. So those are some of the main reasons I find that tennis players are tight out there and can't swing fully. You have to address that fear head on. Whatever your fear might be, whether it's the fear of failure, fear of playing, your potential, this need, this perfectionist need to play perfectly out there and not make mistakes, whatever it may be, you have to address that head on. And that's something that we help tennis players with at peak performance sports identify what that underlying fear is and then help them get beyond and get over it so they can play more. You could say, play more loosely or play more freely on the tennis court. With that fear comes tight strokes where it's impossible for you to swing out on the ball or swing fully. So that needs to be an objective for you. You need to feel the fear and do it anyways, which means go ahead and swing out on the ball, get that feeling in your five minute warmup and start swinging out on the ball right away and try and take that into the first game. You have to convince yourself if I swing out of the ball and swing fully, I'm going to be in a much better position to do well in this match. Regardless of how many shots sail out or how many shots you miss. You have to start by freeing up that stroke and swinging freely. But remember, trust doesn't operate in a vacuum. I've talked about this in other podcasts. What that means is your fear of missing or your fear of embarrassment, your fear of losing or looking silly is causing a lot of the havoc with your strokes. So I hope that helps. If you have a question, jump over to peaksports.com click on contact Us and I'll include your question in a future podcast. In addition, if you want help identifying that specific fear, you can also jump over to peaksports.com, check out our mental coaching programs. There you can learn more about Tennis Confidence 2.0 or Audio and and workbook program as well. All right, thanks for the question and good luck.

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