In the year 2020, 50% of the population is expected to be over 60 years old. This increase in the older population is reflected in tennis as well -- in the 1996 National Championships for the age groups 50-over and above, there was an 18% average increase in participation. Currently, national rankings go up to 85+ for males and 80+ for females, with several pilot programs in higher age divisions.

Americans noticeably absent from world tennis rankings
Top Seniors players, however, include several U.S. men and women

According to Robert Leach, M.D., much of a person's decline in fitness is because of disuse, not aging. Vice chairman of the USTA Sport Science committee and an avid senior tennis player, Leach has observed that people who started playing tennis at a young age and continued throughout their lifetime retained the highest level of fitness. Physiological research shows that the aerobic capacity of relatively sedentary people decreases by about 10% per decade. Playing tennis regularly can make a difference as Dr. Leach has found hat with training our aerobic capacity only decreases 5% every two decades.

This book deals with such topics as the benefits of different types of exercise, new research into issues of weight, protecting oneself from heart disease, maintaining a healthy diet, averting risks of cancer, managing pregnancy, and dealing with issues of aging.

Stretching for Winning Tennis

This concise video discusses the importance of stretching for playing tennis. Bob Anderson, Eve Ellis, director of the Eve Ellis School of Tennis in New York City and Orlando Florida, Dr. Les Knight, Exercise Physiologist and Billy McGehee, professional tennis promoter work together to teach you why and how to stretch before, during and after a game. Stretching could be the key to reaching your playing potential.

Southern California State University researchers compared the psychological states of 200 senior tennis players with those of a control group. The tennis players scored higher in vigor, optimism and self-esteem and lower in anger, depression, confusion, anxiety and tension.
Reported by Tennis Magazine, January, 1994

Tennis may be a sport for the ages, but the next boom will be traced directly to the baby boomers ? people born between 1946 and 1964.

According to a recent survey by the United States Tennis Association, the boomers comprise the fastest-growing segment of the tennis-playing population in this country. Over the next decade, the number of adults between the ages of 30-44 will drop by seven million while those between 45-70 will increase by more than 20 million.

Tennis, a low-impact sport that appeals to men and women, already is the 10th most popular participatory sport in America for adults 55 and older.

"This is my favorite group of players," said Jim Rudolph, Citiparks and USTA tennis community coordinator. He laughed. "And I'm not just saying that just because I'm 52. We've been aware of this group for several years.

"It's a reflection of the aging of the entire Pittsburgh community."

There are a variety of reasons for the large number of seniors who still count tennis as their sport of choice:

People are retiring earlier and remaining active longer.
The high-tech equipment has nearly eliminated "tennis elbow" and the more powerful frames with bigger sweet spots make the game easier to play while maintaining a higher level of play.

Tennis is easy on the body and is a great aerobic and anaerobic activity.

"We're people who played during the boom in the 1970s and never quit," Rudolph said. "We still want to compete and we've made no concessions other than we're playing each other.

"I want to promote and develop senior participation from scratch and also to create as many competitive opportunities for seniors who have been playing the game all their lives."

Citiparks Tennis sponsors a weekly round-robin league around the city that includes a 55-plus category and there is a USA Tennis League for seniors that is active this summer and still looking for players. Call 1-800-USTA-576.

Citiparks also offers free clinics for seniors, 10 a.m. every Friday at Schenley Park.

"The seniors are a motivated group who compete just as fiercely as they did on any of the levels," Rudolph said. "There are many seniors who play serve and volley. They want shorter points."

Most of the tournaments in the district offer age-group singles and doubles competition for men and women.

"The missing generation are the people in their 20s. They're just not represented," Rudolph said. "But there's a significant number of 50 and older people playing. Some of the most competitive tennis in the tournaments is in the senior groups."

Here are some tips from the United State Professional Tennis Association:

Try to avoid playing when the sun is at its highest (between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.).

Drink plenty of water before, during and after a match even if you're not thirsty.

Apply waterproof sunscreen to face, arms and legs. Don't forget about the ears and the lips

Wear white or light-colored clothing and wear a hat.
Sit in the shade during changeovers.

After playing, don't sit in a cold clubhouse in a sweaty shirt. Take an extra shirt and towel.

Put some R.I.C.E. on your injuries

Tuesday, August 11, 1998
By Tasha Zemke, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

If you are injured during athletic activity, you should follow the "R.I.C.E." guidelines: rest, ice, compression and elevation, said Pat Manning, a physical therapist and certified athletic trainer who works for Allegheny General/Duquesne University's Sports Medicine Institute.

Rest, compressing the injured area with a wrap like an Ace bandage and elevating the injury above one's heart level will reduce swelling and pain, but the most important and first step should be to put ice on the injury.

"You can never go wrong using ice," Manning said. "Put a warm, wet towel on the area with ice over it, and that will gradually make the area cold."

Greg Campbell, director of UPMC St. Margaret's sports medicine center, recommends icing the affected area 20 minutes at a time for the next 48 hours. Ice is preferable to chemical cold packs, which, if used improperly, can cause an ice burn.
"Real ice will not cause frostbite or harm skin, but with chemical cold packs, you have to be careful. You must use a barrier between the pack and your skin," he said.

One of the best reasons to ice is to keep the size of the injured area as small as possible:

"After an injury, there is a certain amount of inflammation, a great deal of bleeding, tears in the small vessels, stretched ligaments or muscle tissue. A lot of fluid is floating around. If that is left unchecked" it could increase the size of the injured area, Campbell said.

Heat could also expand that area and cause greater swelling because more blood is brought to the injury.

"We like to use heat to promote flexibility and take discomfort away, but heat is needed later," Campbell said.

After administering the R.I.C.E. treatments, decide whether the injury is severe enough to seek medical help.

"Trust your instincts," Manning said. "If you're still having pain with everyday activities, if there is still significant swelling or if the pain has diminished but you still can't play on [the injured area] without pain, it might be serious."

See a doctor if you are unable to bear weight on an injury, or if you cannot move limbs normally, like lifting your arms over your head, Campbell said.

In Pennsylvania, you must have a doctor's recommendation or referral to seek rehabilitation by a physical therapist.

By Greg Moran
Head Professional
Four Seasons Racquet Club
Wilton, Connecticut

Advancing age is the most feared opponent of every individual but to an athlete it is even more devastating. The onset of "aging" can appear at varying times but the symptoms for a tennis player are generally the same. Shots which were once easy to reach suddenly become unreachable, injuries become more frequent and lingering, and bounce back time after a tough match is longer.

As we begin to age and notice a decline in our skills, it often seems as if we are no longer competing against the person on the other side of the net, but rather the body surrounding our mind, which still thinks it's 20 years old.

At one time or another we've all said we'd like to be younger. Years ago, a return to our youth was just a dream but today, according to Dr. Bob Arnot that dream can become a reality.

"If you are between thirty and sixty, you can crank back the time on your biological clock by a staggering amount as determined by standardized human performance tests for biological age. Between sixty and ninety big gains can still be made."

Arnot, author of Dr. Bob Arnot's Guide to Turning Back the Clock, says that "dramatic breakthroughs in nutrition, fitness technology, and sports medicine" have opened our eyes to what was previously deemed impossible.

"Beginning in your thirties body bits and pieces begin to fall apart," says Arnot. "You can't sprint as fast and your recovery slows after a hard Saturday and Sunday as a weekend warrior."

"Beginning at forty, the sedentary male will lose six pounds of muscle, nearly 7 percent of heart function, and 8 percent of lung function every ten years." We generally "accept these events as inevitable, genetically programmed disintegration," says Arnot. This is a mistake!!

"Look at the middle-aged spread men get in their forties and fifties," continues Dr. Arnot. "Is that genetically programmed? No way. Society expects us to look, behave, and perform in a peculiar, middle-aged way in our forties, fifties and sixties."

"Many of us just get with the program. We surrender our physique, power, potency, strength and endurance to the expectations of society."

Dr. Kenneth Cooper, founder of the Cooper Wellness Program in Dallas, Texas, agrees. "What we previously attributed to the physical effects of aging are, in reality, adaptive responses."

"These things occur in our bodies not so much because we grow older, but because we become more sedentary as we grow older," says Dr. Cooper.

In a recent article in Investor's Business Daily, research by Cooper and others "suggests that many of the changes associated with aging are self-fulfilling prophecies; People become less active because that's what they expect."

In other words, as we get older we start doing less because, in our minds, we think that older people should do less. Thus, says Cooper, our decline is largely "a matter of rusting out not wearing out."

We need to re-program our thinking so as not to conform to society's view of aging. While our bodies will change as we age, the effects of such changes can be minimalized, and in some instances reversed, through a proper program of exercise, nutrition, rest, and above all---brains.

One of the great things about being "older" is that while our outer shells, otherwise known as our bodies, have aged, our minds have become wiser and this wisdom can serve us greatly.

When we are in our 20's, we're fully entrenched in our "I'm immortal" phase. We try to bench press as much as possible, play tennis all day at full speed without a proper warm-up or cool-down, and basically eat and drink whatever we like.

As we approach our thirties, we find it a little more difficult to get out of bed the morning after a long match, and the pepperoni pizza and beer from the previous night tend to stay with us just a bit longer.

Nevertheless, we still proudly wear our youthful badge of invincibility and refuse to acknowledge that we're getting older. Take a day off and rest? You've got to be kidding!

By our late 30's many of us "aging athletes" find our tennis shorts to be a bit tighter around the waist and have had our first prolonged layoff due to an injury. We're told we're getting older and need to take care of ourselves and we nod our heads in agreement, but we still don't really believe it.

Somewhere around 40 reality strikes....hard! The elbow hurts, the back is stiff and our 13 year-old daughter is beating us in the fifty yard dash. Yep, we're old!!! However, once this realization hits, and we accept it as fact, we're well on our way to turning our lives around.

Simply put, with age comes maturity and a willingness to listen and learn. Listen to our bodies for they will tell us when they are hurt or need rest, and learn from the experts who can tell us how to best take care of ourselves so that we will be able to enjoy the sport(s) that we love for as long as possible.

A complete exercise program should include cardiovascular and strength training, as well as flexibility and nutrition (which will be addressed in a future column).

As I mentioned last month, there are literally hundreds of exercise programs out there so it is best to consult both your physician and a professional trainer before beginning an off-court training regimen. However, here are a few things to consider when designing your program:

One of the biggest changes in our bodies as we age is the loss of muscle mass and strength. As we lose muscle, our metabolism slows and we become more prone to gaining weight. This often begins and accelerates the decline in one's health.

With this in mind, Dr. Cooper recommends that individuals focus more on strength training as they get older. He recommends the following ratios for time spent on aerobic exercise vs. strength training at different ages:

30s: 80%-20%
40s: 70%-30%
50s: 60%-40%
60s & 70s: 55%-45%

In addition, as we age and lose muscle, we also lose flexibility and become more prone to injury so our exercise regimen must serve as much of a preventative function as one to enhance performance. Thus, a proper warm-up and stretching program becomes more and more important as the years go by.

TAKE A BREAK

Finally, just as important as nutrition and exercise are rest and recuperation. After playing a hard match or exercising vigorously, the body is worn down, tired, and prone to injury.

Listen to your body. If it feels tired, it is. If something hurts, it's injured. Take a day or two off. If the pain or fatigue doesn't go away within a reasonable amount of time, see your doctor.

Growing older doesn't mean slowing down and "settling" into your golden years. Don't slow down -- speed up!! Don't do less -- do more, but do it wisely. Remember, just because you're aging doesn't mean that you have to get old.

Dr. Bob Arnot's Guide to Turning Back the Clock
by Dr. Bob Arnot

Tennis The Lifetime Sport
by Shimon-Craig Van Collie