Tuesday 4th March 2008
I'm getting into the swing of things now, as I'm now a month or so into this year's season. Here's my report on what's been going on since my last blog update.Training
Everything is going very well with my training at the moment, with two important exceptions. I'm still getting at least 30 minutes of training most days, and often a fair bit more, with few exceptions, so I'm still quite happy with this approach of only having to do an easy minimum amount per day.I haven't changed my drills all that much at the moment - the bulk of my drills are still very simple technique drills without much random placements at all. My forehand loop is continuing to work well, and now my backhand loop is starting to come back again - helped by the increased amount of training and the discovery that I was forgetting to move away from the table after opening with my backhand. So all is good there.
Defense wise, my technique continues to improve slowly, and I'm currently working on my ability to produce a heavy chop whenever I want, rather than just when the conditions are perfect. I feel that I need the ability to vary my spin from light to heavy with minimal visual changes in order to give me that extra edge. So I'm currently trying to mix in floats, medium spins and heavy spins, all with a similar action. It's going to take some time to perfect but I'm doing a little better after a few weeks, so I believe I can get there.
On the fitness side of things, I have definitely improved. After two months of consistent training, I am noticeably fitter and a touch faster as well. So that's good too!
So what's the problems? Well, the two problems I have I am hoping to solve with a common solution.
- Problem 1 is that I want to do more on the table training. In the 30 minutes to 1½ hours that I am doing regularly, I'm not covering all the aspects of my game that I want to work on. A large proportion of my current training time is off table aerobic training. I need a lot more time on the table to give everything the attention it needs.
- Problem 2 is that although I'm fitter, I'm not dropping bodyfat fast enough to be in good shape for the Australian Nationals. Carrying all that extra weight makes it more difficult to do all the work that I want to get done as well.
- Firstly, I'm still going to give myself permission to only do 30 minutes on days where I don't feel like training much. This approach has worked very well for me over the last two months, so I'm going to keep using it.
- Secondly, I'm going to take a little longer to build up to my training goals. Instead of trying to get there in a month, I figure that I'll ease into things a bit more slowly, and try an incremental approach instead.
- Finally, over the last couple of weeks I've been making use of a new technique of checking whether I am overtraining or not. You can read more details on the About.com Sports Medicine site, but basically, you lie down at the same time of the day for 10 minutes, then check your heart rate. Then stand up, and check again after 15, 90 and 120 seconds. If your heart rate at the 120 second mark is more than 10 beats per minute above your usual 120 second mark heart rate, you are probably overtrained, and should have an easy day. Those are the days I'll just do an easy 30 minutes or so.
As I said, I've been using this technique for a couple of weeks now, and I've found it's a better indicator of whether I'm overtrained then going by whether I feel tired or not. There are occasional days when I feel weary, but my heart rate is OK, and when I actually get going in my training I find that I'm good after all. And once I had my heart rate in the overtraining zone, although I felt fine - right until mid-afternoon when suddenly all I wanted to do was crawl into bed! So I am very hopeful that using this technique to monitor whether I am overtraining will help me build up to my training goals, since if I am starting to overtrain I should be aware of it much sooner, and I should be able to cut things back a little until I'm ready to push harder again.
Competition
We've had a few more weeks of local pennants, and one more tournament since my last report. Pennants has been going quite well, and I am still unbeaten, but with a couple of tough matches coming up in the next few weeks. In the recent tournament, I played quite well, and actually had 4 match points in the semifinals against the eventual winner (Gio Cnapich). I was 10-6 up in the seventh game, and possibly made a mistake, in that I called a time-out to steady myself and make sure that I was going to stick to my tactics to get the win. That part worked and I did keep to my tactical plan, but I think I might have given Gio the chance to regroup and pull himself together, and he came up with some great shots to take the final game 14-12. Although he did hit a thickish edge when attacking at 7-10 down, so half a inch further and it would have been over 11-7 in my favor (Darn!). So perhaps I would have been better to keep moving along without calling the time-out. The effect of a time-out on your opponent isn't something I had thought of much before, but I'll be more aware of it in the future, I can guarantee!Overall
That disappointment aside, I'm still very pleased with where my game is at for this time of year. I'm playing quite well, and I've identified the areas in my game that I need to work on. I've got a good tactical plan, and I'm getting better at sticking to it as well. So if I can drop more weight and increase my training time on the table, I really feel that I can improve by 3-4 points a game, which will make a dramatic difference against my local opponents, and give me a real shot at making an impact at this years Australian Open, and maybe stealing a top 10 position to boot!
