Sports Kinesiology The Rafa Nadal Academy

Kinesiology (comes from the Greek “kinesis”, meaning “movements”) is the science of mobility that focuses on body movements and how the muscles behave in situations of stress and strain. This discipline surfaced during the 60s when Doctor George Goodheart and his team of investigators found that muscle weakness can cause muscles to tense causing pain and the spinal column to deviate. This marked a change of perspective because until that moment it was though that what caused muscles to tense up were spasms.

Since then, kinesiology has developed into three main areas: health, psychology and pedagogy. Its specific sports application is developed so that it can be carried out in a simple and logical manner. This discipline influences the idea that in order to play a sport with correct technique, certain conditions are needed. In tennis, for example, a backhand with topspin requires a series of movements (running, twisting the spine, catching momentum, lowering the face of the racket…) all of this with the correct timing and controlled movements to achieve the correct execution. In order for the athlete to be able to do everything correctly achieving an optimal movement capacity, he or she should resort to several Partial Efficiency Systems (PES) of the body. Optimal personal performance 6 Body/mental integration 5 Good technique 4 Movement skill set 3 Movement capacity 2 Partial Efficiency Systems (PES) = the basis of coordination 1

The main PES for tennis are: • balance • hand-eye coordination • coordination between the spine and the lower body • cooperation between arms and legs • readiness of movement in both directions • binocular vision • eye movement succession • eye conversion, among other things ...

An athlete who doesn’t have any of these PES available is most likely present a greater difficulty learning a good sports technique and applying this to the game.

Benefits for the tennis player: • Improves coordination and balance. • Improves spatial awareness and with it security in movement. • Improves the control of the ball. • Increases visual quality. • Improves game perspective. • Optimizes the tennis Sensory Systems. • Increases concentration/focus. • Gains agility and muscle connection. • Activates the flow of energy in the meridians of acupuncture and provides oxygen to the muscles. • Decreases the time of convalescence.

Renowned professional athletes in many disciplines currently work with this method or similar concepts. At the Rafa Nadal Academy by Movistar sports kinesiology is applied based on all the benefits it provides from the coach Werner who is the creator of the X-Motion system, “Kinesiology Applied to Tennis”. This way, athletes are provided with a new path to overcome their limits and can expand their resources.

For further in-depth information about this subject, we recommend visiting Werner’s web page: www. sport-kine.com

For additional information about Rafa Nadal Academy by Movistar, their mental training method and tennis programs, please log on to www.rafanadalacademy.com