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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast,

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This morning is our 10 minutes of tennis, with World renowned tennis coach Justin Yeo,

Australian in Puerto Rico.

And today we ask the question, which I think is a lot of fun,

and always debatable.

I had the conversation with my wife last night, I said, "Honey, she's a fitness trainer,

she's a Pilates expert, she understands breathing and grunting is breathing,

but Justin Yo, I will start with you.

Do tennis player, I'm going to jump right in.

Do tennis players really need to grunt?"

Yes.

All right, thanks for coming. We'll see you next week.

That was our 10 seconds of tennis.

Yeah. What do you mean? Yes, we have to.

Okay, right. We didn't get back to the 50/60s, 70s, where the ladies and gentlemen

was a quiet sport. It was less, less, uh,

spectacularism involved. What we don't realize is back then,

we didn't have big cameras and the big microphones and the amount of

interaction that you would see on TV, but there was just as much

in-store, in a stadium in Wimbledon back in the 60s and 50s, as there is now, you know,

there will probably a little more dressed and there will probably a little more quieter because

it was, you know, very white. But I'll use that as an example because the reason why

the grunting thing such a big thing is that everybody was just like, "Okay, when is it we're

going to bring the decibels down?" And why are we doing this? Like, why is this sport going this way?

Because back then it wasn't as loud and now it's really loud. And it's like, "Okay,

back then it was loud." They exhaled very heavily when they hit the ball. You know,

Newcombs lever all those guys. I mean, you can go all the way back. The girls maybe not.

I don't remember ever it being that loud, but she definitely breached. She exhale a lot.

As you dive in for it, exhale a lot. They have to exhale when they hit the balls. Just like,

it's like when you're hitting those last two, three sets of the bench press and you're like,

"Oh, I got it! What you're doing is trying to exhale and put everything left into the ball." And you

want to do it as every single time. So, exhaling is basically what a player needs to do.

Majority of players that I see amateur-wise on a tennis court. And they're like hitting the ball

in a really stiff, in a really stiff, in a really stiff, and they're getting one out really quickly.

And I'll go, "Hey guys, let me try one thing." They're like, "What's that?" I'm like, "Hoping you man.

Just open your man. When you hit the ball." And they're like, "Okay, let me try that." And they're like,

"Okay, are there still a breathing?" Because you have to be out of exhale. If you don't bring that carbon

oxide out, you can't allow fresh oxygen in, which is what your body's relying on. It's what your brain

is relying on. And then if you want to stay loose and relaxed, you can calm and get so smooth,

you have to breathe. So, if you don't exhale, it won't happen. And the theory behind the grant

is that when you make a noise, you open up the diaphragm and you open up that opportunity for it to

come out. Because otherwise, like I just showed you, you open your mouth and you're not breathing.

So, when I go like this, I'm like, "I've just pushed it all out." So, the grant is basically designed

around that. Now, Chera Pover redesigned it all. She did the whole grant on the way you and on the way

"Yeah, never understand it. Don't know the full science about it. I'm sure. Most in peace, Mr.

Volotary will tell me why she is to do it." But that noise is just, yes, our most debris. That would be

the one. That's probably the most annoying. You mentioned Volotary. And he's quoted, "I found one

article and I did not do an exhaustive search. I just found an article with some reason. I put it

in, put it in the links as well." And there were two reasons Volotary is quoted in this article. And one's

talking about the psychological and the physiological release of tension. Well, that sounds a little

obvious for an athlete, right? It's the last rep. It's that. But the other one he mentions is

it's synchronizing the breathing with the timing of the ball. Where even when I do it, I'm just

roul. I just do a little, it's not even a big exhale. But in combination with what we've been talking

about with the abdomen and engaging the core as my Pilates instructor wife would always say,

engaging the core. That's where your strength comes from. And that's what you do when you exhale,

you blow out, you engage that core. As you say, you're even opening up the diaphragm. I think back to

my training as a vocalist in high school and college of using singing from your gut. And it just

seemed weird. But then all of a sudden you've got more energy there. There's more coming out.

There's more into that shot. So there's a science to it. But there's also that timing. There's that

little bit of, I can think about. And like you said, the share of povo all of a sudden was screaming.

And I want to put that into a separate category. Venus Williams, I think, was the same thing. This

isn't just when the guys hit that final shot and they've gone, they hit it and they go,

all right. They may combine it in with the winner. So it's the tone in the female. So it's the

men that stands out a little bit more. There's a little bit, I won't talk about that part.

The sound is a little bit correlation to something else too, which doesn't be very feminine or very

ladylike. And then the other big one is that show of how this problem was it went all the way to the

next shot of the next player's shot. So that new ruling came in that the grant had begun. But the

noise has down before the player gets the next ball. Because first went so long, it was it was also a

length of time that by the time the player hit the other ball, they couldn't hear the other,

like they couldn't hear the shot or the other was so nice. So you think that was intentional on her part?

Is that so? I know, I know the size part of that part. So in a high performance thing, and if we go

high performance coaches out there, we go high performance juniors out there. Even I guess the

adults that want to up up their game, there is a really, really important thing about the grantee.

And then there's when you exhale and you grunt and you push the diaphragm up and you tighten your

core up like you just said, you're actually allowing more stability over the ball and you're allowing

that stability to balance and recover from the ball. Because if you didn't grunt, your actual

body when you're twisting, it's through that balance off. Whereas when you, you can come back because

you've held your core tighter because of the ground. So it's hitting the gas, it's hitting the gas

into the turn, right? Correct. Correct. Exactly right. There is definitely a lot of science around

the breath being holded long enough too. Because if you, you know, you're like, then and you're like,

oh, breaks, breaks, breaks, now go to come back. You're like, oh, god, I can keep going because your

core is being held and you're pushing. So it is a, there is, there's definitely a science, physiology.

Oh, there's a lot of the advantages and I had everyone on my tips. If they couldn't grunt,

I made them, you know, basically do the line, the raw rotation. Make me your best raw. And maybe like,

oh, well, I don't think I can do that. I'm like, we're not going to always sound like that, but I'm

trying to find the depth in you to be able to find a way to get you to let it out. You know, so

and that's females or males. We always had to try to get them to learn to let that out, get it

the right length so that you could, you know, you could hit it all, hold the balance and recover well

and they're all insane. Now, if you think about length at the point, the other advantages are is,

you know, oxygen depletion, you know, you wonder why you come into the net, you've got the opportunity

and you go and you miss it and you only miss it because possibly there's just nothing left in the

tank, oxygen wise, because you weren't breathing enough, you know. And if you're coming up on the ball

and you're getting a short one, you've got the opportunity and you, you wonder why you miss it as

well, because, you know, breathing and relax through the finishing shot. So breathing is exile and

grunt is, sorry, we cannot ignore it. It is, if it's a hundred percent thing in the sport, like

our, you know, early contact point, it's probably grunting, you know, they're all just a different

breast. I mean, better grunting, he just wasn't that loud, he wasn't as loud and and the dial is,

you know, you can tell the end level of intensity and what's left, you know, what he's wearing out at

this point by the how loud he's getting. He's louder throughout the point. Yeah, and if he gets louder,

I'd be on the baseline going, I hang in here for like three more shots here because

it's just going to have nothing after that. There's not much more after that, you know.

But there's a big difference there with the grunt and with the screen.

They actually had to shut it down and say, all right, mostly the ladies, right? Shut it down. This is

this is gamesmanship because in a connection with another conversation we have with Dave Matthews,

we're talking about the sound of the ball. I can tell when when Nova act hits the ball, when Justin

Yo hits that ball full speed, I'm like, come on, give me everything you got Justin. There's a pop.

There's a, it's like a gunshot. It's a, wow, that really happened that you, I can, oh my god,

he really hit that ball. But if you're screaming over it, you can cover that up. So there's a bit of

strategy. There's a bit of gamesmanship, but then there's also just a bit of being an obnoxious,

loud tennis player that that part, I don't think a lot of people appreciate. Yep. Justin, thank you so

much. That was your 10 minutes of tennis. We'll see you next week.

Well, there you have it. We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and be sure to hit that

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