Across the globe, tennis is a game in which many people readily participate in. Whether at a recreational, social, competitive or professional level, the game involves various complex movement patterns, moving in all directions that include a great deal of strength, speed, power, balance and endurance. Just by watching a game of tennis at a professional level, one can really appreciate the great amount of strain that is put on the body, especially when games last upwards of 3 hours. Unfortunately, as with most sports where this is long standing time of physical strain, comes a high risk of injury. There are many factors that can predispose a player to wrist, ankle, knee, hip spine, shoulder and elbow injuries such as differences in bio-mechanics and poor physical condition, equipment, weather conditions, muscular and structural or postural imbalances and repetitive movement strains on joints. In the general population, there is approximately about five injuries per 1,000 hours of participation, and 33 injuries per 100,000 tennis players require hospitalization (http://physioworks.com.au/Injuries-Conditions/Activities/tennis-injuries). Thus, the importance of strength and conditioning for injury prevention is overwhelming. However it must be specific to you, the sport and your weaknesses otherwise the conditioning program will create your injury! And on top of that you are unlikely to play well without the best conditioning methods and techniques. This article we will look specifically at the role of conditioning to improve performance and why just using a random approach to strength and conditioning will set you up for injury and poor performance.

We all have ridden bikes as kids and we did this for fun, not for getting fit or to lose weight. It was one of those activities that you could do for a long time and really enjoy. There is something as adults we can learn from this when trying to find ways to get in shape and improve our health without it feeling like a chore, or something you have to do. And if you can do it consistently enough to make it a habit the benefits can be significant. Due to many jobs requiring us to be stuck behind computers, getting outdoors is a great thing and something we should encourage more. Whether you want to ride on the bike paths, mountain bike ride or go hard up hills on a road bike it doesn't matter, you can have some great fun and reap some amazing health rewards as a result.

Here is an interesting article exploring some of these amazing benefits.

Written by Ashley Bello of www.gogglesnmore.com

In addition to being a fun activity that allows you to get outdoors and enjoy some fresh air, biking also burns calories and builds muscle. With obesity and diabetes continuing to rise, it’s important that we all take our health and exercise seriously. Here we’ll take a look at just how many calories the averaging biking trip burns from an individual.

In an exciting development to our thriving Older Adults program, No Regrets Personal Training are taking part in the Federal Government’s Healthy Communities Initiative by providing the Lift for Life® program to the people of the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne, with the aim of tackling chronic diseases, especially type 2 diabetes.Designed to complement our existing Stronger for Longer older adults group class, this government funded initiative allows us to make exercise more accessible to the wider community, including those experiencing disadvantage, helping to improve quality of life.