TennisIDENTITY

Rafa is back (on your iPhone).

The new Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy app has launched. Our MItennisA champ has teamed with Vstrator to create a virtual, hand-held academy where aspiring players can learn how to play like the Spaniard.

The app offers very good, short tutorials that break down Rafa's swings, serves and volleys using video analysis technology. 

There are stroke isolating clips that you can use to compare your own strokes with those of the champion by uploading a short clip of you on court (use your phone to capture).

“What I...like of this app," said Nadal, "is that you can be on the courts down the street, at your school or tennis facility, with your friends, coach and teammates and get the info and coaching necessary from my point of view. It’s easy and I am sure that it will help improve your game.” 

 A section of insights from Rafa are just fun to watch. As always he says he is "nothing special." So charming. 

Find the Rafael Nadal Tennis Academy in the iTunes store, put on your headband and vamos. 

$4.99 to watch and learn from Rafa on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. A pricey app maybe, but the tips are excellent + I'd pay anything to watch him play right about now.

New weather app. No rain on YOUR clay.

Headed outside to play tennis despite a regional forecast for rain? Check out a new app from Ourcast first. Those gray clouds may not rain on your clay (or whatever your surface).

Ourcast offers hyper-local forecasts in any location you choose with minute-to-minute rain start or stop times within a two hour window. It's surprisingly accurate.

Learn how it works (statistics and crowdsourcing), via this article in Mashable.

The Ourcast app is free and available in the iTunes store. 

What the hey is a Nike+ FuelBand?

Anyone interested in sports has likely seen some form of promo for Nike's new FUELBAND. I found this video that pretty well sums it up. Very cool, very easy. I'm predicting lots of stair-taking and amped up activity around the office and at the gym. The more you move, the more fuel you earn/burn.

 

Available for preorder now at NikeStore, $149. Check specifications on system requirements before ordering. Would you use it? Please leave a comment below.

 

How do your tennis strokes compare to the pro's? Video analysis without the big tag.

No question, visualization is an effective method for reinforcing tennis strokes but professional video analysis can be expensive. For those who want a look but can't afford packages being offered at clubs and training centers, Ultimate Pro Compare offers VOTSA (Video Overlay Tennis and Sports Analysis), an accessible and affordable way to analyze your tennis strokes. Analysis per shot/stroke starts at $20.

Here's how it works: Peruse the strokes of a number of touring pros Ultimate Pro Compare has hosted on the site. Pick a pro and shot you want to compare with and then upload a video of you making the same shot ( f. ex. a serve or cross court forehand). VOTSA compares your strokes to the pros by placing them side by side for comparison. That's level one.

Take it a step farther and for $50 you get a complete stick figure overlay with swing path and eye contact analysis (as illustrated above in screen grab). The stick figure is your selected pro's exact position at every point during your stroke. You will see, for example,  if your racquet position before point of contact is as close to the pros as you think. Pro strokes on the site also include those of: Kevin Anderson, Jeremy Chardy, Mark Knowles, Dmitry Tursunov, Donald Young, Fernando Verdasco, Mahesh Bhupathi (cousin of VOTSA's creator), Agnes Szavay, Nadia Petrova, Alize Cornet, Sorana Cirstea and more.

Each video on the site was professionally video taped for instructional purposes. Groundstrokes, volleys, inside outs and tricks are included and shot from a number of different angles. 

Notes: You need to enter an email and create a password to access any portion of Ultimate Pro Compare's website aside from the home page. You will not be charged for anything unless you upload a video and ask to be charged.

There are no restrictions on the type of video you can upload. Have someone use your iPhone, flip camera, anything that creates a video file for you to upload from your computer. Each video should have a sequence of 4 shots of each stroke you want looked at; one separate video per stroke.

Your personal video analysis is available within your VOTSA account online within 2-4 business days.

Learn more at Ultimate Pro Compare.

Training to the beat of your own drum. adidas adds heart rate based coaching to miCoach. Why you need it.

adidas has announced a new heart rate monitor that works with the miCoach mobile app the company introduced last year.

The monitor snaps onto an adjustable absorbant stretch belt (pictured below) that you wear around your chest. A small, connect device plugs into your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Sync your phone to the monitor once you have it on and off you go. Your heart rate data is transferred to the screen (and to your ears if you choose) in real time as you work out, right alongside miles, time, calories burned etc. The device (and built in personal coach) is excellent for fitness training. 

But, why should a healthy athlete be concerned about heart rate?

According to Dr. Kimberly Parks, Cardiologist, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School:

"Monitoring your heart rate during exercise is important both for safety and to make sure you are achieving maximum effectiveness from your workout.  

It can be easy to get caught up in the positive response your brain has to exercise...[and] It is easy to under or over estimate how much you are exerting yourself. Monitoring your heart rate is important to ensure that you are achieving the desired intensity of your workout."  

Determining your desired heart rate: Subtract your age from the number 220. The result is your maximum predicted heart rate (MPHR).

"For endurance training, your target heart rate should be between 70-80% of your MPHR," says Dr. Parks. "For maximum aerobic benefit, you should aim to maintain your target heart rate for a minimum of 20-30 minutes. It's best to avoid exerting yourself at greater than 85% MPHR [during endurance training]..." 

Dr. Malissa Wood, Co-director of the MGH Heart Center, Corrigan Women's Heart Health Program and Cardiovascular Performance Program comments that "Individuals hoping to increase their fitness can push their heart rate to a slightly higher range (88-90% max of MPHR) for short intervals..The benefits derived from higher intensity short periods are clear. Typical types of short burst activity would include plyometrics (jump training), sprints or interval runs and running the baselines on a tennis court."

A few notes:

The miCoach heart rate monitor is a great tool for those who want to add running or cycling to their training-for-tennis regime and well as for those who already do these activities. The app will run an assessment program that it will use to base your future workouts on. You can also simply use the heart monitor for short interval training.

This is not a time to lie about your age. Yeah, we all wish we were younger but it's important that the heart monitor make its calculations based on your true age.

I did not find the belt uncomfortable at all but I do not run long distances where chafing could be a problem. adidas offers a couple of miCoach heart rate monitor compatible garments, a sports bra (pictured left) and close fitting shirt for men, for those who might be bothered by the belt. Try it without them first. 

You may want to wear an armband style iPhone case if you want to keep your hands free when using the system for high intensity training.

Pretty neat little tool that adds to an already solid fitness app. The adidas miCoachConnect and the Heart Rate Monitor bundle retails for $69.99 and will be available soon at adidas. The miCoach app is free and available for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android. The heart monitor, as noted above, is only available for iPhone and iPod touch.

As always, talk to your doctor before starting a new fitness regime.

Learn more at adidas.com/micoach . Their blog is a good resource for getting familiar with the app. Not available in all countries yet. 

New app. Tennis 109 with Jimmy Connors.

Tennis109 with Jimmy Connors is a new app for iPhone that features the 109 title winning phenom as your personal pro.

The app includes a section loaded with game improving instruction on a wide variety of shots and strokes, and a section featuring his thoughts/insight on the game past, present and future as well as his greatest matches, toughest opponents and more. There are bulleted tips and a spot within the app to jot notes down on your own game as well. 

The content is presented in rich, clear video filmed on the courts of the Malibu Racquet Club. Man is it gorgeous.

As apps go, this one is up there at $9.99 USD, but with privates running from $30-200 per hour depending on the pro and area, it's a relative bargain that offers the recreational player some good things to think about when on court and the ability to reference it all again and again.

If you are a Connors fan from back in the day you'll also enjoy the insight interview segments. The signature vest is omnipresent.

Keep in mind that Connors hits a pretty flat ball. If you are a modern-day heavy spin hitter some of the instruction will not feel like a fit for your game. More old school shot makers will feel a fit right away.

Find "Tennis 109 with Jimmy Connors" in the iTunes store. At this time the app is only available for iPhone. The developer is aiming for a Windows version in time for Wimbledon.

Download tip: There is a lot of video content here and the app should be downloaded from your computer first. Load it to your phone from there.

Here's a video (more of a commerical):

THE TENNiS APP. Tennis lessons from the Bryans in your iPhone.

File this one under How did I miss this? THE TENNiS APP offers detailed tennis instruction courtesy of Bob and Mike Bryan, yeah - the number one doubles team in the world. Whatever you want to work on, slice approach, forehand volley, overhead, the basics are there (trick shots too) and in the palm of your hand (for iPhone and iPad).

The App offers a look at the strokes of a few pro players and gives succinct text commentary on what you are watching. You can replay again and again frame by frame to visually ingrain the techniques in keep-on-doin-it-the-old-way brains. 

Add news, rankings, scores for current tournaments and, bonus for lefties, the App can automatically flip instruction to help a lefty's game. You won't need to mentally transpose the videos.

Behind the App are the Bryans of course as well as a team of teaching pros and tour players.

Find it now in the App store under THE TENNiS APP. Free. Available for Android devices later in 2011.

 

Time to restring? Check it first with this .99 cent app from racquetTune.

If you are wondering if your tennis racquet needs to be restrung and you have an iPhone, here's a solution. raquetTune is a downloadable app that allows you to check racquet string tension any time, anywhere.

The app uses the sound of the racquet strings to analyze the frequency of the strings when hit with a pen or like object. The frequency is then converted to the tension of the stringbed. The accuracy is shown by an indicator light on the display and can be improved by repeating the "test" several times in a row.

Here's how to run a test: Set your app to register pounds or kilograms, click the racquet button to set your string's linear density (you can find some on the racquetTune website) or set your string type. Polyester, nylon, gut and kevlar are all options, and then set your gauge (string thickness). This part feels a little confusing as there are so many different strings and materials on the market. Again you can use the listing on their website for help. There is an option that enables you to input a hybrid combination.  You then set your racquet head size.

Hold the racquet face over your iPhone in a quiet setting and hit the strings a few times with a pen. The results register right away. You can compare the results to the recommended tension printed on the racquet or base it on your particular likes. Here's a video:

The app has gotten great reviews from stringers who are far more concerned about exact measurements than me. I thought it helpful as it indicated that a couple of racquets in this household's arsenal needed a restring despite the face that the strings looked fine.

For .99 cents my first thought is why not? It's just about the cost of one tennis ball but you do need to know detail on the string you have in your racquet to use this. Ask your stringer for the string package if you are not completley sure of what you are using. Unless you change strings, once you've input the data it's there till you change it again.

Learn more at racquetTune or download it from the AppStore.