The temperature has relented just a little bit today, which makes it a little bit more enjoyable to train in than yesterday’s conditions which reminded me of training in some kind of oven!
If you watched andy murray on Sunday, then you will have seen someone who takes full advantage of the heat and the humid conditions.
When he first broke on the scene, he tried playing a 5 setter versus Nalbandian. Despite taking a two set lead, he then run out of steam and was overcome by his far more experienced opponent.
Murray knew then that he needed to be able to cope with the heat and all the demands it brought.
He employed a big team of nutritionist, fitness trainers, yoga teachers, psychologists to get him into the real big time.
A key factor was re-locating to Miami. Anyone who has been there realizes that you are unlikely to get anywhere so humid as Miami, especially in the summer, this is where murray still calls his training base, and has obviously benefitted immensely from it!
He of course plays tennis all over the world, and although the rumoured 50 degrees on court was tortuous even for him, he at least has a lot of experience of those conditions and his experience of it was critical when it came to the crunch.
He was seen putting ice on his shoulders and neck in between games, he took longer to get out of his chair, he made sure he was fully hydrated and the extreme amount of work he put into his body paid off even against a supremely fit champion like Novak Djokovic!
So as we feel a little sorry for ourselves training through the extreme heat (for us anyway), we shou.ld realize that as long as we are sensible, and we take the proper precautions, we should be able to work our way through it, and year in year out, we are likely to get better in how we deal with it just like our new Wimbledon champion!!!
