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| Healthy Lifestyle - Tennis |
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As you travel around our beautiful region, try a new activity to lift your spirits and boost your stamina.
What is it good for? According to physician Ralph Paffenbarger of Harvard University School of Public Health, people who participate in tennis three hours per week (at moderately vigorous intensity) cut their risk of death in half from any cause. A game of tennis can develop aerobic fitness by burning fat and improving your cardiovascular fitness and maintaining higher energy levels, and will improve general body coordination since you have to move into position, adjust your upper body and feet, and then transfer your body weight to hit the ball successfully. Physical benefits aside, another study conducted by Dr. Joan Finn and at Southern Connecticut State University showed that tennis players scored higher in vigour, optimism and self-esteem while scoring lower in depression, anger, confusion, anxiety and tension than other athletes or non-athletes. Whereabouts can I play? Most of the major Caribbean hotels and resorts have courts for their guests to use and for non-guests to rent by reservation. Some people say that one of the loveliest places in the world to pick up a tennis game is at Antigua’s Curtain Bluff, which hosts Antigua Tennis Week, both in May and in December, and offers four lit championship courts. The US Virgin Islands are home to several first-rate resorts offering tennis. The Buccaneer in Gallows Bay, St Croix is considered to be the best in the Virgin Islands, and by many, to be the best in all of the Caribbean. With reservations, non-guests may play for US$18 per hour per person. Many of the islands also feature public courts where charges are usually much lower than at the hotels and resorts – sometimes they are even free. • For more information: The International Tennis Federation’s Development Officer for the English speaking Caribbean is Anthony Jeremiah. Go to www.itftennis.com and click on the Development Officers tab for his monthly newsletters. • For details of workshops, coaching and tournaments in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, go to www.caribbean.usta.com |
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