Fun Things to Do

Mike Bear of Rusty Rackets explains:  Do you ever think "I would like to take up tennis in later life for the first time" or “I would like to try again”? Do you excuse yourself because you never had the opportunity?

What is stopping you playing social tennis now?

Maybe you are retired or planning retirement, so you have the time. You know you would like to get a little fitter, get out in the fresh air, meet new people with similar interests. That’s social tennis!

Take encouragement from this extract

 www.direct.gov.uk/en/Pensionsandretirementplanning/Over50HealthAndWellBeing/Healthandfitness/DG_10026833

Keeping physically active not only improves your health and quality of life it can also help you to live longer. It's never too early or too late to start doing some exercise and staying fit.

Physical activity means anything from everyday tasks, like cleaning the house, heavy gardening or walking the dog, through to specific exercise like keep fit, swimming, golf, football, gym-based activity or tennis.

Some of the benefits of keeping active include:

• a reduced risk of developing a life-threatening disease
• a greater likelihood of maintaining or reaching a healthy weight
• a greater sense of well-being
• improved sleep and increased day-time vitality

If you stay physically active, you're also likely to stay independent longer. Exercise can make you stronger. You'll feel more confident and involved in life.

A Beautiful Game if not The Beautiful Game

Social Tennis is an excellent game combining balanced movement with cardio vascular exercise. It can be played by men and women of all ages well into your 80’s.

Best of all it is fun!

And now there is an easy to follow Web based Tennis course designed for the over 50’s at www.rustyrackets.com.

Special Course for the Over 50s

Rusty Rackets has been designed arround my courses as a 90 page electronic e-book that includes 18 instructional and demonstration videos covering all the main aspects of the game for the over 50’s.

Have a look at the sample videos on the Rusty Rackets website. There is an introduction, a demonstration of the Serve and a clip of me playing a warm up game of Mini Tennis with a couple of my pupils.

Who Wants to be like Andy Murray anyway

It is not a performance course of the type an aspiring Andy Murray would want to follow. It is a more genteel course divided into 10 sections covering everything from

• buying the right sort of equipment to reduce the risk of injury
• rules of the Game and its history
• pre sport warm up exercises
• all the strokes themselves
• plus a series of simple fun exercises to help practice the shots with a partner

Mike Bear

Mike Bear - Rusty Rackets

Mike is a 62 year old professional tennis coach qualified with the LTA in UK and RPT in Spain. He is actively coaching now where his main clientele are aged 50 plus looking to recapture a sport enjoyed in their youth or to learn from scratch an outdoor activity a little livelier and perhaps cheaper than Golf.

Find out More

On the Rusty Rackeets website there are links to the LTA where details of local clubs and coaches in UK can be found. Some of those will offer special programmes for seniors and refreshers.

Each section of the Rusty Rackets course can be purchased separately or the entire course for £17.99 from www.rustyrackets.com.  Prices correct for June 2011