The Importance of Physical Assessment prior to Practice Tennis

An increasing number of practitioners of tennis in the World, mainly adult audience. Along with this growing demand of new players, so the number of practitioners who are ill on the court for no apparent reason. In more serious cases, sudden death has been reported in some people during tennis practice. Those players who are ill or in blocks that ended up going to death, most often have some undiagnosed heart problem.

The main way to prevent these problems during tennis practice is by performing the famous "check -up" with a cardiologis. Among various tests that the doctor calls according to the individuality of each person, a stress test (exercise or cardiopulmonary exercise test) is one of the most important, because it can detect possible cardiac abnormalities in individual with maximum effort. Among several changes found in the stress test, the obstruction of the coronary arteries , which can lead to acute myocardial infarction and arrhythmias, which can lead to cardiac arrest are the most prevalent. From the result of stress and other tests ordered test, the doctor can release the individual for tennis practice, the practitioner should take the medical certificate given by the doctor where the individual will train.

However, in our daily lives several clubs and academies in Brazil do not require practitioners to take tennis medical certificate before the practice of sport, and sites that are compulsory leave the person initiating training before handing the medical certificate. In São Paulo, for example, a law currently in effect, says to the individual academies make enrollment in the sporting arena, you need only answer a questionnaire on risk stratification called Questionnaire Physical Activity Readiness (PAR - Q). According to the results of the questionnaire, the individual signs a waiver and can start playing sports. However, people do not have autonomy and not enough to know whether is fit to play sports or not based on a questionnaire of risk stratification capacity. The person may have some undiagnosed heart problem, but how do not feel symptoms at rest and for many years did not go to the doctor, he just thinks it's okay and starts to tennis practice. Right now we have a big problem, since most of the strokes and heart attacks are triggered by physical exercise, especially high intensity exercise.

When performing high intensity exercise, heart rate and force of contraction of heart muscle rise much, increasing the chances of triggering serious problems when there is some heart disease present. As the tennis field is classified as high-intensity sports due to moving in various directions, racing at high speed and at little recovery time between points, make very dangerous sport if not taken proper care.

For this reason, it is extremely important that the practitioner has passed with a cardiologist before tennis practice. Furthermore, we expect that the tennis academies are more stringent with respect to the obligation to bring a medical certificate from a specialist before practice sport. Thus, practitioners tennis will have a much greater security, getting rid of possible problems that may occur within the block, being a determinant factor in the reduction of deaths during tennis practice.

More information

Prof° Esp. Jefferson Cabral

Email : jefferson.jcc@hotmail.com

References

1.      Guidelines in Cardiology of Sport and Exercise of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology and the Brazilian Society of Sports Medicine. Arq Bras Cardiol. 2013;100:1-41.

2.      III Guidelines of the Brazilian Cardiology Society About Exercise Testing. Arq Bras Cardiol. 2010; 95: 1-26.