I launched Haray Sports two years ago in an effort to combine my health educator and athletic coaching worlds professionally. Up until then, it felt like I worked in two separate fields, but in reality, they crossed paths often. And I, personally, am a combined version of both.
I wanted my professional world to also reflect this, as the skills I had in one field I used often in the other. And quite frankly, I work better and am more myself when they are combined.
Initially, I planned to focus on mental performance coaching through Haray Sports. I’m passionate about helping kids and teens live a healthier, happier life through sport. With that, though, comes the stress and anxiety of performance and improvement. Of life as an adolescent in 2026. This is dramatically different than the stress we had as kids in the 80s and 90s. Every single thing is documented and posted for the world to see now. Of their personal lives. Their scores. Wins and losses. Embarrassing things their friends capture. Things their schools post. All of it goes online. That alone causes a lot of anxiety for our young performers and competitors. Throw in the pressures of “travel” too, both on kids and families, and it’s a lot to deal with.
I continue to be passionate about helping our young athletes with their mental performance and overall wellness. I offer individual and group coaching, teaching mindfulness and stress management skills, among others. I also offer workshops for athletic departments and coaches, teaching them the skills that they can teach their athletes. But in getting Haray Sports set up and moving, I started getting asked for other types of help too, from other types of athletes.
Enter Workout on the Courts and beginner tennis lessons…
A couple I’m friends with, and sometimes play tennis with, asked me for help this summer to help them build strength and improve their footwork. They’re 70+ years young, are super active, a ton of fun, and are just a little different than the adolescents I’ve coached for the last 25 or so years. I also kept watching, and hearing about, tennis buddies getting hurt this spring and summer too- fractured bones, concussions, back issues, shoulder problems, knee and hip issues, etc.
We tennis players often deal with overuse injuries. It’s very common. But what I’ve learned through literal years of physical therapy for my own injuries, including overuse injuries mostly due to coaching- we can prevent many of them. We can prevent some by targeting and strengthening specific muscles that keep our knees, hips, and shoulders stronger and healthier, even if we already have arthritis brewing in those joints. We can prevent acute injuries by working on balance, coordination, and footwork specific to tennis and pickleball, in order to prevent some of the falls that harm our bodies and take us out of the game for weeks or months. Lateral movements, back pedaling, etc. We can’t prevent everything. But we can prevent a lot. And we can also help our bodies feel better. Who wants to be in agony an hour later, or the next morning? Been there. Not fun.
This all inspired me to develop Workout on the Courts– workouts on tennis courts that combine strength, agility, balance, coordination, and movement exercises that complement the demands of tennis and pickleball. We use resistance bands, band loops, medicine balls, a tidal tank for rotational strength, agility ladder, and footwork exercises, right on the courts we play on. What better surface to workout on than the one we play on?
Given we are now into the fall season, with winter looming, I arranged for an indoor space to continue Workout on the Courts through the winter- at Every Body Strength & Fitness in Endwell. It won’t be the same as being on the court, but we’ll keep working on strengthening our bodies and improving our footwork all year round, because, quite frankly, we need to.
I also started getting more requests for beginner tennis lessons this summer, and I’m happy to offer them as well. Tennis is one of my greatest loves. I love competing, I am grateful for all the friendships I’ve made through it, and I greatly appreciate the health benefits of this sport as well.
What are those health benefits you ask?
Research has shown tennis to be the “world’s healthiest sport,” and that regular tennis playing as adults adds, on average, 9.7 years to our lives, as compared to sedentary individuals. Playing tennis at least three hours a week can reduce cardiovascular health risk by 56%. Tennis players are also 20% more likely to report strong mental health than other sport and activity participants. The USTA has more information here about the health benefits, feel free to check it out.
I’m hoping that through Haray Sports, more folks will give tennis a try, younger athletes will have more of the mental skills needed to feel better and succeed more, and more of us who are already playing as adults will focus on our athletic training, to try to prevent some of these injuries we keep seeing. We love our sport and want to keep playing it throughout our lives. I’m happy to offer more services now that can help make this happen! And I thank those of you who inspired, and encouraged me, to branch out and try new things this summer.
And one last thing- I enjoy writing. I was very fortunate that I went to a private school as a young kiddo where nuns taught us how to write properly. I also teach at a university. All of my blog posts are written by me. There are a lot of benefits to using AI, and I use it for some of my promotional graphics, and used it recently to help me write content for one of my web pages, but my blog will always remain where I write.
My best,
Erica
