Watching Nadal and Federer play the semi-finals at the 2012 Australian Open last night made me think about how much of their ball hitting has to be or an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement.
If you consider, for instance, Federer serving at 200Km/hour, the ball would take approximately 0.4 seconds to reach his opponent. And that doesn’t even take account of trying to make sense of the type of serve coming at you namely; a flat serve, a slice, a kick, or topspin and the need to somehow anticipate all this in the little time.
This does demonstrate the difference between our reflexes and our reactions. Reactions are typically a conscious order that are made by the cerebrum and requiring millions of neurons and some time to process the voluntary response.
In contrast, spinal reflexes (almost subconsciously) occur much faster, not only because they involve fewer neurons, but also because message signals don’t have to travel to the brain and back. Spinal reflexes on the other hand need only travel to the spinal cord.
So if those players wanted to strictly rely on their reactions (that is make completely voluntary decisions) the ball would long be past them. For these players, conscious voluntary reactions are simply too slow.
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