Suggest a setup for my father

Hi good day machine head, first let me ask about the condition of your dad regarding the shoulder problem, Is that a frozen shoulder? Or acquired from trauma injury?

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Machine_Head said:

My 69 year old father loves playing table tennis. But lately his shoulder is giving him problems, he can no longer lift his arms past his shoulder. His current setup is a cpen stiga tube offense with H2 on fh and Globe 999 on bh. Without a proper brushing stroke he is having a hard time keeping the ball on the table, especially when i start to loop.

My question is would short pips be better for him since he can only flat hit?

Thanks.

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I have a few questions for you.

Is the shoulder issue a recent condition or injury? If yes, he should probably rest his shoulder and when the time comes do rotator cuff strengthening exercises and stretching, range of movement exercises. If that is long term he still should probably do rotator strengthening exercises and range of motion exercises.

Does your father enjoy playing? If yes, you should probably just hit with him at his level and let him do what he likes and you should put the ball back in a way that lets him hit to his best ability and get the ball on the table. Then you should find a training partner who you can loop and block with so that you are not trying to use your father as a training partner. If he can't handle your looping, I would hit with him in a way that he can handle.

If he likes the idea of short pips there would be nothing wrong with that, but it would mean he would have to learn how to use them. And if he has been playing with his current setup for a while and is used to it, then you could just change how you hit with him and let him use his current setup.

He sounds like a great candidate for short pips.


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Short pips would really make sense to me, too.
One thing:
We have a lady in our club who celebrated her 70th birthday this year and she's playing with an old (i mean real old) Dunlop Victor Barna wood with Barna short pips ox. And she knows how to play a ball.
Every once in a while she also helps out in league matches, and most of the time she's givin' 'em kids a real hard time. When she Blocks ones Topspin the ball sometimes drops right behind the net and stays there.

Now that i would call a low trajectory, but i'm not sure if your das wants to change his whole playstyle. ' cause this woman is really used to her equipment. She plays with it for more than 40 years...
So if your dad doesn't want such a radical change, i think carl's suggestion is pretty good for a start.

Hmm, I think "Friendship/729 802-40" would do the trick. If not there is the slightly more expence, "Friendship/729 LEGEND 105". The speed in these are not too bad either. Gambler Reflectoid is also an oppertunity, more spin but slower.
A quote from pnachtwey on, http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=41622&title=short-pips-is-best
"My TT is ecletic. I just got back from playing at the club. I played with 802-40 1.8mm SP, Pogo 0X LP, Reflectoid 1mm and Peacekeeper 0X on my BH. One of the people I played against commented that the balls came back much faster with 802-40 SP while the Reflectoid has more spin but was slower. Obviously the LP was the slowest. The Peacekeeper is on a hard bat. I played with another hard bat player. Although officially Peacekeeper is an SP, many consider it to be a MP. One can loop with Peacekeeper and chopping is easy. It took a few minutes going to Reflectoid and back because inverted BH strokes are different from pips BH strokes.

I could basically flat hit with the 802-40 SP and keep the pace high. I could use a little wrist to add top spin. One can hit fast when doing BH to BH warm up drills with SP.


Any decent pips player can hit with top spin and use the Magnus effect to land the ball even if the ball is hit below the net or even the table. The pips player will not get the same amount of spin as an inverted player will but that depends on technique and the rubber. Not all inverted rubbers are spinnier than all SP rubbers. "

Both are good for blocking, but, Reflectoid is probably better in terms of control for chopping, and returns with more spin. So up to you to pick, both would do I believe, and there are other good and cheap sp out there too.