Stiffed hips

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Hey everyone!
I am talking to the best Slovak coach (trainer) quite often, as we are good friends.
Too bad I dont have much time to get coached..
Basically, he says, there is one difference between 4+ leagues (4 and worse) and 3- leagues (3rd and better)..
Better players dont fear the ball.
When the ball flies at you with huge speed, most of the people are afraid of it.
I mean - not like they would die, but they are afraid they wont hit it, they will lose or whatever..
That is one thing.
The second:
Difference between 1st or 2nd league players and world class players - stiffed / relaxed hips.
In order to be pretty damn good, you have to have relaxed hips, so when you play, your hips accelerate your upper body, which accelerates your arm and makes shot better and faster.
The movement of the hips is very little, still very helpful.
I watched hundreds of videos of chinese or european top players.. All of them have it.
That little movement of the hips, that little rotation during the shot.
Xu Xin excells in that, Ma Long too, Zhang´s is smaller etc..

Question is: WHAT to do, when my HIPS are STIFFED???

Somehow (and I bet I am not alone) I have my hips stiffed.
I cant do it! I do not do the movement and I dont know what to do about it.
Does have anyone some excercise for it?
It is weird, I have done gymnastics, I have done kickboxing, where almost all the power goes through hips and there I have it..
But in table tennis, I just cannot include it into my movement..

So, guys, I wait for your ideas ;)
 
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If you have any friends that did martial arts like Tae Kwon Do or similar ask them to show you some stretches for hips and lower back, it will take a week or two to get things going but after that you will be really impressed with results.

I didn't stretch for a really long time and started having some back pain few months ago, I didn't even think about it impacting my TT, but soon after I did see great results.
 
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If you have any friends that did martial arts like Tae Kwon Do or similar ask them to show you some stretches for hips and lower back, it will take a week or two to get things going but after that you will be really impressed with results.

I didn't stretch for a really long time and started having some back pain few months ago, I didn't even think about it impacting my TT, but soon after I did see great results.

As I mentioned - I did kickboxing and I was pretty damn good..
My hips work there just like they should.
I excercise qi-gong everyday, where are hips used in some excercises..
But - for some reason, I cannot use my hips during table tennis.
I think its just in table tennis.
During sex, kickbox, dancing, everywhere else I can use my hips like a god, lol.. Okay that is joke, no god.. but..
Table tennis - there my hips are soo stiff.. :(

Might sound stupid, but all you have to do is relax. Whatever will help you on that will help you on your hips. Won't recommend smoking a doobie but have you tried john herb tea, or hop brew (beer)??
Anything that helps you to relax can be useful.

Maybe I can try that tea.. I cant play after drinking alcohol, lol :D
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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Try a "shadow" practice in front of mirror. There you can see how your hip movement and try to adjust how it should moves.

I think this is on target. My memory of seeing footage of you, Michal, is that a lot of your strokes were very down to up and no so much forward which makes the hip movement not the same. You seemed to like playing back from the table and taking strokes like the old Hungarian players from the 1970s and 1980s.


You are pretty good. Your technique is pretty good. But the hip movement for a stroke that is as low to high as what Klampar and Gergely are doing is different than the hip movement for a more modern stroke that has a more forward trajectory.

In any case, if your hips are tight and not moving in your strokes, it is probably not as simple as them needing stretching. They probably have more than enough mobility for the hip movements in a TT stroke. It would probably be more muscle memory and that they don't move because your stroke is tense or that you use all arm sometimes instead of adding the use of your body. But I am not sure what the issue is. My memory of seeing footage of you play is that your strokes were decently relaxed although maybe there was a lot of arm and less body.

In any case, shadow strokes where you practice being relaxed in the stroke and see that the hips are part of the stroke really could help.

I know I don't always use my hips and Michael Landers and Mark Croitoroo have both told me that. And when I do add the hips, I feel them face the side and then turn towards the table during the stroke. It is actually a small movement so less about flexibility than about muscle memory.

Sometimes it feels easier to just swing with your arm. But that does not give you as much power.
 
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The key is to get the forward momentum from the hips and not just from the arm ... to start with you might have to tuck in the elbows close to the table and practice the strokes.

Step 1. Backswing
Step 2. Start your forward motion with your hip
Step 3. Snap your arm ...

the teddy bear illustration from Brett Clarke captures the same idea in a lighthearted way ..

and you can see Ariel Hsing doing it in match here in the forehand wing ...

[/video] .


I remember seeing this video footage from Yangyang Jiao where her cousin plays backhand loops , towards the very end of this video...
.. watch closely how her right hip moves at the time of the stroke , the arm snapping motion is there but its very small , most of the power is coming from the right hip ..



For me if I lose this in my stroke I can get it back by trying to to drill forehand loops very close to the table, the idea is to keep the motion small and not give too yourself too much time to do a big movement but still try to loop top of the bounce .. if it does not naturally carry over to your mid distance loops , you can drill loops down the line ... has helped me in the past ...

Hope this is what you were looking for and it helps ...
 
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I think this is on target. My memory of seeing footage of you, Michal, is that a lot of your strokes were very down to up and no so much forward which makes the hip movement not the same. You seemed to like playing back from the table and taking strokes like the old Hungarian players from the 1970s and 1980s.
You are pretty good. Your technique is pretty good. But the hip movement for a stroke that is as low to high as what Klampar and Gergely are doing is different than the hip movement for a more modern stroke that has a more forward trajectory.

In any case, if your hips are tight and not moving in your strokes, it is probably not as simple as them needing stretching. They probably have more than enough mobility for the hip movements in a TT stroke. It would probably be more muscle memory and that they don't move because your stroke is tense or that you use all arm sometimes instead of adding the use of your body. But I am not sure what the issue is. My memory of seeing footage of you play is that your strokes were decently relaxed although maybe there was a lot of arm and less body.

In any case, shadow strokes where you practice being relaxed in the stroke and see that the hips are part of the stroke really could help.

I know I don't always use my hips and Michael Landers and Mark Croitoroo have both told me that. And when I do add the hips, I feel them face the side and then turn towards the table during the stroke. It is actually a small movement so less about flexibility than about muscle memory.

Sometimes it feels easier to just swing with your arm. But that does not give you as much power.


Oh, Carl, thank you for your kind words :)
Not everyday I hear or see that I am good or even my technique is good :)
But I think you noticed what is important.. Yes - my rotation is more from down up than to forward to increase the power in the correct direction. That makes me losing power and energy loss into other directions than it should be.
I am hoping that with shortening the movement of my arm and adding correct hip movement into the shot this will get better.
Thank for your advices, I will try to include it into the training. .. first I need to find a big mirror, other than the one I got in the bathroom ;)
 
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