how much rest is necessary?

[SilverCup77]

It depends on the player but how much rest should you give your body?

I often read that professionals train 5 hours a day. If you do this in the long term, you will almost certainly have problems with your body. even if you have good genetics. And in competitions you are not relaxed and tired. I don't think it makes sense to train so much every day

So how many breaks are important?

 

[Zeen]

for the amateur player I would say quality of training > quantity of training.
That way you are not killing your body.
It depends also on your age, but as a rule of thumb, two rest days per week are sensible, your knees will thank you.
Incorporating strength training before a rest day makes a lot of sense as well.

 

[Lazer]

My main problem is sleep, I train 4 times a week 21:00 pm to 22:30, Then afterwards my head is going on top speed until ~02:00, then I can sleep and I have to get up 06:30 to get to work...
This takes i'ts toll. Sometimes I need a nap before training.

Cheers
L-zr

 

[Wrighty67]

My main problem is sleep, I train 4 times a week 21:00 pm to 22:30, Then afterwards my head is going on top speed until ~02:00, then I can sleep and I have to get up 06:30 to get to work...
This takes i'ts toll. Sometimes I need a nap before training.

Cheers
L-zr

Exactly the same for me - home at 10:30, hungry and wound up = sleep by midnight

 

[Attitude]

It depends on the player but how much rest should you give your body?

I often read that professionals train 5 hours a day. If you do this in the long term, you will almost certainly have problems with your body. even if you have good genetics. And in competitions you are not relaxed and tired. I don't think it makes sense to train so much every day

So how many breaks are important?

Depends on way too many factors.
Pros for example train longer and more often. Their body and mind have already adapted to that stress and dont need that long to recover from that.

If i train around 4 hrs for example i have sore legs, back and feel stressed out the next day.
If something like this happens you shouldnt train again the day after. Soreness is a good indicator. On top it feels like shit playing with sore muscles. Having to literally sit into pain and force your body requires even more focus from you which will probably lack anyhow.
If i do train my usual 2 hrs i probably could almost train every day.

As a rough guideline you should listen to your body. If you feel bad you will probably play as bad. So if you cant get into your usual or better performance your probably need some more time off. If you feel refreshed and full of energy you are most certainly good to go.

Some more guidelines for recovery:

Get good and enough sleep. Around 7-8hrs are good numbers but they vary strongly from one to another.

Eat enough and decent food. If in doubt you should think about counting calories for some time to get a decent idea of how much you actually eat.

Drink enough water... Especially WATER! No cola, fanta or some other bs.

That should usually do the trick. There are many more strategies to recover better and faster but they arent as important as the ones mentioned above.

 

[cytivrat]

It depends on the player but how much rest should you give your body?

I often read that professionals train 5 hours a day. If you do this in the long term, you will almost certainly have problems with your body. even if you have good genetics. And in competitions you are not relaxed and tired. I don't think it makes sense to train so much every day

So how many breaks are important?

It actually depends on many variables.

• Current condition: after covid, 2 trainings/week was more than I could handle for maybe 3-4 month
• Age: a little bit more than 15 years ago, when I was 25, I've been playing 6 times per week (5x2 hours, and 1x4 hours). It was hard for first maybe month. Then 1 day a week was more than enough to recover. And I've tried to add 7th training several times and cannot say that I was too tired after that. Nowdays, 3 training days a week is a little bit not enough for me, but 3 trainings + 1 competition is a little bit too much. So I have 3 training and 1 day of some other activity, either running or some 10-20 minutes of different excercises at home just to stay fit.
• Amount of sleep: having 8-9 hours per day and 4-6 hours per day makes a huge difference in a recovery speed and overall condition.
• whether you started at childhood and was playing all your life, or whether you had a break somewhere or whether you are just starting
• training intensity

In ideal world, where I'm always healthy, don't have problems at home and work, can train whenever I want and sleep as long as I can. I would go for 4 trainings at table + 1 general fitness training (running, swimming, strength excercises) per week, but not in a one chunk

 

[SleepyMaster]

Very individual thing, especially when we are talking bout amateurs. I know amateurs that are training almost every day for multiple hours, actually I’m one of them, even with some serious injuries I still can handle pretty big amount of training volume.

For most people I would say from two to four training sessions is enough per week.

 

[Tinykin]

If you really love playing but the training hours are getting too long, try blocking to other players. Blocking does not suck the energy very much and your playing partners will love it.
Example, I sometimes block for young players on a rotation basis. Rotation, simply because each player is wasted after 15-20 minutes

 

[turbozed]

If you can afford it, get a fitness tracker that measures your heart rate variability. I use an oura ring and it does an amazing job of telling me when I'm ready to train hard and when I need to start taking it easy.

Sleep tracking also helps you track your sleep quality and that has a positive reminder effect where I'll make sure to catch up on sleep with a nap if I had a bad night of sleep.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

It depends on the player but how much rest should you give your body?

I often read that professionals train 5 hours a day. If you do this in the long term, you will almost certainly have problems with your body. even if you have good genetics. And in competitions you are not relaxed and tired. I don't think it makes sense to train so much every day

So how many breaks are important?

hm.. how long is "long term"?

i know quite a few 35 years olds, who have been training 5 + hours (its more like 6 hours, but 5 for your case) for almost 30 years.
maybe first few years not 5, but from 11 or 12 yrs old to 35, it min 5 hours a day, 6 days a week.

not sure where you reading that - care to share the link
do you read about warm up and stretches, and rollers?

 

[ToH]

How often you can train depends on how good trained you are and how hard you train. When you want to build up your physique you have to stress your body then rest so it can build up again. The better trained you are the more you can train.

 

[Gozo Zyreruna]

not more than three sessions of three hours per week or else my knees, ankles, calf, waist, shoulder muscles will go on mandatory union strike.

 

[lodro]

my head is going on top speed until ~02:00, then I

All that Adrenalin keeps us awake. I have stopped calling it training . I just play ping pong from 19 00 to 21 30. Twice a week.
Sleep is midnight to about 3 o clock , if i am lucky i can fall asleep again for another 2 hours, if not , I am still lucky because i am awake and can read a book or go to some stupid forum and write some crap. 😁