What do you do to keep your hand relaxed?

[tabaradumitru]

Hi everyone!
When I play matches or play table tennis in general my hand is too tense and I observed the following consequences:
* it makes me miss the ball
* it makes me put too much power instead of acceleration into the ball
* a lot of times I just apply power to spin the ball but I can't put the ball on the table.
* Also, because of this, I can't do backhand flicks or a correct backhand motion.
* I can't even drive/loop the ball more than 2-3 times because my arm gets more stiff/tense on each hit.

I try to bee too agresive and don't control the game. It has a lot of consequences.

What advices do you have to keep my hand relaxed more?
Or are there any exercises for this?
What do people do in similar situations?

 

[Ultravisitor]

During game: Take your time before you serve and actively relax shoulders, arm and hand. Maybe twiddle your racket or hold in your non-playing hand.

In training: develop a relaxed backswing. Try to get a rhythm of building tension during the contact and relaxing during the backswing, instead of being tense all the time.

 

[doppelmoral]

before you start playing:
1. bounce the ball on your racket with soft hands.
2. throw the ball in the air and try to catch it with your racket (ball shouldnt bounce).
3. bounce the ball on the floor with your racket (like playing basketball). you are only allowed to hit the ball towards the floor once it has reached your racket, meaning you let the ball come to you. let the ball reach its peak

while playing: flex your core and your hands will automatically be softer

 

[Lazer]

To me it comes natural but I'd imagine if you remember yourself during playing it will become natural for you too eventually...

Cheers
L-zr

 

[Tyce]

while playing: flex your core and your hands will automatically be softer

This one feels so counterintuitive to me, but it works.

Sometimes I shake out my hand a little bit between points, and I often massage my forearm which is a habit I picked up after getting both tennis and golfers elbow. Relaxed forearm gives relaxed fingers.

 

[Amayzde]

I learned to have a lose grip and forearm by changing my grip after watching this video by Ben Larcombe years ago:

Another tip is to take your time. You mention you miss the ball completely sometimes is a tell for me that you are trying to take the ball too soon after it bounces. Most misses are caused by trying to strike the ball on the rise. So try to wait for the peak of the bounce (or slightly after) to put in the power and strike the ball.

When do we get tense? When we think we have to act quick because we dont have enough time. Or because we see a scoring oppertunity and get a bit too eager to finish the point then and there. This makes you rush and rushing makes you tense.

And staying relaxed is extremely difficult in all match situations. Especially when the balls come at you at a high speed and you have to change the potition of your racket very quickly. So dont blame yourself too much for getting tense sometimes.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Grip the racket very hard for 5 seconds , then relax 10 seconds with deep breathing

 

[Larshos]

I have large hands, and I find that having a blade with a suitably large handle mitigates a lot of these issues, which I experience more severely when having to compensate my grip for smaller handles.
Might not be an issue for you, but worth mentioning IMO.

 

[tabaradumitru]

Thanks guys for all these advices.
Here is a video of me playing a match for a few minutes:

In this case I was lucky that my opponent was not so good and made a lot of mistakes.
But you can notice a lot of cases where I missed the ball, having the hand too stiff and not moving the wrist and having stiff movements.
I think I have a good forehand, but it might be a lot better with a few adjustments(relaxed hand, footwork, body usage ).
I'm the fluffy one in this video

 

[Tyce]

Good video! I can see what you mean and boy does that feel familiar

What I can see happening physically is you end up trying to take the ball too far behind you (which in this case probably means you were too close to the table) and your tightness causes you to curl over the ball. You start the stroke with an open bat, but at the end it's completely flat.

Taking half a step away from the table will help here, then you can contact the ball when it's about an elbow's length in front of you, and the corresponding swing path will give you a more stable bat angle.

 

[AndySmith]

I learned to have a lose grip and forearm by changing my grip after watching this video by Ben Larcombe years ago:

Another tip is to take your time. You mention you miss the ball completely sometimes is a tell for me that you are trying to take the ball too soon after it bounces. Most misses are caused by trying to strike the ball on the rise. So try to wait for the peak of the bounce (or slightly after) to put in the power and strike the ball.

When do we get tense? When we think we have to act quick because we dont have enough time. Or because we see a scoring oppertunity and get a bit too eager to finish the point then and there. This makes you rush and rushing makes you tense.

And staying relaxed is extremely difficult in all match situations. Especially when the balls come at you at a high speed and you have to change the potition of your racket very quickly. So dont blame yourself too much for getting tense sometimes.

I remember this video, I found it really useful as well. Made me realise I had a habit of locking my arm up after the first backhand hit and then not relaxing after. Sometimes it's hard to think about the body mechanics involved, but it's all linked.

Ben made some good content back in the day.

 

[victormanriquey]

Thanks guys for all these advices.
Here is a video of me playing a match for a few minutes:
https://vimeo.com/1176866825

In this case I was lucky that my opponent was not so good and made a lot of mistakes.
But you can notice a lot of cases where I missed the ball, having the hand too stiff and not moving the wrist and having stiff movements.
I think I have a good forehand, but it might be a lot better with a few adjustments(relaxed hand, footwork, body usage ).
I'm the fluffy one in this video

Cant see the video but the best tip I can have for you to relax the hand and body, is to only focus on your legs and fingers when playing, nothing else. If you lead with the arm, everything else tenses

If I see the video I can tell you what I can see!

 

[tabaradumitru]

Cant see the video but the best tip I can have for you to relax the hand and body, is to only focus on your legs and fingers when playing, nothing else. If you lead with the arm, everything else tenses

If I see the video I can tell you what I can see!

Can you see the video now? I updated the URL

 

[victormanriquey]

Can you see the video now? I updated the URL

yes let me check thanks

 

[tabaradumitru]

yes let me check thanks

By the way, I'm using Yinhe PRO-01 with H3N BS Provincial 40deg and DHS H8-80 38 deg both boosted two times in this video for the first time, so I was also pissed because I couldn't understand the racket. I want to fix multiple things at the same time :/

 

[victormanriquey]

Yes the issue on the FH at least is clear, you are leading with the arm (see how when you strike, the legs have not finished the movement yet, your arm goes first, so it 'leads') and have the incorrect motion from left to right plus not braking in time and being too upright.

To fix this, you need to:
- Lower up stance to connect upper and lower body
- Lead with the legs, not the arm
- Focus on finger not wrist or forearm

It is not easy at all to do this and requires practise plus good footwork, but can be done no problem, send me a DM if you need more help and we can get into the details, potentially do one live video session and I can show you what I mean

 

[tabaradumitru]

Thank you! I know that I'm not using my legs almost at all, I mean I use them just not to fall on the ground and to sustain all the fat that I have sometimes I force myself to lower up stance but I can't keep it for long, it's a habit to go up back ASAP.

 

[victormanriquey]

Thank you! I know that I'm not using my legs almost at all, I mean I use them just not to fall on the ground and to sustain all the fat that I have sometimes I force myself to lower up stance but I can't keep it for long, it's a habit to go up back ASAP.

No problem happy to help! If you are lower, and try to focus only on hitting with the leg, you will improve rapidly. It's easy to practice this at home, you let your arms hang fully loose, zero tension, and then do the recoil with right leg and hip, and release with the leg, like pressing the leg forward, and see how your arm will naturally go forward with the inertia, that's the feeling

 

[merlin el mago]

Overpowering & be tense aren't good to play tables tennis.

Use your breathe to relax, some people made a small jumps, others few steps, etc.

Don't use only your arm to made topspin, use all your body going from ground to up and twiddling your core so if your arm is relaxed with the natural movement you do a very high quality topspin.

Our sport needs mental strength, so focus & concentration on what the other is doing & what you are doing not brute force.

​

 

[tabaradumitru]

You're right that I focus on the wrist but to keep it tense not to have it flexible and focus more on fingers. Also, because of how I'm playing at the moment, I put a lot of force but not in the good way, and this force doesn't actually generate more spin or power but does nothing. I think because all this force is focused on the arm but not on the lower part of the body, so It does nothing but I only get tired.
The concept of using the lower body is pretty hard to understand. When you look at pro's, you see some movements but it doesn't seem to have so much importance because the movement is short, it's not like jumping in the sand, where you see a clear legs movement. My brain is lazy and doesn't give importance to the legs. I have to change this fact.