Daily Table Tennis Chit Chat

Tennis elbow blows. I can play pain free unless I FH loop but this reduces my ranking with 200-300 points. What to do? Go to quacks instead of proper physios? I need to play league as we will W-O otherwise.

First time posting here on the daily chat but I need to get some steam off cause, you already know, its corona time.

Playing in a small club here in Croatia, about 4-5 decent players and alot of children and older people, second national division (there the super division, first and second), being favourites to advance into the first division. Then corona hit us, and I mean hit us hard. We only had 2 trainings per week for about an hour and a half and that was it. Now we dont have a single minute of training but we still have to play official matches, which sucks. Other clubs where the area is far more stronger affected than ours are normally training 4-5 times a week and we cant get to our tables cause they are in a school and the regulations are made by politicians and not actual people who know the stuff. Now we sit at home and play away games with half an hour of warmup before the matches.

Sorry about the rambling, had to blow some steam somewhere.

Thank god there are still some amateur tournaments going on, actually won one yesterday but that is as good as it gets from table tennis now in my location.

Someone posted about the tennis elbow, it sucks big time, had it once, was recovering about 6 months, it took so long because of work.
How did you work it out for a faster recovery?

mart1nandersson said:

Tennis elbow blows. I can play pain free unless I FH loop but this reduces my ranking with 200-300 points. What to do? Go to quacks instead of proper physios? I need to play league as we will W-O otherwise.

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Read a lot of youtube videos or google TT forums on how to manage tennis elbow. You may need to rest a bit but it is 100% manageable if you learn to work on the muscles and tendons causing it. But the work is just as important as the rest.

NextLevel said:

Read a lot of youtube videos or google TT forums on how to manage tennis elbow. You may need to rest a bit but it is 100% manageable if you learn to work on the muscles and tendons causing it. But the work is just as important as the rest.

Click to expand...

I actually went to both a physio and naprapath today and pretty much got the same verdict. My elbow isn’t too bad and I can play but seriously reduced in terms of volume. The YouTube advice was good but I was using too light weights and not doing enough reps. I was positively surprised that the naprapath didn’t pitch quack treatments like ultra sound, shockwave terapy or dry needling.

mart1nandersson said:

I actually went to both a physio and naprapath today and pretty much got the same verdict. My elbow isn’t too bad and I can play but seriously reduced in terms of volume. The YouTube advice was good but I was using too light weights and not doing enough reps. I was positively surprised that the naprapath didn’t pitch quack treatments like ultra sound, shockwave terapy or dry needling.

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I once wrote about what I learned from someone who was good with this kind of stuff and because it is so far from conventional wisdom, I tend not to write about it. But basically, if your muscles tighten, the tendons attached to them get yanked. So if you relax the muscles and then get them strong enough that they don't tighten so much that they yank on your tendons, the pain largely goes away and is only provoked again when you overuse the muscles and they tighten. So your overall strength (not just the elbow) matters so that you aren't getting too much out of the elbow, and the muscles pulling on the tendons causing the pain (which are not necessarily the muscles closest to the elbow, though they aren't that far away either) are very important to get stronger as well.

Today i was training with my coach Hidetoshi OYA as usual on Thursday in the local gymnasium. Misaki MORIZONO showed up. The other day it was FOERSTER (MIZUTANI ex-coach) training with Hibiki TAZOE. The venue is getting popular with pro players as well !

BTW, i knew coach OYA was very strong, but I only discovered recently how AWESOME he is. His online bios don't make him justice. And he's always been too modest to tell me.

his WIKI page https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/大矢英俊
mentions he won gold in Team Junior in WTTC in 2005, but actually he was on the bench on that year and didn't play any match...

The site mentions that on the next year he won Bronze in Junior WTTC 2006 (Cairo) in Singles and Doubles. But WIKI doesn't mention he won Silver in the Team event, and he actually won all his matches in the Team event, including against China (JIANG Haiyang).

https://results.ittf.link/index.php...resetfilters=0&clearordering=0&clearfilters=0

https://tabletennis-reference.com/player/matches/72/150

Some of his victims have become stronger and/or more famous than him:
singles : Paul DRINKHALL, CHIANG Hung Chieh (Ai FUKUHARA's future husband)
team: Stefen MENGELL, LEE Sang Su.

Wow, it feels even more amazing to be lucky to have a world champ to play with me (nearly) every week !

Takkyu_wa_inochi said:

Today i was training with my coach Hidetoshi OYA as usual on Thursday in the local gymnasium. Misaki MORIZONO showed up. The other day it was FOERSTER (MIZUTANI ex-coach) training with Hibiki TAZOE. The venue is getting popular with pro players as well !

BTW, i knew coach OYA was very strong, but I only discovered recently how AWESOME he is. His online bios don't make him justice. And he's always been too modest to tell me.

his WIKI page https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/大矢英俊
mentions he won gold in Team Junior in WTTC in 2005, but actually he was on the bench on that year and didn't play any match...

The site mentions that on the next year he won Bronze in Junior WTTC 2006 (Cairo) in Singles and Doubles. But WIKI doesn't mention he won Silver in the Team event, and he actually won all his matches in the Team event, including against China (JIANG Haiyang).

https://results.ittf.link/index.php...resetfilters=0&clearordering=0&clearfilters=0

https://tabletennis-reference.com/player/matches/72/150

Some of his victims have become stronger and/or more famous than him:
singles : Paul DRINKHALL, CHIANG Hung Chieh (Ai FUKUHARA's future husband)
team: Stefen MENGELL, LEE Sang Su.

Wow, it feels even more amazing to be lucky to have a world champ to play with me (nearly) every week !

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I watched many matches of Oya recently and I love how joyful he is during the games. At the first glance people doesn't realize how good he is because of his unusual movements. You are lucky! I believe he trains in the same club as Kenta Matsudaira, as I've seen him in the background on Kenta's youtube channel. Is it right?

I've talked with my teammate about tables and how bad table cleaners can be. There are teams who clean their tables regularly and it becomes slippery. The tables in our club are pretty dirty but I like them.
Which table is your favourite on which you played on?
Mine are the black WTTC tables. I played on them in tournaments. The matte black color is very nice to watch and needless to say that the bounce and spin is excellent.

@ajtatosmano2

Yes OYA and Kenta are in the same club now. KISHIKAWA is also there as well as Maharu YOSHIMURA. They've known each other for long.

I think OYA genuinely loves TT, and he likes teaching kids amateurs and grandmas alike. He is very joyful during the sessions, you'll him pump up himself, and also cheer heartfully when you make the occasional great shot..

Because his main occupation is coaching now, he doesn't have much time for training anymore thats why his level has been going down but his level is still great ! He won a prestigious national tournament (全日本社会人選手権） last year, beating some young T-Leaguers (Arinobu, Hirano) and the veteran Yoshida in the final.

I'm becoming a big fan of him ! His style is so unique and inimitable but I think the easiest and best thing to pick up from him is his BH. short stroke, so effective. Better than a lot of trop pros in activity i believe

Has anyone ever experienced a change in TT situation that led to their training hours going down and a realization that what they used was too hard for them to use and that they had to go to something more controllable that didn't need as many hours to master?

A friend that used to play second highest division thinks so. Now he plays third highest and so not train as much. Before he used Michael maze now all wood acoustic. Me myself have gone from TB ZLC to Clipper CR. Think easier to do cool hard spinny loops with carbon but lose to much in serve return compared to all wood.

What do you use?

Possibly age has something to do with it as well !!!!

ok a 30 yr lay off is excessive! But I used to play with a TAMCA 5000 blade in the 80’s, Sriver and Tackiness, old small ball. Didn’t even think about it when I was young!!!

I pick up that blade and think ‘what the ****’ how did I ever play with this!! The modern rubbers don’t help, but I even put some ‘slow tacky’ rubbers on one and still struggled, let alone Stiga mantra m which was a nightmare to control!!!!!!!
I only bought the old Grubba, all round blade back then because I just wanted a new blade, ended up liking it, but could still use both types of blade at will, was playing 2 or 3 times a week back then.


The DHS Long 5 blade I have is nowhere near as quick, but still to ‘fruity’ for me!!
all wood blades seam to be better for me now, even slower defensive blades.

As far as not playing so much, I think you get ‘rusty’ regardless of the equipment. But the less tolerant equipment just shows your deficiencies more !!! Which ain’t difficult as far as I’m concerned!!!

Most of the Nexy composite blades I can use well except for two... but in the last couple years, I have been playing more all-wood blades, lately, Nate's wood blades.

NL, I got a couple low middle range OFF wood blades from Nate I can send you to try, I had erm try them.

Would you like to try? You can gove me one new match ball later for those.

Thanks, guys. Thinking of going back to a Mazunov with medium rubbers. I now play twice a week on most weeks, sometimes only once, and I can't maintain the effort level required to spin consistently with sticky hard rubbers.

NextLevel said:

Has anyone ever experienced a change in TT situation that led to their training hours going down and a realization that what they used was too hard for them to use and that they had to go to something more controllable that didn't need as many hours to master?

Click to expand...

My playing level fall down finally after a year of basically no training. However this just made me want to train even more and work on cleaning my form (unfortunately, only off-table). I feel young enough and I hope I don't have to give up the reckless 3rd ball attacks.

I am getting ave 1x a week... think my level dropped 300+ pts initially... prolly got half that back after several weeks of 1x a week ave.

Wore rifle range tinted wrap around glasses and for first time ever, could play mor than a few ralleys wearing them... wore the entire 2.5 hrs today. Glare over table disappeared... great improvement... still kinda ball if ball off table, but it is showing hope I can wear those.

Need more time and data.

I think it is harder to use mazunov compared to many carbon blades. Really hard and stiff blade. Think will get more margin for error on a blade that is little softer and have somewhat higher arc.

I very much disagree but equipment is a personal thing. A Mazunov isn't that fast anymore compared to what most people use and it blocks really well.

Yes, blocks really well and good for return game since in my opinion very dead and not bouncy, but that makes it in my opinion harder in other strokes since the ball goes so straight. I used it for some years but changed since i thought it was to unsafe.

Did you use it with celluloid or plastic ball? For me the main issue is head heaviness but other than that, it is easier for me to use than most fast carbon blades, even a Viscaria. And because I can't move well, the blocking is very important.

I think i have only used it with plastic balls. Interesting how subjective equipment is. It was very heavy on paper but did not notice that when i got use to it. Feel like it had control since it was very solid and dead so not so bouncy but the ball went so straight and low over the net so was hard to feel safe for me.

How is it going with the body?