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Ok, here it goes...I have started a thread on the importance of staying relaxed when playing table tennis, as promised 😅
Please, feel free to contribute/discuss and, most importantly, add sources, refences and/or your own experiences.
Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist, let alone a sport psychologist hence take all this with a pinch of salt. However, I am very interested in the topic and due to my academic work (AI research), I have had several oppotunities to collaborate with psychologists and doctors. Therefore, I got accustomed to some of their medical literature and learnt to understand some of their jargon 😁
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Just to get started, as I had highlighted in a previous thread that has got this one started, there is enough experimental support to the fact that breathing helps us staying relaxed.
Now, this has two sort of implications for table tennis, as far as I can tell:
More general points on breathing techniques and their impact on our mental balance and sport performance are here and here,
I hope this wets your appetite, and gets a good discussion started. Happy reading/watching!
Please, feel free to contribute/discuss and, most importantly, add sources, refences and/or your own experiences.
Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist, let alone a sport psychologist hence take all this with a pinch of salt. However, I am very interested in the topic and due to my academic work (AI research), I have had several oppotunities to collaborate with psychologists and doctors. Therefore, I got accustomed to some of their medical literature and learnt to understand some of their jargon 😁
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Just to get started, as I had highlighted in a previous thread that has got this one started, there is enough experimental support to the fact that breathing helps us staying relaxed.
Now, this has two sort of implications for table tennis, as far as I can tell:
- Technical: Inhaling and exhaling correctly, will help you stay loose and channel your explosive power correctly, maximising weight transfer and minimising your likelihood of getting injured, etc. A good video on the matter is here.
- Strategic: Breathing correctly can help you modulate your emotions, turning anger, nerves and other negative feelings into more positive ones. A great source to read about this is Dora Kurimay's book (particularly useful is Chapter 3, discussing circle breathing). Many of the concepts in the book are also discussed in this podcast by Ben Larcombe (that's where I first heard of the book).
More general points on breathing techniques and their impact on our mental balance and sport performance are here and here,
I hope this wets your appetite, and gets a good discussion started. Happy reading/watching!
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