What i learned in my trainer seminar week was that you shouldn't do multi ball for more than 20 balls and not more than 8 seconds, because then your muscles would produce lactic acid and that's a bad thing for us table tennis players.
Boogar, Carl,
Some of this stuff would disappear if we were looking for what is best for our games. and not trying to be right or wrong. None of this is quite important - just get to an agreement on what the main details are.
I think that is a good suggestion
NextLevel, thanks.
I never had a problem with the idea that the kind of multiball drills that Boogar showed Ma Long doing where he stopped and started again after short spurts. Those are good and useful; that kind of drill has a purpose.
But the idea that they are the only kind of multiball--unless it is one ball at a time, like his second video--is just not accurate.
And that he presented that there was a physiological reason--"Longer than 8 seconds causes us to produce lactic acid in our muscles and that is not good for table tennis"--is just not true.
Any muscle effort over time causes lactic acid buildup. If you have ever been sore after playing your muscles had lactic acid buildup.
My simple point is, there are lots of different kinds of training and lots of different purposes for training.
So, while there are definitely reasons why shorter multiball drills that simulate aspects of game play would clearly be valuable, to say any one way of practicing is THE ONLY WAY, is simply misguided because it misses the point that training is a complex approach to problem solving issues that specific players need to work on.
And limiting work to only 1 or 2 kinds of exercise limits the potential for progress.
While there are reasons to practice shorter 8 second drills, there are countless reasons to have drills that push the limits of your physical endurance.
And training a player to improve needs to include tools of problem solving that help a trainer understand what methods will best help whatever player they are currently working with. And what that player will need to work on will change day by day, week by week, month by month.
As a player improves at one skill, there will be other skills he/she needs to work on more.
Anything that limits the tools at the disposal of someone who wants to be a coach, will ultimately limit their ability to be effective.
I was not in Boogar's training seminar so I can't say the actual reason for this imposed limit. And perhaps it will help his coaching skills in the near future.
But if Boogar keeps coaching and starts becoming a good and effective coach who reads his students well, and figures out what they need to work on and what will help them most, there will come times when he realizes that a particular student he is working with needs drills he was trained not to use.
Having taught something physical (not table tennis) for over 20 years, I have literally worked with thousands upon thousands of people. Over the course of those 20 years, I have come across person after person who needed specifically things I had, when going through training, been taught never to do.
When you work with people, you have to read what they need and adjust your work based on your best assessment of what the person's needs actually are. Some openness in the guidelines is very valuable.
So if the statement was something like:
"For the most part, in table tennis, the multiball drills that are most effective at simulating game skills and getting you to improve your match rally skills, last for max 8 seconds and/or max 20 balls."
I am okay with it.
But once the statement is:
"....you shouldn't do multi ball for more than 20 balls and not more than 8 seconds...."
I will counter. And if something like this is added:
"....because then your muscles would produce lactic acid and that's a bad thing for us table tennis players..."
I will definitely say that the information is off.
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