Footwork exercises

[Alexander Denauw]

Hello

I am a very tall player and i must exercise my footwork. Bud i dont know very good how to do this. Do some of you have tips or exercises to improve my footwork? Sorry for my bad english.

 

[Archosaurus]

The very first thing you should do is find out the most efficient technique that keeps you on balance and fast on your feet, and shadow that side to side for a few days.

No balls, no racket, no hitting, just move side to side and make it a habit to move.

 

[Ilia Minkin]

It is such a comprehensive topic... At PingSkills there have almost an hour (!) of videos, showing different drills that have footwork: https://www.pingskills.com/table-tennis/training-secrets/ . They are paywalled, but it is worth it.

 

[NextLevel]

Hello

I am a very tall player and i must exercise my footwork. Bud i dont know very good how to do this. Do some of you have tips or exercises to improve my footwork? Sorry for my bad english.

IT's hard to recommend stuff when you don't know the player and the playing level. Sometimes, footwork is not what you need to improve but everyone will tell you it is.

If you do need to really work on footwork, what is not important right now are the actual steps but learning to move into position while staying in balance. Co-ordination drills with the ladder tend to be best for this.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

This video has a decent but simple presentation of some of the basic steps:

Doing shadow practice is an excellent way to start. It will make it much easier to make these better when you do them with the ball there because you will have already worked on the coordination for doing them.

This is a decent set of videos also:

But if you research ladder footwork drills, like the ones in the next video, those are really good for TT also. The drills with the cones that this guy does are not as specific to TT but would be good for fast changes in directions and cardio endurance which is always good:

Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Here is some of me. This is shadow footwork drills.

Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

And here is ladder footwork drills. But I did them without the ladder. LOL.

Lateral "Sprints"

The shadow footwork drills combined with the ladder drills and lateral sprints definitely help with footwork skill and coordination and with the upper body lower body cross coordination of table tennis footwork and will help your footwork when the ball is there really improve.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[ttmonster]

Here is another one that I found , it has some strength building exercises along with footwork exercises .. hope it helps.

 

[UpSideDownCarl]

Here is another one that I found , it has some strength building exercises along with footwork exercises .. hope it helps.

There are a lot of good things in that video. Good stuff.


Sent from Deep Space by Abacus

 

[ttmonster]

Yes I loved it , I intend to use this for my physical training going forward. Especially to strengthen the back and core.

 

[Giangt]

Good foot and coordination work exercises.

 

[Shuki]

I find, the better your stroke and technique without footwork gets, the footwork comes more and more naturally.

You'll start to move better so you can get in position and actually go through the ball with your stroke rather than poking at it and changing the angle of your paddle.

For me, I found the better I get the more tiring the sport is. I play my first couple games rather aggressively and the quality of my shots is much better than after these games. My footwork dies off as I get more tired and I play more of a passive game. Need to work on endurance


Edit: (my version of agressive isn't the same as yours, still a pretty controlling player.

 

[ttmonster]

Story of our lives Shuki

I find, the better your stroke and technique without footwork gets, the footwork comes more and more naturally.

You'll start to move better so you can get in position and actually go through the ball with your stroke rather than poking at it and changing the angle of your paddle.

For me, I found the better I get the more tiring the sport is. I play my first couple games rather aggressively and the quality of my shots is much better than after these games. My footwork dies off as I get more tired and I play more of a passive game. Need to work on endurance


Edit: (my version of agressive isn't the same as yours, still a pretty controlling player.

 

[Shuki]

Story of our lives Shuki

Yea, it can be frustrating. It comes down to, should I just play more to get better touch and be more consistent with my shots?
Or should I add in more fitness on the side so I can play a stronger game.

When you're never going to be a professional or sponsored and your life goal is 2000USATT this can be a tough decision, playing the high fitness game would be tough. Especially if you beat some close 2000 rated players in a tournament and then die off so hard that for the rest of the tournament you're struggling with 1900's.

100 is a big difference for those who don't know the USATT system.

 

[ttmonster]

This is how I approach it and its a personal preference. Pay attention to touch but when you are playing make sure that you are not slowing down your footwork to start blocking. The intent should be to spin the ball regardless, use your touch for serve receive and blocking when you want to slow the game down or you know that you cannot counter loop or spin the incoming ball. I try to be conscious about this and keep telling myself to not become passive. But try to generate the power from timing and taking the ball early not from physical leg power all the time.
At the same time, as time permits keep working on your fitness and hope that everything falls together magically.

BTW, where are you based on US , if you don't mind ?

Yea, it can be frustrating. It comes down to, should I just play more to get better touch and be more consistent with my shots?
Or should I add in more fitness on the side so I can play a stronger game.

When you're never going to be a professional or sponsored and your life goal is 2000USATT this can be a tough decision, playing the high fitness game would be tough. Especially if you beat some close 2000 rated players in a tournament and then die off so hard that for the rest of the tournament you're struggling with 1900's.

100 is a big difference for those who don't know the USATT system.

 

[Ilia Minkin]

I find, the better your stroke and technique without footwork gets, the footwork comes more and more naturally.

That is probably because your brain accumulates more experience of tracking the ball and anticipating its bouncing position. If you can do it quickly, you can move to the position earlier and don't have to be very fast.

 

[Shuki]

This is how I approach it and its a personal preference. Pay attention to touch but when you are playing make sure that you are not slowing down your footwork to start blocking. The intent should be to spin the ball regardless, use your touch for serve receive and blocking when you want to slow the game down or you know that you cannot counter loop or spin the incoming ball. I try to be conscious about this and keep telling myself to not become passive. But try to generate the power from timing and taking the ball early not from physical leg power all the time.

At the same time, as time permits keep working on your fitness and hope that everything falls together magically.

My passive play is odd, I slow the ball down a lot which confuses people as it's still a topspin stroke with a good amount of spin. players often tend to be too far off the table and end up reaching ahead of themselves in an attempt to get keep up some form of aggression against my passive shots. I'm trying to learn to use this style more before I tire out as it seems to throw players timing off more than anything, I'd like to change the pace more frequently in a rally and since I know I can change the pace once I'm tired I feel like it's not too much of a stretch.

Before learning any footwork, my coach first teaches her students a stroke and the body transfer in the stroke. Then teaches more of a leaning style, (I may upload a video because when I say its leaning it sounds like it can't be right as you'd think it would throw you off balance and I'm not sure if I can explain this well.) Now imagine this with the backhand. What we do with the leaning, which she calls crouch, is push down on one leg a bit farther than another, still on your toes and she will vary the placement of the balls by not much but enough to where you know you can't do the same stroke without moving to get in place in some way. She says there's no reason to get your entire body to move such small amounts and not only waste energy, but add in more room for error.



NOW for this imagine the forehand.
I think I'll also record her doing this leaning thing, its all coming from the knees which is also what we use to control where we put the ball. She's extroardinary when watching her aim the ball differently with just her knees. She told us to watch her and not the ball and guess which direction she hits it as shes going through with the stroke. Another player, who already knew she was going to go cross court and then down the line kept feeding the ball back to her forehand. The whole time from her torso and up we couldn't see a difference in how she was aiming the ball. In my eyes I thought every one should go cross court. Then below the table she had us look what she was doing, all she was doing, was guiding the ball with her knees.

Continuing on. After getting better at getting into the right position with the knees and the leaning thing, we then move on to actually having to move our feet with various drills.

Finally, here's a little more background on me, I've been with this coach for about a year, 1-2 times per week 2.5 hours per session. The first 2 hours are group lessons there are usually 3-4 of us +/-2. The next 30 minutes is one on one time. 20$ per session, great price but she'll only accept student who are willing to go at least once a week because she feels like she's wasting time when she doesn't get to see the big improvement and they just come in for a lesson and assume "i've got good insight" and then leave. Also she can fix something and notice before you start to deviate and mess up ruining some of your correct parts of a stroke.

BTW, where are you based on US , if you don't mind ?

Kansas (kansas city/overland park area), we're actually having a sanctioned tournament down here in April that some player's that you've probrably heard of will be going to. One of which being (Sr.) Danny Seemiller

Here's our tournament flyer pdf:

https://www.kansascitytabletennis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016-kctt-open-flyer.pdf

Other than being in the KC area, I'll be heading up to Manhattan NYC on Friday this week and will be down there until I believe Wednesday.

 

[NextLevel]

That is probably because your brain accumulates more experience of tracking the ball and anticipating its bouncing position. If you can do it quickly, you can move to the position earlier and don't have to be very fast.

Not just the ball bouncing but even reading the opponent's physical movements. Reading the spin too as well. All those things let you get into position earlier. It's one of the reasons why I smile at people who focus on all the wrong things.

 

[Shuki]

Had a lot of problems with my last message sorry, editied. with some background and the quotes. I'll bold the background.

 

[ttmonster]

Alas ! I am at the other end of USA. Anyways, I do some of the things that you told, its always a good trick to slow down the loops or block off the bounce with soft hands and let the ball go down quicker than your opponent anticipated . I have been doing this or trying to do this depending on the level of the player. Its very effective, especially against players with a coach . I found much of what you told very interesting and will wait for your videos. Meanwhile, good luck and hope to see you around sometime.

My passive play is odd, I slow the ball down a lot which confuses people as it's still a topspin stroke with a good amount of spin. players often tend to be too far off the table and end up reaching ahead of themselves in an attempt to get keep up some form of aggression against my passive shots. I'm trying to learn to use this style more before I tire out as it seems to throw players timing off more than anything, I'd like to change the pace more frequently in a rally and since I know I can change the pace once I'm tired I feel like it's not too much of a stretch.

Before learning any footwork, my coach first teaches her students a stroke and the body transfer in the stroke. Then teaches more of a leaning style, (I may upload a video because when I say its leaning it sounds like it can't be right as you'd think it would throw you off balance and I'm not sure if I can explain this well.) Now imagine this with the backhand. What we do with the leaning, which she calls crouch, is push down on one leg a bit farther than another, still on your toes and she will vary the placement of the balls by not much but enough to where you know you can't do the same stroke without moving to get in place in some way. She says there's no reason to get your entire body to move such small amounts and not only waste energy, but add in more room for error.



NOW for this imagine the forehand.
I think I'll also record her doing this leaning thing, its all coming from the knees which is also what we use to control where we put the ball. She's extroardinary when watching her aim the ball differently with just her knees. She told us to watch her and not the ball and guess which direction she hits it as shes going through with the stroke. Another player, who already knew she was going to go cross court and then down the line kept feeding the ball back to her forehand. The whole time from her torso and up we couldn't see a difference in how she was aiming the ball. In my eyes I thought every one should go cross court. Then below the table she had us look what she was doing, all she was doing, was guiding the ball with her knees.

Continuing on. After getting better at getting into the right position with the knees and the leaning thing, we then move on to actually having to move our feet with various drills.




Kansas (kansas city/overland park area), we're actually having a sanctioned tournament down here in April that some player's that you've probrably heard of will be going to. One of which being (Sr.) Danny Seemiller

Here's our tournament flyer pdf:

https://www.kansascitytabletennis.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/2016-kctt-open-flyer.pdf

Other than being in the KC area, I'll be heading up to Manhattan NYC on Friday this week and will be down there until I believe Wednesday.