importance of physical preparation

[izra]

in recent years i've gotten more and more into various aspects of physical preparation and the more i learn about it the more shocked i am about how many things are upside down in most table tennis clubs.

full body warm up is sometimes skipped completely, which actually doesn't bother me as much as seeing kids do static stretching before the start of an exercise. static stretching is done at the end of training, if you do it before you actually increase the risk of injury. this has been known for a couple of decades now but obviously the power of google hasn't reached many table tennis clubs yet.

i have trained in a club from age 10 to age 14 competitively and never in that time have i done a single squat. nobody even tried to teach me proper squat technique, if they did maybe they would notice my non existent leg flexibility. if they did maybe they would have put 2+2 together and said "if this kid can't even squat properly he will have to bend his back to get into a low stance". naturally my posture was horrible, naturally i never did any kind of core exercise or anything that would strengthen my back. i already started having lower back pain at the age of 19.

looking back, sheer luck and laziness protected me from any serious knee or back injury. looking around, i see this same stuff happening all over table tennis clubs.

any kind of weight training is looked down upon, you can hear people saying it's not good for table tennis, it will only make you bulky and slow... many pro players know nothing about basic work out principles, the only ones who get proper physical training are the ones who hire a private coach just for that purpose - for which they have to be either insanely good or very rich.

nutrition? what is that? proper rest after a hard multiball training? naw, let's just do more multiball exercises the next day and the day after that.

young kids are given a table tennis bat and sent to the table straight away, if they are good at smacking the ball around a coach will start teaching them stroke technique and this summarizes the first couple of table tennis years of pretty much every child. these are the crucial years when a child needs to develop coordination and balance, yet he is made to stand in one place and wack at a ball.

then a kid who trained gymnastics for a year tries out table tennis and the coaches are dumbstruck with the amount of TALENT this child has. so they convince the parent to stick to table tennis because this kind of INNATE TALENT doesn't appear often, so they make him stand in one place and wack at a ball.

 

[Shuki]

What types of physical preparation would you recommend.

 

[izra]

that is the problem, the topic is too comprehensive to summarize in a short post and i myself still have much to learn about it.

squatting should be bread and butter for table tennis players of all levels and anything that strengthens the core should be done as often as possible.

i actually addressed two different points in my original post, one is the importance of physical fitness of any table tennis players that wants to prevent injuries, and another is the matter of developing motor skills in young kids. having them stand in one place and hit countless forehands and backhands is basically butchering their potential because the optimal window for developing coordination is somewhere between the age of 6 and 10 years old. sure they should be learning table tennis technique, but they should also be running, jumping, climbing, crawling and rolling around. a lot.

 

[Tinykin]

Izra, you are absolutely correct in what you are saying. Coaches know all this but TT is largely a recreational activity even to the best amateur players. Look at how out of shape even top amateurs are. These same 'best' players over time have developed a minimal warm-up technique that keeps them relatively injury free.
Squats? Forget it. Only a few players who are into physical training (not TT related) would even attempt it.
But I am always interested to hear of some easy off table exercises that would be of interest to us lazy TT players.

 

[izra]

i don't mean squatting 200lbs. i mean just stand there and bend your knees while keeping your back as straight as possible and your heels on the ground. how about bulgarian squats? lunges?

the problem isn't really in the top amateurs who have developed a play style that suits their fitness level, but rather the fact that these guys never had a chance to learn how to take care of their bodies even if they trained in a club when they were kids. the problem is a professional player that only ever does on the table exercises. and most of all the problem is not developing young kids coordination, flexibility and balance thus basically limiting their potential.

 

[Boogar]

Great post! The point about children who did basic training and then got recognized as talents... so true.

About the streching... should you do dynamic ones before the training or none at all?

 

[izra]

dynamic stretching and light workout that raises the bodies temperature should be done at the beginning of training. static stretching at the end.

 

[Boogar]

Okay thanks

I always try to get some core, leg, back, shoulder and chest training done. But not as much as before when i did not play table tennis. And i can feel that i was alot fitter when i started with table tennis :-/

Then i used to do Muay Thai and alot of strength training. I find table tennis to be a very exhausting sport, not that much physical but more psychically. And after training i dont feel like doing any other workouts at all.

 

[izra]

I find table tennis to be a very exhausting sport, not that much physical but more psychically. And after training i dont feel like doing any other workouts at all.

4 times a week take the last 15 minutes of your usual table tennis training session and do strength exercises instead. google body weight exercises and do legs on monday and thursday and core on tuesday and friday.

 

[Boogar]

4 times a week take the last 15 minutes of your usual table tennis training session and do strength exercises instead. google body weight exercises and do legs on monday and thursday and core on tuesday and friday.

I will try it But usually i try to play as much as posible. Because i have very limited times for training and its very late in the evening ;-/
I mighth be able to sneak in some basic training in lunch break.

 

[Herbert]

When I first started playing at the age of nine I had a coach and he let us do a warming up that always lasted 25 minutes.
After that we pushed with the backhand and looped with the forehand from the backhand for the rest of the session which was 35 minutes.

The guy was a legend