Agility

Sam Quek Asked 13 years ago

Hi Pingskills,

I was playing table tennis yesterday and I noticed one thing and I think besides my reaction (I belived my reaction improved since you guys answered my question), I found out that my agility isn't very good. My friends too, said I'm too "stiff".

For example, when my opponent serves a long ball into my backhand, I do not dare to backhand loop the ball, instead, I block the ball. Then if he returns the ball to the deep corner of my backhand corner (my left hand side), I wasnt fast enough to get to the ball and I lost that point.

Pingskills, may I know how to improve my agility and get rid of this "stiffness" of mine.

Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks in advance.

Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Sam,

A good way to improve speed and agility is through multi ball training.  You can use fast multi ball to improve your reactions and agility.

Get your partner to feed out balls at a faster than normal rate to you.  You can get them to vary the positioning of the ball between your middle backhand and wide backhand and practice moving and reacting to get to that ball and topspin it. 

The stiffness may also be due to tension especially in your arm.  Focus on this for a little while and see if you can use less effort to make your strokes.  To play an effective stroke doesn't need a lot of effort.