How do I train alone

hi mate I was just wondering how I can practice alone in my garage I have a robot but I am not sure how to train with it. I also do not have such a big space maybe half a metre of space on each side

thanks

Hi Muhammad,

Great to hear that you're keen on practicing even when you're by yourself. Training alone, especially with the use of a robot, can be effective initially to develop your basic strokes in particular.

Given the limited space in your garage, you’ll want to focus on drills that enhance your control and reaction time, since extensive footwork might be challenging. Here’s how you can make the most out of your training sessions with your robot:

1. Controlled Forehand and Backhand Drills: Start with basic drills focusing on consistency. Set the robot to deliver balls to one specific spot (e.g., your forehand) with moderate spin and speed. Hit around 50-100 balls and then switch to your backhand. This will help you fine-tune your stroke mechanics and improve your accuracy.

2. Randomised Drills: Once you’re comfortable, increase the difficulty by setting the robot to randomise the ball placement. This helps in improving your reaction times and minor adjustments in stroke play, which are crucial during actual matches.

3. Spin Variation: Experiment with different spins. Adjust the robot settings to deliver topspin, backspin, and sidespin balls to understand how to adapt your strokes to different spins. This variety will be beneficial in real game situations.

4. Limited Space Drills: Focus on drills that require less movement yet improve skills like blocking, flicking, or short pushes. You can practice these strokes even with half a metre of space on each side.

5. Service Practice: The robot can be a great tool to return your serves. Practice serving with different spin and placement and get the robot to feed out the next ball for you to serve.

6. Footwork Drills: Although space is a constraint, you can still practice small, quick footwork movements. Exercises like shadow playing where you mimic playing strokes with small steps can be quite beneficial.

7. Target Hitting: Improve your precision by placing targets on the table and trying to hit them with the ball as fed by the robot. This is an excellent way of practicing placement and control.