Reflexes and hand eye coordination

Anthony Unknown Asked 16 years ago

Hello Alois,

What are the most effective exercises I can do at home to improve my hand-eye coordination and reflexes, if i don't have a table? Also, when I'm practising with a mate, are there any drills i can do to improve these things?

Thanks a lot.

Anthony

Alois Rosario Answered 16 years ago

Hi Anthony,

To improve your hand eye coordination you can do routines like bouncing the ball on your bat and then do different things with it.  Use both sides alternately, use one side and then the edge alternately, just hitting up against a wall will also help enormously.  Make up different challenges with the bat and the ball and see how many times you can complete these challenges.

For reflexes there is nothing like getting someone to feed table tennis balls to you quickly at faster than game pace.  You will need about 40 to 50 balls to make this really effective.  You could also get someone to stand in front of you and throw balls to you and hit them back.  You can hit the ball against a wall and volley it back.  Get closer and closer to the wall and hit the ball faster and faster to cut down the time you have.

When practicing with a friend there is an endless number of exercises you can do.

Think about your session comprising different sections.   Firstly start with a warm up of just hitting forehands to each other.  Then do the same with backhands.  This could take 5 to 10 minutes.

Then move on and do some footwork routines.  You control the ball for your partner while he does the moving, then after 5 or 10 minutes swap roles.

After that you can do more game type activities.  Start the routines with a serve and then do something specific like practicing your forehand topspin off the return,

Finish off with some games or matches.

This is a basic guide, but try to strucutre your practice rather than just playing games or just hitting the ball back and forth.