Lack of energy (fatigue) has the single greatest impact on performance whatever level you play table tennis. Therefore being physically fitter than your opponent can provide you with a major advantage. The nature of table tennis is intermittent, with short bursts of activity. This means that an effective training programme needs to concentrate on improving the body’s ability to sustain short intense bursts of activity and to achieve quick recovery, so you are ready to win the next point.
Specificity is the key
To develop a specific training programme for a sport, you need to acquire a basic knowledge of the energy systems used to fuel movement.
A brief biology lesson
The body has several different energy systems. These can be divided into two simple subheadings anaerobic and aerobic. A twenty-metre sprint for the bus predominantly uses the anaerobic (without oxygen) system. A long jog or bike ride at a steady pace uses the aerobic system. Using these examples it is easy to see that table tennis for the most part, uses the anaerobic system.
Going deeper
To develop any system within the body you must overload it to stimulate a training effect. The human body is very resilient if you overload a system regularly it will gradually adjust to enable you to sustain the new intensity more efficiently. This adjustment/development means that the same intensity or production output of work is less demanding on the body and therefore has less negative effects on performance. Your imagination is the limit to your training programme, as long as you adhere to the principles of specificity and overloading regularly. It is always good to introduce a competitive aspect to your training as doing so focuses the mind ensuring maximum effort.
