I have been interested in table tennis since my early childhood. Being very small, having difficulty reaching the tennis table, she took a racket and tried to play. This is where my passion for table tennis began. At first, it was an ordinary game with my friends, but soon I got so carried away that I started to participate in competitions. It all started with school competitions, where I was noticed and invited to play for the city team, without thinking twice, I agreed and so the professional game began. At the university, all 5 years I was and took part in the table tennis team of the university. Today, I no longer do it professionally, but I still like to play with my friends. After all, table tennis is an outdoor game that you enjoy, regardless of the degree of fatigue. Many may think that this is an easy game that does not require special skills and physical fitness, but this is absolutely not the case. Playing not only at a professional level, but also at an amateur level, this game is very exhausting, makes you move, absolutely all muscle groups are involved during the game, it also develops dexterity and thinking.
Table tennis is one of the most exciting, interesting and affordable sports games. It has practically no contraindications, and everyone can learn to play it, starting from any age. Enthusiastically hitting the ball, you will not only feel incomparable pleasure, but at the same time you will be able to strengthen your physical and mental health. Table tennis is an exciting, developing and useful game for everybody.
Benefits of table tennis
Table tennis has a beneficial effect on the development of mobility of the hands and hands, develops fine motor skills of the hands, strengthens the muscles of the hands and wrists. It helps to increase the speed of hand movement, develop attention and reaction. While playing table tennis, your leg muscles get a good load and become stronger. The cardiovascular and respiratory systems begin to function better, enriching the body with oxygen.
Table tennis develops dexterity, eye, flexibility. Thanks to the development of reactions, our brain learns to control the body even faster. Playing table tennis, you develop the hip, wrist, elbow and shoulder joints and even the articulation of the spine. There is a phrase "A person is healthy as long as his spine remains flexible." This is another reason why table tennis has a positive effect and improves our health.
Table tennis for a good mood
One of the advantages table tennis is an opportunity to relax and escape from everyday worries that do not always give us pleasure. After all, pleasure is the secret of our health. If you do even the most serious things with pleasure, you will not feel any burden. Since many of us are deprived of such an opportunity, there is only one way out to get the missing pleasure from playing table tennis.
Table tennis help
By playing, you can stabilize your blood pressure. If your eyes hurt and get tired quickly, table tennis eyes are simply irreplaceable for you. After all, during the game, your eyes will have to follow the movements of the ball all the time, and you will not find the best training for the eyes. Playing table tennis relieves stress and fatigue, helps to normalize blood circulation. Thanks to the very competitive spirit of the game, your body will gradually learn to cope with stress, react to everything that happens less painfully.
It will be useful for those who suffer from farsightedness, myopia, those who have undergone eye surgery. Old and young, people of all ages. People who suffer from respiratory failure have problems with the musculoskeletal system. Who lacks strong-willed qualities, table tennis will become an indispensable tool in their development. It will help to cultivate such qualities as perseverance, endurance, courage, self-control, perseverance, determination and courage, independence and initiative, because during the game you will have to make decisions that will help you play better and better. Table tennis will help develop such a quality as the will to win, and most importantly, determination.
Table tennis brings pleasure and joy, playing you experience stress, but then it disappears, under the influence of positive emotions from the game and physical activity. It trains your heart and nervous system. There is a uniform emotional and physical training.
Sports are great. Regular sports activities promise certain achievements in sports. But, in addition, they also educate the borrower's strong-willed and moral qualities, strengthen health and strive for improvement. Game and single sports are the most common. Table tennis is one of them.
Many of the non-professionals are skeptical about table tennis. They don’t understand that he can develop not only accuracy, but also significantly improve other indicators?
What is table tennis
Table tennis is a great way to have an energetic pastime for those who prefer serious activities, and for those who hold a racket for the first time in their lives. The main advantage of table tennis is convenience, since elementary equipment and the small scale of the site make it possible to play table tennis almost anywhere.
Table tennis is a sport where stress accompanies all the time, whether it's a lightning victory or defeat. Situations are changing and athletes are mobilizing to deal with the stress.
Table tennis is related to a sport that revitalizes the cardiovascular system. The load that falls on the player during the competition is really huge. Japanese scientists have confirmed that playing table tennis uses more energy than playing basketball. One of the main criteria in table tennis is the physical endurance of the athlete.
It is undeniable that the style of play chosen by an athlete naturally depends on his physical and mental capabilities. The basic table tennis technique for all styles of play is the same, and only when the athlete has risen to the established level, then individual characteristics can manifest.
Visual and motor memory for a tennis player is especially important. With their help, an athlete masters technical elements faster and develops tactical combinations. Visual memory can be developed constantly, but motor memory must be developed with the most complex movements. All famous masters have their own drawings, repeating their tennis player, forms a personal technique, basing his own playing style.
For a tennis player, the most important of the specialized perceptions is the sense of the ball. Thinking is organically connected to this perception. The tennis player takes into account the speed, direction and rotation of the ball, the position of the opponent during the stroke, before and after the stroke. The athlete must fix the psychological state of not only the opponent, but also his own.
During the game, the tennis player not only thinks, he has to analyze, observe, compare. This is the work of the mind and is the basis of the athlete's operational thinking.
The promptness of operational thinking is important, because even if the right move is found, but with a delay, it will become a losing one. The best thing is when the speed of thinking is combined with a rapid reaction. The value of the reaction in real tennis is very high, because the speed of the ball is close to the brink of a probable reproduction reaction, and therefore the psychomotor talent is very necessary for a tennis player. An impulsive reaction is not always complex and precise. If reactivity is combined with the ability to work with spatio-temporal anticipation, then the ability to see several moves ahead appears. Special attention training will raise the degree of mental activity.
In order not to be distracted by the noise in the hall and the reaction of the audience, and gradually get used to such situations, a tennis player should often train in such conditions. Prelaunch fever is quite a useful and normal condition, but it should not deviate from the optimal level. If feelings are overwhelmed and a lot of nervous energy is spent, that there is nothing left for the competition, then the athlete has burned out. Any athlete must regulate emotions in a timely manner so that a state of “combat readiness” appears. This condition sharpens perception, attention, thinking and memory. And in this state, the best personal abilities and qualities are manifested.
To achieve success, you need to develop strong-willed qualities: purposefulness, perseverance, perseverance, endurance and self-control, courage and determination, initiative and independence. The whole structure of volitional qualities is connected by purposefulness.
The athlete sets himself sometimes difficult, but quite achievable goals and complicates them as they are fulfilled. This develops personality, develops a sporting character, eradicates shortcomings. To achieve your goal, you have to fight weakness, fatigue, laziness, and sacrifice your personal life.
In real table tennis, extraordinary results are won only by stubborn and persistent people, those who are truly purposeful.
In this sport there is no distinction between boys and girls, it suits both equally. As for age, different children are accepted in the section, distributing them into appropriate groups.
You can play table tennis for children from the age of 6
Ideal to start training is the age of 6-7 years. It is not recommended to come to the group earlier - this is due to the low ability to concentrate on the subject and the slow reaction in young children. In addition, ping-pong tables are standard, there are no special options for children. Therefore, the baby will not be able to properly learn the technique, but only suffers.
If you and your child do not plan to play this sport professionally, he can start later at any time, in any case it will be good for health. But with some exception. There are some contraindications to classes:
- Scoliosis.
- Myopia and diseases of the retina.
- Hypertension.
The danger of curvature of the spine is associated with a greater degree of muscle tension on the part of the working hand. With a weak degree of myopia, classes are allowed. But with weak immunity, they will be very useful. Consult your pediatrician before putting your child into sports.
Benefits of ping pong
In addition to the general strengthening of the body, improving immunity and physical fitness, the following advantages of "small" tennis can be noted:
- Prevention of visual impairment. A constant focus on an approaching and receding object trains the eye muscles, which is useful for reducing the risk of myopia, and also helps with a weak degree of myopia.
- Reaction training and good coordination of movements. It can also help in other sports such as boxing.
- Development of mental abilities. During the game, the child learns to choose tactics, apply them in practice, and calculate moves.
- The formation of personal qualities, such as determination, perseverance in achieving goals, diligence, the ability to make decisions quickly.
- Development fine motor skills, strengthening the muscles of the hand. It improves the kidneys and helps with drawing.
To relieve tension from the muscles of the back, you need to visit the pool. This will prevent curvature of the spine. It is also good to periodically take the child to massage sessions.
Everyone has long known that playing sports is very useful, even if you are not a professional athlete. Without going into details, it can be said that physical exercise useful for the physical, mental, moral and emotional state of a person. But the journalists of one very popular men's magazine wondered what benefits table tennis brings to the body.
More recently, the Men’s Health magazine published the following article entitled “Time to table!” by Anton Ivanov: “Do not be shy if your tennis is not big, but table tennis. This option has a lot of advantages.
Game name
Not all table tennis players like it when their game is called ping pong, but nevertheless this name has been around for 109 years. By the way, at the beginning of the last century there were other variants of the name: “gossima”, “flim-flam”, “wif-waf”. The words "ping" and "pong" by themselves mean nothing, they only imitate the sound that the ball makes when it hits the racket (ping) and the table (pong).
8 reasons to play ping pong
1. Help your eyes. It is a sport useful for the nearsighted, the farsighted and those who have recently had eye surgery. Your eyes during the game are constantly doing exercises, focusing either on a flying ball, or on a ball flying right at you. It’s also good for those who work at a computer and look at the screen all day long, located at the same distance, and then cannot see a single line on the table at the optometrist.
2. Improve your handwriting. Table tennis is the development of fine motor skills, training the muscles of the arm and hand. More accurate movements will help you not only win at the tennis table, but also show better results at the writing table.
3. Speed up your reaction. It is difficult to come up with a sport that better develops reaction and concentration. Vitali Klitschko, for example, uses ping-pong in his training, so that later he can quickly react to the opponent's actions in the ring. Also, after the boxing punching technique, this game teaches finer handwork.
4. Become dexterous. In the language of scientists, agility is "a highly developed muscular sensation and plasticity of cortical nervous processes." Table tennis works to improve both by training your brain to control your body faster. During the match, you are always on the alert and several times a minute you solve complex motor-coordination tasks (the average pace of the game is from 30 to 120 bpm).
5. You will run faster. The ping-pong player's posture - legs in a half-bent position - perfectly strengthens the muscles of the lower extremities. In addition, like running, ping-pong strengthens the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Playing table tennis frequently will help you improve your performance not only in running, but also in cycling, skating and other cyclic sports where your legs work a lot.
6. Save on health. Inexpensive and compact inventory will not become a heavy burden for the budget and your bag. Throw your colleagues on the table and play after work - there are a lot of health benefits, and for the notorious team building too (you can try to knock out the budget on the table from the authorities under this pretext - they say, the team will become more friendly and start working better).
7. Develop explosive power. The speed of hand movement with a racket is up to 40 km/h. Play, and your hand will be able to make sharp and powerful movements faster, and this skill will come in handy even in a street fight.
8. You will win until old age. You don't have to worry that one beautiful day you will have to part with your favorite game. Unlike tennis, table tennis can be played at a very advanced age. By training all your life, you will accumulate such experience that in retirement you will especially enjoy beating young people. A trifle, but nice.
play better some specific exercises will help you, include them in your workout - and the results in table tennis will not be long in coming.
Jump rope exercises at a fast pace. Throws a stuffed ball from the chest, behind the head, from below and standing with your back to the target. Catching and throwing tennis balls with two and one hands. Throw them for accuracy, as well as against the wall.
Hard to study. You can complicate your life in training, in order to complicate it later on your opponents, for example, in the following ways:
Rub the chalk on the heels of your sneakers and try to play for 2-3 minutes standing only on your toes. It will be possible to judge how well you did it by the floor: if there is chalk on it - you did not work well, if there is no chalk - try to increase the time you play on your toes to 4-5 minutes. Such an exercise will help you play faster - standing on your toes, you can move sharper, which is useful when you need to increase the pace of the match. In addition, such training corny strengthens the legs.
Take glasses without glasses and glue their bottom so that you can only see the "enemy" side of the table. This will teach you to play blindly on your side and focus all your attention only on the actions of your opponent.
Higher and higher and higher. The height of a table tennis table has not changed since 1930, while the average height of people over the same period has increased by 5 cm. Orthopedists (for example, Michael Scott, who worked as a doctor for the US team for 15 years) have long suggested raising tables from 76 cm at least to 81, but no one has yet given an official order on this score. If you're playing for yourself, listen to the doctors and set the table higher than the pros do. Thus, you will reduce the risk of spinal muscular disorders.
Desktop world. In table tennis, no one can compete with China (they won again at the World Championship held in Moscow at the end of May). There, this sport is held at school, so absolutely everyone knows how to play ping-pong, and this is 1,322,178,190 people. In short, they have someone to choose from, forming the national team. It is not surprising that the Chinese who moved there often play for other countries - in their homeland they would be middle peasants, but here they find themselves at the head of national championships. The position of Russia in the world of table tennis is the 10th place in the team standings. In personal terms, the best of the Russians - Alexei Smirnov and Irina Kotikhina - occupy the 33rd and 87th lines, respectively.
Better not if you have:
- Scoliosis. A low desk and active work with only one hand will exacerbate the problem.
- High myopia or myopia with complications in the fundus. However, the ban is not as serious as in tennis, so go to the doctor - maybe he will allow it.
- Good results in tennis or badminton. The technique of working with a brush is fundamentally different, therefore, in order not to “knock down the settings”, professional tennis players, if they are right-handed, play table tennis with their left hand.
Tough little one. There are two ways to hold the racket: Asian (pen grip) and European (knife grip).
Keep in mind that pen grip requires the ability to move well, since in this case you play with only one side of the racket, it is more difficult to get the ball flying to the side and you can compensate for this only by working with your feet.
You can train a European grip without a partner by juggling the ball (throwing and catching it alternately with one or the other side of the racket). Playing against the wall will help to master Asian better.
A small table clearly illustrates the energy cost of exercise in various sports in comparison with the energy cost of activities at home and at work.
As you can see, in terms of immediate training effect, table tennis is between tennis and breaststroke. But this is a rough estimate. The fact is that, unlike cyclic movements - walking, running, etc., the game of table tennis consists of a number of different movements. In the game, you have to perform serves, a variety of hits on the ball and movements, often requiring acrobatic dexterity. Watching the masters play, you involuntarily compare them with jugglers. Game episodes are replaced by small pauses during which the player walks after the ball. Of course, for an athlete, this part of the game load is not so important, but for an untrained person, it also matters. After all, only during one game you have to perform 15-20 innings, 60-150 strokes, 15-20 times to walk and bend over the ball. For comparison, let us recall that in the All-Union TRP physical culture complex, it is recommended to include from 35 to 120 slopes in the volume of weekly physical activity, depending on age and gender.
As you can see, playing table tennis gives a very tangible training effect. It is especially great when the parties follow one after another. According to Swedish researchers, the heart rate of highly qualified tennis players by the end of the first set reaches 152 beats per minute, at the end of the second - 165, and at the end of the third it approaches 200 beats per minute and can exceed the maximum heart rate recorded by the same athletes. performing exhausting work on a bicycle ergometer. And this is despite the fact that during a meeting a person playing table tennis directly spends only a third of the playing time on the exchange of blows, the rest of the time is occupied by pauses. But what about the cumulative training effect? How do, in the language of experts, the physical condition of a person who regularly goes in for table tennis grow? Before answering this question, let's agree on the indicators by which we will judge the level of physical fitness.HerIt is customary to evaluate the development of endurance, strength, speed, agility and flexibility.
In terms of development of agility and speed, tennis players surpass people of the same age who are not involved in table tennis. This is understandable. After all, dexterity is called the accuracy of fast movements. Judge for yourself: where to develop dexterity, if not in table tennis - the pace of the game here varies from 30-120 beats per minute, the speed of the hand with the racket reaches more than 11 meters per second (40 kilometers per hour), the speed of the ball at the final shocks are 47-50 meters per second (or 170-180 kilometers per hour), and the initial flight speed can reach 200 kilometers per hour. And at the same time, the ball must hit exactly the right point on the table! True, this is not yet the highest ball flight speed in games. In the first place - golf; the ball thrown by the hand of the master flies here at a speed of up to 320 kilometers per hour and takes the shape of an egg in flight. Experienced badminton players can give a ball with feathers a speed of up to 250 kilometers. The ball in tennis flies at an average speed of 135-200, and the football one - "only" 58-85 kilometers per hour.
On December 1, 1976, in London, the Guinness Book of Records recorded the fastest pace of table tennis, which was set by two English tennis players Nicky Yarvis and Desmond Douglas.
In 60 seconds they made 162 hits. This record was repeated on March 21, 1977 in Blackpool by the same player D. Douglas paired with Paul Day. In women, English tennis players Linda Howard and Melody Lyudy turned out to be the fastest of all, on October 11, 1977, they completed 148 strokes per minute. This is how table tennis is played! Table tennis improves not only the speed of movements, but also the speed of reaction, forecasting reaction, develops operational thinking, as well as the ability to concentrate and switch attention. A curious detail: the speed of reaction to a moving object in table tennis players is greater than in other people. Often this quality helps in various life situations. So, a tennis player can catch a cup falling from a table on the fly, quickly bounce off an object flying at him, etc. It is no coincidence that the game of table tennis is used as a special training tool in the training of astronauts, operators, goalkeepers of hockey teams and other specialists who must be able to clearly respond to unexpected changes in situations in extreme conditions.
As for such a physical quality as strength, it has many faces. Of course, table tennis cannot significantly increase the so-called static strength, which is different, for example, weightlifters. Although it is known that table tennis masters have a diameter of the muscles of the playing hand - the hand in which the racket is located, on average, more than 7 percent more than the muscle diameter of the other hand. An explosive force, as experts say, is another matter. Here, tennis players outperform untrained people and those involved in other sports that require mainly strength and endurance.
Now a few words about flexibility. Flexibility is one of important qualities, without which it is impossible to perform shock movements. After all, the impact force to a certain extent depends on the swing. Therefore, the greater the amplitude of movement, the more energetic the blow. Playing table tennis contributes to the development and maintenance of high mobility in such joints as the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, as well as in the joints of the spinal column. The high level of flexibility that play allows to maintain is an important indicator of good physical development and health. And finally, about the endurance of those who play table tennis. As you know, this physical quality is not uniform. Simply put, there is a distinction between endurance to long-term physical work and the so-called speed endurance. Table tennis lessons contribute to the development of special playing and especially speed endurance, since a tennis player, we have already talked about this, has to repeatedly perform strikes at high speed. Endurance depends on the energy potential of a person. Where does the energy that provides the work of more than six hundred muscles come from? Yes, yes - more than six hundred! The direct energy source of muscle contraction is adenosine triphosphoric acid, or, as it is called ATP for short. Its supply in the muscles is enough for only half a second. Therefore, along with consumption, ATP is also restored due to the energy released as a result of three types of biochemical transformations. Hence the idea of three sources of energy, called phosphagenic, lactic acid and oxidative. The phosphagenic source is turned on first. It discharges very quickly - in 5-10 seconds by 90-95 percent. Significant willpower is required to use the remaining 5-10 percent of the initial energy reserve. Following phosphagenic, a lactic acid source of energy is included in the process of energy supply. It is about three times less powerful than phosphagenic. But its capacity is twice as large, and the stock is exhausted only by the end of the second minute of continuous operation.
As the supply of the lactic acid source is used up, lactic acid - lactate - accumulates in the muscles and blood. The higher the concentration of lactate, the greater the fatigue. To overcome this fatigue, an effort of will is required. Physically trained people are easier to tolerate a high concentration of lactate and the associated changes in acid-base balance. After the first two minutes of work, a person gradually increases cardiac activity and blood flow, which increases oxygen consumption. Thus, the cost of the oxidative energy source increases. Approximately 30 seconds after the start of work, oxygen consumption reaches half the possible limit, and by the end of the third minute it approaches the maximum consumption level.
As you can see, endurance is determined primarily by the power of oxygen (aerobic) and the capacity of oxygen-free (anaerobic) sources of energy supply. But it is not for nothing that table tennis is considered a sport that is distinguished by aerobic support. In terms of the maximum level of oxygen consumption, people involved in table tennis are not inferior, for example, to water polo players, but the capacity of their lactic acid energy source is relatively low - even lower than that of gymnasts. The healing and psychotherapeutic effect of table tennis is explained primarily by its aerobic nature.
It's no secret that physical activity can bring not only benefits, but also harm. Here is the risk of overexertion of the heart, and diseases of the spine, and many other equally unpleasant surprises that lie in wait for those who "do not know the ford, climb into the water." Yes, and the usual physical overwork would be good to avoid. Today it has been established that not only alcohol, but also lactic acid (lactate), which accumulates in muscles and blood during very hard work, overcomes the so-called blood-brain barrier and enters the brain. And it is no coincidence that after too intense muscular work one does not want to read or think about serious topics. Let us recall what Academician N. M. Amosov writes: those who want to always feel vigorous and healthy do not need strength (and we add from ourselves - not speed), but the coordinated interaction of all vital body systems, which is best manifested through endurance . And the basis of endurance is a well-established mechanism of oxygen supply (lungs, heart, blood vessels, etc.). N.M.Amosov is echoed by prominent specialists in recreational physical education - K. Cooper, G. Gilmore and many others.
Many of them especially emphasize that exercises accompanied by aerobic support should not be done under duress, but for pleasure. They should lift your spirits. After all, there is such a point of view that health-improving exercises in themselves do not cause significant physiological changes in the body. But they have a positive effect on the central nervous system, which begins to more clearly coordinate the work of our physiological systems. And thus improves well-being, increases efficiency.
The popularity of aerobics, aqua-aerobics - aerobics in the water, dancing, etc. is not accidental. The popularity of table tennis, which can be both a sport, aerobic physical education, and an exciting game, is not accidental.
We all love to play games as kids. For a child, play is the most important thing. The kid enjoys it and at the same time learns something, acquires new skills and fresh impressions. As the years go by, the games of our childhood give way to more serious matters. But it has been noticed, this issue has been studied in detail by psychologists, that the one who does his serious deeds with pleasure, sometimes with childlike enthusiasm, is truly happy. However, such happiness falls far from everyone, and therefore it is so useful to distract from the obligatory everyday affairs. After all, even in winter, the ice of reservoirs is dotted with fishermen, in the yard until late you can hear the knock of knuckles on wood (this is “they kill a goat”), etc.
It would be nice if rest also brought benefits to our health. And for this he must be active, you need movements and positive emotions. It is also very important that the method of relaxation* chosen by you is accessible, does not require large material costs and loss of time.
Table tennis meets all these conditions perfectly. Both children and people of middle age, and even the elderly, are equally reckless in fights with a small racket in their hand. And everyone knows how quickly time flies, how difficult it is to tear yourself away from the tennis table, and how tedious the minutes of waiting for the next game are. In recent years, table tennis and other outdoor and sports games have a serious competitor - slot machines, and at the very recent times computer games. But it is still an expensive pleasure. And besides, it's not safe for health. According to some doctors, students elementary school should not devote more than a few minutes a day to these games. In fact - think about it! Such a game requires considerable nervous tension, not accompanied by muscular work. But it has long been established that similar combination high emotional and low physical loads - the most dangerous for our body. First of all, the nervous and cardiovascular systems suffer. And it is no coincidence that even in young people, including children, doctors note a significantly increased percentage of vegetovascular disorders, hypertension and other diseases characteristic of an “active loafer”. Once again, we turn to the ideal antidote to such diseases. Having the appeal of games in general, table tennis has the advantage that it strengthens muscles, stabilizes blood pressure, normalizes the activity of blood circulation and other vital systems of the human body. Playing table tennis can rightfully be called a universal remedy that reduces fatigue and stress. The game is recommended even for people suffering from respiratory failure, with damage to the musculoskeletal system. Tracking the flight of the ball is a great gymnastics for the eyes. The UNESCO Commission named table tennis as one of the most promising sports that are widely available and serve the benefit of people's health.
So, we rightfully say: table tennis is an entertainment that is extremely beneficial to health. But the pleasure of the game will be the greater, the stronger and more accurate your blows, the more beautiful the movements. For middle-aged and elderly people, it is very important to avoid unnecessary energy consumption and fatigue. But this is only possible if you master the technique of the game. We will talk about this.