How to Improve Your Reaction Speed in Table Tennis

One of the fastest reactive sports in the world, it requires decision-making in millisecond increments repeatedly throughout a point. This blog post will highlight techniques for helping you quicken your reflexes for the advantage of your table tennis game.

We’ve all seen it in matches and videos, a player blasts an awesome shot and somehow, with the bat of an eyelid, their opponent gets their bat to it and creates an awe-inspiring reflex return to win the point. One of the most crucial skills in a sport as quick as table tennis is reflexes. So what kinds of things can you do to improve your reaction speed?

Off-Table Exercises for Improving Reactions

There are numerous exercises that are unrelated to table tennis that can help you work on your responses and hand-eye coordination. Any kind of physical exercise that involves speed and coordination can be helpful, especially if you can include footwork. Here are some examples:

• Ball Coordination Drills
• Vocal Recognition Drills
• Other Sports and Games
• 
  Table Based Drills:

*Random Drills

You can play random topspin with both players being close to the table and playing at random, but with short driving, shots to increase the level of difficulty. As a result, you are forced to practice making decisions regarding your placement, adding another dimension to the already limited amount of time you have. This maintains a pace and keeps reaction times low.

There are many different kinds of anticipating abilities; here are a few:

– Control sporadically shifts from backhand to backhand to the forehand.

– A backhand or two, a forehand or two

– One wide ball on each side and one middle forehand

– One player will occasionally serve short and push short, while another will push long and flick to attack.

– Full table block with a forehand loop

– Table-full forehand

*Defensive Drills

*Multiball