Play and practice table tennis alone with/without a table

Whether you are beginner or an advanced player you got to feel the need of practicing more. That’s the time practicing alone at home come in handy. This you can master some skills that you are struggling for a long time and level up your game.

How to practice alone at home without table

Ball strike level 1

Ball-strike level 1 is the ball-juggle on the fore side of the racket.

Speaking of home practice alone, the first thing I can think of is a ball-juggle. It is practice to juggle a ball with a racket. 

Perfect practice without a table tennis table, even in a small area. It’s a practice that you can do easily at home or anywhere.

It’s a simple ball striking, but it’s also an important practice for beginners. You can cultivate the important feeling of “playing a ball” in table tennis by pushing the ball.

Besides, it also can be useful for increasing concentration. I think the tasks are easy for beginners to work on.

If you are a beginner, you should first be able to hit the ball on the foreground. If you can continue, try the next level of ball striking.

Once you become accustomed to ball striking, you will be able to play ball striking while sitting at home or lying down.

Ball-strike level 2

Level 2 ball strike is alternate ball strike on the fore and back sides.

If you could become accustomed to the foreground, that’s a challenge. It’s easy once you get used to it, but the backside may seem difficult at first.

Switch between fore-back and back-fore to perform ball thrust. If you get used to it, you will be able to hit the ball by rotating the racket many times while driving the ball.

Ball-strike level 3

The level 3 of ball strike is ball juggle at the edge.

The difficulty level will increase at once from this level. The area is overwhelmingly smaller than the rubber surface, so it requires concentration. 

If you hit the corner of the edge, the ball will fly in an unexpected direction, so be careful.

You can see this kind of shot in Manga cartoons. You shouldn’t try to use it in actual games.

Ball-strike level 4

The level 4 ball strike is an alternate ball strike on the rubber surface and the edge.

Difficulty increases from level 3 all at once. The point is how well you can use the edge surface.

If you reach here, it will be a little street performance. Even beginners can do it. Get used to it fast.

Ball-strike level 5

The level 5 ball strike is “ball grip at the bottom of the grip”.

Since the area is smaller than the edge part, the difficulty level is further increased. Even a professional table tennis player can hit the ball at a level that can be tricky. 

This is a practice you want to do when you want to improve your concentration.

It can be practiced alone or it can be fun to compete with someone.

By the way, some rackets may have metal fittings attached to the bottom of the grip. In that case, the difficulty level will be further increased.

Spin catch

Throw the ball using your left hand toward the paddle which is being played like a sword chopping something down. The ball will hit almost at the end of the paddle.

You have to rotate it downwards and play upwards. Catch the falling ball with the claw. If you can catch it well, the ball will continue to spin around your claws.

This is a one-person practice that is the basis of the lower rotation serve that beginners want to learn first.

Many people do it during their free time between matches. However, be careful because the ball will fall to the table tennis table if you are careless.

Weightless catch

It is a practice for one person to throw the ball up and catch the falling ball smoothly with the rubber surface of the paddle. If you bounce, it’s a failure.

The trick is to put a racket from the side of the ball. Use the hip and knee cushions to control the fall.

If you can do this with a table tennis racket, you can do the same with a tennis racket.

Spin weightless catch

This is a one-person exercise that combines spin catch and weightless catch.

As in the case of a spin catch, rotate the ball downward and play it upward. Gravity catches the falling ball with a racket. Because it is spinning, it is more difficult than a normal weightless catch.

You need to control it carefully so that the racket does not drop the spinning ball.

Driving practice with curtains

Driving practice is possible even if you practice alone at home. However, if you hit the wall, it will be noisy. That’s where curtains come in handy.

Throw the ball yourself and drive the falling ball (upward rotation) to hit it. Practice both fore drive and back drive.

The point is to use your knees well. Use the knees to adjust the hitting height. Strike the drive in a position that is easy to strike. Be careful not to lean over or lean back.

It may seem easy at first glance, but it is actually a difficult practice for one person. Unlike actual driving practice, the ball doesn’t come to you.

Practice driving alone towards the curtain. However, be careful about noise when practicing at home. Put some cushion on the place where the ball falls.

A single house is fine but in an apartment, it may cause complaints.

Hitting the wall

Find a suitable wall in your house and hit the ball in it. The trick is to keep your hand constant when you hit it back. If it shakes, the return ball from the wall will also shake, so it will disturb the rhythm.

Again be careful about the noise and not to disturb the peace of your neighbor.

Swing

This is one of the basic “practice” in the bucket of practicing alone. It’s a one-person exercise for anyone, from beginners to advanced players.

The key point when doing a swing is Before you practice, make a purpose. It is not very effective if you simply swing without thinking. 

As a beginner, you may be tired of doing this. However, it’s important that you need repeated practice.

If the purpose of the swing practice is clear, I think that the swing will be sharp.

Shoot and check swing form

Take a picture of yourself swinging with a smartphone camera. And check it out. You can see your swing form accurately, which leads to the improvement of swing form.

You can notice areas that you normally do not notice, such as How are your postures?

A common problem for beginners is They don’t know if it’s correct or not even if they check the form. In such a case, show it to someone who has experience in table tennis and get some advice.

Muscle training

In general, table tennis may seem to require less muscle strength. However, doing muscle training increases the power of the ball hitting and also improves the acceleration to catch up with the ball.

Muscle training is also an important practice in table tennis. The following is a muscle training menu that is said to be effective by experts. We carefully selected what can be done at home.

• Squat
• Abs
• Spine

If you continue muscular workout, the game will improve. Conversely, if you do not do it regularly, you can not be super active during the game. By all means, make a habit of exercising, and try to do it regularly.

You can do 10 minutes of squats and 10 minutes of abs workout each day, so let’s focus on getting into the habit of doing strength training every day at home. It is important to continue.

Serve practice

You can practice serve alone.

As a beginner, it is recommended to practice serve without a table tennis table. First, concentrate on developing the sense of spinning.

On a flat surface, raise the toss and rotate it down to fly the ball in front of you. If it spins well, the ball will return to your feet. The advantage of this practice is that it’s easy to see if it’s spinning.

If you can apply downward rotation, it may be interesting to mix horizontal rotation.

In addition, the Spin Catch, which was introduced above, will also be a supportive practice for training your serve. Once you get the feeling of spinning, try practicing with a table tennis table.

It is fun to gradually step up. First of all, it is important to focus on getting a sense of spinning.

Grab the sense of rotation without using a table tennis table → Use the table tennis table to practice inserting it into the opponent’s table → Improving the accuracy of the serve → Have someone return the receive and practice the third ball.

Mirror practice

With a large mirror, you can see your movements as if you were in a dance practice room. It does n’t matter, but it ’s best to mark a box on the wall, with a side length of about 20 cm, and then try to hit the box as much as possible to practice accuracy. 

There is also a need to control the distance, about two meters from the wall, about three steps away so that you can practice the strength and speed of the shot.

footwork

The most important thing in table tennis is footwork. If you don’t have footwork for driving, smashing, and Tsutsuki, you can’t hit it satisfactorily. By training your footwork, the skill of table tennis will be raised.

The following is the footwork practice menu to do alone. 

• Repetitive side jump
• dash
• running
• Thigh
• Shadow footwork (footwork while swinging with a racket)

By training your footwork, you can catch up with the ball as quickly as possible. You’ll have fewer mistakes, and you’ll be able to bring the game in your favor.

How to practice alone at home with a table

If you want to strengthen your table tennis, you can have a table tennis table at home so that you can practice at any time.

you can improve the technique of table tennis playing with the table alone. To do this, you need to move the table to the wall or on the other side of the table to put a reflector shield.

Here are some homework to do…

1. Throwing the ball with your free hand on the table, hit it with a clipping movement, directing the ball not at the table, but at the shield. 

The ball with the lower rotation will hit from the shield into the far half of the table and fly to you

2. The same exercise on a table with a shield can be performed on the fly, but at the same time the ball must already be sent not to the shield, but to the table.

Since the ball has an upper rotation and will bounce differently. The shield can be tilted more forward, and the more you twist the ball with a racket, the more the shield must be tilted.

3. You can perform the exercise on a table with a shield, performing punches by cutting or rolling only to the right or only to the left, or alternating once or twice to the right and once or twice to the left. 

You can alternately perform trimming once, roll or trim to the left, roll to the right, etc.

Pumping practice

Find a ping-pong table against the wall or an ordinary table to practice with yourself. You can bounce the ball on your own side, and then immediately draw it to the opponent’s table.

After the ball collides violently with the table, it will bounce to the wall and finally rebound.

Ball cutting practice

To cut the ball with the back and forth of the table tennis table (this requires a large table, try to use the table tennis table), only when the ball rubbing skills have been greatly improved.

Only practice when the ball rolling is more stable, and because the curved movement of the racket head causes the table tennis position to drift, these are two different ways.

If you intersect the ball cutting practice during the ball rolling practice, you may not be able to rub the ball in an actual game. Rubbing the ball is the most used technique in actual combat.

Use a table tennis table

Using a foldable table tennis table can be a great way to practice alone at home and improve your game. Practice forehand for 5-10 mins and then practice backhand 5-10 mins on the folded part of the table.

After Practicing forehand and backhand now is the time to level up and combine these two together. First hit the ball with a forehand drive than turn your hip and hit the return ball with a backhand.

Use a table tennis robot

This robot was designed specifically to help novice tennis players put on the kick technique. 

One of its main features is the remote control. This means that you can change the speed of the ball (maximum – 100 per minute), direction (ten of them) and even the strength of the twist, without interrupting the game. 

The balls bounced back to fall into the device again, so there is no need to “refuel” it manually every five minutes.

After training, you can quickly collect balls scattered around the room using a special net. And the robot itself folds easily and can be hung behind your back, like a backpack.

Practice menu you can use at homes

Besides the practice with or without a table at home, there is also practice menus that can be done at home. I’ve put together such a practice menu.

Conclusion

So, improving your game with or without a table alone at home should be easy from now on. Always remember your end goal while practicing alone and if it is to become a pro then you should rather consider a professional coaching.