Renovations to the Beck Center will force the region's largest table tennis club to close indefinitely. The Aurora Table Tennis Club will be closed Thursdays immediately and on Sundays beginning in just a few weeks. The ATTC had 12 tables and as many as 40 or 50 players, and its closure leaves a major vacuum.
The Top Spin Table Tennis Center in Littleton will host a USATT sanctioned tournament on Nov. 6. Stay tuned for entry forms and details.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Scapular exercises
This month's issue of Men's Health has an article about scapular exercises you can use to strengthen your shoulder joint, and I am planning to start working them into my rehab routine. Some of them can be found on the magazine's website.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Table tennis is the most addictive sport in the world
Sometime in early June, I jacked up my left shoulder doing push-presses. My fault. I hadn't done any ballistic exercises for a long time and it was dumb to jump into a 5x5. I should know better. No worries. A couple months rest and some rehab and I'll be good to go again, I suspect. But in the meantime, heavy training and swimming are out. So I decided to venture back into table tennis, a sport I haven't played for 18 months.
This might have been a tactical error. Table tennis is like crack.
With just a couple weeks training, I signed up for the 2010 Rocky Mountain State Games. I knew I was putting my rating up for grabs. And I pretty much got killed, losing 50 rating points in a single day. But it was still fun as hell. And I've been playing as much as I can ever since.
I have been using my Joola Rossi Exact blade with Juic 999 Elite Ultima SV rubbers. It's a great combo, although the water-based glues have taken some getting used to.
This might have been a tactical error. Table tennis is like crack.
With just a couple weeks training, I signed up for the 2010 Rocky Mountain State Games. I knew I was putting my rating up for grabs. And I pretty much got killed, losing 50 rating points in a single day. But it was still fun as hell. And I've been playing as much as I can ever since.
I have been using my Joola Rossi Exact blade with Juic 999 Elite Ultima SV rubbers. It's a great combo, although the water-based glues have taken some getting used to.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Catch-22 at 50 yds
Swimming with a Master's team is great. Even the longest workouts seem to fly by. But my times don't lie. My 50-yard freestyle sprint gets slower if I've been consistently swimming with a team. I can think of two possible explanations, one distressing and one reassuring:
1. Swimming with a team encourages bad habits, sloppy turns, and survival stroke technique as I plow down crowded lanes avoiding my teammates. My form suffers and I lose the long, efficient strokes I need to swim fast. When I'm on my own, I count strokes and practice perfect turns, which translates into faster times.
2. Swimming with a team gives me a better workout, so of course my muscles are tired and unable to perform at their best when I go for a maximum effort. That's to be expected. And the pre-competition taper will take care of it, leaving me faster than ever before.
Which explanation is correct? I haven't the slightest idea.
1. Swimming with a team encourages bad habits, sloppy turns, and survival stroke technique as I plow down crowded lanes avoiding my teammates. My form suffers and I lose the long, efficient strokes I need to swim fast. When I'm on my own, I count strokes and practice perfect turns, which translates into faster times.
2. Swimming with a team gives me a better workout, so of course my muscles are tired and unable to perform at their best when I go for a maximum effort. That's to be expected. And the pre-competition taper will take care of it, leaving me faster than ever before.
Which explanation is correct? I haven't the slightest idea.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Richard McAfee's table tennis training manual hits store shelves
My old table tennis coach, Richard McAfee, has a new book out named Table Tennis: Steps to Success. You can get it on Amazon and I also saw it on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. In it, you'll find "a unique 11-step approach designed to maximize table tennis instruction," stroke and footwork direction, and photos of Aurora Table Tennis Club regulars. McAfee is an amazing coach, so please check his book out.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Shoulder training for swimmers
I own a few books about competitive swimming. Nearly all of them point out the stress that the sport puts on your shoulders and recommend a weightlifting routine to strengthen the joint. So far, so good. The suggested routines are almost always designed to hit the front, medial and side delts, along with the traps and internal and external rotators. This is where I have questions. If you're a serious swimmer, your internal rotators are almost surely overdeveloped and there may be all sorts of other nasty problems lurking in there that you could make worse if you launch into a heavy lifting program.
I think training with Olympic moves is the right move for sprinters, but your body has to be balanced and injury-free first. Here are some places to start:
I think training with Olympic moves is the right move for sprinters, but your body has to be balanced and injury-free first. Here are some places to start:
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