Home > Sports > List > Table Tennis > Warmup

Before performing any exercise, it is important to prepare the body by performing an appropriate warm-up, and table tennis is no exception. Warming up prepares the body for sport performance and can help decrease the risk of injury. Although the impression is that table tennis is not a physically demanding sport, anyone who has watched a competitive high-level game of table tennis will vouch for the physicality of the sport.

Table tennis involves a relatively short period of high-intensity activity. Matches can last over an hour, and throughout that time the players are required to repeatedly perform rapid movements. To get the body prepared for such demanding activities, a thorough warm-up is required.

Example Table Tennis Warm-Up

The warm-up for table tennis should be done before every exercise session - whether it be a competition match, practice sessions, or gym workouts. The warm-up should start off at a low intensity, with a gradual progression from general and simple movements to more table tennis specific and higher intensity actions.

Here is an example of a warm-up that can be done by table tennis players, but the specifics can be adjusted to suit constraints such as limited space and time, and the conditions. Players of all levels should be doing a warm-up.

• A slow jog (a lap or two of an oval, or if inside a few laps of the gym)
• 15 minutes of stretching - involving static and dynamic stretches. Examples: lunges, wrist stretches, shoulder circles
• Shadow play - perform imaginary stroke play, mimicking forehand and backhand table tennis actions.
• Table tennis hitout

---

---

Related Pages

• Fitness for Table Tennis
• Warming Up For Sports
• Warm up for Sprinting
• List of Stretches
• Fitness Components for Table Tennis
• List of Table Tennis Polls
• Fitness for Sports
• Stretching for Sports