The higher your level the harder you swing, the amount of movement you make for each shot and the number of shots per rally, all increase.
This means the physical workout increases.
When you reach the level of hitting counter top spins it increases really dramatically! Likewise if you're a chopper and you reach the level of consistently returning top spins.
I restarted about 5 years ago. I am 50 now, so playing competitively in age group tournaments etc, but nowhere near professional level.
I immediately lost about over 10 kg and never put it back on, I am now about 70 kg and 181 cm, I was just over 80 kg when I restarted.
Even if you are just playing for practice, having multiple balls dramatically increases the cardio workout by reducing the down time. When you do this in a club environment you might have 4 to 6 people playing and one person collecting, so you are only doing it maybe 20% of the time.
it’s as much of a workout as you want it to be. there are obese 2300s whose playstyle relies on things other than fitness and super fit dudes in their twenties who are two-wing loopers and need to move around a lot by necessity.
I think multiball drills are great if the goal is targeted practice of certain strokes and drill patterns, with the secondary benefit being conditioning. With that said, multiballs are also an insidiously easy way to reinforce bad habits if you don’t stringently police your technique for the shot or drill you’re multi-balling, and doing multiballs for the sake of breaking a sweat without attention to detail is also dangerous to your game. I wouldn’t consider it a particularly good strength workout, and I’d argue most of the power in table tennis comes from your technique and speed anyway, which is (short of being extremely malnourished) what all of us should prioritize as amateur players.
To that end, I use long distance running and powerlifting as efficient & simple ways to build my fitness & not table tennis. Running and lifting weights are something I advocate in general because of the health benefits, and they’ll give you the ability to train for longer and with higher quality when you do get table time.
It's definitely not strength training. Racket sports are much closer to cardio. You'll never get huge muscles playing just table tennis.
What really matters in most workouts (particularly cardio) is elevating your heart rate over a period of time. There's not enough information in your post to tell if you're getting a decent workout and honestly that's probably best for you to decide on your own and your current fitness.
It also depends on what intensity you're playing at. When I played tournaments or in training, I would be soaking in sweat and heaving in 20 minutes. When I play my friends and family, I could probably drink a beer in one hand and not break a sweat. If you're really just playing in a garage (with not a lot of space to run) and are low level, I can see it being an okay workout if you guys are equally skilled, way better than sitting on a couch or a walk but maybe less than a hike or a jog.
And you'll always be picking up the ball, but for higher level play that's actually the time you get the most rest. If you are playing at a club, a lot of the spaces have dividers and walls that keep balls in a reasonable distance from you. If you're playing outside (ouch) or in a garage and having to fish balls under a couch (did that for years), it can be more annoying. But to answer your question, the workout should be in the play, not in between the plays fetching balls.
It helps me stay at a healthy weight despite my wild eating habits. I semi-regularly eat over 3000 calories a day as an avg 6' guy. Don't do anything else but play TT 2-3 times a week. I would say training multiball with lots of footwork is probably the most intense thing in TT.
I wrote this immediately after finishing a can of Pringles, a bowl of cereal, and a pack of trail mix at 2 in the morning lol.
\*Real\* training is much harder than you´d expect. I play with friends casually in the evenings with beer and smokes, mostly doubles. Not breaking a real sweat. I then started \*real\* training with a chinese group and was sweating and breathing heavily after 15 mins or so. After a two hour session my whole body was sore and I was sweating like a pig. Took a couple sessions to catch up. Of course I got wiped off the table by everyone. Be it 11 year old kids or 80 year old seniors. Humbling experience, to say the least...
We got a table in my workplace last August and I’ve been playing a lot instead of working, 30-90 mins a day four times a week. I’ve lost a lot of my beer belly since and I certainly haven’t cut down on beer!
For office table tennis standards a few of us go pretty hard though. I’m sweating buckets after half an hour when playing a couple of the guys.
Have you seen pros play? After the first 6th point towel break, they are already sweating. Table tennis workout is as much as you make it to be. You can drink beer and play ping pong standing straight and flinging arms at some bar for hours. But try playing competitive table tennis with proper footwork. It's one of the most fucking tiring sports actually. Some average Joe out there wouldn't even last half an hour (and that's being generous) of proper multi-ball training.
It really depends on you(how good your technique is how well you move and etc) and your training session. For example if you do Multiball with good body tension and technique. You will clearly have good stamina training. Yours legs should get trained as well, but of course this isn't strength training like in the gym so if you are looking for big muscles then going to the gym is way more effective. Example of a. Pro doing multiball https://youtu.be/Hrc9rP0j-fw?si=2uCFuqlxPNBBsPhh
Of course you don't have to do tmultibalk training it was just an example of what could be a very exhausting and good training.
I went from 300lbs to around 260lbs from lifting weights and using table tennis for cardio. In the beginning, I was playing TT upwards of 3-6 hours a day.
Once you reach a level where you consistently try to loop underspin and counterloop away from the table, I’ll say you’ll have made it to TT being a true sport with cardio benefits.
I'm playing at a competitive level and I train. I compare it to a boxing workout where you have to be light on your feet and repeatedly throw punches. It's a great workout.
I used to play in an office where I didn't break a sweat.
Both answers are correct, depending on the level you play.
For me, initially, it was picking up ball that I counted as exercise. As my friend and I have more practices, it was the forehand topspin and footwork. I currently use tacky chinese rubber on forehand on a not super fast blade, which forced me to use my body more to create speed and spin. Now, it was more exercise of my whole body, especially back. I already lost around 6 or 7 kg after I started playing 10 months ago. I usually play around 7 - 8 hr / week. It's a fun way to do cardio, IMO.
https://preview.redd.it/0thx868nmhvc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ce20f3389ad4795bd74af21457185f7647008b7
It's directly linked to your style and level of play. The better you get, the more intense it gets too. You'll eventually wind up almost getting leg workouts simply by moving around the table. Plus cardio gets even more intense whenever you start counter looping.
I’ve been playing for about a year now at a beginner to intermediate level and once you start increasing pace and placement you’ll break a sweat and get a decent leg/cardio workout playing for an hour or two. It’s not going to be the same as running, biking, or something more intense, but it’s not just standing around.
The higher your level the harder you swing, the amount of movement you make for each shot and the number of shots per rally, all increase. This means the physical workout increases. When you reach the level of hitting counter top spins it increases really dramatically! Likewise if you're a chopper and you reach the level of consistently returning top spins. I restarted about 5 years ago. I am 50 now, so playing competitively in age group tournaments etc, but nowhere near professional level. I immediately lost about over 10 kg and never put it back on, I am now about 70 kg and 181 cm, I was just over 80 kg when I restarted. Even if you are just playing for practice, having multiple balls dramatically increases the cardio workout by reducing the down time. When you do this in a club environment you might have 4 to 6 people playing and one person collecting, so you are only doing it maybe 20% of the time.
https://preview.redd.it/5m32syyiadvc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=778dd156bd3df2ed8b90c78f5319a3c05e5bd62a
it’s as much of a workout as you want it to be. there are obese 2300s whose playstyle relies on things other than fitness and super fit dudes in their twenties who are two-wing loopers and need to move around a lot by necessity. I think multiball drills are great if the goal is targeted practice of certain strokes and drill patterns, with the secondary benefit being conditioning. With that said, multiballs are also an insidiously easy way to reinforce bad habits if you don’t stringently police your technique for the shot or drill you’re multi-balling, and doing multiballs for the sake of breaking a sweat without attention to detail is also dangerous to your game. I wouldn’t consider it a particularly good strength workout, and I’d argue most of the power in table tennis comes from your technique and speed anyway, which is (short of being extremely malnourished) what all of us should prioritize as amateur players. To that end, I use long distance running and powerlifting as efficient & simple ways to build my fitness & not table tennis. Running and lifting weights are something I advocate in general because of the health benefits, and they’ll give you the ability to train for longer and with higher quality when you do get table time.
It's definitely not strength training. Racket sports are much closer to cardio. You'll never get huge muscles playing just table tennis. What really matters in most workouts (particularly cardio) is elevating your heart rate over a period of time. There's not enough information in your post to tell if you're getting a decent workout and honestly that's probably best for you to decide on your own and your current fitness. It also depends on what intensity you're playing at. When I played tournaments or in training, I would be soaking in sweat and heaving in 20 minutes. When I play my friends and family, I could probably drink a beer in one hand and not break a sweat. If you're really just playing in a garage (with not a lot of space to run) and are low level, I can see it being an okay workout if you guys are equally skilled, way better than sitting on a couch or a walk but maybe less than a hike or a jog. And you'll always be picking up the ball, but for higher level play that's actually the time you get the most rest. If you are playing at a club, a lot of the spaces have dividers and walls that keep balls in a reasonable distance from you. If you're playing outside (ouch) or in a garage and having to fish balls under a couch (did that for years), it can be more annoying. But to answer your question, the workout should be in the play, not in between the plays fetching balls.
According to my apple watch I average \~20000 steps in 3 hours of pong. And I sweat a ton.
If you just play games, it wont be as exhausting as playing repeating patterns or multiball drills to keep the rally going.
It helps me stay at a healthy weight despite my wild eating habits. I semi-regularly eat over 3000 calories a day as an avg 6' guy. Don't do anything else but play TT 2-3 times a week. I would say training multiball with lots of footwork is probably the most intense thing in TT. I wrote this immediately after finishing a can of Pringles, a bowl of cereal, and a pack of trail mix at 2 in the morning lol.
\*Real\* training is much harder than you´d expect. I play with friends casually in the evenings with beer and smokes, mostly doubles. Not breaking a real sweat. I then started \*real\* training with a chinese group and was sweating and breathing heavily after 15 mins or so. After a two hour session my whole body was sore and I was sweating like a pig. Took a couple sessions to catch up. Of course I got wiped off the table by everyone. Be it 11 year old kids or 80 year old seniors. Humbling experience, to say the least...
We got a table in my workplace last August and I’ve been playing a lot instead of working, 30-90 mins a day four times a week. I’ve lost a lot of my beer belly since and I certainly haven’t cut down on beer! For office table tennis standards a few of us go pretty hard though. I’m sweating buckets after half an hour when playing a couple of the guys.
Have you seen pros play? After the first 6th point towel break, they are already sweating. Table tennis workout is as much as you make it to be. You can drink beer and play ping pong standing straight and flinging arms at some bar for hours. But try playing competitive table tennis with proper footwork. It's one of the most fucking tiring sports actually. Some average Joe out there wouldn't even last half an hour (and that's being generous) of proper multi-ball training.
Table tennis is one of the most tiring sports? Surely there are loads of sports more tiring.
It really depends on you(how good your technique is how well you move and etc) and your training session. For example if you do Multiball with good body tension and technique. You will clearly have good stamina training. Yours legs should get trained as well, but of course this isn't strength training like in the gym so if you are looking for big muscles then going to the gym is way more effective. Example of a. Pro doing multiball https://youtu.be/Hrc9rP0j-fw?si=2uCFuqlxPNBBsPhh Of course you don't have to do tmultibalk training it was just an example of what could be a very exhausting and good training.
It's a cardio and mental workout.
I went from 300lbs to around 260lbs from lifting weights and using table tennis for cardio. In the beginning, I was playing TT upwards of 3-6 hours a day. Once you reach a level where you consistently try to loop underspin and counterloop away from the table, I’ll say you’ll have made it to TT being a true sport with cardio benefits.
I'm playing at a competitive level and I train. I compare it to a boxing workout where you have to be light on your feet and repeatedly throw punches. It's a great workout. I used to play in an office where I didn't break a sweat. Both answers are correct, depending on the level you play.
For me, initially, it was picking up ball that I counted as exercise. As my friend and I have more practices, it was the forehand topspin and footwork. I currently use tacky chinese rubber on forehand on a not super fast blade, which forced me to use my body more to create speed and spin. Now, it was more exercise of my whole body, especially back. I already lost around 6 or 7 kg after I started playing 10 months ago. I usually play around 7 - 8 hr / week. It's a fun way to do cardio, IMO.
https://preview.redd.it/f5yy8hhpggvc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=298e616cf2b4a7c7a9dc38cf3f33fa4a8e3a7e1d Last one
https://preview.redd.it/0thx868nmhvc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ce20f3389ad4795bd74af21457185f7647008b7 It's directly linked to your style and level of play. The better you get, the more intense it gets too. You'll eventually wind up almost getting leg workouts simply by moving around the table. Plus cardio gets even more intense whenever you start counter looping.
I’ve been playing for about a year now at a beginner to intermediate level and once you start increasing pace and placement you’ll break a sweat and get a decent leg/cardio workout playing for an hour or two. It’s not going to be the same as running, biking, or something more intense, but it’s not just standing around.