If you want to improve at table tennis, you have to put the hours in. Table tennis is a complex, fast paced sport. It can take a long time to reach an advanced level.
How many hours you should train depends on a few different factors … the level you want to reach, your age, your life circumstances and availability of training opportunities.
I’m going to outline a few different scenarios and what type of improvement you are likely to expect.
20-30 hours per week
This is a huge amount of training and for most people is completely unrealistic. Typically, it is players who want to reach a professional standard – or are playing table tennis professionally – who will put in this level of training at various stages of their development.
With this amount of training your improvement is likely to be rapid. Last summer I attended a training camp at French club GV Hennebont and accumulated around 20 hours of training in a five day period. At the end of the week I was exhausted, but playing some of my best ever table tennis. If I was to repeat this every week, I would reach a much higher level, much quicker.
Alas, it was just one week of training and when I got home, I returned to a much lower level of training and my improvement slowed down.
This high level of training will definitely help you improve a lot faster. If your life circumstances allow you to do so, and you have ambitions to reach a very high level of play, then go for it.
10-20 hours per week
This is still a huge amount of training. The lower end of the range 10-12 hours may be more realistic for a larger number of people. This amounts to 4 or 5 table tennis sessions per week, at 2 or 3 hours per session.
If you have access to a full time table tennis centre or multiple part-time facilities, then this would be achievable.
With this level of training, you are also likely to see rapid improvement. You are investing a lot of time into your table tennis development – more than the vast majority of players – and you will reach a higher standard at a faster rate.
5-10 hours per week
This is a decent amount of training and still requires a lot of dedication. It amounts to 3 sessions per week, at 2 or 3 hours per session.
Players who train this much are usually serious amateur players. You are not likely to be striving for a professional level of play, but table tennis is your passion and you want to improve as much as you can.
With this level of training, you will still improve a lot and your improvement will still be quicker than most. You can definitely reach a very high standard in the amateur game, which for most players is probably a good enough outcome.
If you are serious about improving – at a reasonably quick rate – then this level of training is the appropriate amount.
1-5 hours per week
Welcome to my world! Over the past 20 years, this is the amount of training I have managed per week. Sometimes it has been to the lower end (1-2 hours), other times I have managed more.
This level of training is achievable for all players. It amounts to 1 or 2 training sessions per week, at 2 hours per session.
How much improvement can you expect? You will still improve, but your progress will be much, much slower. With less time at the table and longer gaps between sessions, it just takes longer for the skills you are learning to become permanently stored in your muscle memory.
You can still reach a decent standard (I have), but it will take much more time. However, a lot depends on your goals. If table tennis is a hobby, competing with many other life activities, and you are only interested in making smaller and more gradual improvements, then this amount of training is sufficient.
0 hours per week
If you do no training whatsoever, you are not likely to improve very much, especially if you are at the beginner / intermediate standard. It’s very hard to develop your skills and learn new shots without proper training time.
There is an exception here. There are some players who never train, but still play a lot of table tennis, e.g. league matches and tournaments. These players still can make a lot of improvement without training. But the improvements tend to occur in their match-play and tactics, rather than their technique and range of shots.
I have found myself in this situation some times, through life circumstances. I have had no time to train, but I have continued to play matches. Personally, I feel my level stalls and slightly declines when this happens. I much prefer to have some training time, to no training time at all.
Quality of training
The quality of your training also massively matters. I’m sure we all know a player who seems to train a lot, but never really improves.
There has to be a purpose to your training and you need to do drills and match-play exercises which actually help you develop skills and improve your level of play.
Spending hours playing forehand to forehand and backhand to backhand, will help you develop those skills, but not much else. And since no table tennis match is ever a contest between who is best at doing a forehand to forehand drill, it is fairly pointless to overdo this in training.
Instead, your training should have specific goals. What do you need to improve? What drills will help you make this improvement?
Very simply, you should have one main objective that you are trying to achieve with every training session you do. If there is no clear focus, then the training will have less impact.
With a very clear focus to your training, you can achieve a huge amount even with one or two training sessions per week.
Can you increase your training hours?
Over the years I have often aspired to do more training. But I have usually failed in doing so. Hence, my improvement has been slow. Don’t be like me.
Can you find opportunities to train more? Is there an extra night you can free up to attend your local club? Is there a different club you could attend in addition to your usual club?
Can you take coaching lessons, either group coaching or 1-to-1 coaching? Is there a training camp you can attend?
Or maybe if you have space at home, you can invest in a table and robot for extra training. There are plenty of possibilities if you have the desire to do so.
And finally, a quick plug of my online academy. It’s a really good resource for players who are serious about improving at table tennis. I have a training drill library to give you inspiration for your training sessions. And I have an in-depth course all about developing your skills and reaching a higher standard. Plus there are LOADS of other great resources, videos and articles to help you on your table tennis journey. You can sign up here.