Monday 14 December 2020

Four Useful Tools for Improving Your Long Fast Serves in Table Tennis

 Still in the process of getting all of my videos summarized and up here on the blog, I'm hoping to get more productive moving forward. I know I keep saying it, but this time cross your fingers and hopefully it will be true :)

In this article I will do a quick four point summary of my tutorial video on the long fast serve!

4 Key Factors for High Quality
Long Fast Table Tennis Serves

See below, the video tutorial which covers the 4 points, you can also read the summary points I have written below - the video is 13 minutes long in more of a detailed style, so if you don't have time now, perhaps save it for later! :)


1. Serve Depth

An effective long-fast serve needs to consistently be deep on the table, this means getting as close to the back edge, side edge or corners as possible. A good exercise for this is to put a towel on the table or a marker and ensure that you can consistently serve inside a deeper 'zone' on the table.

2. Serve Speed

In order to make your long fast serves most effective, they need to have a quick and low trajectory. A long serve which lacks speed is not going to be useful in matches. A good way to practice this is to put a slightly weighted object (usually empty boxes are good) on the end of the table, and practice serving fast to try and knock the item back towards and off the table edge. 

3. Serve Actions

It is important that you are able to reduce any tells with your service actions. Long fast serves need to be a surprise to your opponent in order to have maximum effect. You should practice connecting short, half-long and long serves with similar actions - in order to disguise them. You can practice serving in pairs of short/long with the same/similar actions.

4. Serve Precision

Putting a ball on the table or some kind of small target can help increase your serve accuracy. As your table tennis opponents get more high level, it is important to be able to target specific places on the table. Knowing how to adjust your weight transfer, direction and contact in order to achieve a pinpoint placement is vital, and so using small targets as demonstrated in the video can be useful.

These are all things that can also add to making your serve practice more engaging and purposeful. If you are trying to improve your long fast serves, perhaps some of this information can be useful to you!

Thanks for reading, and if you haven't already be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and help share some of the videos to get them to others who may find them useful too!




Friday 23 October 2020

Master the Backspin Ghost Serve in 4 Simple Steps (feat. Sam Walker)

 I decided it would be a great time to upload all of my coaching tutorial videos to the blog, this might take a while, but now that people are returning steadily to the table it seems like a good time to refresh people's memories! 

This was a great set of 4 simple tips for mastering the ghost serve, along with some handy advice and demonstration from England's Sam Walker, a Commonwealth Games quarterfinalist, World Team Championship and World Team Cup bronze medalist! 

Master the Ghost Serve with MHTableTennis and Sam Walker

Hope you enjoy the video below, please note these videos are a little longer and more detailed. Hopefully they help you learn this great serve, and also improve your backspin contact in the long term!






Thursday 14 May 2020

30 Table Tennis Coaching Tutorials in 30 Days from MHTableTennis

I'm on a mission to create 30 coaching tutorial videos in the next 30 days. I started off days 1 and 2 with tutorials on the basic forehand and backhand loop techniques against backspin. Tomorrow I will release a tutorial on the backhand banana flick.

The current situation has left me with no work for the past 2 months, meaning covering my health insurance and medical costs is a new challenge. In an effort to support myself I have opened up an optional donation/contribution platform for anyone who finds these videos useful for their game and may wish to show their support.

You can make a contribution here.

30 Table Tennis Coaching Tutorial Videos in 30 Days

Friday 10 April 2020

The Critical Difference Between a Table Tennis Player and a Table Tennis Athlete

Well overdue for some blog post additions to my coaching blog, and here is one I hold in very high regard. People often ask what it takes to become a top table tennis player, well that line says it all in itself. I like to separate the term player and athlete, because I believe there are key differences in how people approach these and their attitudes and mentality. I will explain.

The steps to become a table tennis 'athlete'
and a potential professional

Thursday 2 April 2020

Learn the Topspin Hook Kick Table Tennis Serve

This service tutorial is all about the hook serve and how we can produce as much topspin kick on the ball as possible.

You can find this video and more service tutorials in my Service Masterclass Playlist at:
- MHTableTennis Service Masterclass YouTube Playlist

Learn a heavy topspin kick serve
with mhtabletennis.com

Sunday 29 March 2020

Learn the Basic Backhand Serve in Table Tennis

My Service Masterclass series (which can be found on my YouTube Channel) has been getting regular daily updates and I have already uploaded a video each day for the last 7 days. This video focuses on why it is important to have a backhand serve on hand for matches, and goes over the basics of the backhand serve.

Learn the backhand serve in table tennis
with mhtabletennis.com

Friday 27 March 2020

How to Change the Spin on Your Pendulum Table Tennis Serves

Here is another video from my Service Masterclass series. This focuses on the weight transfer, service motion and changing of spins on the pendulum serve in table tennis.

How to Change the Spin on the Pendulum Serve
with mhtabletennis.com

Thursday 26 March 2020

Improving Service Deception in Table Tennis

Here is a video tutorial on a couple of tips for improving service deception in table tennis. This ties in with a blog post that I wrote some time ago which you can read here:

- 5 Steps for Mastering Service Deception in Table Tennis

Master deceptive table tennis serves with these
simple tips from mhtabletennis.com

Learning and Developing a Basic Backspin Table Tennis Serve

Continuing on with my service masterclass series of small videos from my basement, here is a short seminar on the basic foundation technique for the simple core of the short backspin service. This is very important to practice regularly so that you can continue imparting more and more backspin on the ball and then place the core motion into matchplay service actions!

Learn the basic backspin table tennis serve
with mhtabletennis.com

Wednesday 25 March 2020

Improving Service Spin and Contact Quality in Table Tennis

Trying to get out daily videos at the moment and thought I'd direct my attention towards a Service Masterclass series. This one demonstrates the importance of utilizing the thumb and finger as a fundamental mechanic in your service motion to generate the highest possible amount of spin.

Create a service action which maximizes your
spin potential!

Monday 23 March 2020

3 Easy Steps to Learn and Develop the Reverse Pendulum Serve in Table Tennis

Well I'm finally back. 10 days so far in isolation and I managed to haul a table out and clear some space so I can create some useful coaching content. One of the things that I'm really happy about is that I can now prepare some coaching advice on technical aspects of the game, things which I couldn't put into words. I have time to make video given the current world climate. Hope you are all safe and you enjoy my video on the Reverse Pendulum Serve!

Learn the Reverse Pendulum Table Tennis Serve
in just 3 Steps with MHTableTennis