Reflexes equality

Greetings Team,

just a quick curious question yesterday I was asked by a national women team coach to test out an electronic light set whose purpose is to perform a reaction test exercise. ( the trainee is asked to start in a "ready" position. There are several sensors placed over the table. At random one of them lights up. The trainee should touch it as soon as possible and return to the ready position. Then another sensor lights up..etc. The device measures the time from lighting the sensor to touch and makes statistics). I am a technician so I was tasked to make it work.

I obeyed without hestitation,because Women are great authority for me, even normal ones,not mentioning that this was the highest ranked woman in Czech table tennis.
I was tasked to try it out with one of her trainees, a fresh U17 national team member the former U15 champion of Czech. I was doing the techno work and she was acting as a training object to trigger the lights.

We then played around a bit,trying out the lights and also several other exercises which she normally does during her fitness training. But I was surprised.....how is it possible that I was able not only keep up with her but occasionally even SURPASS her???? In game,she can easily "crush me under her feet" but in fitness training which she is 10 years used to and which I did for the first time in my life,I was able to match her and sometimes even surpass her.  Specifically at the lights, I was almost always faster than her.

I could move and react faster despite my incomplete vision (I still did not get used that I have peripehral vision) and twice as heavy body.

How is this possible? :O

Dan

Hi Dan,

It is great to hear that you were able to match and even surpass the U17 Czech champion in the reaction game exercise! You should celebrate your success, and it is an encouraging sign of how skillful and talented a table tennis player you are.

However reflexes are not the true measure of how quickly you will be able to react to a ball coming to you.  There are other things such as how well you are watching the ball and how early you are picking up the cues of where the ball is coming and what type of shot it is.  This comes with having payed and seen that scenario a lot.  You would find that if you tried to react to a Tennis serve you may not be able to do so very well however if someone is playing a strong topspin at you even though you have less time to react you will be able to handle this situation more easily.

So the idea is to immerse yourself in lots of opportunities to play the sport and react to the ball coming to you.  See as many different types of shots and styles and you will start to build up a better understanding of the cues and be able to read them a little earlier.