INTRODUCTION

Sport is currently conceived as a set of knowledge in constant development, where new data, techniques, figures and others are obtained at every moment, which generally do not fit within the framework of old, known notions and concepts, since, as a science, it is undergoing renewal and research to keep up with the changes in society.

Image 1 Performance Pyramid (Taken: http://idoupsicologia.com/dietetica/nutricion-deportiva-alimentacion-i/#axzz2ZJqsanEw)

One of the sports that over time, and even more so since its entry into the Olympic Games in 1988 in Korea, has maximized the application of science to improve and stay at the top of high performance is Table Tennis. This has resulted in impressive results obtained by World Elite athletes in the last 10 years, thanks to the effectiveness of the different training systems and methodologies. However, it is true that many young athletes in Latin America, instead of obtaining results, what they get are disappointments and in some cases injuries.

This is due to the teaching, education and instruction that are given to children and beginners who are starting out in this sport, who are in full growth and development. Working with children is an extremely complex pedagogical process, which has as a priority guideline the differentiation of adult sport from that of children.

According to Ramírez (1998) “in many countries, there are no specialist sports technicians and the most serious thing is that no institute or university prepares trainers specialized in working with children. In other words, sport in general and especially minor sport in Latin America are led by enthusiasts. Hence, the main causes of the aforementioned deficiencies are the omission and in many cases the lack of knowledge of the morpho-functional and psycho-pedagogical characteristics of young athletes, the current systems and methodologies of sports selection and preparation, and finally, the structure of the teaching process of motor actions.

Image 2 Table Tennis Teaching Pyramid based on McAFee, R (2007) modified by Gómez, M (2013).

MacAfee (2007) states that studies of Olympic athletes have shown that it takes about ten years of organized training to reach elite status. The teaching and practice of table tennis is evolving every day, therefore, it is important and necessary to respect stages of improvement (image 2) starting with an exploration (familiarization) of each of the gestures that can be performed and more so when dealing with this sport, considered by scientists from various areas of knowledge as opposition, combat, high attention-concentration and from the physiological point of view anaerobic alactic. In this sport, if we analyze kinematic measures such as time, space, speed and acceleration, for example, we find the relationship between these measures and some contents of physical and mechanical characteristics, such as the surface of the table (friction, elasticity, height, type of surface).

For Gurevich (2008) “The complexity of table tennis lies in different factors, mainly in the high speed at which it is played, the small size of the ball and the shortened dimensions of the playing surface, which require great precision.”

For this reason, teaching the correct technique for each of the fundamentals of table tennis is of utmost importance for coaches, teachers, instructors and others.

Alarcon (2000) points out that sports technique from the concept of Lev Matveev is defined as the means to liberate the sports struggle. Others such as “Zech, Matin, Pietka-Spitz, Ter Owannesjan and Weineck understand technique as the set of processes generally developed by practice to resolve a determined motor problem more rationally and economically.”

Le Roy (1993) believes that technique is not a precise description of a gesture, but a set of rules to which the movement must obey to meet the three requirements. The coach must ensure that players can enjoy a sufficiently wide freedom of adaptation of gestures to be able to perform a whole range of strokes in the widest possible variety of situations, within a well-defined biomechanical framework based on the biomechanical principles described by Hochmuth (1984) that can be generalized to all motor skills: Principle of optimal acceleration path; Principle of Initial Force; Principle of optimal tendency in the acceleration course; Principle of chronological coordination of individual impulses; Principle of reaction; Principle of conservation of impulse.

From this perspective, we refer to the fact that there is no unique technique but rather a technique for each gesture.

Fernández (2011) explains that sports gestures are all those positions, actions and movements that the player performs to define his game.

In modern table tennis there are a large number of gestures both offensive and defensive, according to Molodzoff, (2008), the product of the contact between the racket and the ball is a gesture, but this gesture is nothing more than the visible result of the player’s intention to touch the ball in a certain way, the technical explanation alone is not enough to describe the way of touching the ball, nor to feel the real action performed with the racket. An example of this is the block that can be cut, deflected, lateral, active and others.

The purpose of this work is to describe from the technical-biomechanical point of view the main foundations of table tennis, to serve as a guide to those who learn and teach.

What is Table Tennis?

Table tennis is a dual activity played with an instrument (the racket) between two or four people facing each other, the objective of which is to send the ball over an obstacle (the net) in order to win a point by keeping the ball on the table once again from the opponent.

This sport is a specialty considered within opposition sports, since there is an essential and direct interaction between the opponents. (Castarlenas, Durán, Lagardera, Lasierra, Lavega, Mateu, and Ruiz, 1993). In it, “The internal logic of its motor actions is determined by the execution of a series of acyclic and continuous movements, carried out against a moving object that travels at high speed, to which the athlete must react and act technically in the most opportune and effective way in the shortest possible time” (Pradas de la Fuente, Floría, Salvá, González, Carrasco, Estrada and Beamonte, 2010).

Historical Review of Table Tennis

Most authors (Bretón and Gatien, 1992/1993; www.tenismesistas.com,2003; WWW.portalbasico.com,2003; www.tmda.8k.com 2001;) agree that table tennis is of English origin. It dates back to before the second half of the 19th century and began to be played on dining tables with improvised material. It would not become an official sport until 1872 when the Englishman Wingfield discovered the rubber ball filled with compressed air.

Around 1900, celluloid balls replaced rubber or cork balls, a discovery that would finally allow the game of tennis to be adapted to smaller spaces, especially the table.

At this time, table tennis until the 1930s retained all the characteristics of its parent, tennis. (Breton and Gatien, 1992/1993).

The game became very popular in England and the United States. Because of the characteristics of its materials, table tennis was known as “ping-pong” (currently a registered trademark in France).

A meeting held in Berlin in 1926 between five countries resulted in the formation of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).

Today, as reflected by www.ittf.com (2012), world championships are held every year, one year in singles and doubles and the next in team form. The International Federation has about 140 member countries.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, China frequently dominated these championships, although there were alternating successes by the Japanese, Swedes and Hungarians.

By the 1980s, with the introduction of table tennis into the Olympic Games, South Korea and Sweden ended China’s dominance, which has regained the gold medals in 1996, at the Atlanta Olympic Games, both in singles and doubles and in the women’s and men’s categories. And in Sydney, 2000, Beijing 2008 and London 2012 they maintained that same supremacy. Likewise, at the World Championships in France in 2013, the same dominance was observed despite the change and implementation of some rules.

Table tennis in Venezuela dates back to the 1950s, however, since the Pan American Games in Caracas in 1983, this sport has gained significant popularity in our country and has recently reached new levels of performance, being present in each of the Olympics since it was introduced as an official sport in Seoul – Korea in 1988.

The Venezuelan Table Tennis Federation currently has 22 Affiliated Associations.

Materials needed for teaching table tennis.

In order to teach table tennis as an organized sport, it is necessary to have basic material as well as precise knowledge to guide the player during his stay in the sport.

The international table tennis regulations specify in its article number two (2) everything related to the material that must be used in this sport.

Regulation:

http://www.ittf.com/ittf_handbook/2011/Reglamento_Tecnico_de_Juego_2011_2012.pdf

2.1 THE TABLE

2.1.1 The upper surface of the table, known as the playing surface, will be rectangular, with

a length of 2.74 m and a width of 1.525 m, and will be located on a horizontal plane

76 cm from the ground.

2.1.2 The playing surface does not include the sides of the upper part of the table.

2.1.3 The playing surface may be of any material and shall provide a uniform bounce of approximately 23 cm when a regulation ball is dropped on it from a height of 30 cm.

2.1.4 The playing surface shall be dark, uniform and matt in colour, with a white sideline 2 cm wide along each edge of 2.74 m, and a white endline 2 cm wide along each edge of 1.525 m.

2.1.5 The playing surface shall be divided into two equal courts by a vertical net parallel to the endlines and shall be continuous throughout the area of ​​each court.

2.1.6 For doubles, each court shall be divided into two equal half-courts by a white centre line 3 mm wide and parallel to the sidelines; the centre line shall be considered as part of each right half-court.

2.2 THE NET ASSEMBLY

2.2.1 The net assembly shall consist of the net, its suspension and the supports, including the fixings which secure them to the table.

2.2.2 The net shall be suspended from a rope attached at each end to a vertical support 15.25 cm high; the outer limit of the supports shall be 15.25 cm outside the side lines.

2.2.3 The top of the net shall be, for its entire length, 15.25 cm above the playing surface.

2.2.4 The bottom of the net shall be, for its entire length, as close as possible to the playing surface, and the ends of the net shall be as close as possible to the supports.

2.3 THE BALL

2.3.1 The ball shall be spherical, with a diameter of 40 mm.

2.3.2 The ball shall weigh 2.7 g.

2.3.3 The ball shall be of celluloid or a similar plastic material, white or orange, and matte.

2.4 THE RACKET

2.4.1 The racket may be of any size, shape or weight, but the blade shall be flat and rigid.

2.4.2 At least 85% of the thickness of the blade shall be of natural wood; the blade may be reinforced on the inside with an adhesive layer of a fibrous material such as carbon fibre, fibreglass or pressed paper, but not exceeding 7.5% of the total thickness or 0.35

mm, whichever is the smaller dimension.

2.4.3 The side of the blade used to strike the ball shall be covered either with regular spike rubber with the spikes facing outwards and a total thickness not exceeding 2.0 mm including adhesive, or with sandwich rubber with the spikes facing inwards or outwards and a total thickness not exceeding 4.0 mm including adhesive.

2.4.3.1 Regular spike rubber is a single layer of non-cellular rubber, natural or synthetic, with spikes evenly distributed over its surface, with a density of not less than 10 per cm2 nor more than 30 per cm2.

The Basic Technical Fundamentals of Table Tennis

These are executions that serve as a basis for the development of the sports specialty and are used to achieve progression in teaching. These are practically the beginning of sports technique.

Technique

Ozolín (1970) defines technique as the “most rational and effective way of performing exercises”. That is to say, each exercise, each movement, has its technique that transforms a practice into an effective and rational one, at the time of its execution. Grosser (1982) defines sports technique as “the ideal model of a movement related to the sports discipline”.

According to Zech, Matin, Pietka-Spitz, Ter Owannesjan and Weineck (http://www.tipsdrills.com/tecnica_deportiva.html) among others, they define technique as “the set of processes generally developed by practice to solve a determined motor problem in a more rational and economical way. The technique of a sports modality corresponds to a certain ideal motor type, which while maintaining its fundamental characteristics, can undergo a modification that corresponds to individual peculiarities, thus constituting the personal style (Jurgen Weineck)”. In everyday language, in our work environment, we conceive technique as a synonym for the foundation or the sports gesture.

From these definitions it follows that in order for an athlete to perform in his sport, he must have a set of learned movements, following ideal models, the result of different specific investigations, which will allow him to carry out precise actions in order to improve his own motor practice. When the subject has such a movement within his motor repertoire, it is said that he has the ability, therefore, the set of movements of the different sports specialties are called technical sports skills. These must ultimately fulfill the biomechanical purpose of efficiency, efficacy and effectiveness in achieving the objective.

Currently, the technique in table tennis tries to correspond to three mechanical factors to guarantee a point:

– Flight Time of the Ball (speed-time)

– Trajectory of the Ball after the Impact (precision)

– Angular Speed ​​of the ball (Amount of rotation).

The table tennis player must have skill with precise spatial and temporal concepts, must specify and differentiate quick and timely movements to make the exact decision and make a quick response and reasonable regulation, for this it is necessary to have the power of highly specialized skills, and this is developed in the early stages of training.

To create a successful table tennis player, the components of player awareness must be progressively created (Piren, 1994):

1.- Scientific thinking
2.- Working hard and cleverly
3.- Firmness of purpose
4.- Watching the ball
5.- Quick recovery
6.- Agile footwork
7.- Combination of strokes and rotations
8.- Getting the feel for the stroke movement
9.- Caution about time and space in the execution of a stroke
10.- Aptitude for making adjustments
11.- Differentiation of different types of shots
12.- Caution of the dialectical relationships between variation and stability in the game
13.- Tactical caution
14.- Strategic caution
15.- Paying attention to the location of the shots
16.- Memorizing a game
17.- Development of skills in rotations
18.- Development of the stimulus of attack
19.- Adaptation to changing circumstances
20.- Variation of the pace of play
21.- Attention to containment, defence and counterattack
22.- Ensuring partial advantages
23.- Attention to speed
24.- Combination of ferocity and regularity
25.- Development of one or two strong points
26.- Aptitude to make changes