Table tennis
A table tennis training plan for your group
The right order across the season, with every session laid out table by table.
A table tennis stroke settles after hundreds of balls, and most drills put two players on a table. The drills in the plan start from the table. Pairs play where the drill is a rally. Threes play where it is multiball, with feeder, hitter and collector swapping roles each set.
Odd numbers are planned too. Eleven players on five tables leaves one table of three, and the drill says who plays whom and what the third player does. You tell us how many tables you have.
The season has an order as well. We decide which week brings backspin into the serve and which week the third ball becomes an attack.
A table tennis week
01
Most youth groups train one or two evenings a week.
02
A session starts with a warm-up or a knock-up at the table, moves to a block of strokes or multiball and finishes with game forms and match play.
03
New work goes to the evening with the most time before the next match. On the last evening before it the group plays more points and learns nothing new.
What a drill looks like
A table tennis drill from the library, written for the middle age group. It reaches your session sheet exactly as shown.
Multiball in threes
15 to 20 minutes
Get many repetitions of one stroke from a fed ball.
- Setup
- A feeder, a hitter and a collector at each table, 3 per table (3 tables for 8 players, 8 tables for 24 players). The collector stands beside the table level with the feeder's end, off the line of flight, and clears the floor at every rotation.
- How it runs
- - Hit each fed ball with the set's stroke. - Play nine sets of 30 to 40 balls, fed from the feeder's end at one ball every 1.5 to 2 s. The feeder tosses and strikes each ball themselves, with no particular spin. - Sets 1 to 3 are forehand drive from the forehand half, sets 4 to 6 backhand drive, sets 7 to 9 alternating. - Roles rotate hitter, then collector, then feeder, then hitter, each set, with a 45 s break to clear the balls at each rotation. - At three per table, each of you hits and feeds 3 sets, one per stroke. At a table of two, one player hits 5 sets and feeds 4, the other hits 4 and feeds 5. The feeder also collects at the rotation. - Players waiting for a table work beside the tables. Players aged 8 to 12 bounce the ball on the bat, forehand, then backhand, then alternating, counting their own best. Players aged 12 and over side-step across 1.5 m with a shadow forehand at each stop, 30 s on, 15 s off. - At every set change, whoever has waited longest comes on, and whoever has played longest steps off. - Easier: repeat forehand in sets 7 to 9 instead of alternating. - Harder: in sets 1 to 6, the feeder alternates the target. One ball goes to the hitter's half of the table for that set's stroke, the next to the middle of the hitter's end.
- Coaching points
- Feed the same height and speed on every ball.
- Common mistakes
- Feed pace drifts, hitter loses rhythm -> keep every feed the same height and speed.
- Kit
- 320 × table tennis ball, 24 × bat
Next to your drill folder
Drills circulate in every table tennis club: multiball routines, footwork patterns, serve exercises from a coaching course.
They rarely say when each one fits, or what the ninth player does while eight are at the tables. We say both, with drills we wrote ourselves.
Ages and limits
Federations divide their youth into different age groups, and the plan follows whichever one applies. You say which country you coach in and which age group your team plays. Where we hold that federation's categories, the plan uses its names. Every age group carries a load ceiling that decides which drills qualify and how hard a week can get. That ceiling sits in the code, and it holds even when you ask for more.
Try it with your group
Tell us how many players and tables you have. The first weeks are ready after that.
Set up your team